About Logic and Critical Thinking

This course provides an introduction to critical thinking, informal logic, and a small amount of formal logic. Its purpose is to provide students with the basic tools of analytical reasoning, which will give them a distinctive edge in a wide variety of careers and courses of study. While many university courses focus on the presentation of content knowledge, the emphasis here is on learning how to think effectively. Although the techniques and concepts covered here are classified as "philosophical," they are essential to the practice of nearly every major discipline, from the physical sciences and medicine to politics, law, and the humanities. The course touches upon a wide range of reasoning skills, from verbal argument analysis to formal logic, visual and statistical reasoning, scientific methodology, and creative thinking. Mastering these will help students become more perceptive readers and listeners, more persuasive writers and presenters, and more effective researchers and scientists. The first unit introduces the terrain of critical thinking and covers the basics of meaning analysis, while the second unit provides a primer in analyzing arguments. All of the material in these first units will be built upon in subsequent units, which cover informal and formal logic, Venn diagrams, scientific reasoning, as well as strategic and creative thinking. The final unit in the course is an exercise in applied critical thinking, and it introduces the special problem of evaluating arguments about values and morality.