Chandra Kumar

chandrak@yorku.ca

Office Location: S401 Ross Building

Office Phone Number: (416) - 736 - 2100 Ext. 66449

Office Hour: Tuesday 1:00pm - 3:00pm

The main purpose of this course is to develop our capacities for critical reasoning about moral, political and social issues. ‘Critical reasoning’ refers to the use of logic, evidence and argument in forming and evaluating one’s own (or others’) opinions, in order to arrive at the most justified position possible on a given topic. Critical reasoning can help us to identify arguments (in books, journal articles, newspapers, films, literature, on television, radio, the internet, and so on), to detect fallacies and other weaknesses in those arguments, and to understand how those arguments may be rationally strengthened and improved – if they can be. The course is intended to enhance your capacity to identify, reconstruct, and evaluate arguments in general, and moral and political arguments in particular.

Philip Turetzky, The Elements of Logic: An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Logic (Broadview Press, 2019).

All other readings will be accessible online or provided to you electronically. Some readings will be accessible through Scott Library e-resources (for which you will need your York Passport ID), some will be accessible online (for which links will be provided), and some will be provided to you electronically by the Course Director. You can, of course, print these out if you wish to have hard copies. We may also watch one or two documentary films on some moral or political topic.

Readings will be announced on a class-to-class basis. This enables the Course Director to customize the curriculum by taking into account the progress of the discussions, and the interests and needs of the students, in each class.

Since this is not a MOODLE course, announcements, readings, assignments, etc. will be sent via email by the Course Director to the students’ ‘preferred email’ – the email address students gave as their ‘preferred email’ to York University.

1. Five short written assignments – due in class (dates TBA): 2% each, 10% total.
2. First in-class exam, Jan. 30, 20%.
3. Second in-class exam, Mar. 3, 20%.
4. Third in-class exam, Mar. 26, 20%.
5. Short essay, due no later than April 10, 30%.

In this course, we will focus on i) arguments and reasoning in general, and ii) moral, political, and social arguments and reasoning in particular. In the first area, we will go from relatively simple steps for identifying and evaluating arguments to more complex procedures for assessing more complex arguments and theories. In the second area, we will consider various moral and political issues. Readings on these issues—which may include topics such as terrorism, abortion, gender justice, poverty and climate change—will be provided.

Students will be responsible for submitting five short written assignments during this course (due dates TBA). The assignments will be very short – one or two paragraphs. For each assignment that you do not submit on time, you will lose 2% of your final grade. If you submit all five assignments on time, and do each assignment (more or less) properly, this gives you 10% of your final grade. All the assignments will be sent to you via email at least five days prior to the due date. There will also be three in-class, handwritten exams, each worth 20% of your final grade, and one short essay worth 30% of your final grade. This essay will be due one week after the last day of class, with essay topics provided in due course. So, the grade breakdown will