THINK! Session #14, Reasoning Mistakes

HumanistsMN's mission includes a commitment to "educate the public about . . . the importance of science, reason, and critical thinking." Accordingly, we are again offering THINK!, a course intended to improve participants' thinking skills. This course is adapted from material Jerry Smith taught to upper-level undergraduate students at the University of Northern Iowa. It has been offered to HMN participants on several occasions, most recently in 2019-20. The course consists of seventeen sessions, one or two of which will be offered each month on Saturday afternoons.

Having completed two sessions on reasoning--deductive and practical--we will now look into the many ways in which our reasoning can go awry. Traditionally called "the fallacies of informal logic," these errors are standard topics of critical thinking texts and courses. After considering important general shortcomings of reasoning--for instance, jumping to conclusions--we'll look at ways in which generally reliable ways of reasoning--by induction or abduction, for instance--can be misused. We will also look at fallacies involving irrelevant appeals, arguments relying on evidence that is not really pertinent to the conclusion. This session makes extensive use of exercises that ask participants to identify the flaws in practical examples of reasoning.

While the course material is cumulative--each session draws on its predecessors--participants can still benefit if they were unable to attend earlier sessions. The course is taught using PowerPoint presentations; copies of the presentations for previous sessions can be found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1e416ZnchBVWzOt0WhWkEvo-MU18CR1v7

Although a lot of material will be covered, each session includes considerable time for attendee participation, as by identifying thinking mistakes, analyzing arguments, and responding to discussion questions.

So, if you've wanted to develop new thinking skills (or refurbish old ones), do come! Interested participants are welcome to join us after the event for dinner at Vina, a moderately priced Vietnamese restaurant located at 756 Cleveland Avenue South, a few blocks from the library.

This event is sponsored by HumanistsMN. If you are not already a member, please consider joining to help us cover our costs and build the humanist movement. Sign up at humanistsmn.org.