PHIL 246 Informal Logic
Often referred to as “Critical Thinking”, this course focuses on identifying, reconstructing, and evaluating the kind of reasoning we encounter everyday. It explores the internal relationship between evidence and explanation, as modeled by science and investigation (i.e., diagnostic reasoning), and exercises the skills involved in analytical reading and effective communication by articulating the structure of informal reasoning (i.e., where the truth of the premises does not guarantee the truth of conclusion). Examples of the kind of argument to be considered are those based on correlation, testimony, sampling, enumeration, prediction, and recommendation.