logic and critical thinking course outline

PHIL102: Introduction to Critical Thinking and Logic

Course introduction.

• Time: 40 hours
• College Credit Recommended ($25 Proctor Fee) -->
• Free Certificate

The course touches upon a wide range of reasoning skills, from verbal argument analysis to formal logic, visual and statistical reasoning, scientific methodology, and creative thinking. Mastering these skills will help you become a more perceptive reader and listener, a more persuasive writer and presenter, and a more effective researcher and scientist.

The first unit introduces the terrain of critical thinking and covers the basics of meaning analysis, while the second unit provides a primer for analyzing arguments. All of the material in these first units will be built upon in subsequent units, which cover informal and formal logic, Venn diagrams, scientific reasoning, and strategic and creative thinking.

Course Syllabus

First, read the course syllabus. Then, enroll in the course by clicking "Enroll me". Click Unit 1 to read its introduction and learning outcomes. You will then see the learning materials and instructions on how to use them.

Unit 1: Introduction and Meaning Analysis

Critical thinking is a broad classification for a diverse array of reasoning techniques. In general, critical thinking works by breaking arguments and claims down to their basic underlying structure so we can see them clearly and determine whether they are rational. The idea is to help us do a better job of understanding and evaluating what we read, what we hear, and what we write and say.

In this unit, we will define the broad contours of critical thinking and learn why it is a valuable and useful object of study. We will also introduce the fundamentals of meaning analysis: the difference between literal meaning and implication, the principles of definition, how to identify when a disagreement is merely verbal, the distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions, and problems with the imprecision of ordinary language.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 5 hours.

Unit 2: Argument Analysis

Arguments are the fundamental components of all rational discourse: nearly everything we read and write, like scientific reports, newspaper columns, and personal letters, as well as most of our verbal conversations, contain arguments. Picking the arguments out from the rest of our often convoluted discourse can be difficult. Once we have identified an argument, we still need to determine whether or not it is sound. Luckily, arguments obey a set of formal rules that we can use to determine whether they are good or bad.

In this unit, you will learn how to identify arguments, what makes an argument sound as opposed to unsound or merely valid, the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning, and how to map arguments to reveal their structure.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 7 hours.

Unit 3: Basic Sentential Logic

This unit introduces a topic that many students find intimidating: formal logic. Although it sounds difficult and complicated, formal (or symbolic) logic is actually a fairly straightforward way of revealing the structure of reasoning. By translating arguments into symbols, you can more readily see what is right and wrong with them and learn how to formulate better arguments. Advanced courses in formal logic focus on using rules of inference to construct elaborate proofs. Using these techniques, you can solve many complicated problems simply by manipulating symbols on the page. In this course, however, you will only be looking at the most basic properties of a system of logic. In this unit, you will learn how to turn phrases in ordinary language into well-formed formulas, draw truth tables for formulas, and evaluate arguments using those truth tables.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 13 hours.

Unit 4: Venn Diagrams

In addition to using predicate logic, the limitations of sentential logic can also be overcome by using Venn diagrams to illustrate statements and arguments. Statements that include general words like "some" or "few" as well as absolute words like "every" and "all" – so-called categorical statements – lend themselves to being represented on paper as circles that may or may not overlap.

Venn diagrams are especially helpful when dealing with logical arguments called syllogisms. Syllogisms are a special type of three-step argument with two premises and a conclusion, which involve quantifying terms. In this unit, you will learn the basic principles of Venn diagrams, how to use them to represent statements, and how to use them to evaluate arguments.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 6 hours.

Unit 5: Fallacies

Now that you have studied the necessary structure of a good argument and can represent its structure visually, you might think it would be simple to pick out bad arguments. However, identifying bad arguments can be very tricky in practice. Very often, what at first appears to be ironclad reasoning turns out to contain one or more subtle errors.

Fortunately, there are many easily identifiable fallacies (mistakes of reasoning) that you can learn to recognize by their structure or content. In this unit, you will learn about the nature of fallacies, look at a couple of different ways of classifying them, and spend some time dealing with the most common fallacies in detail.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 3 hours.

Unit 6: Scientific Reasoning

Unlike the syllogistic arguments you explored in the last unit, which are a form of deductive argument, scientific reasoning is empirical. This means that it depends on observation and evidence, not logical principles. Although some principles of deductive reasoning do apply in science, such as the principle of contradiction, scientific arguments are often inductive. For this reason, science often deals with confirmation and disconfirmation.

Nonetheless, there are general guidelines about what constitutes good scientific reasoning, and scientists are trained to be critical of their inferences and those of others in the scientific community. In this unit, you will investigate some standard methods of scientific reasoning, some principles of confirmation and disconfirmation, and some techniques for identifying and reasoning about causation.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 4 hours.

