Chapter 2 Study Questions

  1. What does it mean to say that critical thinking takes place in an environment that is often hostile to it?
  2. What does it mean to say that good critical thinking requires awareness, practice, and motivation?
  3. What are the most common impediments to critical thinking?
    a) What are Category 1 obstacles?
    b) What are Category 2 obstacles?
  4. Is there anything inherently wrong with accepting a claim that furthers your own interests? Is there anything wrong with accepting a claim solely because it furthers your own interests?
  5. How can our need to save face interfere with critical thinking?
  6. In the sphere of critical thinking, what are some of the consequences of self-interested thinking?
  7. What can getting emotionally worked up about a claim or conclusion indicate about your thinking?
  8. Why is it important to be alert to ways that critical thinking can be undermined?
  9. What is the phenomenon of selective attention?
  10. What are some of the dangers of group thinking?
    a) What is peer pressure?
    b) What is the appeal to popularity?
    c) What is stereotyping?
  11. What is the best way to defend yourself against group thinking?
  12. What is a world view and how can it be “haunted”?
  13. What is subjective relativism?
    a) What is the subjectivist fallacy?
    b) Are there some things about us that are relative?
    c) What are the implications of subjective relativism that seem to undermine it?
    d) What does it mean to say that subjective relativism is self-defeating?
  14. What is social relativism?
    a) What are some implications of social relativism that seem to undermine it?
    b) How is social relativism self-defeating?
  15. What is philosophical skepticism?
    a) According to the text, does knowledge require certainty?
    b) What kind of doubt does critical thinking require?
  16. What is the difference between subjective relativism and social relativism?
  17. What is the difference between reasonable doubt and possible doubt? Provide examples to illustrate.
  18. Provide an example of the sort of possible doubt which might be entertained by a philosophical skeptic. Why does their willingness to entertain such possible doubts make some people philosophical skeptics?
  19. Why does thinking critically require awareness, motivation, and practice?
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