Syllabus for Spring 2014

Phil 102: Critical Thinking

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”

--Aristotle

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool."
--Richard Feynman

Instructor: Ami Palmer

Email UNLV: palmer67@unlv.nevada.edu 
Email CSN: amitabha.palmer@csn.edu 

Class Times: Mon & Wed 11am-12:45pm and 5:30pm- 6:45pm
Office: CDC C110 
Office Hours (UNLV): Tues & Thur 1pm-2:30pm or by appointment.  CSN by appointment only.

Textbook: Good Reasoning Matters: A Constructive Approach to Critical Thinking (5th Edition) by Leo A. Groarke and Christopher W. Tindale
Blog: http://criticalthinking102atunlv.blogspot.com/

COURSE OUTLINE:
PART 1: FUNDAMENTALS OF CRITICAL THINKING

Week 1  Jan 22: 
A) Syllabus, Why Is Critical Thinking Important? What's an Argument? Read: Dunning Kruger Effect

Week 2  Jan 27&29:
A) Ch.1  Identifying Argument Components Con't, Indicator Words (Ch. 4), Arguers and Systems of Belief, Sidgwick's Insight
B) Ch. 2  Critical Thinking Manifesto, Bias, Detecting Illegitimate Biases, Legitimate and Illegitimate Arguments from Authority, Read: Death of Experts

Week 3  Feb 3&5
A) Ch. 2&Notes: Slanting by Omission and Distortion, Confirmation Bias, Fallacy of Confirming Instances, Falsificationism, Misleading Comparisons.
B) Ch. 3: Burden of Proof, Ch. 8 Conditions of Premise Acceptability/Unacceptability/Questionable.

Week 4  Feb 10&12
A) Ch. 5&Notes: Diagramming Arguments
B)  Ch. 3&8: Contextual Relevance, Strawman, Red Herring, Naturalistic Fallacy

Week 5  Feb 17&19
A)  Washington's Bday (No Class)
B)  Ch. 3&Notes: Logical Force, Deductive vs Inductive Arguments, Sufficiency, Validity, Soundness

Week 6  *Feb 24*&26
A) Ch. 6: Hidden Argument Components, Review for Exam 1
*B*) Wednesday Feb 26: Exam 1 (Everything from Jan. 22 to Feb. 19 Inclusive)

Week 7  Mar 3&5
A) Notes: Conditional Reasoning  Take-Home Group Midterm Project Assigned Due Wednesday, March 12.
B) Ch. 6: Failures of Relevance (Fallacies Part 1)

Week 8  Mar 10&*12*
A) Ch. 7: Vagueness, Ambiguity, Group Ambiguity, Fallacy of Equivocation, Fallacy of Composition, Fallacy of Division
*B*) Ch. 7: Emotional vs Cognitive Meaning, Weasel Words Take-Home Group Midterm Project Due at Midnight.

Week 9  Mar 17&19  Spring Break (No Class) 

PART 2: APPLIED CRITICAL THINKING 

Week 10  Mar 24&26
A) Ch. 9: Generalizations and Associated Fallacies and Errors
B) Generalizations, Statistical Inferences, Misleading Comparisons 

Week 11  Mar 31&Apr 2 (Apr 4: Last Day to Drop)
A) Ch. 9: Polling
B) Ch. 9: General Causal Reasoning and Associated Fallacies/Biases/Errors

Week 12  Apr 7&*9*
A) Ch. 9&10: General and Particular Causal Reasoning; Exam 2 Review
*B*) Exam 2 (Feb. 26-Apr. 2 Inclusive) 

Week 13  Apr 14&16
A)  Ch. 10: Arguments from Ignorance 
B)  Ch. 10: Scientific Reasoning, Self-Deception, Placebo, No-cebo, Toothfairy Science 

Week 14  Apr 21&23
A)  Ch. 10: Scientific Reasoning:  The good, the bad, and the ugly; Read: Ioannitis:  Atlantic, SBM Response, and Why Most Published Research Finding Are False (Sections: Corolleries and Can We Improve the Situation)
Angell: Psychiatric Drug Research Babbage: The Half-life of facts
B)  Fallacy Fest:  Remaining Fallacies and Biases; Group Final Assigned Due May 12 at Midnight.

