The Monash Critical Thinking Study

Course structure

Single semester course, 12 weeks of instruction.

One hour lecture per week.
One 2-hour tutorial per week.
4-6 homework assignments.
Tutorials and homework practice consists of:
1. Exercises constructed using LSAT logical reasoning questions
2. Analysis and evaluation, through class discussion and written work of example arguments. Various sources: philosophy, science, law, politics. Since semester 2, 2004 examples have been extracted from Peter Singer's book The President of Good and Evil. (Singer 2004).

Week 1-4: Argument analysis (identifying conclusions and premises, argument structure).

Week 5-6: Argument evaluation (truth, relevance, strength).

Week 7-8: Criticism (criticising arguments, repairing arguments).

Week 9-12: Fallacies.