UGRC 150 Critical Thinking and Practical Reasoning Practice Flashcards

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key concepts from the UGRC 150 Critical Thinking course at the University of Ghana, including sentence types, types of discourse, definitions, legal categories, deductive and inductive reasoning, and informal fallacies.

Critical Thinking

The careful, deliberate determination of whether we should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim and a determination of the degree of confidence with which to accept or reject it.

Interrogatives

Sentences expressed to seek information; they are neither true nor false and thus have no truth-value.

Imperatives

Sentences expressed to get someone to perform an action, such as commands, requests, directives, or instructions.

Declarative

A sentence that conveys information which can be either true or false, making it a truth bearer.

Sentence fragment

Incomplete sentences that do not express a complete thought and have no truth value.

Emotive expression

Sentences that express feelings or exclamations and have no basis for rational evaluation.

Factual statement

A type of declarative that informs by objectively describing what is there through sense observation.

Value judgment

A type of declarative that informs by subjectively prescribing or evaluating how something or someone should or ought to be.

Definiendum

The part of a definition that represents the word being defined.

Definiens

The part of a definition which gives the meaning of the word being defined.

Connotation

The meaning aspect of a word or definition.

Denotation

The particular examples or instances that the meaning of a word refers to.

Equivocation

The use of more than one connotation of a word in the same context without signaling the shift, with the intention to manipulate or persuade.

Open textured concept

A word or concept that is essentially contestable because it has several connotations and any given meaning can be disputed.

Well-defined concept

A term whose definition makes completely clear which objects, individuals, or properties are correctly called by that word, common in deductive studies like Maths and Logic.

Narrative

A discourse which only reports a sequence of events in order of their occurrence.

Instruction

A discourse which describes the process or sequence of things to do in a specified order to accomplish some desired effect.

Rhetorical polemic

A passage that communicates strong feeling or persuasively vents an opinion.

Argument

A passage that contains a single conclusion presented as a logical consequence of reasons (premises or evidence) offered.

Verbal dispute

A disagreement occurring as a result of an inconsistency in how disputants use the same words; it can be resolved by clarifying meanings.

Substantive disagreement

An actual disagreement occurring when disputants subscribe to contrasting values or have different facts in view.

Empirical

Expressions or factual statements derived from experience or observations that are verifiable.

Normative

Expressions or value judgments that state standards or norms to prescribe or evaluate an action or behavior.

Natural law

Scientific laws seeking to describe regularities or uniformities in patterns of events or features observed around us.

Civil Law

Man-made laws representing legal instruments used by governments to regulate behavior, backed by sanctions.

Customary law

The indigenous laws and practices embedded in a community's culture that govern acceptable standards and are enforced by members.

Moral Law

General rules of right living conceived as universal and unchanging, transcending culture and constitution.

Deductive argument

An argument where the truth of the premises guarantees that the conclusion is necessarily true.

Inductive argument

An argument where the premises provide evidence that the conclusion is probably true but do not guarantee it.

Syllogism

A form of deductive argument consisting of exactly two premises and one conclusion.

Reference class

The part of a statement indicating the group or object being discussed; its specificity determines if the statement is particular or general.

Attribute class

The part of a statement that describes the characteristics or quality assigned to the reference class.

Universal generalization

A statement where an attribute applies to all members of an infinite reference class with no exemptions.

Statistical generalization

A statement where an attribute applies only to a subset of an infinite reference class.

Antecedent

The 'if' clause in a conditional statement.

Consequent

The 'then' clause in a conditional statement.

Modus Ponens

A valid deductive syllogistic pattern involving affirming the antecedent.

Modus Tollens

A valid deductive syllogistic pattern involving negating or denying the consequent.

Verifiable statement

A particular statement with a finite reference class that is directly testable and useful as evidence.

Confirmable statement

A general statement with an infinite reference class that is indirectly testable and useful as a hypothesis.

Falsifiability

The characteristic of a statement being capable of being false; it is a sign that a statement is scientific.

Proximate condition

A connotation of the word 'cause' referring to the condition nearest to the effect.

Necessary condition

A condition that must be present for the effect to occur.

Sufficient condition

A condition that, if present, ensures the effect; however, other conditions may also yield that effect.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

A causal fallacy meaning 'after this, therefore because of this,' where one concludes that because something happened before another, it caused it.

Ad hominem

Changing the subject by diverting attention from the issue to the person, either negatively (dyslogistic) or pleasantly (eulogistic).

Circularity

Defining or giving reasons by merely repeating the very word or claim one is trying to support or explain; also known as tautology or begging the question.

Pseudo-precision

Using mathematical figures to give an impression of exactness to a term that is already vague.

Grandstanding

An informal fallacy of changing the subject by pointing to how many people believe or embrace a claim rather than giving reasons.

Hasty generalization

An informal fallacy of drawing a general conclusion from an insufficient sample.

Misplaced vividness

Deflecting attention by focusing too much on a particularly sensational instance that is irrelevant to the matter being discussed.

Semi-attached figures

Intimidating an audience with numerical details that give an impression of meticulous research when the issue does not lend itself to precise measurement.