PHIL 1101 - Argument and Critical Thinking

Argument is an activity we all engage in, with varying results, in all walks of life. It is what we use to guide and justify our actions. Over two millennia there have developed a series of theoretical classifications and techniques for the identification of arguments and their typical strong points and common errors, and for communicating these findings to others. These are useful things for anyone to know. This course develops these methods and applies them to real-life arguments, both written and spoken. It is thus an introduction to communication and applied logic. The course uses ordinary language examples and has no symbols. The course is broadly cultural, in discussing actual arguments and issues from the Ancient Greeks to current debates. A feature is several lectures on the theory of legal argument, in the belief that the basic distinctions of legal argument are useful to everyone. The course concludes with several lectures on the 'science-pseudoscience' debate, where these methods are applied to discussion of examples such as UFOs, parapsychology, Bigfoot, the pyramids, the Bermuda Triangle and alien abductions.