PHI-10011 - How To Think
Coordinator: Sorin Baiasu Room: CBA2.001 Tel: +44 1782 7 33591
Lecture Time: See Timetable...
Level: Level 4
Credits: 15
Study Hours: 150
School Office:

Programme/Approved Electives for 2022/23

None

Available as a Free Standing Elective

No

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None


Barred Combinations

N/A

Description for 2022/23

This module is designed to develop and improve skills to enable students to understand and respond appropriately to arguments in general, by focussing on the formal features of arguments such as deductive validity, inductive force and various forms of fallacies. This is crucial preparation for all other courses in the Philosophy Programme, but is also excellent preparation for academic work generally or any endeavour that involves an attempt to convince someone of something.

Aims
1) To guide development in a range of elementary thinking and reasoning skills and to provide students with the basics of skills that are essential for the proper presentation, analysis and criticism of arguments.
2) To improve students general ability to think both clearly and rigorously.
3) To enhance students ability to identify, present, analyse and critically evaluate arguments presented in everyday and academic contexts.
4) To enhance students ability to identify various common fallacies and rhetorical devices.
5) To equip students with the basics of skills that are of paramount importance in philosophy but which are also an indispensable part of good practice in any academic discipline, by introducing them to the basic principles of argument and logic.

Talis Aspire Reading List
Any reading lists will be provided by the start of the course.
http://lists.lib.keele.ac.uk/modules/phi-10011/lists

Intended Learning Outcomes

Demonstrate precision of thought and expression in the analysis and formulation of complex and controversial problems: 2
Evaluate opposing arguments, to formulate and consider the best arguments for different views and to identify the weakest elements of the most persuasive view: 2
Employ some key logical concepts such as logical form, validity, soundness, induction and quantification: 1,2
Apply philosophical skills and techniques to issues arising outside the academy: 2
Identify underlying issues in a wide range of different kinds of debate: 2
Demonstrate clarity and rigour in the critical assessment of arguments presented in texts: 2
Recognise methodological errors, rhetorical devices, unexamined conventional wisdom, unnoticed assumptions, vagueness and superficiality in the arguments of others and respond appropriately: 1,2
Abstract, analyse and construct sound arguments and to identify logical fallacies: 1,2

Study hours

10 hours lectures
10 hours seminars
45 hours preparation for lectures
50 hours preparation for seminars
5 hours preparation for summative exercises
28 hours revision for exam
2 hours exam

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment

1: Exercise weighted 15%
Formalisaton and Proof Exercises
This is a set of exercises that will test the student's ability to convert ordinary language sentences into a formal calculus and to understand and apply basic concepts of logic. The exercises will be undertaken at home three quarters of the way through the course and will be marked by the tutor.

2: Exam weighted 85%
1 x 2 hour examination
This is a two hour examination testing the students' grasp of the central concepts covered in the course and their ability to apply them to a range of arguments.