I’ll be teaching critical thinking skills online this November. With a new, easier, lower priced textbook: Logically Fallacious: The Ultimate Collection of Over 300 Logical Fallacies, the new Academic Edition, by Bo Bennett of The Humanist Hour. Get your copy now! And register today! Class starts November 1.
Learn the basics you need in logic, cognitive science, and reasoning about probability, to be a better, sharper thinker, about everything that matters in your life.
Or spread the word. Tell any of your friends or contacts who might be interested. Lots of people might want to hone their knowledge and skills in this domain. And this class is all about helping with that.
What will this course cover? Why take it? Here is the course description…
Richard Carrier (Ph.D., Columbia University) will provide instruction and advice on the new skills now needed to become a good critical thinker in the 21st century in his new course “Critical Thinking in the 21st Century: Essential Skills Everyone Should Master” during November 2015.
Based on Dr. Carrier’s acclaimed presentation for the Secular Student Alliance, this course will:
- Teach students standard skills in traditional logic and fallacies.
- Cover cognitive biases and how to detect and avoid them, including motivated reasoning and the problems associated with a political brain.
- Bayes’ Theorem, and Bayesian problem solving, for the non-mathematician, and other skills in reasoning about probability.
- Learning how to see things from someone else’s perspective.
- Useful skills of self-examination, self-critique, and personal improvement in thinking & reasoning, for personal belief development and the acquisition of wisdom.
Each student will be left with a complete toolbox of ideas and information to work with, which will make them sharper thinkers in every domain.
You can register for the class here.
You can procure the required course text here (print or kindle).
All other materials will be provided.
Study and participate on your own time. And participate as much or as little as you want.
But how do I know that the course is new and improved? Improved on what criteria?*
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*Do I pass?
Nice.
Of course, examined with an astute critical eye, that it is built around a different textbook, supplies a clue to the answer.
Although, I could add, it has also been improved in light of feedback from students of the last version of this course I taught. (One such change is the textbook. And I might try yet another next year. I’m not happy with any. But using this one is a very different approach from the last one.)
I think this place would be great place to ask this:
Argument: We don’t expect contemporary mentions about Jesus to exist, because who would be interested of writing about some nutjob hillbilly at the periferia of Palestine, who claims he has made miracles.
Fact: Jesus is depicted in the Gospels as a miracle worker with hundreds of followers and eyewitnesses.
– – – –
What kind of fallacy is there in the argument? Clearly argument doesn’t represent the actual claim that is made by the Gosples, that Jesus was hugely followed at his time and his miracles was witnessed by the hundreds of people combined, and therefore contemporary historians and other writers would have had a reason to mention Jesus. So the facts and argument are not in line.
So what fallacy is there? Strawman?
Well, okay. 🙂
Half in jest…
First. You didn’t actually describe an argument.
Second. You referred to two arguments, and didn’t make clear which you were asking about by the end.
The first of those arguments is the only one you labeled an “argument,” and as presented it has this structure:
P1. We don’t expect contemporary mentions about Jesus to exist, because [no one] would be interested of writing about some nutjob hillbilly at the periferia of Palestine, who claims he has made miracles.
P2. ?
C1. ?
We can’t even infer what the argument is (the conclusion, or C1) without knowing what minor premise it’s to be paired with (P2).
For example, it could be either:
P2(a). If we expect no evidence to survive and no evidence survives, then Jesus existed.
Or
P2(b). If we expect no evidence to survive and no evidence survives, then whether Jesus existed cannot be determined by the absence of evidence.
(a) would be an unsound premise. (b) would be a sound premise. And it would produce the conclusion:
C1(b). Whether Jesus existed cannot be determined by the absence of evidence.
And I concur (I discuss this in OHJ, ch. 8.2 and 8.3). But of course, this only follows if P1 is true. Which requires admitting the Gospels are grossly legendary. And that has consequences, e.g. you then can’t claim legendary development can’t occur that fast, since affirming P1 entails that it did (I discuss this in OHJ, ch. 6.7). Likewise, you also then can’t claim the Gospels are reliable histories, since affirming P1 entails they are not (the lesson ofr OHJ, ch. 10, is that one must accept that the exaggerated fictions in the Gospels are not improbable on historicity, because otherwise, the Gospels become evidence against the existence of Jesus). And this does entail problems for historicity theorists (if Jesus wasn’t as famous as depicted in the Gospels, how did he earn such a fanatical exaltation and following despite his death? Cf. OHJ, pp. 574-75, n. 82 and p. 557, n. 55).
But if you are comfortable with all of that, you can use P1 to correctly argue that the absence of evidence does not reduce the probability that Jesus existed (so long as you accept “existed” in the now reduced sense).
The second argument you present is the “Fact” that the Gospel Jesus is depicted as wildly famous. This, too, can be used in a sound argument (e.g. that concludes “Therefore, the Gospels are not reliable histories but fabricate historical facts about Jesus”) or in an unsound one (e.g. that concludes “The Gospel Jesus probably didn’t exist, therefore Jesus didn’t exist at all”).
Etc.
So your question can’t be answered without a compete argument (either one, or maybe even both, if one is meant to argue against the other).
Does this course explain *why* there is logic “in” the universe?
Thanks
A
No. That is covered in my other course, on naturalism as a worldview. Which I will offer again next year. It is also a subject raised in my Counter-Apologetics course, which I will also offer again sometime next year, possibly before my naturalism course.
Sorry if this is a very basic question, but this would be my first ever online lecture …
Is the course foreigner-friendly ? I am (hopefully) fluent enough in english to follow the course and get most of if, but I am rather worried about “attendence” time, time at which people usually interract, etc. I am French, live in France, and work full time, so I would like to be sure that it is compatible with my schedule (including time difference) before signing up…
Thanks
Adrien
Oh yes! This is more like a correspondence course. There is no live interaction. And no scheduled events.
You can login anytime you want, any day, day or night, as often as you want, and view or download and complete reading assignments. Then (if you want) you can answer the equivalent of test questions I pose in the class online forums (so, you just provide typed and submitted text). I will comment and advise on everyone’s answers. And you can ask questions about or discuss my comments. And so on.
At the same time, you get to ask me any questions you want about the course subject, as many and as often as you want during the course, especially as relates to each unit (there are four units, roughly one for each week), just by posting the question in the course online forums. Then I will answer in a day or two (depending on what day of the week it is), and you can ask follow up questions to my answers, and so on. Students also discuss things together in the online forums sometimes, and are welcome to as much as they like. I read those discussions as well and comment if necessary.