Nature of Logic

Critical thinking, by definition, involves elements of logic and perception. Without logic, one cannot complete a critical thought. Encarta dictionary defines logic as: "The branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of deductive and inductive arguments and aims to distinguish good from bad reasoning." In critical thinking, the ability to reason is more important than intelligence.

This paper will explain how logic and critical thinking relate to each other, as well as how personal experience has influenced the author's personal perceptual blocks and how they may affect the critical thinking process.

How Logic Relates to Critical Thinking:

In an excerpt from Robert Todd Carroll's book, "Becoming a Critical Thinker", Carroll uses a scenario that explains how logic is used by critical thinkers in a crisis situation. In the scenario, a security agent at a major airport is told by a celebrity psychic that she had a vision that there is a bomb on one of the planes. The agent then proceeds to de-board the plane to do a bomb search. No bomb was found and the search took so long that the crew of the plane were over on their hours of service and could not fly. As a result, hundreds of people lost their flights and the airline had to arrange new flights for them (and the psychic), costing the airline thousands of dollars.

Carroll goes on to explain how the agent, were he or she thinking logically, could have handled the situation. Since no psychic has ever predicted a bomb or crash in the history of flight, then the famous psychic should have been held and interrogated while the normal flight process takes place. Commerce cannot be held up for psychic visions. Logically, the agent should have known that psychics make money and fame from their "visions" coming to fruition, so she may have planted one, or just wanted the exposure and attention.

Reasonable people know that psychics are frauds, so they should not be taken seriously when they claim to have visions. Good reasoning was not practiced by the security agent, so that agent should be fired. The plane should still be searched, but the psychic should be investigated and interrogated in the meantime.

Logical deductions should not be considered to be an ultimate conclusion; there have been times in history that because something was deemed to be impossible, then it must be impossible. It was once thought that man could not fly, or travel into outer space, but it has been done. Therefore, logic alone isn't enough to make a critical thought. In a statement by Michael Scriven and Richard Paul to the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking Instruction, critical thinking is defined as: "Ð'... the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication as a guide to belief and action."

This statement sums up how the nature of logic relates to critical thinking: while logic is a significant part of critical thinking, it still only plays a small part. The mind has to be trained to look at a concept from every conceivable angle, even the angle that may go against one's instincts. That helps in avoiding fallacies in thinking, which we are to cover later on in this class.

Personal Perceptions Gone Wrong:

When I first met the mother of my children and ex-wife, we were both drinking pretty heavily. I would occasionally enjoy alcohol, and I assumed the same thing about her: that she was just a social drinker. Our whirlwind, tortured romance found me living with her within 2 weeks of meeting her. She insisted that I move in with her, so I did. When I would come home from work, she would appear to be hammered, but she would deny it and her breath would not reek of alcohol.

Her friend told me that my ex-wife was an alcoholic, but I again assumed that the reason she told me this was that she wanted to be with me. She did want to be with me, but she wasn't lying about my ex-wife's addiction. It turns out that she knew how to hide her liquor from me and she was diabolical enough to somehow cover up the smell.

After I left her once, she cried and said that she would stop drinking, and she did. What I didn't know was that she traded booze for methamphetamine. She didn't change her behavior, but she