This course stresses the development of critical tools for the analysis and evaluation of arguments. Practical applications will make up a large part of the course work. These techniques will enable us to examine arguments in ordinary language with a better eye for the detection of weaknesses. Frequent short quizzes and a comprehensive final examination. The student is introduced to the basic features of symbolic logic and to some aspects of informal logic.
Attention is given to the practical importance of improving one's reasoning abilities.
Tuesdays and Thursdays, Peters. Careful attention will be given to the primary texts of the most important philosophers of the 17th and 18th centuries including, but not limited to, Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant. One longer research paper or three shorter papers. This course may be used to fulfill the research writing requirement. The second half of the term will involve an examination of the views of a number of contemporary philosophers of science, using what we have learned about the goings on during the Copernican revolution to evaluate their claims about what doing science involves.