Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Reasoning Well

‘You shouldn’t drink too much. The Earth is round. Milk is good for your bones.’ Are any of these claims true? How can you tell? Can you ever be certain you are right? For anyone tackling philosophical logic for the first time, here is a practical guide to the skills required to think critically. From the basics of good reasoning to the difference between claims, evidence and arguments, Jamie Carlin Watson, Robert Arp and Skyler King cover the topics found in an introductory course. Now revised and fully updated, this 3rd edition gives you the chance to develop critical thinking skills that can be used in and out of the classroom. Two new chapters on reasoning in the age of conspiracy theories and fake news demonstrate how to apply reason and avoid being dissuaded by the persuasive power of evidence-free emoting. Features include a glossary, chapter goals, more student-friendly exercises, study questions, diagrams, and suggestions for further reading. Chapter topics, organised around real-life examples such as predicting the weather, a murder mystery and the Ouija board, cover: - the structure, formation, analysis and recognition of arguments - deductive validity and soundness - inductive strength and cogency - inference to the best explanation - truth tables - tools for argument assessment - informal and formal fallacies This entertaining and easy-to-follow introduction is a complete beginner’s tool set to good reasoning, analyzing and arguing.

Jamie Carlin Watson is Associate Staff Ethicist at the Cleveland Clinic, USA. He is author of Expertise: A Philosophical Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2020).

Robert Arp, Ph.D. has previously taught philosophy at Florida State University, Southwest Minnesota State University, and University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is the author of Scenario Visualization: An Evolutionary Account of Creative Problem Solving (MIT Press, 2008) and co-author of Building Ontologies with Basic Formal Ontology (MIT Press, 2011).

He teaches Foundations of Logic (PHIL 222) for the Program for Adult Continuing Education (PACE) program at the University of Missouri - Kansas City every semester. This course is cross listed with UMKC's Department of Philosophy.

Skyler King is a PhD student at the University of Kansas, USA.