Unit 7: Strategic Reasoning and Creativity

While most of this course has focused on the types of reasoning necessary to critique and evaluate existing knowledge or to extend our knowledge following correct procedures and rules, an enormous branch of our reasoning practice runs in the opposite direction. Strategic reasoning, problem-solving, and creative thinking all rely on an ineffable component of novelty supplied by the thinker.

Despite their seemingly mystical nature, problem-solving and creative thinking are best approached by following tried and tested procedures that prompt our cognitive faculties to produce new ideas and solutions by extending our existing knowledge. In this unit, you will investigate problem-solving techniques, representing complex problems visually, making decisions in risky and uncertain scenarios, and creative thinking in general.

Completing this unit should take you approximately 2 hours.

Study Guide

This study guide will help you get ready for the final exam. It discusses the key topics in each unit, walks through the learning outcomes, and lists important vocabulary terms. It is not meant to replace the course materials!

Course Feedback Survey

Please take a few minutes to give us feedback about this course. We appreciate your feedback, whether you completed the whole course or even just a few resources. Your feedback will help us make our courses better, and we use your feedback each time we make updates to our courses.

If you come across any urgent problems, email [email protected].

Certificate Final Exam

Take this exam if you want to earn a free Course Completion Certificate.

To receive a free Course Completion Certificate, you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on this final exam. Your grade for the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you can take it again as many times as you want, with a 7-day waiting period between each attempt.

Once you pass this final exam, you will be awarded a free Course Completion Certificate .

Saylor Direct Credit

Take this exam if you want to earn college credit for this course . This course is eligible for college credit through Saylor Academy's Saylor Direct Credit Program .

The Saylor Direct Credit Final Exam requires a proctoring fee of $5 . To pass this course and earn a Credly Badge and official transcript , you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on the Saylor Direct Credit Final Exam. Your grade for this exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you can take it again a maximum of 3 times , with a 14-day waiting period between each attempt.

We are partnering with SmarterProctoring to help make the proctoring fee more affordable. We will be recording you, your screen, and the audio in your room during the exam. This is an automated proctoring service, but no decisions are automated; recordings are only viewed by our staff with the purpose of making sure it is you taking the exam and verifying any questions about exam integrity. We understand that there are challenges with learning at home - we won't invalidate your exam just because your child ran into the room!

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Once you pass this final exam, you will be awarded a Credly Badge  and can request an official transcript .

Saylor Direct Credit Exam

This exam is part of the Saylor Direct College Credit program. Before attempting this exam, review the Saylor Direct Credit page for complete requirements.

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• The passing grade is 70% or higher.
• This exam consists of 50 multiple-choice questions.

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Available Course Sections

• PHIL 120 (3 cr): Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

Course Outline

Mode of Delivery

This is a print-based, correspondence course.

Course Description

Philosophy 120: Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking provides the tools for dealing with both everyday and more technical arguments and concepts. Analysis and resolution of confusions, ambiguities, and fallacies.

Intended Audience

The course is intended for students at all levels of university study who wish to become clearer about the logical structure of natural language—or at least English, not to beg a question. The course will also provide some opportunity to conquer an aversion to formal work—the ‘I can’t do math’ syndrome. However, no mathematical knowledge is either assumed or required in the course.

Course Goals

There are theoretical and practical aims in this course. It is hoped that any one of them might be sufficient to spark your interest.

• At a philosophical level, a goal of the course is to rouse in your mind the question of the extent to which relationships between truth-conditions of sentences can be captured by structural (or grammatical , or syntactic ) relationships between the sentences. This issue is closely connected with questions about the nature of thought and the possibility of thinking machines.
• On a practical level, a goal is to get clear on the semantic properties of terms that have the broadest currency in the language, i.e., logical terms. These are words that are not peculiar to any one of the several sciences but are common and essential throughout every branch of knowledge. Further, you should acquire a firm intuitive grasp of the notion of a valid, or deductively sound , argument. Although such arguments in pure form may not be the most interesting that one encounters in a particular discipline (outside of mathematics and theoretical physics), the notion is fundamental to all rational discourse.
• Finally, a goal that is perhaps both practical and theoretical: it is hoped that you will acquire a better grasp of, and appreciation of, the structure and semantics of (at least) English. This is achieved by introducing an artificial language and reflecting, as it were, English off of it. It this seems bizarre at first blush, one might have experienced, or recall someone having remarked, that they did not understand the grammar of their own language until they learned another. The situation with our artificial language is not much different.

