Hey there! Welcome to this crash course on critical thinking. I've designed this course so you can learn the basics about what it means to think critically. Not only is this intended for you to learn what critical thinking means, it's also intended for you to learn what kind of reasonings are adequate for being rational and forming your own beliefs and knowledge, and what kinds of reasonings are fallacious or wrong to use because they don't make sense logically. In other words, you will learn how to think critically about arguments and to understand the basics of logical reasoning.
Critical thinking encompasses a large set of skills in order to better understand and think about something that's presented to you (usually in an argument, but also through a book, an essay, a statement, a journalistic piece, a podcast, etc.). On the one hand, I hope that you'll be able to learn different ways of exercising critical thinking (through logical fallacies, analyzing the validity of an argument, etc.). But on the other hand, I also hope that you'll be able to learn how to apply these methods, which is why I designed this course in a way that's interactive and meant for you to engage with the materials.
Are you ready? Let's dive in!
Quizzes
Feel free to test yourself by completing the quizzes in each section! To take a quiz, create your own account or sign in by using the following credentials:
Username: guest_
Password: guest_
Teaching Statement (This course is under construction.)
Creating this course is a hobby for me. I'm working on this whenever my busy PhD schedule allows me to. I'm doing this because I'm enjoying it, but also because I'm looking for ways to work on my own teaching experience in philosophy. Using this platform allows me to think about ways in which technology can help me teach philosophy and make certain things (like critical thinking) more accessible to a wider audience.
This course and the "textbook" that comes with it are largely based on Matthew Van Cleave's Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking textbook which is also available here for free. His textbook is copyrighted with the Creative Commons 4.0 license, which allows alterations and free usage. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I preferred to complement his work by adding interactive H5P exercises as well as supplemental schemas. I have altered the text in some places for sake of clarity and ease of reading. I do not intend to financially profit from his work.