Go ahead, you pick the subject. I’ll even let you pick either side of the issue. I’ll take the other side. But, should warn you. I’m loaded for bear. You will be engaging a lean mean fighting machine in this battle. I’m mentally riff. Why, I’d reject your ad hominen attacks, expose your begging the question, tear down your straw men, meet your generalizations head on with counter-instances, make fun of your terminological obfuscations and rebuff all your ipsedixitisms. In short, argue with me now and I’ll eat you up and spit you out in little pieces. You are probably wondering how I became such a well-honed arguing machine. It’s because I finally read a book by Jerry Cederblom and David Paulsen, Critical Reasoning. (Belmont California, Wadsworth/Thomas learning. 2001). Now I’m equipped to win any side of any argument. I can even argue with myself now and always win. I don‘t even need to believe something to win an argument any more, so watch out if you tangle with me! But just to make this a fair fight I’ll even share my arsenal of definitions I’ve simplified from the book. So to make this more even, here are my simplified definitions of some terms to prepare you for the first round. Learn these well if you want to spar with me! (Of course I’m just kidding here—I don’t want to argue at all, I just read the book in an afternoon and these are my rough notes in case anyone is interested.)
Critical Thinking Terms