Course Materials

Your course material consists of a course manual that contains ten lessons with commentary by the course author on key topics, directions for doing reading and exercises, and the graded assignment problems.

Course Work

There will be twelve assignments, each graded on the basis of ten. Of these twelve, the best ten will be counted toward the final grade, for a total of 100 points. There will be an “open book” midterm (15 points) and a final (85 points), i.e., 200 possible points. Your final grade will be a percentage of this total.

Required Textbooks and Course Materials

• Hodges, Wilfrid. Logic: An Introduction to Elementary Logic. 2nd ed. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 2002.
• PHIL 120 Learner Packag e (includes course manual)

PHIL120 Textbook Order Form

Last updated on June 28, 2010 @1:44 pm

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Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

Course Details

• Truth, Validity, and Soundness
• Refutations and Proofs
• Categorical Statements
• Categorical Equivalences and Syllogistic Proofs
• Truth-Functional Symbolism
• Truth-Tables
• Validity of Truth-Functional Arguments
• Implication and Equivalence
• Truth-Functional Proofs
• Truth-Functional Proofs Continued
• Quantification Symbolism
• Quantification Proofs
• Inductive Arguments

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PHIL 101 : Introduction to Logic

2024 semester two (1245) (15 points), course prescription, course overview, course requirements, capabilities developed in this course, learning outcomes.

• Identify the logical structure of an argument. (Capability 3 and 4)
• Translate between natural and formal languages. (Capability 3 and 6)
• Use symbolic languages to disambiguate information in a precise and concise manner. (Capability 3)
• Critically assess the logical validity of arguments. (Capability 3, 4 and 5)
• Organise information in logically coherent fashion. (Capability 3 and 6)

Assessments

Coding and Logic 

Learn basic skills in logical reasoning as well as simple computer programming.

Workload Expectations

This course is a standard 15 point course and students are expected to spend 10 hours per week involved in each 15 point course that they are enrolled in.

For this course, you can expect 2 hours of lectures, a 1 hour tutorial, 2 hours of reading and thinking about the content and 5 hours of work on assignments and/or test preparation.

Delivery Mode

Campus experience.

Attendance is expected at scheduled activities including lectures and tutorials to complete components of the course. Lectures will be available as recordings, technology permitting, but this is no substitute for attendance. Other learning activities including tutorials will not be available as recordings. Attendance on campus is required for the tests. The activities for the course are scheduled as a standard weekly timetable.

Learning Resources

Course materials are made available in a learning and collaboration tool called Canvas which also includes reading lists and lecture recordings (where available).

Please remember that the recording of any class on a personal device requires the permission of the instructor.

The textbook is provided free of charge on the course Canvas website.

Student Feedback

At the end of every semester students will be invited to give feedback on the course and teaching through a tool called SET or Qualtrics. The lecturers and course co-ordinators will consider all feedback and respond with summaries and actions.

Your feedback helps teachers to improve the course and its delivery for future students.

Class Representatives in each class can take feedback to the department and faculty staff-student consultative committees.

Student feedback helps us to shape this course, particularly pacing and changes to the textbook.

Academic Integrity

The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting their learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. This requirement also applies to sources on the internet. A student's assessed work may be reviewed for potential plagiarism or other forms of academic misconduct, using computerised detection mechanisms.

Class Representatives

Class representatives are students tasked with representing student issues to departments, faculties, and the wider university. If you have a complaint about this course, please contact your class rep who will know how to raise it in the right channels. See your departmental noticeboard for contact details for your class reps.

Inclusive Learning

All students are asked to discuss any impairment related requirements privately, face to face and/or in written form with the course coordinator, lecturer or tutor.

Student Disability Services also provides support for students with a wide range of impairments, both visible and invisible, to succeed and excel at the University. For more information and contact details, please visit the Student Disability Services’ website http://disability.auckland.ac.nz

Well-being always comes first We all go through tough times during the semester, or see our friends struggling. There is lots of help out there - for more information, look at this Canvas page https://canvas.auckland.ac.nz/courses/33894 , which has links to various support services in the University and the wider community.

Special Circumstances

If your ability to complete assessed coursework is affected by illness or other personal circumstances outside of your control, contact a member of teaching staff as soon as possible before the assessment is due.

If your personal circumstances significantly affect your performance, or preparation, for an exam or eligible written test, refer to the University’s aegrotat or compassionate consideration page https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/academic-information/exams-and-final-results/during-exams/aegrotat-and-compassionate-consideration.html .

This should be done as soon as possible and no later than seven days after the affected test or exam date.

