Short courses

Summary

We live in a world full of information, but often via competing sources, biases and subjective perspectives. From advertising to social media, politics and fake news, persuasive distortion and appeals to our instincts are also hard to avoid. We can even be unaware of our own cognitive bias and faulty thinking.  How do you know what is trustworthy information or not? How can you interrogate your own thinking to arrive at sounder opinions? 

Join this timely and reflective course to learn how to think more rationally and argue better. Find tools and techniques that enable you to think more logically and clearly, and reason more methodically. Learn how to spot bad arguments, effectively counter them, and reach more rigorous answers on any topic.  

Over a series of talks and key texts, our expert tutor will explain: 

• Some key foundational concepts, methods and techniques in logic and reasoning, including: 

• the structure of arguments  
• argument reconstruction and evaluation 
• deduction, induction, and rational persuasiveness  
• logical fallacies and cognitive biases 

• how these can be illustrated by ‘real world’ examples 
• Introduce students to some of the key philosophical figures and thinking in analytic philosophy 

You will also have the chance to discuss and reflect on what you learn with other students and the tutor in seminars  

Choose this course if you want to learn: 

• The fundamentals of logical thinking and how to apply them  
• How to employ basic techniques of argument reconstruction and evaluation  
• How to share your thinking in discussion and learn from others 
• (if assessment taken) how to explain and apply these ideas in writing, illustrating your thinking with examples