Kirkwood Community College
6301 Kirkwood Blvd. SW
P.O. Box 2068
Cedar Rapids, IA 52406-2068
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PN105T Basic Reasoning Spring 2001

Instructor: Dr. Chris McCord 

Syllabus

Office: Cedar Hall 218

Office Hours: 10:05-11:05, MWF

Office Phone: 319-398-5899, ext.5713

Email: cmccord@kirkwood.cc.ia.us

Sections: 59485 (T 2:30-325, R 1:25-3:25 in BH301); 59486 (6-9 pm in BH 316)

Texts and Other Purchases:

Moore and Parker, Critical Thinking (sixth edition)

_____________’s Basic Reasoning Journal [I will give you this in class]

1 sheet of white posterboard [I will show you what is in class]

 

Description:

At one time or another, we have all suffered the frustration of losing an argument. The loss is all the more frustrating when it seems to be the result of a lack of clarity on our part. "I just couldn’t explain what I meant," the defeated party often complains in the aftermath. This course is designed to improve your ability to argue. More specifically, it will enhance your ability to understand, construct, and critically evaluate arguments. The nature of arguments, standardization and evaluation of arguments, deductive and inductive relations, and the formal and informal fallacies are among the topics explored.

 

Course Objectives:

In this course, you will:

  1. Learn what an argument is.
  2. Learn how to critically evaluate your own arguments and the arguments of others.
  3. Use and develop critical thinking skills through writing and discussion.
  4. Learn methods for testing an argument’s validity.
  5. Improve writing skills.

Note: The improvement of critical thinking and writing skills is a general education requirement. Mastery of course content is a specific education requirement.

 

A Note about the Format of this Course:

While there will be some lecture in this course, there will also be quite a bit of student-centered discussion. Come prepared to discuss focus questions and ready to participate in all group activities.

Tentative Course Schedule:

Units:

1: What is critical thinking? Read Moore and Parker, chp.1. Do relevant focus questions (fq)

2: Continue discussion of the nature of critical thinking.

3: Begin introduction to critical thinking. Evaluation of arguments: Read Govier handout on arguments and Moore and Parker’s section on evaluating arguments in chapter 8. Do fq. Read Moore and Parker chp.8 and do relevant fq. Unstated premises: read relevant readings in Moore and Parker; How to diagram: read relevant pages in Moore and Parker. Do fq. Sacrifice of First Born.

4. Finish previous discussion. Acceptable Premises: Read Moore and Parker, chp.2. Do fq.

5 Entertainment and Columbine. Continue discussion of acceptable premises: Read chp.3. Do fq.

6: Exam 1 on first class of next week. Finish chp.3. Irrelevant Information: Slanters: Read chp.4. Do fq. Review for exam 1.

7: Take exam 1. Continue chapter 4. Do fq.

8: Irrelevant Information: Pseudoreasoning: Read chp.5. Do fq. Confederate Flag.

9: Finish chp.5. More on Pseudoreasoning: chp.6. Do fq.

10: Finish chp.6.

11: Globalized Capitalism

12: Exam 2 during first class period of next week. Categorical logic: Read portions of chp.9, get classnotes. Do fq. Review for exam 2.

13: Take exam 2 during first class meeting of this week. More on Categorical logic: continue discussion of chp.9 and fq.

  1. Begin Propositional logic. Read portions of chp.10. Do fq.

15: More on Propositional logic. Continue and discuss fq. New Thought Experiment

16: Finish remaining work and review for final exam. Impeachment of Clinton.

Basic Reasoning Quiz topics

The Sacrifice of the First Born: Read the handout provided. Then argue for or against the moral permissibility of the sacrifice for the tribe on your argument worksheet.

The Entertainment Industry and the Columbine Killings: Did movies such as The Matrix and music such as that of Marilyn Manson in some sense trigger violent behavior in teenage listeners? On one argument worksheet, offer the most plausible argument you can give that entertainment can and has triggered violent behavior in teens. On the second worksheet, offer the most plausible argument you can give that it has not and cannot.

 

Hate, Heritage, and the Confederate Flag: Read the essay "Confederate Flag debate widens rift …". Then argue for one of the following: a) that it should be free to fly on government grounds near the Confederate Soldiers’ monument; b) that it should not fly on any government grounds. Put your argument on the worksheet.

"Globalized" Capitalism. Read the two pieces on globalization and its critics. Figure out a definition of "globalization" and write it at the top of one of your argument worksheets. Then write the most plausible argument against globalization on one argument work sheet. Then write the most plausible argument for it on another sheet.

The Impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton

 

 

Grades:

5 quiz grades at 10 points each

Journal grade – 50 points

Exam 1 – 100 points

Exam 2—100 points

Final Exam – 100 points

 

Final Exam Dates: For the T 2:30 class, the exam is on Thursday, May 10, at 1:25.

For the evening class, the exam is on Thursday, May 10, at our regular time.

 

 

WHAT ARE THE COURSE REQUIREMENTS?

