This course will be dedicated to the acquisition of skills that
philosophers and others use in reasoning and argumentation.  The
point is to learn these skills in such a way that they can be put to
use in academia and beyond‹essentially any place where construction
and analysis of arguments is important.  We will strive toward this
goal in three stages: the first will deal with basic principles of
reasoning‹here we will learn the more formal tools that philosophers
and others use to evaluate arguments.  The second will address these
tools concretely by putting them into practice‹here we will begin to
bring to the classroom arguments that you, the students, find from
popular sources.  The point of this is to learn to spot and evaluate
the arguments that you read in a everyday context.  The third stage
will address the construction of arguments.  You will be asked to put
together arguments of your own making, keeping in mind the skills you
have learned regarding what makes a good and bad argument.  This
final stage will focus on the skill of taking an argument that has
been constructed and constructing a coherent paper around that
argument.

There will be a midterm and a final, a series of short quizzes, a
series of short summary/ analysis papers, and a final argument
essay.  While this may sound like a great deal of work, the actual
time spent on these projects will most likely be less than the same
for other courses.  The activity that will consume most of your time
for this class will be thinking itself.  As is the nature of such a
course, this course will not force you to waste time in busy work,
but will make up for such in depth and quality of work and time spent.
Your grade for the course will be determined by your performance
on the midterm and final, the summaries, the quizzes, the final
essay, and also participation.  The midterm and final are worth 25%
each, the summaries and worth 15%, the quizzes 10%, and participation
10%.
Texts:  Critical Thinking.  Richard L. Epstein.  Wadsworth Publishing
Company.  1999.
Philosophical Writing.  A. P. Martinich.  Blackwell Publishing
Company. 1996.