Logic and Scientific Thinking

Midterm Review

Bogdan G. Popescu
bgpopescu@tec.mx

Tecnologico de Monterrey

Exam Format

  • Closed book, individual, held in class on Thursday, August 27.
  • Covers Sessions 1–7: everything up to and including Informal Fallacies 1.
  • Tests the concepts, the vocabulary, and their application to short cases.
  • The required readings for those sessions are examinable.

What to Master

Block The skills
Arguments conclusion · premises · hidden premises · standard form · charity
Kinds of claims empirical · conceptual · normative — and the is–ought gap
Grading deduction vs. induction · valid, sound · strong, cogent
Formal fallacies the valid shapes and their traps · necessary vs. sufficient
Informal fallacies the four-family map · faulty reasoning and misused sources in depth · the three-step diagnosis

Practice

Practice Cases

Worked in class — bring questions.

  • Reconstruct a short argument in standard form, hidden premises included.
  • Classify and grade it: guarantee or good bet? valid or strong? sound or cogent?
  • Diagnose the fallacy: name the move, quote the words, say what would decide it.