Quiz Essays Examples

4a. It is rational to believe that the textbook is a textbook because it was written and sold specifically to be used as the foundational text for a critical thinking course. The claim that courses like the one the book was written for are unusual is a pretentious lie that says more about the author’s ego than anything else, as critical thinking courses are common in universities and are frequently part of the basic general education requirements for a variety of majors. The book contains all of the material you would expect a critical thinking course, including definitions of such terms as criticism, reason, reasonable and how and why to form cogent arguments. If this book is not a critical thinking textbook than I can’t imagine what would qualify as one.
4b. It is rational to believe that the textbook is not a textbook because the author says it is not a textbook, and also because he did a very bad job of making it a textbook if that was his intent. He concludes the first chapter by saying things that are factually wrong, such as the claim that philosophy is the only intellectual discipline whose primary concern is the pursuit of truth. All intellectual disciplines have the pursuit of truth as their primary concern. They differ in what subjects they focus on and the methods they use. Claiming otherwise implies that there are intellectual disciplines where it is considered okay to draw false conclusions or make claims unsupported by evidence. This is clearly not true, so it can be concluded that the author does not know what he is talking about and his book is not reliable enough to be used as a textbook on critical thinking.