Core Concepts in Critical Thinking, Part I

Critical Thinking
Across the
Curriculum Project

Critical Thinking Core Concepts

Contributed by: Lauren Miller and Michael Connelly, Longview Community College

Establishing the truth of premises: Conceptual vs. Empirical Premises

A crucial step in evaluating the soundness of an argument is determining the truth of the premises. The truth of a statement can be established by:

personal experience,
reference to an established authority,
internal consistency, and
consistency with the body of established fact (things we know are true already).

The most important step in determining the truth value of a given premise is determining if the premise is making a Conceptual claim or an Empirical claim. Premises which claim that some state of affairs exists or does not exist are considered Empirical premises. The truth of these premises will be established mainly by methods 1,2, and 4. above. On the other hand, the truth of some premises will depend on the meanings of some central words in the premise. Here, the statement is taken to present a Conceptual Theory - the author's idea of what concepts are crucial to the success of the argument. The methods for establishing the truth of these sorts of premises will be different from those used to establish the truth of Empirical premises. To illustrate, consider the following argument:

P1. The "Weekly Enquirer" contains many stories which stretch the credibility of what is reported.
P2. Putting something in print makes it more likely to be taken as a fact.
P3. Journalism which stretches the credibility of what is reported is deceptive.
P4. Since journalism often involves the printed word, it ought not be deceptive.

Therefore, the "Weekly Enquirer" is bad journalism.

Premise 2 is an example of an empirical premise- it's truth or falsity is established by empirical means, which will often involve methods which rely on inductive arguments. (we could conduct a study to determine what people are more likely to believe or not believe. Premises 3 & 4 are conceptual premises - the truth or falsity of these premises will involve a discussion of what we generally mean by words like "deceptive" and what will count as "bad journalism". To further understand the different methods, we will first consider the process for evaluating conceptual premises, then look to the process for evaluating empirical premises.

Copyright © 1996
Critical Thinking Across the Curriculum Project
Longview Community College , Lee's Summit, Missouri - U.S.A.
One of the Metropolitan Community Colleges
An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer

Permission to reproduce these resource pages is granted for
non-profit educational use provided the above information
is retained on all copies.

Inquiries to: michael.connelly@mcckc.edu
Last modified: 03/02/04