Dean Pickard Ph.D.

PHILOSOPHY 7: Critical Thinking (Section 2870)

Course Description: Critical thinking skills are skills in making good judgments. These skills are indispensible for practical success, but more importantly for one’s development as a responsible and happy human being. Your judgments affect everything you think, say and do. This course covers the logical principles of sound reasoning that can be applied to our everyday concerns as citizens, parents, consumers, business people, etc.. It can help students more clearly understand the nature of reasoning, language, and communication, as well as improve critical thinking skills, including critical reading and listening. With consistent practice, what is offered here can improve skills of reasoning, communicating and decision making, as well as promote better understanding, greater autonomy, and a more adequate world view.

1. The distinctions and relations between: logic and truth, logic and emotion, and logic and reasonableness.
2. The centrality of our attitudes, habits, and biases in the opinions we hold, our reactions to others, and how we think.
3. Faulty conceptions of truth replaced with the idea of well-reasonedness.
4. The nature of interpretation and how to overcome problems of meaning.
5. Recognition and use of basic patterns of reasoning in deductive and inductive arguments and explanation.
6. How to better recognize and avoid common fallacies (errors in reasoning).
7. Critical thinking is an ethical issue insofar as poor reasoning has negative consequences for others.
8. It is sometimes erroneously believed that we cannot judge people’s values and feelings as better or worse, as more or less appropriate or inappropriate, that we can only reasonably argue over facts, but not over matters of value because “values are too subjective” or “too difficult to argue about” or “feelings can never be wrong. They “just are.” We can however, make reasonable value judgments and judge whether feelings are warranted, justified, or appropriate.

Note:

1. If you drop the class, do so officially or you may receive an automatic F for the course.
2. I no longer give incompletes, but I will accept late work in some cases.
3. You are subject to automatic exclusion if you miss 2 weeks of class.
4. If you come to class late or leave early, please sit in the rear of the class. Seats there should be otherwise left empty.
5. Beepers and cell phones should be turned off before entering class.
6. Please see me first for help or complaints.
7. This outline is a basic guide and is subject to revision. Follow announcements in class about any changes.

Course Texts

1. Pickard, D., Logic, Truth, and Reasoning: A Textbook in Critical Thinking, 2001. (P) Download Preface, Download Chapter 1

Grading

Course grades will be determined by: Four exams, 100 pts. each on the Pickard text. Use scantron 882 (ERASURES: CIRCLE THE NEW ANSWER IN INK TO RECEIVE CREDIT). Only one make-up exam with 5-10% deducted from high scores. Exams and quizzes will be returned in class only once, otherwise get recorded grade. Allowable absence: 2 hours (one class) unless you are getting an A or B. Outside reading will be quizzed at the middle and end of the semester. Bring all issues of periodicals.