Two types of reasoning

• Are UFOs aliens?
• Should kids be made to work in factories instead of going to school?
• What would happen if all the money in the world disappeared overnight?

One way to answer questions like these is to blurt out whatever random thing comes into your head.

That's fine, I guess?

But if you wanted to answer them properly, you'd need to think about them.

Specifically, you would need to purposefully link different pieces of information in order to reach a conclusion.

That type of thinking is called reasoning.

You use reasoning every day, probably without noticing it.

This lesson is about making you aware of how we use reasoning so that we can learn how to do it well and see when others are doing it badly.

There are a few different types of reasoning, but we're going to talk about two that we use every day:

• Cause & effect (or causal) reasoning
• Criteria & match (or categorical) reasoning

There won’t be a lot of writing in this lesson. It’s mostly reading & thinking.

Let’s get started!