Dr. Philip MacEwen
pmacewen@yorku.ca

Office hours: Students can meet with the Course Director after the weekly lectures. If you wish to meet with your Teaching Assistant, please consult/contact that person after classes begin.

This course is an introduction 1) to the nature of reasoning and 2) how one can/should reason about some of the major social issues of our time.

Technical requirements for taking the course: This is an in-class course. In other words, in-person lectures and tutorials will be held each week. Students are expected to attend lectures and tutorials regularly. While no marks are given for lecture and tutorial attendance, students must attend classes regularly in order to understand course material. Lectures and tutorials will not be video recorded. However, a website will be maintained to keep students apprised of what is going on in the course. To log onto the website, students will need to a) be registered in the course and b) have a computer with high-speed Internet access.

Here are some useful links for student computing information, resources and help:

Student Guide to Moodle

Zoom@YorkU Best Practices 

Zoom@YorkU User Reference Guide

Computing for Students Website

Student Guide to eLearning at York University

To determine Internet connection and speed, there are online tests, such as Speedtest, that can be run.]

Times and locations: Weekly lectures will be given on Monday, 11:30 am-1:30 pm. Please check your course schedule for the location of the lectures. Weekly tutorials will also be held. Please check your course schedule for the times and locations of your tutorials.

The course text/readings will all be posted on the course website. There are no other required course texts/ readings.

There are 5 short group-writing assignments in the course, each worth 20% of the final grade (20x5=100%). Students will be placed in writing groups of no more than five members (including themselves) who will help them plan, write, and submit these assignments. Students will receive the contact information of the other members of their writing groups from their  Teaching Assistants as soon as the deadline for dropping 2025-26 F/W courses with the permission of the instructor has passed, i.e., Sept. 30.

TBA

The learning objectives are i) to help students attain facility in reasoning, something they will need to have in any profession to interface with their clients, colleagues, customers, students, patients, principals, etc. To accomplish this goal, ii) students will be introduced to a number of contemporary social issues which are relevant, not only to the professions, but to living in the modern world.

Course policies: The five graded assignments must be submitted to your Teaching Assistant by the deadlines indicated in the Course Outline, which will be posted on the course website. When classes begin, Teaching Assistants will inform their students how to submit assignments to them (e.g., email, Turnitin, etc.). Late assignments will be accepted without deduction, provided official documentation (e.g., health practitioner’s note) is provided to justify them. Assignments will be marked and graded by the Teaching Assistant of your tutorial. If you have an issue or concern with the course, please contact your Teaching Assistant.