Mar 28, 2024  
2018-2019 Undergraduate Catalog 
    
2018-2019 Undergraduate Catalog [ARCHIVED CATALOG]

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PHIL 150 - Critical Thinking


Description:
This course will focus on informal logic: understanding and evaluating arguments in ordinary language. Students will learn to read, write, and think critically. Basic Skills 5 - Reasoning.

Credits: (5)

Learner Outcomes:
Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

  • Accurately summarize an argument contained in a prose passage, identifying its thesis, premises, and assumptions.
  • State the distinction between the truth of an argument’s premises and the validity and strength of its reasoning; and display awareness of this distinction in one’s writing.
  • Identify whether a given argument is deductive or inductive, and accordingly evaluate it for either validity or soundness or for strength and cogency; and recognize whether it commits any common argumentative fallacies.
  • Identify the logical form (propositional or categorical) of English statements and arguments; be able to exhibit that form by symbolization; and be able to use that form to determine the validity of arguments.
  • Display, in one’s writing, an awareness of one’s assumptions, and a willingness to question them; and hence be able to engage seriously and respectfully with others who disagree with those assumptions.
  • Take a reasoned position on a complex question while acknowledging that one’s position might be incorrect - but still avoid collapse into a default relativism on which “it’s all a matter of opinion”.
Learner Outcomes Approval Date:
5/3/2012



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