Develop Your Critical Thinking

It's not always easy to use critical thinking in a conversation or debate. And for a good reason: talks and discussions sometimes have obscure arguments that you need to know how to spot. The good news is, you can learn all that! In this third part of the course, we will uncover the bad arguments you can easily fall into and reveal the tricks for avoiding them.

Identify Where Bad Arguments Come From

Disruptors can create problems in communicating your message and difficulties in hearing the other person.

Several phenomena influence communication efforts:

• Intuitive use of language: When you speak, the message you convey depends as much on other signals as the words you utter. The tone of voice, facial expression, posture, and even vocabulary can influence a word or phrase's significance. If you want to make yourself clearly understood, it's important to watch out for these language factors-especially as they can seem perfectly natural!

• Your perception of reality: This depends on culture, mood, context, etc. 

• Rejecting cognitive dissonances: Remember that most people don't like being wrong and having their world-view called into question. To make the other person's point of view agree with yours, you may distort certain realities, accidentally or on purpose, to convince or persuade another. 

So as information passes from one speaker to another, it can become twisted. There are several factors at work: lack of time, dishonesty, laziness, selective hearing, etc. Cognitive biases also intrude in talks, discussions, and debates.

Here are some tips for reducing these communication problems:

1. Agree on a definition of terms at the beginning of the conversation to avoid talking at cross-purposes.

2. Suggest to the other person that they rephrase, in their own words, what they think you're saying.

3. Practice active listening.

4. Take the time to understand the other person and convey what you mean.

5. Have some intellectual humility: Don't hesitate to give a "certainty index" when offering a piece of information, especially if you're not entirely sure about it.

6. Don't pigeonhole the other person based on what they say; you could trap yourself in an unconstructive discussion.

Overcoming Communication Problems With Good Arguments

An argument is an assertion made to support a case. But some arguments are more reasonable than others. It is essential to distinguish good ones from bad ones in order to use critical thinking during a debate.

There are two scenarios during a verbal exchange:

1. You want to convince, without misleading. Your speech, even if it's wrong, is honest.

2. Your objective is to assert your case at all costs, even if that means lying and deceiving the other person. Winning someone over is more important than your integrity. 

The result is always the same; your opponent or the public finds their point of view potentially shaken, but not for the right reasons! You're entering the realm of manipulation. ⚠️

According to the Critical Thinker Academy creator, Kevin deLaplante, it's possible to show whether an argument is good or bad. 

For an argument to be considered good, it needs to be:

• Factually valid - all the premises are statements based on provable facts.

• Logically sound - the conclusions must follow the premises.

With those preconditions fulfilled, you can consider deductive arguments to be valid and inductive arguments probably valid. Either way, you need to make sure they are sound for a discussion or debate to be productive. You can analyze them to assess their quality.  

The simplest way to do this is to put them in a syllogistic form, a form of logical argumentation. Here's an example:

All men are mortal.

Socrates is a man.

Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

This classical form of argument implies at least a major premise (universal), a minor premise (particular), and a conclusion.

It's Your Turn

Let’s imagine that you are debating climate change, and someone says the following:

Climate change is the biggest threat to humanity because if the sea level rises, we will have massive migration and farmland destruction at a scale we have never seen before. 

Do you find this argument convincing?

Are you done? Let’s explore this example together.

Let’s put the method to the test:

Climate change will lead to rising sea levels.

Rising sea levels will bring about unprecedented farmland destruction and migration.

Therefore, climate change is the biggest threat to humanity.

Can you see it?

Although this argument might sound convincing at first, you can now tell it might be factually valid, but it isn’t logically sound. If it clearly showed the logical connection between massive migration/farmland destruction and the fact that it constitutes the “biggest threat to humanity,” it would be the case. At least one step is missing, and maybe many more, to get to such a powerful conclusion. 

Using “biggest” creates an enormous burden of proof.  

Although this argument isn’t technically sound, it can be improved. Most debates don’t allow arguments to flow back and forth. Be careful with what you say, which burden of proof you take on, and do your best to make good arguments.

Sometimes, you will encounter bad arguments. Some debates and debaters can be repeat offenders.

Let’s Recap!

In this chapter, you learned that:

• A lot of disruptors occur when communicating with others. Active listening and rephrasing are useful techniques to avoid those communication problems.

• For an argument to be considered good it needs to be factually valid and logically sound.

• To test an argument, you can put it in a syllogistic form. This classic form implies at least a major premise (universal), a minor premise (particular), and a conclusion.

Now that you know what bad arguments are let’s see how to avoid them!