CRITICAL THINKING - DEFINITIONS

Question	Answer
ARGUMENT	A set of premises and a conclusion where the former are intended to support the latter
LEXICAL AMBIGUITY	Introduced by an ambigious word e.g. "we passed the port at midnight" or "the rabbi married my sister"
SYNTACTIC AMBIGUITY	Introduced by structure of language
INDEXICALS	Different sentences that mean the same thing
DEMONSTRATIVES	Using words that "point" at something
PROPOSITION	The meaning of a declarative sentence
HARD QUANTIFIERS	Quantifies over everything, e.g. "every"
SOFT QUANTIFIERS	Quantifies over less, e.g. "a"
DEDUCTIVE VALIDITY	The truth of the premises guarantees the truth of the conclusion
SOUNDNESS	An argument has soundness if it is valid with true premise(s) - and therefore a true conclusion
INDUCTIVE FORCE	The extent to which premises give us reason to believe in the truth of the conclusion
RHETORICAL PLOYS	Appealing mostly to emotion rather than reason
CONDITIONAL DEGREE OF RATIONAL EXPECTATION	The extent to which we are justified in believing something given the truth of the premises
INDUCTIVE SOUNDNESS	An argument is inductively sound if it is inductively forceful and has true premises.
FALLACY	A rhetorical device which has the structure of an argument but is either formally invalid or substantively deficient.

Resource summary

	Created by Nerdy McNerdpants over 7 years ago