Impulse (and Asking Questions)
Impulse is a reaction to an intense emotion. I think that there are two types of impulses. One is the impulse of survival. For example, if a person smelled smoke in their living room, they would run out of the house on impulse. Impulse can keep people alive. Also, impulse can dismantle a person’s life. [...]
The Roots Of Self-Reliance Part III: Man’s Reason As The Means Of Acquiring Knowledge
Having seen, in “The Roots Of Self-Reliance, Part II: Intellectual Independence,” that such independence consists of “the refusal to sacrifice the integrity of your own consciousness to the dictates of others, merely because they said so,” it now remains for us to identify the means by which human beings are to separate truth from falsity [...]
Developing Critical Thinking Skills: The Straw Man
In our quest for developing critical thinking skills we arrive at the much bandied about straw man argument.
Developing Critical Thinking Skills: Faulty Appeal to Authority
On our journey to developing critical thinking skills, we next encounter the faulty appeal to authority. This is an excellent one to sniff out on commercials. When we do not know something, we consult an “authority”. That authority is a person or source who has a particular knowledge of the thing being sought. So if [...]
Developing Critical Thinking Skills: Ad Hominem Attack
On our journey through logical fallacies we are building our repertoire for developing critical thinking skills. We encounter these fallacies all the time, especially in advertising and politics. As a quick review, we have so far examined: Red herring – not answering a question by introducing a different topic. Special pleading – making an unfounded [...]
Developing Critical Thinking Skills: Tu Quoque
Moving through our task of developing critical thinking skills we have covered red herrings and special pleading. In review, a red herring is an irrelevant statement in place of an answer. Special pleading is making an inappropriate exception which, if noticed, is often viewed as hypocritical. Tu Quoque Today’s topic dovetails nicely with special pleading. [...]
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