Thinking Socratically : Critical Thinking about Everyday Issues

by Schwarze, Sharon; Lape, Harvey

• ISBN13: 9780130281630
• ISBN10: 0130281638
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

This unique book is an exploration of critical thinking, rather than a text of informal logic. It emphasizes a philosophical reflection on real issues from everyday life, in order to teach readers the skills of critical thinking in a common-place context that is easy to understand and certain to be remembered.Critical thinking topics are assembled in readings taken from sources including newspapers, literature, magazines, and philosophy. These readings compliment the important concepts of critical thinking, and provide information on background knowledge, the web of belief, the limits of evidence, the nature of proof, and dogmatism and relativism.For critical thinkers who need something to think critically about, and are willing to see more than just two sides to every argument.

Table of Contents

Preface to the Second Edition	xiii
Preface to the First Edition	xv
Acknowledgments	xvii
PART I: CONNECTIONS
Why Be Rational?	1	(28)
Open Dialogue and the Importance of Rationality	1	(16)
Euthyphro	4	(13)
Plato
Study Questions	17	(1)
Reason and Culture	17	(8)
Why the Geese Shrieked	19	(3)
Isaac Bashevis Singer
The Shaman and the Dying Scientist: A Brazilian Tale	22	(2)
Alan Riding
Study Questions	24	(1)
The Limits of Reason	25	(2)
Summary	27	(1)
Exercises	28	(1)
Language	29	(21)
The Uses of Language	29	(1)
Language and the World	30	(7)
The Corner of the Eye	33	(2)
Lewis Thomas
Eight Little Piggies	35	(2)
Stephen Jay Gould
Study Questions	37	(1)
Words and Statements	37	(2)
Warranted Statements	39	(5)
The Making of Americans	41	(2)
Gertrude Stein
Study Questions	43	(1)
Factual Statements	44	(1)
Summary	45	(1)
Exercises	46	(4)
Knowledge and Certainty	50	(15)
Knowledge and Certainty	50	(9)
Meditations on First Philosophy	55	(3)
Rene Descartes
A Brief History of Time	58	(1)
Stephen Hawking
Study Questions	58	(1)
The Web of Belief	59	(4)
Double Identity	61	(1)
Michael Dobbs
Study Questions	62	(1)
Summary	63	(1)
Exercises	63	(2)
Arguments and Explanations	65	(30)
Arguments: Premises and Conclusions	65	(2)
Implicit Premises and Conclusions	67	(1)
Arguments: Standard Form	68	(1)
Logical Warranting	69	(1)
Deductive Reasoning	70	(1)
Inductive Reasoning	71	(1)
Factual Warranting	72	(5)
The Decameron: Michele Scalza	75	(2)
Giovanni Boccaccio
The Decameron: Melchizedek	77	(2)
Giovanni Boccaccio
Study Questions	78	(1)
Explanations	79	(12)
The Day-Care Deaths: A Mystery	82	(9)
Linda Herskowitz
Study Questions	91	(1)
Summary	91	(1)
Exercises	92	(3)
PART II: DEDUCTIVE REASONING
Deductive Links	95	(10)
Reasoning with Necessity	95	(5)
Dissenting Opinion in Gregg v. Georgia	96	(3)
Thurgood Marshall
Study Questions	99	(1)
Validity and Logical Implication	100	(3)
Summary	103	(1)
Exercises	104	(1)
Deductive Standards	105	(20)
Logic	105	(1)
Some Common Valid Arguments	106	(12)
Anselm's Ontological Argument	117	(1)
Norman Malcolm
Study Questions	117	(1)
Anselm's Ontological Argument	118	(3)
Summary	121	(1)
Exercises	122	(3)
PART III: INDUCTIVE REASONING
Supporting Our Claims	125	(57)
Evidence: Traces and Background Knowledge	125	(41)
The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier	130	(9)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The William Bradfield Case	139	(1)
Murder on the Main Line	139	(17)
Mike Mallowe
Coded Bradfield Note: ``My Danger Conspiracy''	156	(3)
Emilie Lounsberry
The Jury: Convinced or Confused?	159	(2)
Emilie Lounsberry
Henry Goldman
Bradfield, on Stand, Denies Any Role	161	(3)
Emilie Lounsberry
Bradfield and Women	164	(2)
Henry Goldman
Study Questions	166	(1)
Webs of Belief: Confirmation and Proof	166	(14)
The Warren Commission: Why We Still Don't Believe It	169	(6)
David W. Belin
Conclusion to ``The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier''	175	(4)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Study Questions	179	(1)
Summary	180	(1)
Exercises	181	(1)
Standards of Inductive Reasoning	182	(50)
Patterns	182	(7)
Doctors As Detectives	185	(4)
Cynthia Clendenon
Study Questions	189	(1)
Generalizations	189	(20)
The Literary Digest Predicts Victory by Landon, 1936	196	(1)
``Digest'' Poll Machinery Speeding Up	196	(2)
``Digest's'' First Hundred Thousand	198	(2)
Landon Holds Lead in ``Digest'' Poll	200	(1)
Landon, 1,293,669; Roosevelt, 972,897	201	(4)
What Went Wrong with the Polls?	205	(3)
Study Questions	208	(1)
Analogies	209	(7)
Thy Countenance Shakes Spears	212	(4)
Mark K. Anderson
Study Questions	216	(1)
Causal Claims	216	(12)
So Smoking Causes Cancer: This Is News?	225	(1)
Denise Grady
Renewing Philosophy	226	(2)
Hilary Putnam
Study Questions	228	(1)
Summary	228	(2)
Exercises	230	(2)
Fallacies	232	(32)
The Nature of Fallacies	232	(2)
Fallacies of Irrelevance	234	(8)
Lost Genius	240	(1)
Russell Baker
Study Questions	241	(1)
Fallacies of Faulty Generalization	242	(10)
Love Is a Fallacy	245	(7)
Max Shulman
Study Questions	252	(1)
Fallacies of Emotional Manipulation	252	(3)
The Sleaze Merchants Attack	254	(1)
Study Questions	255	(1)
Summary	255	(2)
Exercises	257	(7)
Scientific Reasoning	264	(25)
Science and Good Reasoning	264	(1)
Copernicus and Kepler	265	(17)
The Heliocentric Theory of Copernicus and Kepler	269	(12)
Morris Kline
Study Questions	281	(1)
Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning	282	(4)
Summary	286	(1)
Exercises	287	(2)
Pseudoscience	289	(14)
Distinguishing Science from Pseudoscience	289	(10)
Fliess, Freud, and Biorhythm	293	(6)
Martin Gardner
Study Questions	299	(1)
Summary	299	(1)
Exercises	300	(3)
PART IV: REASONING ABOUT VALUES
The Nature of Morality	303	(16)
Supporting Moral Claims	303	(8)
The Brothers Karamazov	310	(1)
Feodor Dostoevsky
Study Questions	310	(1)
Morality and Reasoning	311	(5)
Summary	316	(1)
Exercises	317	(2)
Reasoning About Good and Bad	319	(21)
Making Moral Decisions	319	(3)
Reasonable Objectivism and Reasonable Subjectivism	322	(7)
Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals	323	(4)
Immanuel Kant
Existentialism Is a Humanism	327	(2)
Jean Paul Sartre
Study Questions	329	(1)
Kant	329	(4)
Sartre	333	(4)
Summary	337	(1)
Exercises	338	(2)
Moral Dialogue	340	(15)
Dogmatism/Relativism	340	(9)
Euthyphro	344	(4)
Plato
Classroom Scene	348	(1)
Study Questions	348	(1)
Moderation as Key	349	(3)
Summary	352	(1)
Exercises	353	(2)
Reason and Commitment	355	(4)
Open Rational Dialogue	355	(4)
Keynote Speech May 18 at Simpson College's 1996 Commencement	356	(1)
Jane Smiley
Study Questions	357	(2)
Index	359

