CRITICAL THINKING (PHI 102-37) Fall 2006

CONTACT INFORMATION:

Instructor: Greg Frost-Arnold Email: gregory.frost-arnold@unlv.edu

Office phone: 895-5996 Webpage: http://faculty.unlv.edu/frostarn

Office Hours: (CDC 4, 424) Mon. 2-3, Tues. 1:30-2:30, and by appointment

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Advertisements, politicians, bosses, and your friends and family all try to convince you that various claims are true. This class will help you determine whether these people have given you good reasons to believe their claims. More specifically, after finishing this class, you will be able to:

1. Identify arguments, and distinguish arguments from non-arguments in actual cases.

2. Identify real arguments' components – conclusions and premises.

3. Reconstruct arguments in order to make logical structure explicit.

4. Evaluate Arguments for:

a. strength of inference: validity vs. invalidity; strong vs. weak

b. type of inference: deductive, inductive, causal, analogical, statistical

5. Identify, distinguish and classify bad ('fallacious') forms of reasoning.

6. Distinguish types of definitions and their use in arguments.

7. Identify, distinguish and classify typical argumentative forms: deductive, inductive, analogical, and causal.

TEXT: Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking, 5th edition, by Merrilee Salmon. 

GRADING & ASSIGNMENTS: There are two in-class tests, each worth 20% of your grade, and a final exam, worth 30% of your total grade. The remaining 30% of your grade comes from weekly homework assignments (I drop your lowest HW score).

I assign grades using the usual 100% scale: 90% is the lower bound for an A-, 87% the lower bound for a B+, 83% the lower bound for a B, etc.  There are no extra credit assignments.

CLASS POLICIES:  You are allowed two unexcused absences.  After that, your final grade will suffer.  If you have a problem and must miss class please inform me as soon as you can, preferably in advance.  Expect to provide documentation (or other evidence) for your excuse.

Late homework will not be accepted, because we will go over the answers to homework assignments immediately after you turn them in.

Cheating or plagiarism, in any form, absolutely will not be tolerated.  If this class is to succeed as a learning project for you and me, it must be based on respect and trust between us.  If anyone abuses that trust, I will punish that person to the extent that University policies allow; the usual penalty is for that person to fail the course. You are responsible for knowing the University's Academic Integrity Policy (see http://www.unlv.edu/pubs/catalogs/undergraduate/pdf/main/acadpol.pdf).

If you have a documented disability that may require assistance, you will need to contact the Disability Resource Center (DRC) to coordinate accommodations.  The DRC phone number is 895-0866 or TDD 895-0652.

Turn off your cell phones and pagers, please.