Learning Continuity

In the event of an unexpected disruption, we undertake to maintain the continuity and standard of teaching and learning in all your courses throughout the year. If there are unexpected disruptions the University has contingency plans to ensure that access to your course continues and course assessment continues to meet the principles of the University’s assessment policy. Some adjustments may need to be made in emergencies. You will be kept fully informed by your course co-ordinator/director, and if disruption occurs you should refer to the university website for information about how to proceed.

Student Charter and Responsibilities

The Student Charter assumes and acknowledges that students are active participants in the learning process and that they have responsibilities to the institution and the international community of scholars. The University expects that students will act at all times in a way that demonstrates respect for the rights of other students and staff so that the learning environment is both safe and productive. For further information visit Student Charter https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/students/forms-policies-and-guidelines/student-policies-and-guidelines/student-charter.html .

Elements of this outline may be subject to change. The latest information about the course will be available for enrolled students in Canvas.

In this course students may be asked to submit coursework assessments digitally. The University reserves the right to conduct scheduled tests and examinations for this course online or through the use of computers or other electronic devices. Where tests or examinations are conducted online remote invigilation arrangements may be used. In exceptional circumstances changes to elements of this course may be necessary at short notice. Students enrolled in this course will be informed of any such changes and the reasons for them, as soon as possible, through Canvas.

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PHIL 1110 - Introduction to Logic

North terrace campus - semester 2 - 2020, course details, course staff.

Course Coordinator: Dr Jonathan Opie

Course Timetable

The full timetable of all activities for this course can be accessed from Course Planner .

Course Learning Outcomes

• Represent the structure of statements and arguments using a formal logical framework;
• Assess formalised arguments for validity using truth tables and deductive methods;
• Apply these formal methods to clarify and assess real-world arguments;
• Display knowledge of and facility with symbolic logic under assessment conditions, including under time-limits;
• Present and defend oral opinions on logical and interpretative questions arising from engagement with real world arguments.

University Graduate Attributes

This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attribute(s) specified below:

Required Resources

This course uses a local adaptation of a free, open source, and open access textbook:

PD Magnus, Tim Button, and Antony Eagle (2018) Forallx: Adelaide . 

The updated 2018 version will be made freely available online to students via MyUni before the course begins. (The 2017 version of the text can be found at antonyeagle.org/pdfs/forallxadl.pdf ) If sufficiently many students are interested, it may be possible to make a printed version of the text available for a nominal cost.

Recommended Resources

The following texts may also be useful places to start thinking about logic before the course begins, but are not compulsory:

Priest, G (2001) Logic: A Very Short Introduction , Oxford University Press. Restall, G (2006) Logic: An Introduction (Series: Fundamentals of Philosophy), Routledge.

Many other free online and/or open access logic texts are also available, including one by one of your lecturers: here is a useful list . However, a word of caution: Many cover more advanced material than we will be looking at in Logic I, and looking at too many alternative texts is unnecessary to succeed in this course, and may be confusing.

Online Learning

Learning & teaching modes.

Lectures . There are two lectures each week, which can be attended in person or viewed on MyUni.

Tutorials . Tutorials are designed to help you understand the lecture material, but may touch on other topics as student interest dicates. Practice in basic logical skills is essential to do well in this course, and tutorials are your main opportunity to get feedback and advice on how well you are mastering the techniques and knowledge involved. Tutorials will be structured largely around discussion of the weekly quizzes, so you should ensure you have completed these and brought your answers along to the tutorial.

The information below is provided as a guide to assist students in engaging appropriately with the course requirements.

Learning Activities Summary

As the exact ordering of material in the text is , this summary of course learning activities is preliminary and subject to change.

Specific Course Requirements

Tutorial participation is essential for developing the skills you need to succeed in this course. To encourage it, this course requires attendance at a minimum of seven out of ten tutorials. If you miss your tutorial, you may be able to make it up by attending another tutorial in that same week – contact your tutor.

You will incur a penalty of 3% per tutorial for any further absences, up to a maximum of 9%, unless you provide a medical certificate or counsellor’s note justifying the absence. The penalty is deducted from your overall course mark.

Small Group Discovery Experience

Assessment summary, assessment detail.

Assessment in this course is based on two components: weekly online quizzes, and in class tests.

Weekly quizzes . There will be 10 weekly quizzes in this course. They will be online, and generally multiple choice or similar. Each will be up for one week, and must be submitted before the first tutorial that will run in a given week. (Answers will be discussed in tutorials.) Each quiz is worth 5% of the final grade, but the two lowest-scoring quizzes will not be counted, so only your eight best results will collectively contribute 40% of your final grade.

