Phil 141: Critical Thinking

Fall 2020

Instructor: Ted Parent, ted.parent@nu.edu.kz

Schedule of Readings

WEEK 1: Introduction
    Buddha, the Kalama Sutta
    Paul Graham, What You Can't Say
    Handout: Pessimism about Argument
    Video: Ruth Chang's TED talk on Hard Choices
        Optional: Video: Evidencebasedwisdom.com, Developing Wisdom
        Optional: Handout: Decision Theory Primer

WEEK 2: Psychological Obstacles
    Lewis Vaughn, Reasons for Doubt
    Handout: Cognitive Biases
    Videos: Laurie Santos on Cognitive Biases
    Handout: What is the Ideal Setting for Inquiry?
        Optional: Handout: Defense Mechanisms
        Optional: Kenyon & Beaulac, Critical Thinking Education and Debiasing
        Optional: Huemer, Why People are Irrational about Politics

WEEK 3-4: The Five Types of Argument
    Handout: Five Types of Argument
    Handout: Premise and Conclusion Indicators
    Handout: Criticizing the Five Types of Argument

WEEK 5: Argument Forms
    Howard-Snyder et al., The Power of Logic, chapter 1 (excerpts)
    Handout: Famous Forms
    Handout: Formal Fallacies
    Handout: Necessary versus Sufficient Conditions

WEEK 6-8: Informal Fallacies
    Handout: Informal Fallacies: Pseudo-Deductions
    Handout: Fallacies of Unwarranted Premises
    Handout: Devious Rhetoric
    Dan Dennett, excerpts from ch. 2 of Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking
    Lewis Vaughn, Experts and Evidence
    Handout: Website Credibility Checklist
    Handout: Are Emotions Relevant?

WEEK 10-12: Scientific Thinking
    Forseman et al., excerpts from ch. 6 of The Critical Thinking Toolkit
    Forseman et al., excerpts from ch. 9 of The Critical Thinking Toolkit
    Forseman et al., more excerpts from ch. 9
    Handout: What Makes for a Good Scientific Theory?
    Handout: The Bradford Hill Criteria
    Handout: Are You Prone to the Base-Rate Fallacy?
         Optional: Susan Haack, Correlation and Causation: The Bradford Hill Criteria
    Brian Earp, Mental Shortcuts
    Gorski & Novella, Clinical Trials of Integrative Medicine
    Rosa et al., A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch
    Handout: Remarks on Scientism

WEEK 13-14: Dialectical Method
    Plato, Crito
    Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham City Jail (excerpt)
        Optional: Handout: Historical Background to MLK's letter
        Optional: Russ Shafer-Landau, Ethical Subjectivism (excerpt)
    Jay Rosenberg, excerpts from chs. 5 and 6 of The Practice of Philosophy
    Handout: Writing Advice

WEEK 15: Critique as a Way of Life
    Baggini & Fosl, Foucaultian Critique of Power
    Forseman et al., excerpts from ch. 10 of The Critical Thinking Toolkit
    Herman & Chomsky, Preface to Manufacturing Consent
        Optional: Chomsky, excerpts from the Afterward of Failed States
        Optional: Handout: Coping with Ecological Despair

Updated: 19 September 2021