Excerpts

Preface to the Second EditionWe had three purposes in mind when we wroteThinking Socratically.The first was to help our students, and all college students, become better thinkers--which for us means to engage, like Socrates, willingly and patiently in open rational dialogue. Since most students who take a course in critical thinking are first or second year college students, they are often still at what the cognitive psychologists callblack/white thinking.That is, they only see two sides to an argument, theirs, which they assume correct, and the other person's whom they assume to be wrong. We wanted to help them become open to the myriad other possibilities that exist between the two poles of an argument and to learn to engage in dialogue with others and themselves in ways that will help them find these other possibilities. When they finish this text, we hope they will have the ability and the "courage" that Jane Smiley speaks of in the last reading.Second, we want our student readers to learn that critical thinking is not an esoteric discipline but an important everyday skill like using a computer or driving a car. It helps to get you where you want to go. Hence, we have tried to use everyday examples from stories, newspapers, magazines, even philosophy, to show them these skills in action. Critical thinking cannot be taught without something to think critically about! Yet some textbooks try to do precisely that. We do not. We give them commonplace contexts that exemplify the skill or the need for the skill we are teaching. We think that the skills will be learned more easily and will be remembered when they can be seen in context.Finally, we seek to overcome the cynicism that many pseudosophisticated college students bring to the classroom. This is the cynicism that stems from the relatively little knowledge they have acquired, which has taught them, they think, that nothing can be proven correct or right. Therefore, they think, people can believe whatever they want to. No one can be proven wrong. We seek to overcome such cynicism with the pragmatic view that, even if no one "right way" can be proven to be the one true way, there is still a big difference among points of view and courses of action. Some beliefs and some actions are better than others. These are the beliefs and actions that make our lives healthier, happier, and more pleasant, and these can be demonstrated--through the kind of open rational argument that Socrates practiced. That Socratic model is very important to us. We start out with it and come back to it at the end. Of course, we prefer open rational dialogue with our friends but even open rational dialogue with our enemies is useful. After all, what is the alternative?The second edition is distinguished from the first by the addition of a significant number of new readings and by the placement of the readings after the expository material, rather than before. We hope students will see the connections we are making more clearly that way. We have also greatly increased our discussion of the items that normally appear in critical thinking textbooks. For example, we have expanded the material on deductive reasoning and included Venn diagrams as well. We have increased the number of informal fallacies we cover. We have added summaries at the end of each chapter. Finally, we have adopted more standard terminology in order to conform to that which students hear in other classes; e.g., "reasoning with probability" has become the standard "inductive reasoning." While we still think our old terminology was more apt, we find that faculty tend to use the more familiar terms, thereby leaving students more confused than enlightened. We hope you will find the changes helpful.The book is designed as a whole so that the lessons of epistemology learned in the beginning connect very closely with the lessons regarding morality at the end. It is a bi