Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Chapter-4, page-115

                                            
                        Drawing Inferences from Careful Observation
                        Chapter-4, page-115
Since it is easier to snow than describe how this is done, in here is the discussion about how one person used observation and inference to describe.
Ø  Firstly, the fact appears followed by the inferences that can reasonably be drawn from them.
Ø  Secondly, more than one inference can be drawn from each set of fact.
Ø  Thirdly, the factual information group together the details of one segment or feature of the photograph at a time.
Fact
In the photo, in the center of this black and white photo is a triangular composition in contrasting values of black, grays, and whites that encompasses oval, diagonal, and curved shapes.
Inferences
Ø  Hence, those central shapes could be identified as representing a young girl and old man. The near rectangular shape on the right could be a side view of a piano.
Ø  However, this is a room with a girl and a man next to a piano.
Facts
 In here they discuss about their dress up. Like the girl wearing an oversized striped t-shirt and professor is in formal blazers. On the other side, they discuss about their physical structure. They discuss about their facial impression. In here they mention about the piano. This photo is normal sine of teaching .

Chapter-2, page-110

                             
Assignment of Critical Thinking (ENG 75) 
How Inferences Can Go Right and Wrongs 

Ø  People make inferences to solve their own problems. They use to make inferences for help them to fill their missing facts and in order to make sense of the facts they have.

Ø  People solve problems in different ways like by asking questions, gathering facts, makings inferences from them and also those inferences suggest strategies for finding new facts. Those new facts turn lead to new inferences.

Ø  However, when people use inferences with consciousness and imagination, they give them certainties which they need to move forward.

Ø  Inferences are one kind of mental operations in the search for knowledge.

Ø  Hence, there are some difficulties in inferences; one of them is when inferences are confused with facts as though they were facts.

Ø  Normally, inferences used with consciousness skill which lead us to knowledge.

Chapter-5, page-145

               

Identifying Hidden Assumption in Reasoning
Chapter-5, page-145

Hidden assumption means a powerful effect on our reasoning; hence, identifying them is not always easy. This topic needs to be discussed.

For example, if your friend is Japanese, she must be moody, if someone wanted to be a teacher he looks sincere. If someone loves photos he must love beautiful locations.

However, learning how to identify hidden assumptions is a complex skill comparable to catching fish to the surface is the question “what would someone have to believe in order to come to this conclusion.

This argument as it stands is not valid. Someone who gives such an argument presumably has in mind the hidden assumption that whatever that is unnatural is wrong. It is only when this assumption is added that the argument becomes valid. 

Once this is pointed out, we can of course go on to discuss what this assumption really means and whether it is justified. We might argue for example, that there are plenty of things that are “unnatural” but are not usually regarded as wrong.

 Someone who still wants to put forward such an argument might then distinguish between different types of unnatural acts, some of which are supposed to be permissible, others being morally wrong. Pointing out the hidden assumption in an argument can help resolve or clarify the issues involved in a dispute. 

In everyday life, the arguments we normally encounter are often arguments where important assumptions are not made explicit. It is an important part of critical thinking that we should be able to identify such hidden assumptions or implicit assumptions

So how should we go about identifying hidden assumptions? There are two main steps involved. First, determine whether the argument is valid or not. If the argument is valid, the conclusion does indeed follow from the premises, and so the premises have shown explicitly the assumptions needed to derive the conclusion. 

There are then no hidden assumptions involved. But if the argument is not valid, you should check carefully what additional premises should be added to the argument that would make it valid. Those would be the hidden assumptions. 

This technique of revealing hidden assumptions is also useful in identifying hidden or neglected factors in causal explanations of empirical phenomena. Suppose someone lights a match and there was an explosion. The lighting of the match is an essential part in explaining why there was an explosion, but it is not a causally sufficient condition for the explosion since there are plenty of situations where someone lights a match and there is no explosion. 

To come up with a more complete explanation, we need to identify factors which together are sufficient for the occurrence of the explosion, or at least show that it has a high probability of happening. This might include factors such as the presence of a high level of oxygen in the environment.