Week 15  Apr 28&May 30
A)  Arguments from Analogy Part 1
B)  Arguments from Analogy Part 2

Week 16  May 5&7 Last Week of Classes
A) Slippery Slope Argument; Possible "Surprise" Quiz
B) Work on Group Finals; Possible "Surprise" Quiz

Week 17  May 12-17  Exams
*Group Final Due on May 12th*

Week 18  May  20  Deadline for Submitting Grades

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of PHI 102 students should be able to:

1. Identify arguments and distinguish arguments from non-arguments in actual discourse.

2. Identify components of arguments – conclusions and premises (both explicit and implicit).

3. Identify assumptions used in actual arguments

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

5. Evaluate Arguments for:

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

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

  c. truth/plausibility of premises: soundness or cogency

6. Identify, distinguish and classify fallacious forms of reasoning.

7. Distinguish types of definitions and their use in argumentation.

8. Identify, distinguish and classify typical argumentative forms:

  a. standard deductive forms

  b. standard inductive forms (e.g. Mill’s Methods)

  c. statistical forms

  d. analogies

  e. causal arguments

9. Construct and defend reasonable arguments of your own.

Attendance
There is a very strong correlation between attendance and academic performance.  It is in your best interest not to miss class. I take attendance at the beginning of each class.  For each unexcused absence, you lose 1 point from your attendance grade. An excused absence is one where you have either (a) emailed me before class to give me a legitimate reason for which will not be attending or (b) spoken to me after your absence to give me a legitimate reason for your absence. 

Missed Exams:   If you miss an exam without notifying me the day before of your anticipated absence, you will receive 0 and may not make up the exam.  If you miss the exam for a legitimate unanticipated emergency, you may make up the exam upon presentation of evidence of a legitimate reason for your absence (e.g., doctor's note, evidence of family death, etc...)

Grading

Your grade is composed of the following elements: Homework and podcast/article reviews (10%), participation and attendance (10%), 2 exams (20% each), take-home group midterm (20%), group project/final exam (20%). 

Participation: Quality vs quantity. The person who only opens their mouth once the whole semester but says something brilliant will get a better grade than the person who monopolizes the floor and speaks with little forethought. Don't feel pressured to speak if you don't have anything meaningful to say. That's ok. If I can come up with one meaningful thing in 3 months—I'm doing well! 

Homework: There is homework due at midnight the day before every class. This means the homework for Monday's class is due by Sunday midnight and for Wednesday's class it is due by Tuesday midnight. You will email your homework to philosophami@gmail.com (don't forget to attach the file—this is your responsibility). The homework only consists of a few questions and should not take more than 30-40min to complete—if that.

Homework and your grade: I do not grade individual homework sets. I only verify if it is either complete or incomplete. So how does it affect your grade? You start off with an 'A' for your homework grade. If you miss more than three assignments, your total letter grade for the course falls by 1/3 of a letter grade. For example, if you have an 'A' in the course and you miss four assignments, your final grade will be an 'A-'. Likewise, if you have a 'B+' in the course and you miss four assignments, your final grade will fall to a 'B'.

This system of deduction is logarithmic, so if you have missed more than 6 assignments, your final grade will fall by a full letter grade. If you miss half or more of the assignments, you will fail the course. To summarize: in my magnanimity, I hereby grant all of ye the status of 'A' in homeworks, but should you fail to please me by missing three or more assignments, I will diminish the luster of your final grade accordingly.

But what if I get sick and can't do my homework that week? Don't fret little grasshopper. You have 3 get out of jail cards—use one!Can I make them up? Nope. You have 3 get out of jail cards—that should be enough to cover most excuses over a semester. But what if I get abducted by aliens, taken to a planet far far away, have disturbing medical experiments performed on me, and dropped of on another continent with no clothes, money, or phone? Nope. However, there may be the occasional bonus assignment throughout the semester which I will allow you to trade in for a used get-out-of-jail card. 

But what happens if I don't know the answer to a question on the homework? That's ok. The reason you are in the course is presumably because there are things you don't already know about critical thinking. That said, this does not give you carte blanche to say of every question “I didn't understand!” Instead, what I expect is for you to explain why you don't understand how to do the problem or how to come up with the answer. A big part of my asking you to do homework is for me to be able to assess what the class does and does not understand well, and why! Your homework provides me with valuable insight into your comprehension and how I am doing with my teaching.

Blog entries and podcast reviews.  Every 2 weeks you must submit a two paragraph podcast or blog article review from the approved list provided in this blog.  These reviews are counted as part of your homework score.  You may submit the review anytime within each two week period.  You may choose any episode/entry current or past.  I recommend finding episodes/entries that are personal areas of interest.  On the podcast/blog list is a more detailed explanation of how to do the reviews.

Extra Credit:  There is a one-time opportunity to boost your final grade by up to 1/3 of a letter grade.  To do so you must lead the class in going over the homework that was due that day.  You are to (a) provide the answers (on an overhead); (b) be able to explain how you arrived at your answers; and (c) attempt to answer any questions other students may have about the homework. 

Class Etiquette

Cellphones: Please turn them to silent (not vibrate) or even better yet, turn them off. What about texting/surfing in class? While I don't condone it, spending my energy trying to police it takes away from my teaching, so I will trust you all to give your thumbs a rest while in class. 

