LOGIC AND CRITICAL

THINKING
INTRODUCTION

DR. FJHR
AT THE END OF LESSON, STUDENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO :

1. DISCUSS WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS.

2. EXPLAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF LOGIC IN NURSING.

3. EXPLAIN WHAT IS CRITICAL THINKING.

4. ENUMERATE AND EXPLAIN THE 7 IMPORTANCE OF CRITICAL

THINKING IN NURSING.

5. DISCUSS HOW DOES ONE BECOME A CRITICAL THINKER.

LOGIC AND CRITICAL THINKING
What is a simple de nition of philosophy?

• Quite literally, the term "philosophy" means, "love of wisdom." In a broad

sense, philosophy is an activity people undertake when they seek to
understand fundamental truths about themselves, the world in which they live,
and their relationships to the world and to each other.
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What is the main idea of philosophy?

• Philosophy is the systematic study of ideas and issues, a reasoned pursuit of

fundamental truths, a quest for a comprehensive understanding of the world,
a study of principles of conduct, and much more.
PHILOSOPHY

• What is philosophy and examples?

• Philosophy (from Greek: φιλοσοφία, philosophia, 'love of wisdom') is the
systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those
about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such
questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved
PHILOSOPHY

• What is philosophy and its importance?

• Philosophy provides us with valuable skills. It produces better critical
thinkers, more creative thinkers, and better communicators. Philosophy
exposes us to di erent ways of thinking about even very familiar
concepts, in part by carefully engaging the history of thought
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PHILOSOPHY

• How does philosophy in uence nursing practice?

• In nursing, philosophy increase nurses' ability to understand the
phenomena and support nurses to think about their practice in the
clinical area as well as in the academic. Philosophy and science give
mutual bene ts each other because it produces framework for
developing theories for human being.
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PHILOSOPHY

• What are the four components of philosophy?

• There are four pillars of philosophy:
• Theoretical philosophy (metaphysics and epistemology)
• Practical philosophy (ethics, social and political philosophy,
aesthetics)

• Logic and history of philosophy.

Theoretical philosophy
Components of Philosophy

• What is the focus of theoretical philosophy?

• Theoretical philosophy studies the principles of human knowledge, the
development of science and the basis for scienti c knowledge, the
principles of thought, argumentation and communication, the nature of
language and consciousness, metaphysics, and the history of the
subject itself.

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Practical philosophy
Components of Philosophy

• What is the meaning of practical philosophy?

• Practical philosophy can be de ned as the study of the bases of
philosophy (metaphysics, knowledge theory, logic) for "practical
thinking", with the emphasis on values, attitudes to life and norms of
behaviour.

• Practical philosophy includes such areas as ethics, aesthetics, political

and social philosophy, philosophy of law, philosophy of religion, feminist
philosophy, action theory and value theory.
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Logic in philosophy.
Components of Philosophy

• What logic means in philosophy?

• Logic is often seen as the study of the laws of thought, correct reasoning,
valid inference, or logical truth. It is a formal science that investigates
how conclusions follow from premises in a topic-neutral manner, i.e.
independent of the speci c subject matter discussed.

• Logical thinking is the process of evaluating truth conditions and the

legitimacy of connections between statements by applying formal
deductive logic. Critical thinking pays heed to logical thinking processes
yet allows for less rigid evaluations while remaining analytical.
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LOGIC & CRITICAL THINKING

• Simply put, critical thinking is the act of deliberately analyzing information so

that you can make better judgements and decisions. It involves using things
like logic, reasoning, and creativity, to draw conclusions and generally
understand things better.
CRITICAL THINKING

• What is critical thinking and why is it important?

• Critical thinking is the ability to analyze facts and form a judgment. It is a
form of emotional intelligence. Someone with critical thinking skills can
think clearly and rationally when the situation demands it. It allows them
to perform problem-solving and decision-making more e ectively.

• It involves the ability to re ect on an idea or problem, apply reason, and

make logical connections between ideas.
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What Are Critical Thinking Skills and Why You Need Them?
• Before we jump into de ning critical thinking skills, let’s run a quick experiment. We’ll try to nd out if drinking co ee is good for
you.

• First, google “reasons not to drink co ee.”

