Morgan Most disciplines operate within a framework of assumptions and approaches which guide and limit what is to be studied. Philosophy seeks an outlook which reaches beyond such narrow perspectives and which questions even the most fundamental attitudes regarding the nature of knowledge and life. The objective is to place our education in a broader perspective urging us to seek connections between our formal and informal learning and between our public and private lives. Philosophy students develop a number of critical reasoning skills useful in all aspects of life. We are constantly bombarded with attempts to persuade us that a certain idea is true, that a certain product is the best, that we ought to support or oppose a certain candidate or that we ought to favor or oppose a particular piece of egislation.
Logic is the study of reasoning and argumentation.
Logic students learn to construct and to analyze argumentative passages and other examples of efforts to persuade. We identify various kinds of arguments. We examine the process of constructing and evaluating definitions and their role in argumentation. We look at different kinds of language and how the choice of words can affect interpretation, emotional reactions, and the control of implicit assumptions. We identify various means of deception.