PD 20 | Engineering Workplace Skills: Developing Reasoned Conclusions Glossary

Unit 02 Inattentional Blindness: The tendency to miss what's going on around you if you are focussed on something else. Attentional Bias: A type of confirmation bias. A bias which affects the degree to which we remember and examine evidence. Interpretive Bias: A type of confirmation bias: This bias affects the significance we assign to the evidence we examine. Structural Bias: A type of confirmation bias: This bias affects the availability of evidence for or against a hypothesis. Self-serving attribution: A type of egocentric bias: This bias affects how accurately we assess our success or failure. (Whether we internalize success or externalize failure.) Hindsight Bias: A type of egocentric bias. A past event is made to look foreseeable and inevitable in retrospect. (And tend to overemphasize the role we played in this event.) Bias: a disposition or a tendency that leads us to a skewed endpoint in reasoning. Unit 03 Explicit knowledge: This is knowledge which is articulable. You will be able to explain this type of knowledge to others. And you will grasp what follows as a matter of logical consequence. Same as propositional knowledge. Propositional knowledge: Knowledge which can be stated in declarative sentences. Same as explicit knowledge. Practical knowledge: An ability to do something. This ability can be non-cognitive. It's something you can do without thinking about it. Unit 04 Validity: Refers to the form of an argument. If an argument is deductively valid, then if the premises are true, then the conclusion is guaranteed to be true as well. Soundness: Refers to an argument which: (1) is deductively valid; and (2) has all true premises. Premise: A statement from which another is inferred. A premise will provide us with information that will support (justify, lend credence to) a conclusion. Conclusion: A judgement reached by reasoning. Proposition: A statement about the world that is either true or false. Deductive argument: an argument which attempts to show how a conclusion necessarily follows from a set of premises. Ampliative argument: an argument which attempts to show how a conclusion follows from a set of premises.

PD 20 | Engineering Workplace Skills: Developing Reasoned Conclusions Glossary

Unit 05 Defeasible: Open to objection or revision. If a claim is defeasible, it can be shown to be false. That doesn't mean that it is false. But we can, in principle, demonstrate that it is. (Another way of saying falsifiable) Falsifiable: can, in principle, be proven to be false. If a claim is falsifiable, then we can demonstrate that the claim is false (if it is in fact false). (Another way of saying defeasible) Intuition: Intuitions are pre-analytic beliefs about the world. Intuitions are not the result of conscious, explicit reasoning. They are gut feelings. Assumption: A thing that is accepted as true. Unit 07 Semantics: Semantics is concerned with the meanings of words Syntax: Syntax is about how words of a language can be arranged to create meaningful, well-formed expressions Amphiboly: A phrase or sentence that is grammatically ambiguous. Equivocate: We equivocate when we willing or unwilling confuse the several meanings of a word. Ambiguous language: words or phrases that have more than one definite meaning. e.g. the word 'foot' was two definite meanings. It can refer to a human appendage. And it can refer to a unit of measurement. Vague: words or phrases which have no definite meaning. e.g. warm. The word 'warm' has no definite meaning. There are a range of temperatures which could rightly be called warm. It all depends on your perspective and the context of use. False polarization: It is when we overestimate: (1) the extent to which the views of others are stereotypically extreme; or (2) the degree to which we are in disagreement. Unit 08 Presupposition: An unspoken assumption. Communicative intent: When we communicate with each other, we do so in order to relay information. The speaker presumes the hearer will pick up on the intent to inform. The hearer presumes that the speaker is trying to pass along information. Imply. The word imply has two meanings: (1) follows as a logical consequence (2) indirectly suggest the truth of something not explicitly state Conversational implicative: Using an utterance that means one thing to say something entirely different. Innuendo: an indirect remark that is suggestive or disparaging. Rhetorical question: A rhetorical question looks like a question, but there is no expectation of a reply. A rhetorical question is not a genuine question; it is used to say something.

PD 20 | Engineering Workplace Skills: Developing Reasoned Conclusions Glossary

Loaded question: a loaded question entails an implicit assumption. It assumes that a prior unasked question has already been answered Sarcasm: the use of irony to disparage, ridicule, or convey contempt. Non-denial denial: This is an equivocal denial of an accusation. On the face of things, it looks as though the accusation is clearly denied. But upon further analysis, the accusation isn't actually denied. Something else is, thus leaving the initial accusation intact. Loaded Language: Involves using evaluative words to evoke an uncritical assent to what is said. Unit 09 Interlocutor: a person who takes part in a dialogue or conversation.