Nature of Logic

Critical thinking, by definition, involves elements of logic and perception. Without logic, one cannot complete a critical thought. Encarta dictionary defines logic as: "The branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of deductive and inductive arguments and aims to distinguish good from bad reasoning." In critical thinking, the ability to reason is more important than intelligence.

This paper will explain how logic and critical thinking relate to each other, as well as how personal experience has influenced the author's personal perceptual blocks and how they may affect the critical thinking process.

How Logic Relates to Critical Thinking:

In an excerpt from Robert Todd Carroll's book, "Becoming a Critical Thinker", Carroll uses a scenario that explains how logic is used by critical thinkers in a crisis situation. In the scenario, a security agent at a major airport is told by a celebrity psychic that she had a vision that there is a bomb on one of the planes. The agent then proceeds to de-board the plane to do a bomb search. No bomb was found and the search took so long that the crew of the plane were over on their hours of service and could not fly. As a result, hundreds of people lost their flights and the airline had to arrange new flights for them (and the psychic), costing the airline thousands of dollars.

Carroll goes on to explain how the agent, were he or she thinking logically, could have handled the situation. Since no psychic has ever predicted a bomb or crash in the history of flight, then the famous psychic should have been held and interrogated while