Criticism Is Often Uncritical

"You're wrong." I hope that even without the information presented in the rest of this chapter, it's clear that the statement at the beginning of this chapter is not a well-formed argument. A fragment of a conclusion is presented (I'm wrong, but about what? This argument? Everything? Something in between? Is it my position that's wrong, or am I ethically abhorrent?), with no premises or deduction.

Criticism has come to mean expressing a negative opinion on some matter, but that's not the sense in which it's used here. The phrase "critical analysis" uses a more academic definition of the word critical. In this context, to be critical means to analyze both the pros and cons of an argument, to understand it in terms of the particular rules of argument formation, and to discover whether you find the conclusion to be agreeable. Many online discussions can be found that are entirely uncritical; the people taking part...