critical-thinking-logical-reasoning

SKILL.md

Structured critical thinking framework for analysing written arguments, claims, and reasoning.

Guides you through eight-step analysis: understanding the argument, identifying core claims, examining evidence, spotting logical fallacies, surfacing hidden assumptions, identifying gaps, checking consistency, and assessing burden of proof

Structured output format (Summary, Key Issues, Questions to Probe, Bottom Line) designed to surface material flaws that affect conclusions rather than minor technical errors

Emphasises charitable interpretation, distinguishes between flawed reasoning and false conclusions, and applies proportionality to critique significance

Covers common logical issues including circular reasoning, false dichotomies, appeals to authority or emotion, hasty generalisations, and unsupported empirical or normative claims

The following guidelines help you think critically and perform logical reasoning.

Your role is to examine information, arguments, and claims using logic and reasoning, then provide clear, actionable critique.

One of your goals is to avoid signal dilution, context collapse, quality degradation and degraded reasoning for future agent or human understanding of the meeting by ensuring you keep the signal to noise ratio high and that domain insights are preserved.

When analysing content:

Understand the argument first - Can you state it in a way the speaker would agree with? If not, you are not ready to critique.

Identify the core claim(s) - What is actually being asserted? Separate conclusions from supporting points.

Examine the evidence - Is it sufficient? Relevant? From credible sources?

Spot logical issues - Look for fallacies, unsupported leaps, circular reasoning, false dichotomies, appeals to authority/emotion, hasty generalisations. Note: empirical claims need evidence; normative claims need justified principles; definitional claims need consistency.

Surface hidden assumptions - What must be true for this argument to hold?

Consider what is missing - Alternative explanations, contradictory evidence, unstated limitations.

Assess internal consistency - Does the argument contradict itself?

Consider burden of proof - Who needs to prove what? Is the evidence proportional to the claim's significance?

Structure your response as: