Effective Reasoning

Outline

1. Introduction
2. Recommended Resources
3. Effective Reasoning
   • Informal and Formal Reasoning
   • A History of Reasoning
   • Why Informal Reasoning?
   • Kinds of Informal Reasoning

     Critique/Analysis

     Argumentation

     Problem Solving/Decision Making

     Analogical Reasoning

     Causality and Correlation

     Scientific Reasoning

     Probabilistic Reasoning

     Aesthetic Reasoning

     Moral Reasoning

   • Need for Reasoning

     Organizing Information (Deduction)

     Solution of Problems

     Resolution of Controversies

     Discovery of Truth

4. Elements of Reasoning
   • Assumptions and Conclusions
   • Deduction and Induction
   • Truth and Falsity
   • Validation, Fallacy, Reliability
5. Language
   • Verbal and Nonverbal Reasoning
   • Semantics and Syntax
   • Functions of Language and Forms of Discourse
   • Content
   • Agreement and Disagreement
   • Information, Concept, Reality, Virtual Reality
   • Fact and Opinion
   • Subjective and Objective
6. Memory
   • How Memory Works
   • How Memory Works with Reason
   • How to Use Memory
7. Sources of Appeal
   • Empiricism
   • Force
   • Origin and Agreement
   • Circumstance
   • Relationship and Relevancy
   • Nihilistic Arguments and Other "Dead-End" Arguments
8. Definition and Focus
   • Definition and Problem Solving
   • Definition and Discourse
   • Kinds of Definition
   • Meaning
   • Defining
   • Ambiguity
9. Deduction
   • Proof, Support, Evidence, and Warrant
   • Forms of Deduction
10. Inductive Reasoning
    • Reasoning from Parts to Whole and from Whole to Parts
    • Analogical Reasoning
    • Correlation and Causal Connection
    • Mill's Methods
    • Commonplaces and Arguments from Form
    • Hybrid Forms of Inference
    • Science
    • The Scientific Method
    • Experimentation and Ad Hoc Hypothesis
    • Sociological/Anthropological Methods
    • Probability
    • Probabilistic Method
    • Expected Value
    • Intuition and Reasoning
11. Doubt
    • A History of Doubt
    • Systematic Doubt, Certainty and Uncertainty, and Chaos
    • Existentialism, Relativism,and Postmodernism
12. Argumentation
13. Literary Criticism
14. Aesthetic Criticism
15. Moral Reasoning
16. Apologetics and Religious Criticism