• Wow! Decreased anxiety (source), healthier teeth (source), weight loss (source), and a healthier heart (source)!
• Oh God! I’ll never touch a cup of co ee again!
• How about “reasons to drink co ee?”
• Lower rates of depression (source), memory boost (source), longevity (source), and, wait for it, a healthier heart (source).
• Oh well. I’ll never trust the Internet again.
• The twist? These are not some random unsupported online claims. There’s legit, peer-reviewed research that backs up
EVERY single one of the above ndings.

• So how do you reconcile these contradictory claims?

• By thinking critically.
• What does that even mean, though?
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What Is Critical Thinking?

• Critical thinking is the ability to think in an organized and rational manner in

order to understand connections between ideas and/or facts. It helps you
decide what to believe in. In other words, it’s “thinking about thinking”—
identifying, analyzing, and then xing aws in the way we think.

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How to Be a Critical Thinker?
• To become one takes time, practice, and patience. But something you can
start doing today to improve your critical thinking skills is apply the 7 steps of
critical thinking to every problem you tackle—either at work or in your
everyday life.
How to Be a Critical Thinker?
1. Identify the problem or question.

• Be as precise as possible: the narrower the issue, the easier it is to nd

solutions or answers.

2. Gather data, opinions, and arguments.

• Try to nd several sources that present di erent ideas and points of view.
3. Analyze and evaluate the data.

• Are the sources reliable? Are their conclusions data-backed or just

argumentative? Is there enough information or data to support given
hypotheses?
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 How to Be a Critical Thinker?
4. Identify assumptions.

• Are you sure the sources you found are unbiased? Are you sure you
weren’t biased in your search for answers?

5. Establish signi cance.

• What piece of information is most important? Is the sample size

su cient? Are all opinions and arguments even relevant to the problem
you’re trying to solve?
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How to Be a Critical Thinker?
6. Make a decision/reach a conclusion.

• Identify various conclusions that are possible and decide which (if any) of
them are su ciently supported. Weigh strengths and limitations of all
possible options.

7. Present or communicate.

• Once you’ve reached a conclusion, present it to all stakeholders.

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SO IN APPLICATION…

Let’s go back to our coffee

example and examine it critically,
point-by-point.
 Let’s go back to our coffee example and examine it critically, point-by-point.

1. The problem in question was: “is drinking co ee good for you?”

• This approach is way to broad.

• First of all, what does “good” even mean?
• Secondly, we don’t know if we’re talking about long- or short-term
e ects of drinking co ee. It’s also possible that drinking co ee might
bene t some aspects of your health while being detrimental to
others.

• So, let’s narrow down the problem to: “is drinking co ee good for
your heart?”
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Let’s go back to our coffee example and examine it critically, point-by-point.

2. Listed above, there are only two pieces of research on the impact of
drinking co ee on your heart.

• The rst one suggests that drinking co ee “could account for premature
deaths in the region of 14% for coronary heart disease and 20% for
stroke.”

• According to the second one, “moderate co ee consumption was

associated with a lower prevalence of the Coronary Artery Disease.”

• We’ve made two other major mistakes in reasoning: rst of all, two
sources only are not enough.

• Secondly, we haven’t taken into account that heart is a very complex

organ: just like it is the case with the rest of our body, co ee might be
good for some of its functions while bad for others.
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Let’s go back to our coffee example and examine it critically, point-by-point.

3. Both articles cited have appeared in prestigious, peer-reviewed journals.

But—

• The rst one has been based on literature review only; no original
studies.

• The second one, although conducted in a large (25.000 participants)

sample of men and women, includes only Korean population—
people whose hearts can be a ected by other factors such as diet or
climate.
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Let’s go back to our coffee example and examine it critically, point-by-point.

4. While the two sources don’t appear biased, we were.

• We based our initial Google searches on assumptions: “reasons not to

drink co ee” (assuming: co ee is bad for our health) and “reasons to
drink co ee” (assuming: co ee is worth drinking).

• Google’s search algorithms made sure we found articles in line with our
assumptions.

• So...
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Let’s go back to our coffee example and examine it critically, point-by-point.

5. Considering all of the above, we can positively state that the information
we gathered was not signi cant for solving the initially stated problem.
6. The only conclusion that can be reached is: according to the data we
gathered, drinking co ee might or might not be good for our hearts,
depending on many factors and variables we failed to take into account.
7. Even if the conclusion is “the question cannot be answered at this point,”
it’s still worth presenting and communicating.
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END FOR NOW