You will be graded on the following assignments: exam #1, exam #2, exam #3, quizzes, and your journal.

 

Exams: The primary purpose of each exam is to test your understanding of material previously covered (e.g., the arguments of a philosopher, objections to that argument). Tests will include some of the following types of questions: short answer, true or false, multiple choice, and possibly essay.

 

The Journal and Quizzes: The primary purpose of the journal and quizzes is to develop your own ability to offer and critically evaluate original philosophical argumentation, as well as analyze the arguments of others. Be sure to do a good job in answering each question.

 

Many of the journal and quiz questions can be answered by solving a problem. For these questions, simply write down what you take to be the correct answer. For questions involving more complex use of the English language, I have prepared some guidelines to follow. Before turning to these guidelines, consider this question: Should drunk driving remain illegal? Below are student responses to this journal question that serve as examples of bad writing and reasonably good writing.

 

Bad Writing: "Drunk diving bad: death"

 

 

Good Writing:

"Drunk driving endangers your life as well as the lives of others. If a behavior poses an immediate threat to human life, then it should be made illegal. So, drunk driving should remain illegal.

 

My second premise (the claim that if a behavior poses an immediate threat to human life, it should be made illegal) can be shown to be true by thinking of the example of murder. The reason we think murder should be illegal is because it poses an immediate threat to human life. So, if a behavior poses an immediate threat to human life, then it should be made illegal."

 

 

Reasonably well-written journal answers will have the following elements:

 

  1. They should be in highly legible handwriting (the reader should be able to read your handwriting with no difficulty or guesswork), spelled correctly, and written in complete sentences. It is your responsibility to use a handwriting style I can read without difficulty, and to spell words correctly. In the example of bad writing, a word is misspelled (driving) and the author’s point is not put into a complete sentence. Imagine those words being scrawled in an illegible chicken scratch. This would be a poor answer to a question.

    2.  
  2. They should be composed of sentences clear in meaning and clearly structured, and should be complete, fully developed answers. Notice how the author of the good answer takes the time to fully and clearly develop her point. In the bad case, the author doesn’t completely develop her thoughts; instead, she gives you a single word that merely hints at her answer. She expects you to do the work she didn’t do – the work of fully developing a line of reasoning.

 

3) They should be accurate and, when original thought is required, insightful. Suppose the author of the bad answer adds this sentence to her answer:

 

It is bad because everyone who drives drunk dies.

 

This is not a good addition to the answer because – as stated – it is clearly false. Sometimes people drive drunk and don’t die. Don’t be careless – see to it that your answers are accurate or at least, as accurate as possible. On many of the questions, this means you should read the text carefully.

 

Finally, notice how the original thought of the bad example is not insightful. If you ask a young child why we shouldn’t drink and drive, she would be likely to give the same answer: "you’ll die." In the second case, however, more philosophical thinking is happening. The author is appealing to the case of murder to prove a principle that will prove drunk driving should be illegal.

 

To test whether your answers (to questions requiring original thought) are insightful, ask yourself this:

 

If I ask a child (or someone on the street who is responding off the top of her head) this question, would they be likely to give the same argument? If so, you aren’t really breaking new, original ground. So your answer may lack genuine insight.

 

I will give you some examples of "perfect" journal answers, and check your journal progress as we go through the semester. At the end of the semester, I will take your journal and put a grade on it. The grading will be as follows:

 

Completed journals (i.e., journals with all questions answered) that meet conditions 1-3 for all questions will receive A+ grades.

 

Journals that more often than not meet all of conditions 1-3 for each question, but that occasionally fail to meet some of the conditions, will receive B grades.

 

Journals that often fail to meet all of the conditions for all questions, but that are complete and show evidence of much serious thought will receive C grades.

 

Journals with questions that are unanswered, or with questions with incoherent or outrageously inaccurate answers will receive Ds or Fs. Failure to turn in a journal will result in an F grade.

 

If you lose your journal, I will be happy to give you another blank journal. However, the fact that you lost it will not count in your favor when I grade the journal. For this reason, I recommend that you make copies of your journal responses.

 

If you wish, you may number word-processed answers in accordance with the journal numbers. At the end of the semester, then, you would submit these answers attached to the end of your blank journal.

 

To make this a great class, you must keep up with journal assignments as they are made. This will improve your scores on the exams we take. Because this is so important to the quality of the class, I reserve the right to subtract points from the final journal score of students who do not come to class with journal assignments completed (5 points each time). I encourage you to work with others on your journals. However, you should answer questions requiring original thought with your own ideas.

 

Timely Completion of Reading Assignments, Journal Assignments, and other Homework Assignments, Attendance, Behavior and Attitude: 50 points out of the total 400 points in the course are used to ensure the following:

1) that you attend class

2) that you complete and do your best work on quizzes

3) that you do not behave in a fashion that produce an uncomfortable learning environment for other students or an uncomfortable teaching environment for your instructor.

