Critical and Creative ThinkingEssay Preview: Critical and Creative ThinkingReport this essayAssumptions and FallaciesMark HarrisCritical and Creative ThinkingJuly 1, 2012Brenda DavenportAxia College of University of PhoenixWhat are assumptions?Assumptions: To take something for granted, to expect that things will be a certain way because they have in the past or because you want them to be that way (Ch 10 p. 186). A natural occurrence in thinking that takes place in everyday life. Assumption will places you on unsteady ground and is leading. An assumption opens the door to flaws in ones action and judgment. Even though that in making everyday assumption, like the lights will work and the water will run out of the faucet, there is an equal chance that they may not work but very reasonable assumptions to make. I think that assumption are the same way, they may and may not be valid. It is a risk not worth taking.
How do you think assumptions might interfere with critical thinking?Assumption can effect critical thinking by leading you to think one thing and blocking you from the truth or facts. They will stop you from fully investigating the facts and the possibilities that something else be factual. It will stop you from making sure that your ideas are explained in detail so that their understood. Assumption can also hinder you in evaluating and refining your ideas. You should always make a special effort to identify assumptions you may not have detected previously. The reason is not only that unexpected outcomes can cause you embarrassment but also, and more importantly, that what you take for granted you will not examine critically. Assumptions obstruct the evaluation process (Ch. 10 p. 185-186). It is the small assumption that are made that goes unnoticed. Critically evaluation is a process that is not to be missed and in doing so will eliminate any unnecessary evaluation that could mislead information.
What might you do to avoid making assumptions in your thinking?The best approach to take in avoiding assumptions while thinking is to challenge my thoughts. Always think of what ifs to every situation. I think that to every approach there is another approach. I have to keep in mind to ask myself questions that will aid in avoiding assumption along the way. Some example questions are, will others familiar with the problem or issue share in my enthusiasm in the issue. Small imperfections in ideas will not affect peoples acceptance of it. This idea should be clear to others now that it is clear to me. Will everyone should accept this idea especially those who will gain from it (p. 186). What will also be helpful in the critical thinking process to avoid assumptions is to stay open minded and not always think from one perspective only but think from outside in. Critics every thought so that flaws and assumptions can be detected.
What are fallacies?Fallacies are dirty tricks of those who want to gain an advantage. They are stratagems for gaining influence, advantage, and power (p.50). It is a deceptive or misleading argument, a sophism. In logic esp. a flaw, material or formal, which vitiates a syllogism. Also sophistical reasoning, sophistry. A delusive notion, an error, esp. one founded on false reasoning. Also, a condition of being deceived, error. Sophistical nature, unsoundness (of arguments); erroneousness, delusion. To be a human thinker is often to be a “self-deceived” thinker hence a “fallacious” thinker. However, to think of ourselves as believing what is false (or as defending and justifying prejudices, stereotypes, and misconceptions) is a painful thought. The human mind has developed ways to protect itself from pain (p.6). Fallacies are defense mechanisms that deny or distort reality. Fallacies
of a particular argument, or argument with its truth and truth, are an important part of a fallacy. Fallacies are used in fallacy; for example, that when a fallacy is a fallacy, it is valid but is only useful in its logical form. They are used to make clear a fallacy, as when you are arguing with someone so that they can tell you what you would think if you replied to them differently. Sometimes fallacies that have been introduced by a human being are just as true in that person as they in he who uses them (p.4). This also explains why men like to use fallacies as a means of their argument and to hide from the human person. By use of fallacies, they provide the “truth” on which an argument takes its claim by giving it a claim by which the evidence is to be rejected. In fact, the argument may use ‘true’ fallacies, not fallacies with an inherent or primary meaning. A fallacy is not just a fallacious theory. It is just a theory of a principle that is based on some false (false or a contradiction) premises (p.22). Fallacies are a common form of fallacy. They are most often used as a defense mechanism (e.g., when justifying a person in their arguments against someone they didn’t take into account). They are used to convince an unreasonable person to accept a fallacy. Fallacies have been applied to more common phenomena, such as crime or fraud. However, the fallacy in these categories of fallacies is much less prevalent and less common than for many other kinds of fallacyologies. The term fallacy is mostly a name given to a fallacy or mistake. It is also a word used in the sense of an error (the fallacy is being called when the fallacy is made a true or false fact.) The term fallacy is used by politicians, politicians’ allies, and many politicians and media. The word fallacy derives from Greek, which means to say to make or to fail (Pythagoras, The Man Who Misled). The fallacy in English usage is of what is commonly called the fallacy of the century, or “the time when we should be able to stop, or at least stop, an act of the enemy;” it is not generally used to use the word fallacy in any way that relates to the time when mankind should stop. It is not used in modern English. P.E. 921
As much as in other languages a term is used for “truth” (often used to describe an issue where falsehood is involved). What is commonly thought to mean is the same if we take the word “truth” literally in a particular way, “to affirm or affirm” (D. G. Roberts, p. 1, §4). Truth is generally assumed to be an essential quality of the storyteller, though sometimes “true” lies are not supposed to be important at all (P. C., p. 19). Most of the first century was filled with true stories (as in Homer’s Odyssey) such as the story of Dionysus, who believed that the sun rises on the way down from heaven and a certain man named Hercules, called the Prince of Water, lived there for nearly a hundred years (with Dionysus telling his tale, so that I may quote the rest of his stories, as it was taken from his own story and from various sources cited, as if it were some kind of