PHL 221H Critical Thinking-Honors

This course is aimed at developing practical reasoning skills. Students will learn to analyze and evaluate arguments, detect fallacies, distinguish science from pseudo-science, recognize media bias, and better understand methods of deception employed by advertisers, political organizations and others. A central goal of this course is to develop an attitude of fair-mindedness and intellectual honesty while learning to avoid the pitfalls of defensiveness and rationalization. This honors class delves deeper into course topics and requires a high level of student motivation; the pace may be faster than non-honors courses. See the Honors Program website for information. Students cannot receive credit for both PHL 221 and PHL 221H.

Credits

4

Cross Listed Courses

PHL 221

General Education Requirements

Arts and Letters

Course Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, the student will be able to:

1. Analyze and evaluate arguments through identifying premises and conclusions, (including hidden premises and implied conclusions), recognizing valid argument forms, judging the soundness of inductive arguments and detecting formal and informal fallacies
2. Distinguish science from pseudo-science and recognize bias and methods of deception employed by advertisers, journalists, scientists, political organizations, religious groups and others

3. Identify trustworthy sources of information while guarding against biases in search engines, chatbots and social media feeds as well as scientific, academic, journalistic and governmental institutions

4. Apply critical thinking skills to disparate fields, such as economics, personal and public health, ethics, religion and controversial social and political issues

5. Apply an attitude of fair mindedness and intellectual honesty while learning to avoid the pitfalls of defensiveness and rationalization