Explained reasoning

From the list of reasoning provided, there were a couple reasoning that were a bit difficult to understand. The one reasoning I found that was most difficult for me to understand was casual reasoning in an argument. After reviewing more sites on casual reasoning, it made it much clearer to understand. Causal reasoning is a form of inductive reasoning. Casual reasoning should have good reasons to believe that the events in the argument, the cause, relates to other events, the effect. After I grasp the concept of causal reasoning, I realize it was a bit difficult to create an example for the reasoning. The example I came up with was, "Passing all nursing prerequisites with good grades leads to acceptance into the nursing program." The cause is passing all prerequisites with good grades and the effect is the acceptance into the nursing program. The effects follows the cause, but the effects does not cause the cause.

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Types of Reasoning

There are many types of reasoning in a argument. Some type of reasoning may be reasoning by analogy, sign reasoning, causal reasoning, reasoning by criteria, reasoning by example, inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning. Here are examples of each reasoning:


Reasoning by analogy
Manny Pacquiao is a Filipino and Manny Pacquiao boxes.
Ivan is Filipino.
Ivan boxes.

Sign Reasoning
Rachel is not opening her door as I knock loudly, so I guess Rachel is not home.

Causal Reasoning
Passing all nursing prerequisites with good grades leads to acceptance in the nursing program.

Reasoning by Criteria
How would I know if my essay is well developed?
A well developed essay includes examples to support your thesis throughout the conclusion.

Reasoning by Examples  
You should be more social. I met a girl who was too shy and was always alone.
Inductive Reasoning
All of the fire trucks we have seen are red.
All fire trucks are red.


Deductive Reasoning
All girls have monthly periods.
Ronnie is on ther period.
Ronnie is a girl.

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Too much emotion - Exercise 9

Vote for Senator Wong. He knows how important your concerns are.

I decided to complete exercise 9 from chapter 10 due to this year's election. It's likely to hear arguments stating how a senator or congressman cares about your concerns, then most fail to meet their goals. The argument, "Vote for Senator Wong. He knows how important your concerns are", is an example of a feel-good argument. As Epstein defines, a feel good argument is an argument that appeals to our wanting to feel good about ourselves. In this example, it attempts to make the statement feel good about ourselves and our concerns because "he knows how important your concerns are". The argument tries to imply that Senator Wong cares about your concerns, and if you vote for Senator Wong, he will make an effort to those concerns. Although the statement gives you a feel good message, the argument is bad because the argument is vague. Everyone's concern is a broad the argument is just for voters to feel good about voting for him.

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Objective 2

Find an advertisement that uses an appeal to fear. Is it a good argument?

Appeal to fear does not necessarily have to be bad. In my example of appeal to fear advertisement, the appeal to fear may be good. An advertisement I heard on radio talks shows recently and has also been advertising on television is Hair Loss products. Rogaine is a product that regrows hair and prevents hair loss. Rogaine's slogan is "Use it or lose it". The advertisement uses appeal to fear by adding, "Hair loss is in your family, but it does not have to, use Rogaine". The implicit in this argument is that, "Because hair loss is in the family history, you should buy Rogaine" It also says to, "Use it or lose it" which implies that if you do not use Rogaine's hair loss product, you will It is a good argument but the argument is implausible.

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Appeals to Emotion

In the book, "Critical Thinking" by Richard L. Epstein, he discusses the different types of appeals to emotion.  Epstein mentions that emotions do play a role on reasoning in an arguments, but that it does not mean that emotions should not be all in an argument. As Epstein states, An appeal to emotion is a premise said in a certain tone to convince others to believe you feel a certain way. The different types of appeals Epstein mentions are, the appeal to pity, appeal to fear, appeal to spite and appeal to vanity. The appeal that stood out to me most was an argument that call in your debts appeal. Call in your debts is the opposite of spite appeal. This appeal grabbed my interest most because I have encountered situations like it various times. Someone believing you owe them something because they did you a favor. My sisters tend to be this way a lot. For example, "Can you wash my clothes for me since I'm is fixing your car?" She is asking me to do something for her, owing her a favor because she did me a favor.

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Ambiguous Sentences

In chapter two of the book, "Critical Thinking" by Richard L. Epstein, he discusses the issues of ambiguous sentences in an argument. As Epstein defines, an ambiguous sentence is a sentence that can be understood in two or a very few dubious ways. During our first couple weeks in class, as I came across the section reading about ambiguous sentences, It was easy to understand, but I remember I was having a difficult time stating an example of an ambiguous sentence. The week we were assigned to read chapter two, one of the blogs were to write about a vague or ambiguous sentence, I read the examples of ambiguous sentence over and over, but couldn't come up with an example so decided to blog about vague sentences instead, which was the other choice for that post. I did some web research and came across some very detailed examples that made it very easy to understand. The website provided various examples of ambiguous sentences and provided explanation, here is the link for the website, Ambiguous sentences.

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Major Course Assignments

Our assignment, Critical Thinking in News and Politics and Critical Thinking and Social Organization both helped me learn how to locate, organize and interpret articles. Completing the assignment Critical Thinking in News and Politics helped me learn how to analyze an article. I broke down each paragraph by making side notes of how I interpreted the article and continued from there. I also learned how to understand and state the major claim. I was able to state its premises and determine whether the argument was strong, valid, weak or bad. With Critical Thinking and Social Organization, I learned how to state what type of reasoning the organization used and identify how the organization used concealed claims. Both Critical Thinking in News and Politics and Critical Thinking and Social Organizations improved my skills in communication. Working in a group was very useful and was very effective when everyone contributed ideas and effort.


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