PHIL 259 Critical Thinking
Instructor: Nancy Salay
In this class you will learn how to think critically; you will learn how to evaluate arguments, claims, and beliefs as well as how to make solid arguments of your own. You will learn how to think clearly, a powerful skill indeed.
To help with this, one of the four modules for the term is an introduction to the basics of sentential logic. This will involve some technical work, but nothing that even those who fear, probably incorrectly, that they are ‘bad at math’ could not handle.
Since the complement to thinking clearly is writing clearly, this critical thinking course also includes a writing component. By the end of the course, you will be writing 250-500-word critiques.
Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will have demonstrated they can:
(1) integrate content from the course readings and in-class discussions to produce a portfolio of
written work that reveals an increasingly sophisticated mastery of critical thinking skills that
approximately tracks the progression of the course in real time.
(2) communicate their assimilation of a reasonable subset of the course readings and in-class
discussions via organized, cogent prose.
(3) support and enhance the learning of their peers via oral contributions to discussions, active listening, or other means provided or required by the syllabus
(4) reconstruct arguments from the philosophical texts being studied and raise interpretive questions about or accurately targeted objections to those arguments, in written or oral forms as required by the syllabus, at a lower-intermediate level.
Assessments
Assessment Breakdown
Many of the assignments require short essay or paragraph-style answers that will be marked on content, grammar, and style.
AI/Technology Policy:
Use of electronic devices in class is: Permitted
Use of AI (generative, agential, etc.) for work for this course is: Forbidden
Course technology policy statement: Use of AI (generative, agential, etc.; in writing, editing or brainstorming your essays, completing make-up assignments, etc.) is strictly forbidden in this course.