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Critical Thinking (PHIL 1110)
Total Credits:
3
Lecture Credits:
3
Description:
This course focuses on developing skills and dispositions for integrating critical thought into your everyday lives. You will understand the essential principles involved in the theory and practice of reasoning and decision-making, and you will develop critical thinking skills that are transferable to all academic disciplines, career and technical programs, the work place, and later life.
Topical Outline:
1. Orientation to Concepts (e.g. arguments, definitions, and hypotheses)
2. Informal Fallacies (e.g. Fallacies of Relevance, Weak Induction, Presumption and Ambiguity, and Ordinary Language)
3. Deductive Logic (e.g. Truth, Validity, Soundness, and Venn Diagrams)
4. Inductive Logic (e.g. Analogical Reasoning, Causal Reasoning, Probability, and Hypothetical Reasoning)
Learning Outcomes:
1. Demonstrate knowledge of the formal structure of argumentation
2. Evaluate strengths and weaknesses in reasoning and explain how the reasoning is persuasive or in error
3. Construct and defend both written and oral arguments
4. Apply good reasoning to issues in professional and/or personal contexts
Prerequisites:
Placement into
READ 1300 or completion of
READ 0200 or
ESOL 0052
MnTC:
Goal 2