Joe Lau's wiki: Courses/2006b PHIL 1005

PHIL1005 Critical thinking and logic

Dr. Joe Lau
Semester 2, 2006-07 Thur 2-3pm, Fri 4-5pm, Library extension 1

Announcements

• [15 Jun] I have topped up the mobile phone fine and made a donation to St James Settlement. receipt
• [19 Apr] The marks for problem set 1 should be in order now. Please check. The mark under "pb1" is the mark for your highest attempt. The mark under "midterm" is the official mark which will be used to calculate your final grade. You can also view the statistical distribution of the marks from Web CT.
• [12 Apr] See the details for problem set #2. Also, tutorial exercise set #5 is now online.
• [3 Apr] Oops - it looks like there is a mistake with regard to the grading of question 4 (correct ans: F). I need to get Web CT to grade the problem set again and update the scores online. There is no need to send me emails about this until the official score is corrected later (and published under 'midterm'). I shall make an announcement here later when it is done.
• [2 Apr] On the Web CT site, clicking the "My Grades" tab on the left would show you two scores: "pb1" is your highest score for problem set #1 among all the attempts that you have made. "mid-term" is your official score. If you go to "assessment" and click "view all submissions", and click on any of the links to your attempts, you will see your individual answers.
• [2 Apr] If you have questions about the answers to problem set #1, please use the bulletin board to post your questions or ask your tutor. In the subject of your post, use "problem set 1 question X" if you want to discuss question X.
• [1 Apr] The model answers for problem set #1 is now on Web CT.
• [28 Mar] Tutorial exercise set #4 is now online. The second problem set will be due on Tue 22 May 2007. I shall post the details on this site in early April.
• [21 Mar] Results of problem set #1 will be announced at the end of March or early April. If you submitted your problem set more than once and have not read the notice, please do so now.
• [14 Mar 9:20am] Problem set #1 is now online on Web CT, a little bit earlier than scheduled.
• [13 Mar] Tutorial exercise set #3 is now online.
• [8 Mar] Details about the first problem set
• [2 Mar] The second set of tutorial exercises has been posted. Note that the tutorials might not have enough time to discuss all questions. Also, each set of exercises might be discussed in more than one tutorial.
• [1 Mar] Tutorial signup is now over. If you still have not joined any tutorial, you should contact Dr. Kelly Inglis immediately.
• [27 Feb] Because no student signed up for group 19, I have moved the tutorial to Monday to see if it might fit your schedule better. Group 19 will now meet on Monday at 2:00-2:50pm in MB Room 311. The tutor is Arthur Chin. Since it is past the first scheduled meeting, Arthur will inform the students about the arrangement for any makeup tutorials. The list of tutorials has been updated.
• [23 Feb] Tutorial signup has started. Please remember to download the exercises and bring them to the tutorials.
• [19 Feb] I have uploaded the first set of tutorial exercises to Web CT. Please print them out and bring to your tutorial. Read through them if you have the time.
• [17 Feb 5:37pm] IMPORTANT - I must apologize to all of you concerning the big hiccup about the tutorial signup arrangement. I have originally scheduled the tutorial signup sheet to be released at 11am today. But for some reason Web CT fails to execute that instruction. Unfortunately, due to a family medical emergency, I was at the hospital all day and did not have access to the internet and fail to realize that there was a problem. I sincerely apologize to all of you who have been waiting patiently for the signup sheet. New arrangement: I shall personally make sure that the signup sheet will appear online in Web CT beginning 10pm Friday 23 Feb. Should there be any changes I shall make further announcements on this page. Again, I am terribly sorry about this, and I shall explain more about this hiccup in the next lecture.
• [15 Feb] Important: Signing up for tutorials
• [8 Feb] As I said in the first lecture, there will be compulsory weekly group tutorials in this course. They probably will begin after the Chinese New Year holidays. I shall make an announcement as soon as the arrangements have been sorted out.
• mobile fine: $20

Getting help

• If you have questions about the content of the course, talk to your tutor. Or you can post a question to the discussion forum. There is also a link to the forum from within WebCT.
• You can email questions about course arrangements to Joe Lau.

Assessment

• Problem set #1 [20%], problem set #2 [25%], tutorial attendance and performance [15%], final exam [40%]

Readings

• Courses.GeneralInformation points 1,2,3
• Most required readings are online given by the links below. (Sorry, no PDF file for the web pages.) Please do the online exercises if there are any. They should help you understand the material.
• The powerpoint file for each section will be available from WebCT, usually at least three days before the scheduled date.
• ♣ : additional recommended / required reading on WebCT.
• If you want to read more about critical thinking, there is a reading list on http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/critical/resources.php

Provisional schedule

1. [1 Feb] Introduction (read C01 + ♣)
2. [2 Feb] Clarity 1 (M01,M03)
3. [8 Feb] Clarity 2 (optional:♣)
4. [9 Feb] Definitions (exercises of M02, M04 + ♣)
5. [15 Feb] Linguistic pitfalls 1 (M05-M07)
6. [16 Feb] Linguistic pitfalls 2
7. [1 Mar] Basic logic (L03 + ♣)
8. [2 Mar] Validity (no lecture) (A01-A04)
9. [8 Mar] Venn diagrams (no lecture) (V01-V05 + ♣)
10. [9 Mar] Question and answer session - ask any question you want about the topics above
11. [22 Mar] Argument analysis (♣)
12. [23 Mar] Inductive reasoning (no lecture) (♣)
13. [29 Mar] Standards of proof (A06 + ♣)
14. [30 Mar] Scientific reasoning (S01)
15. [12 Apr] Causation 1 (S04,S05)
16. [13 Apr] Causation 2
17. [19 Apr] Moral and legal reasoning (U04,U05)
18. [20 Apr] Fallacies (F01-05 + ♣)
19. [26 Apr] Rhetorical tricks and cognitive biases
20. [4 May] Last meeting - Q&A session