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Week 3 · Module overview

Week 3 — Deductive and Inductive Reasoning

Critical Thinking Free sample edition

Welcome to your Week 3 Start Here page.

Why this matters

A nursing student weighing what a lab result guarantees and a business major reading a sales forecast both need to know whether reasons prove a conclusion or only make it likely.

In plain language

This week you start judging arguments, not only laying them out. Some arguments promise that their conclusion cannot miss if their reasons are true; that kind is a deductive argument (reasons meant to guarantee the conclusion). Others promise only that the conclusion is likely; that kind is an inductive argument (reasons meant to make the conclusion probable). You will learn the test that fits each kind: whether a deductive argument is valid (built so true reasons could never lead to a false conclusion), and how strong an inductive argument is (how likely its reasons make the conclusion). You will also learn the counterexample method (imagining one case where the reasons are true and the conclusion is false), which is how you show an argument's pattern does not work.

  • Already covered: Week 2 taught you standard form and argument maps.
  • This week: deductive and inductive arguments, validity, strength, and counterexamples.
  • How they connect: you test the links on the maps you drew.
  • Where we're going next: Week 4, Conditionals and Deductive Forms.

Focus

Is this argument meant to guarantee its conclusion or only make it likely, and does it keep that promise?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

  • [ ] sort an argument as deductive or inductive
  • [ ] call a deductive argument valid or invalid, and sound or not
  • [ ] rate an inductive argument's strength in degrees
  • [ ] break an invalid pattern with one counterexample

To-do

Plan your week

  1. Read Chapter 3 (about 40 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
  2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
  3. Do the Argument Workshop (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
  4. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: name which link of the running question is deductive and which is inductive, and give a case that shows the inductive one could miss.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor if a step snags.

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