Course Features
- Lectures 98
- Quizzes 10
- Duration 50 hours
- Skill level All levels
- Language English
- Students 0
- Certificate No
- Assessments Yes
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Section 1: Introductions
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Section 2: Why Critical Thinking is Important
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Section 3: The Five Pillars of Critical Thinking
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Section 4: Cognitive Biases and Critical Thinking
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Section 5: Tribalism, Polarization and Critical Thinking
- 18. Introduction
- 19. Belief, Identity and Resistance: Introduction to the Core Belief Model
- 20. What is Tribalism? Why is it Dangerous?
- 21. Our Tribal Intelligence: Personal vs Group Knowledge
- 22. In Our Tribe We Trust: How Group Identities Shape Our Thinking
- 23. Appendix to “Our Tribal Intelligence”: The Knowledge Illusion
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Section 6: Cognitive Biases, Tribalism and Politics
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Section 7: Special Topic: Critical Thinking About Science: The Vocabulary of Science
- 27. Introduction
- 28. Is Evolution a Theory, a Fact, or Both?
- 29. Overview
- 30. An Important Distinction: Epistemically Loaded versus Neutral Language
- 31. “Theory” as Down-Player
- 32. “Theory” as Up-Player
- 33. Why We Need an Epistemically Neutral Concept of “Theory”
- 34. A Neutral Definition of “Theory”: A Classical (but incomplete) Story
- 35. A Neutral Definition of “Theory”: A More Sophisticated Story
- 36. “You Can’t Deny the Facts”: An Epistemically Loaded Definition of “Fact”
- 37. “I Had the Facts Wrong”: An Epistemically Neutral Definition of “Fact”
- 38. Can There Be Theoretical Facts?
- 39. Epistemically Loaded Definitions of “Law”
- 40. Examples of Laws in Biology and Psychology
- 41. Examples of Laws in Astronomy and Physics
- 42. Unpacking the Neutral Concept of “Law”
- 43. But Are There Any Laws?
- 44. A Quick Word: Are Laws Explanatory?
- 45. “That’s Just a Hypothesis”: An Epistemically Loaded Definition of “Hypothesis”
- 46. An Epistemically Neutral Definition of “Hypothesis”
- 47. Introduction: What is a Model?
- 48. Maps and Models
- 49. Models as Tools For Reasoning About the World
- 50. How Equations Can Be Models
- 51. Is There a Difference Between a Model and a Theory?
- 52. Introduction: Theories, Models, Truth and Reality
- 53. The Challenge of Interpreting Scientific Theories
- 54. Prediction and Truth: Lessons from Ptolemy
- 55. Prediction and Truth: Lessons From the Kinetic Theory of Gases
- 56. Assignment: Critique a 7 Minute Video on the Vocabulary of Science
- 57. Here’s the Video: “Fact vs. Theory vs. Hypothesis vs. Law … EXPLAINED!”
- 58. 1. The Motivation For the Video
- 59. 2. “Scales of Truthiness”
- 60. 3. The Fundamental Error
- 61. 4. The Problem With Defining Facts in Terms of Observations
- 62. 5. Problems With Defining Hypotheses as Starting Points For Inquiry
- 63. 6. Problems With Defining Theories as Well-Supported
- 64. 7. Problems With Defining Evolution as an Observable Fact
- 65. 8. Problems With Defining Laws in Terms of Observations
- 66. 9. Can Laws Explain, or Do They Just Describe? Kepler, Newton and Einstein
- 67. 10. Analyzing the Last Slide
- 68. 11. Who is to Blame?
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Section 8: Special Topics
- 69. Critical Thinking About Conspiracies – PDF
- 70. Critical Thinking About Conspiracies (I) Introduction
- 71. Critical Thinking About Conspiracies (II): The Argument for Default Skepticism
- 72. Critical Thinking About Conspiracies (III):Mind Control and Falsifiability
- 73. Causation, God and the Big Bang – PDF
- 74. Causation, God and the Big Bang
- 75. Five Reasons to Major in Philosophy – PDF
- 76. Five Reasons to Major in Philosophy
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Section 9: Basic Concepts in Logic and Argumentation
- 77. Basic Concepts in Logic and Argumentation
- 78. What is an Argument?
- Quiz 1: What is an Argument?
- 79. What is a Claim, or Statement?
- 79. What is a Claim, or Statement?
- 80. What is a Good Argument? (I)
- 80. What is a Good Argument? (I)
- 81. Identifying Premises and Conclusions
- 81. Identifying Premises and Conclusions
- 82. The Truth Condition
- Quiz
- 83. The Logic Condition
- Quiz
- 84. Valid vs Invalid Arguments
- Quiz
- 85. Strong vs Weak Arguments
- Quiz
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Section 10: Basic Concepts in Propositional Logic
- 90. Basic Concepts in Propositional Logic – PDF Ebook
- 91. Introduction
- 92. Conjunctions (A and B)
- 93. Disjunctions (A or B)
- 94. Conditionals (If A then B)
- Quiz 13: Compound Claims
- 95. Contradictories (not-A)
- 96. Contradictories vs Contraries
- 97. Contradictions (A and not-A)
- 98. Consistent vs Inconsistent Sets of Claims
- Quiz 14: Contradictories, Contraries and Consistency
- 99. not-(not-A)
- 100. not-(A and B)
- 101. not-(A or B)
- 102. not-(If A then B)