Page 139 - Smart Thinking: Skills for Critical Understanding and Writing, 2nd Ed

12 6 SMART THINKING: SKILLS FOR CRITICAL UNDERSTANDING & WRITING

that government funding of the Olympics has declined in the current era of low
public financing and increased privatisation:

5. There is no other source of funds for the Olympics.
As we know, premises are, by themselves, unlikely to be well founded without
some authority or further reasoning. So, at this stage, we can also add further layers
to our diagram, providing more claims that show or explain our premises. We can
add as many layers as we wish, though for practical reasons we might wish to stop
at three or four layers (see below). In each case, remember that we are using the
claim at the bottom of each vertical arrow as a conclusion, and so all of the thinking
moves involved in making good links between the main conclusion and its main
premises also apply to these relationships.
Again, claim 4 of the Olympics example—'Non-sport costs, associated with
security and entertainment, are now much more prominent'—would need to be
properly supported by its own explanation, which would involve a similar process
in which we think of a reason and then break it down into specific claims. These
supporting claims might be:
6. The Olympic games are now a prime target for terrorists.
7. Terrorism is common in the contemporary world.
8. Each new Olympic games tries to outdo the previous one in terms of
entertainment and spectacle.
9. Every new and different approach to entertainment usually involves
greater cost.

-—>

The fourth and fifth steps, which involved stopping, reflecting, and revising, are
crucial. At this point we must think through the following questions, beginning
also to relate our own reasoning to the context in which we are operating:

• What assumptions underlie the reasoning?
• Are there any implied premises?