2024

Critical Thinking and Argumentation

Name: Critical Thinking and Argumentation
Code: FIL02321L
6 ECTS
Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours
Scientific Area: Philosophy

Teaching languages: Portuguese
Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese
Regime de Frequência: Presencial

Sustainable Development Goals

Learning Goals

This course on critical thinking intends to contribute to a better performance of students whenever they have:
?to critically react to what they read in books, journals, newspapers or on the internet;
?to judge the quality of a speech or of a lecture;
?to actively participate in classes and seminars;
?to build an argument of their own;
?to write an essay in defense of a certain conclusion.

Contents

Identific. of questions,positions and arguments
Arguments:conclu.and reasons
Implicit premises
Intermediary conclu.
Language:vagueness and ambiguity
Kinds of definitions
Facts and values
Objective and subjective judgements
Representing arguments with diagrams
Does the conclu. follow from the premises?
Probability in the premises
Strong and weak inductions
Principles of rational discussion
Common mistakes in the assessment of premises
Appeals to authority
Mistaking the person for the argument
Disjunctive and conditional claims,and how to deny them
Necessary and sufficient conditions
Reasoning from hypothesis
Contrafactual reasoning
Objecting and refuting
Presenting and assessing counter-examples
Appeals to emotion
Formal fallacies and fallacies with respect to content
Reasoning by analogy
Numbers:graphs and averages

Teaching Methods

Lecturing.
Analysis of argumentative techniques.
Discussion of examples.
Written tests and essays.

Teaching Staff