Critical Thinking Philosophy 110 (Phil 11 at LBCC) mmonge@lbcc.edu

Have you ever doubted what someone told you?

Has a teacher ever told you anything which you didn't accept?

Have you ever wondered where all the information in your textbooks comes from?

Have you ever tried to convince someone of some fact when they were skeptical?

If so, then you have begun to engage in critical thinking.

Critical Thinking is one of the fundamental skills required in all of academia. It is used in every academic discipline. Moreover, you use (or should use) critical thinking in your everyday life. Taking a critical thinking course can mark the transition from being a student who justs accepts what your teachers tell you and a scholar who begins to add to the world's knowledge. Critical Thinking is the process of examining how and when we should change our opinions. Obviously, you should not believe everything you read or hear. But when should you accept what you've been told, when should you reject it, and when should you realize that you don't have enough information to form any judgment at all? The study of Critical Thinking begins to answer these questions.

What you will learn in this course:

• The language of logic: statements, facts, opinions, factual matters, arguments, etc.
• How to recognize when someone is offering a reason to believe a statement.
• How to decide when to accept, reject, or withhold judgment on a given statement.
• Identifying the parts of an argument: premises and conclusions
• Distinguishing kinds of arguments: deductive, inductive.
• Evaluating deductive and inductive arguments.
• Realizing when someone is using fallacious reasoning.
• Much, much more!

Expect to do some writing in this course. There is no better way for you to show me that you have learned the skills required to evaluate arguments.

It is possible to get an A in this course, but it will take hard work. In Fall 2014 when I taught one class at Long Beach City College, my grade distribution was as follows:

You should know that some of the students who received F's and D's failed to turn in a paper or take the final exam.  Every class is different of course, so there is no guarantee that any particular course will follow this same grade distribution, but I expect most classes to be similar. Your grade will depend on your work, of course, but this table may give you an idea of what is typical.

I am using two textbooks this semester. The first textbook we will use is Critical Thinking: How to Reliably Pilot Your Own Mind. It was written by my colleague, Marcelo Pimentel, a professor at Santiago Canyon College. It does a better job handling psychological insights, pathos, general critical thinking, and writing than the other textbook we will use, which is Logic For Beginners, which was written by your professor. It was intended primarily for Introduction to Logic courses, but there is a lot of overlap between critical thinking and logic courses. They are both available in your school's bookstore, and Logic For Beginners is also available online at www.archimedespublishing.com.

I hope to see you in my class!