Class discussions: Since this is a class about arguments, I'm hoping we'll have some good ones with each other. That said, there need to be some ground rules and they need to be observed if the exchanges are to be fruitful. For the most part, common sense dictates, but here are some guidelines: (a) listening is just as (if not sometimes more) important than talking; (b) sharing the floor allows everyone to participate—if you've been doing a lot of talking (no matter how brilliant and stunning your rhetoric), let other people participate; (c) controlling our emotions in a good exchange isn't always easy but it is necessary. Generally, when we feel passionate about something, it is hard not to get emotional, but lets direct our passion into the quality of our arguments and into understanding our opponents'. While it is generally true of politics that the loudest voice wins, lets try to keep that element out of the classroom—little progress is ever made by yelling (see American politics).

University-Wide Policies:

Academic Misconduct – Academic integrity is a legitimate concern for every member of the campus community; all share in upholding the fundamental values of honesty, trust, respect, fairness, responsibility and professionalism. By choosing to join the UNLV community, students accept the expectations of the Academic Misconduct Policy and are encouraged when faced with choices to always take the ethical path. Students enrolling in UNLV assume the obligation to conduct themselves in a manner compatible with UNLV’s function as an educational institution.

An example of academic misconduct is plagiarism. Plagiarism is using the words or ideas of another, from the Internet or any source, without proper citation of the sources. See the Student Academic Misconduct Policy (approved December 9, 2005) located at: http://studentconduct.unlv.edu/misconduct/policy.html.

Copyright – The University requires all members of the University Community to familiarize themselves and to follow copyright and fair use requirements. You are individually and solely responsible for violations of copyright and fair use laws. The university will neither protect nor defend you nor assume any responsibility for employee or student violations of fair use laws. Violations of copyright laws could subject you

to federal and state civil penalties and criminal liability, as well as disciplinary action under University policies. Additional information can be found at: http://www.unlv.edu/provost/copyright.

Disability Resource Center (DRC) – The UNLV Disability Resource Center (SSC-A 143, http://drc.unlv.edu/, 702-895-0866) provides resources for students with disabilities. If you feel that you have a disability, please make an appointment with a Disabilities Specialist at the DRC to discuss what options may be available to you.

If you are registered with the UNLV Disability Resource Center, bring your Academic Accommodation Plan from the DRC to me during office hours so that we may work together to develop strategies for implementing the accommodations to meet both your needs and the requirements of the course. Any information you provide is private and will be treated as such. To maintain the confidentiality of your request, please do not approach me before or after class to discuss your accommodation needs.

Religious Holidays Policy – Any student missing class quizzes, examinations, or any other class or lab work because of observance of religious holidays shall be given an opportunity during that semester to make up missed work. The make-up will apply to the religious holiday absence only. It shall be the responsibility of the student to notify the instructor no later than the end of the first two weeks of classes, January 31, of his or her intention to participate in religious holidays which do not fall on state holidays or periods of class recess. This policy shall not apply in the event that administering the test or examination at an alternate time would impose an undue hardship on the instructor or the university that could not have reasonably been avoided. For additional information, please visit: http://catalog.unlv.edu/content.php?catoid=6&navoid=531.

Incomplete Grades - The grade of I – Incomplete – can be granted when a student has satisfactorily completed all course work up to the withdrawal date of that semester/session but for reason(s) beyond the student’s control, and acceptable to the instructor, cannot complete the last part of the course, and the instructor believes that the student can finish the course without repeating it. A student who receives an I is responsible for making up whatever work was lacking at the end of the semester. If course requirements are not completed within the time indicated, a grade of F will be recorded and the GPA will be adjusted accordingly. Students who are fulfilling an Incomplete do not register for the course but make individual arrangements with the instructor who assigned the I grade.

Tutoring – The Academic Success Center (ASC) provides tutoring and academic assistance for all UNLV students taking UNLV courses. Students are encouraged to stop by the ASC to learn more about subjects offered, tutoring times and other academic resources. The ASC is located across from the Student Services Complex (SSC). Students may learn more about tutoring services by calling (702) 895-3177 or visiting the tutoring web site at: http://academicsuccess.unlv.edu/tutoring/.

UNLV Writing Center – One-on-one or small group assistance with writing is available free of charge to UNLV students

at the Writing Center, located in CDC-3-301. Although walk-in consultations are sometimes available, students with

appointments will receive priority assistance. Appointments may be made in person or by calling 895-3908. The

student’s Rebel ID Card, a copy of the assignment (if possible), and two copies of any writing to be reviewed are

requested for the consultation. More information can be found at: http://writingcenter.unlv.edu/

Rebelmail – By policy, faculty and staff should e-mail students’ Rebelmail accounts only. Rebelmail is UNLV’s official e-mail system for students. It is one of the primary ways students receive official university communication such as information about deadlines, major campus events, and announcements. All UNLV students receive a Rebelmail account after they have been admitted to the university. Students’ e-mail prefixes are listed on class rosters. The suffix is always @unlv.nevada.edu.

Final Examinations – The University requires that final exams given at the end of a course occur at the time and on the day specified in the final exam schedule. See the schedule at: http://www.unlv.edu/registrar/calendars.