Assumptions and Fallacies

Assumptions and Fallacies

Larry Komrofski

University of Phoenix

Helen Leonard Hum/111 Critical and Creative Thinking September 1, 2013

An assumption is the act of taking something for granted. This is usually generated from our past experiences. Once we experience something, it then becomes part of our system of beliefs. (Paul & Elder, 2012) We assume our beliefs to be true and use them to make sense of situations in our daily lives. Sometimes in life, or in a situation, this can be where the problem starts. We are all different, and we all see and interpret things differently, and come to our own individual conclusions and assumptions about an experienced situation. One assumption can easily differ from another assumption, and any assumption may or may not be correct. To assume is one of the steps of the thinking process, but when you go directly to the assumption stage, you eliminate several valuable steps of critical thinking, especially when your assumptions could be based on improper facts or thinking. We need to learn to evaluate our assumptions, and the experiences that brought us to these assumptions, to assess validity in our assumptions and our thinking on a given situation for future references. We need to train ourselves to get out of the assuming habit, because many of our assumptions could be wrong, or not as right as we might like to believe. We need to learn to...