 

Attendance: You are allowed 4 hours of absences (or lates, since I count each time you attend class late as an absence) without consequences (we meet for two hours a day). For each hour of class you miss beyond the 4, you will lose 5 points of the fifty. If I fail to take roll, then you do not lose the points.

 

If I cancel a class, then I am required to bring candy to the class ASAP. If (don’t worry – this has only happened once in my 10 years of teaching) I simply don’t show up for the class, then I am required to bring the class pizza.

 

Completion of Assignments: Sometimes, I may give quizzes in class or take pages from your journal or take up homework assignments. In such cases, each assignment is worth 5 or more of the fifty points for students present in the classroom. Students not in attendance will be penalized both for their failure to attend and their failure to turn in the assignment.(i.e., they will lose an additional 5 points for not completing the assignment(s)).

 

Behavior/Attitude: Students in attendance can also lose points for behaving in a fashion that produces an uncomfortable learning environment for other students or an uncomfortable teaching environment for your instructor. To avoid such a docking, don’t do the following:

 

- chat with your neighbor while the instructor or another student is talking

- sit silently after the instructor asks a question

- engage in negative, non-verbal behavior such as rolling your eyes, looking at the clock. If you think someone is saying something stupid, don’t grin about it.

 

In short, don’t be rude – if you do the above behaviors or any other behaviors I judge to be rude, I will dock you 5 points. As instructor of the class, I reserve the right to make this judgment.

 

If I am genuinely rude to one or more students, I will bring candy. Note: When a student is rude, I usually express anger – this anger will not be counted as rude.

 

Yes, there are many ways to lose the fifty points – but by being a conscientious student, you can easily collect these points. No one will lose more than the total fifty points (just as you can never owe your local video rental store more than the cost of the videotape).

 

Drop Date: The last day to withdraw from this class is April 17th.

 

Make-up Test Policy: If you cannot take an exam during the scheduled class period, please speak with me on or before the class period. Make-ups must be completed before I give exams back to the class; if you have not completed the make-up by that time, you will not be able to do the make-up. Make-up exams are more writing intensive than the exams taken in class (i.e., I purposely make them harder). This is only fair, since one who takes a make-up has extra study time (the real reason I make them harder, though, is to discourage people from taking them unless it is absolutely necessary). I proctor all make-up exams myself, so make arrangements to be free during my office hours.

 

Students with Disabilities Policy: Students with disabilities who need accommodations should notify me within the first week of class and file an accommodation application with the Developmental Education Department (in Linn Hall 133) as soon as possible.

 

Late Start: If Kirkwood has a late start, you should report to the class in which you’d ordinarily be at the time of the late start, unless the late start begins when the class ends.

 

Plagiarism Policy:

To plagiarize is "to steal or pass off the ideas or words of another as one’s own . . .to use created productions without crediting the source . . . to commit literary theft. . .to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source." (Webster)

Kirkwood students are responsible for authenticating any assignment submitted to an instructor. If asked, you must be able to produce proof that the assignment you submit is actually your own work. Therefore, we recommend that you engage in a verifiable working process on all assignments. Keep copies of drafts, make photocopies of research materials, write summaries of research materials, hang onto Writing Center receipts, keep logs, journals, outlines, or rough sketches that show your work in progress, save early versions of assignments under individual file names on computer or diskette.

The inability to authenticate your work, should an instructor request it, is sufficient ground for failing the assignment.

In addition to requiring a student to authenticate his/her work, Kirkwood Community College instructors may employ various other means of ascertaining authenticity—such as engaging in Internet searches, creating quizzes based on student work, requiring students to explain their work and/or process orally, etc.

 

Grading:

Your course grade can be broken down as follows:

75%: 3 in-class examinations

25% journal, quizzes, behavior

 

To calculate your current grade, simply add the scores of your current grades together and divide by the number of grades you have.

 

Example: Susy has a 90 and a 70. 90 plus 70 = 160. 160 divided by 2 = 80. So Susy’s current grade is an 80.

 

I will not be giving you a record of your grade, so keep your own record here:

 

Test 1:____

Test 2:____

Test 3:____

It isn’t possible to figure in quizzes, attendance, and the journal until I calculate final grades at the end of the semester. So just use exam grades to estimate your present grade in the class.

 

 

Grading Scale: A = 93% A- = 90%

B+ = 87% B = 83% B- = 80%

C+ = 77% C = 73% C- = 70%

D+ = 67% D = 63% D-= 60% F = below 60%

Office visitation: My office is 218 Cedar Hall. I would like for each student to visit me at least one time during the semester. I would love for you to stop by to discuss philosophy! Feel free to contact me at home. I will also be happy to discuss problems you may be having, academic or otherwise.

 

Catalog Information:

Here is how this course is listed in the Kirkwood catalog:

 

 

PN105T Basic Reasoning 3 credit hours

Introduces both formal and informal aspects of reasoning and argument, including principles of deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, informal fallacies, and critical thinking.

 

Department Contact Information: This course is offered through the Kirkwood Arts and Humanities Department, 398-4913, 337 Cedar Hall.