PHL 125 Critical Reasoning

3 Credit(s)

The goal of the course is to foster important cognitive and communication skills. Students will consider the structure of arguments (premises, inferences and conclusions) and the difference between inductive and deductive logic. Students will study how some uses of language, especially of ambiguous, vague or emotive terms, detract from good reasoning and how writers can remedy these defects. Students will learn to recognize some common informal fallacies. Students will examine several concepts essential in scientific and other inductive inquiries, including causal reasoning, inductive generalization, statistical reasoning, analogical reasoning and reasoning from accepted authority. Finally, the course will help students to gain greater media literacy. Critical Reasoning is recommended for students in all majors. Not open to students who have received credit for Principles of Logic (PHL201). Three lecture hours per week.