In class tests . There are three in-class tests, which will take place during normal lecture period. The tests will be open-book: you can bring your notes and textbooks with you. Tests are roughly equally spaced through the semester. Each test will have as its main focus material from the preceding four weeks, but as logic and this course are cumultative, the later tests will also presuppose familiarity with material from earlier in the course too. Please be on time!

This course has no final exam.

No information currently available.

Course Grading

Grades for your performance in this course will be awarded in accordance with the following scheme:

Further details of the grades/results can be obtained from Examinations .

Grade Descriptors are available which provide a general guide to the standard of work that is expected at each grade level. More information at Assessment for Coursework Programs .

Final results for this course will be made available through Access Adelaide .

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Logic and Critical Thinking (I Year I Semester) Course OutLine

• Logic and Critical Thinking (I Year I Semester)
• Course OutLine

PHI 201 - Logic and Critical Thinking (3 Cr)

Topic outline, logic and critical thinking (3 credits).

This course improves your God-given ability to think. You learn how to use logic and critical thinking to formulate clear, sound arguments, evaluate others' reasoning and evidence, and detect fallacies in flawed arguments. You will learn key elements of argument structure, inductive reasoning, probability, deductive reasoning, formal logic, and categorical logic.

Outcomes 1. Understand the essential concepts, principles, and methods of logical reasoning 2. Be able to detect and avoid fallacious reasoning in the arguments of others and in your own arguments 3. Be capable of formulating and evaluating both deductive and inductive arguments 4. Appreciate the value of critical reasoning and precision in the use of language 5. Continue to develop habits of thinking and communicating with logical rigor and clarity

Resources 1. Main textbook: Matthew J. Van Cleave, Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking. Dr. Van Cleave earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Cincinnati and is Professor at Lansing Community College. This book is made available through Open Textbook Library. David Feddes selected portions of the book for this course and made some minor changes. 2. Video lectures by David Feddes. Among his other studies, Dr. Feddes earned a degree in philosophy, including the study of symbolic logic and modal logic.

Assignments Read all online materials from the textbook and view all video presentations. Unlike many courses, this class doesn't have just one quiz at the end of a unit. There may be several exercises or quizzes in a unit. Make sure you do every exercise.

Quizzes will allow for two attempts. The average of these two attempts will be your final grade for the given quiz. 

Important note: Once all course quizzes have been taken AND the final feedback quiz has been completed, you will receive a final grade for the course, which will be recorded on your transcript. If a course allows more than one attempt, but you've completed at least one-attempt on each quiz and submitted the final feedback thus receiving a final grade, you will not be able to update that final grade by attempting a quiz again afterward. Once your final grade is recorded on your transcript, it will not be updated based on additional quiz attempts.

Accessibility

All of the videos have slides to accompany them. 

Grading Scale A 95-100%   A- 90-94%   B+ 87-89%   B 83-86%   B- 80-82%   C+ 77-79%   C 73-76%   C- 70-72%    D+ 67-69%   D 63-66%   D- 60-62%   F 0-59% Your average for the course must be at least 60%. Otherwise, you will fail the class and will receive no credit.

Deadline You have 180 days to finish the course. Complete all assignments before the final deadline, or you will be automatically unenrolled, and all coursework will be removed. You will have to start over and retake the class to receive credit.

Unit 1: Improve Your Thinking

Unit 2: Arguments

Unit 3: Complex Arguments

We are aware that the audio is out of sync and are working to correct that. 

Unit 4: Inductive and Analogical Reasoning

Unit 5: Causal Reasoning and Probability

Unit 6: Validity, Soundness, and Deductive arguments

Unit 7: Formal Methods of Evaluating Arguments

Unit 8: Truth Tables

Unit 9: Conditionals

Days 91-100

Unit 10: Valid Inferences

Days 101-110

Unit 11: Constructing Proofs

Days 111-120

Unit 12: categorical logic, days 121-150.

The course has ended. Please make sure all quizzes have been completed. If your work is incomplete, it is considered a drop, and you will have to take the class again in order to receive credit.

Days 151-180

Our staff will be using this time to review your work. Your grade should appear on your "My Home Page" in the "Course Overview" section.  Please contact Helpdesk if you have any questions or did not receive your grade.

Below you will find a series of lectures on logic by Dr. Roy Clouser. You are not required to view these, but they are available if you want dig deeper into logic.

Critical thinking definition

Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.

Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.

However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.

People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:

• Developing technical and problem-solving skills
• Engaging in more active listening
• Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
• Seeking out more diversity of thought
• Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:

• What information should be included?
• Which information resources should the author look to?
• What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
• What is the most effective way to show information?
• How should the report be organized?
• How should it be designed?
• What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?

Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?

Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.

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