Course description and objectives

This is a 4-credit analytic reasoning (R2) general education course. Its primary objective is to strengthen your critical thinking and analytic reasoning skills.

This course covers methods for understanding and evaluating reasoning, arguments and inferences, of the sort found in daily life, political speeches, academic writing and beyond. We address such questions as: What is the structure of an argument? What considerations are relevant for determining its strength and cogency? What sorts of appeals to quantitative and scientific data are appropriate, and what sorts aren’t? What, if any, kinds of reasoning patterns can be identified as fallacious or abusive? How can we understand and overcome cognitive biases? The goals of this course include increasing students’ ability to reason well, and evaluate the reasoning of others charitably and critically. It aims to familiarize students with what makes an argument logically sound or cogent, and what makes one uncogent or unsound. Students should gain the ability to analyze, reconstruct and diagram arguments, as well as identify common sources of errors in reasoning, including fallacies and biases, as well as understand the nature of evidence and potential distortions to evidence. These skills will be applied to everyday reasoning, political contexts, scientific contexts, statistics and more specific contexts such as cause/effect reasoning. This is an analytic reasoning (R2) course, and 4 credits.

Contact information

Prof. Klement’s email is klement@umass.edu, and his office is South College E319. Office hours are Wednesdays 11am–noon, Fridays 2pm–3pm. You can also schedule an appointment at https://logic.umasscreate.net/appts/?view=klement., or click here to schedule an appointment.
TA Anupam Devkota’s email is adevkota@umass.edu, and his office is South College E306. Office hours are Mondays and Wednesdays 2pm–3pm and by appointment.

Course readings

We will be using a mixture of book chapters from various sources, typically logic and critical thinking textbooks. These are available to download as PDFs. We will be reading multiple chapters from the following books; you may download the entire texts here if you wish.

• Hurley: A Concise Introduction to Logic (11th ed.)
• Bowell and Kemp: Critical Thinking – A Concise Guide (4th ed.)
• Lau: An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity
• For all other readings, see the schedule below.

These are available to download from our website.

Requirements and grading

Points	Percent	Grade
465+	93–100%	A
450–464	90–92.8%	A−
435–449	87–89.8%	B+
415–434	83–86.8%	B
400–414	80–82.8%	B−
385–399	77–79.8%	C+
365–384	73–76.8%	C
350–364	70-72.8%	C−
335−349	67–69.8%	D+
300–334	60–66.8%	D
0–299	0–59.8%	F

Your final grade is based on (a) three in-class exams (20% each / 60% total), consisting primarily of multiple choice, definition and short-answer questions; (b) weekly homework assignments (30% total); and (c) your participation in discussion section (10% total). A score out 500 total points will be generated, and your final grade will be determined according to the chart on the right.

Homework exercises

Weekly homework assignments are completed through our website, and are typically due by 5pm on Mondays, covering the material from the previous week. There are some weeks when no homework is due. See the homework exercises page (link below) for the full schedule.The full schedule can be found on the website.

Academic honesty

Academic honesty is defined in the University Academic Regulations document (page 5), available at http://www.umass.edu/registrar/sites/default/files/academicregs.pdfthis link. Plagiarism and cheating are serious offenses that strike at the very heart of academic life, and will result in serious penalties, including minimally (but not limited to) receiving an F in the course.

Attendance Policy

Common courtesy demands that you come to class on time, and refrain from leaving early without special permission. Cell phones must be turned off for the duration of class. While attendance is not taken in lecture, attendance is vital for success. Attendance will be taken in discussion sections, and will factor into your participation grade.

Disabilities

I would like to hear from anyone who has a disability and may require special accommodations regarding exam-taking, note-taking or similar. Please obtain the appropriate paperwork from Disability Services and inform me far enough ahead of time to make the appropriate arrangements.

Lecture topics and reading schedule

Subject to change.

Day	Topic	Readings
Unit 1: Argument Analysis
Tu 3 Sept	Course Introduction
Th 5 Sept	Arguments, Premises, Conclusions	Hurley, section 1.1 (pp. 1–13)
Tu 10 Sept	Distinguishing Arguments from Other Discourse	Hurley, section 1.2 (pp. 14–25)
Th 12 Sept	Induction and Deduction	Hurley, section 1.3 (pp. 33–44)
Tu 17 Sept	Evaluating Arguments: Key Concepts	Hurley, sections 1.4–1.5 (pp. 44–64)
Th 19 Sept	Argument Maps	Hurley, section 1.6 (pp. 64–75)
Tu 24 Sept	Argument Reconstruction	Bowell and Kemp, chap. 5, start (pp. 133–153)
Th 26 Sept	Argument Reconstruction, continued	Bowell and Kemp, chap. 5, rest (pp. 153–183)
Tu 1 Oct	Evaluating Arguments: Best Practices	Feldman, chapter 7, sections I–II (pp. 191–212)
Th 3 Oct	— Exam #1 — (in class, 11:30am, LGRT 123)
Unit 2:
Tu 8 Oct	Class cancelled.
Th 10 Oct	Fallacies of Relevance	Hurley, sections 3.1–3.2 (pp. 119–138)
Tu 15 Oct	No class. University follows Monday schedule.
Th 17 Oct	Inductive Fallacies, Fallacies of Presumption	Hurley, section 3.3–3.4, start (pp. 138–159)
Tu 22 Oct	Begging the Question, Fallacies of Meaning	Hurley, section 3.4, remainder (pp. 160–178)
Th 24 Oct	Rethinking Traditional Fallacy Theory	David Hitchcock, “Do The Fallacies Have a Place in the Teaching of Reasoning Skills or Critical Thinking?”; J. A. Blair, “The Place of Teaching Informal Fallacies in Teaching Reasoning Skills or Critical Thinking” (pp. 319–338)
Tu 29 Oct	Cognitive Biases: Overview	Lau, chapter 20 (pp. 185–193)
Th 31 Oct	Cognitive Biases: Examples	“List of Cognitive Biases” (Wikipedia)
Tu 5 Nov	Cognitive Biases: Theoretical Issues	Gilovich and Griffin: “Introduction – Heuristics and Cognitive Biases: Then and Now”
Th 7 Nov	— Exam #2 — (in class, 11:30am, LGRT 123)
Unit 3: Weighing Evidence and Thinking Well
Tu 12 Nov	Belief, Knowledge and Truth	Bowell and Kemp, chapter 8 (pp. 264–288)
Th 14 Nov	Evidence and Acceptable Reasons	Hunter, chapter 4 (pp. 97–129)
Tu 19 Nov	Causation and Correlation	Lau, chapter 15 (pp. 133–140)
Th 21 Nov	Statistical Reasoning	Hurley, chapter 12 (pp. 571–592)
24–30 Nov	No class. Thanksgiving break.
Tu 3 Dec	Hypotheses and Scientific Reasoning	Hurley, chapter 13 (pp. 593–614)
Th 5 Dec	Open-Mindedness	Baron, chapter 9 (pp. 199–227)
Tu 10 Dec	Creative Thinking	Lau, chapters 23–24 (pp. 215–231)
Fr 13 Dec	— Exam #3 — (1pm, LGRT 123)