PHI 203 - Logic and Critical Thinking (1)

The use of logic and critical thinking ought to equip us to recognize, avoid, and correct errors in our reasoning. We’ll consider what we have learned about reasoning from philosophy and from recent research in the cognitive sciences in order to better understand our tendencies to reason badly and to learn to reason better. We’ll discuss deductive reasoning, but more emphasis will be placed on inductive arguments, on assessing the probability of beliefs relative to the reasons we have for them, and on how the presentation of new evidence ought to affect those beliefs. So, we’ll be thinking about why we believe what we do, whether the reasons we have for beliefs makes them probable, and how to revise our beliefs in light of new evidence. Logic addresses one of our most significant human qualities, our rationality, and so remains at the core of the liberal arts.
(Quantitative Reasoning Encounter)