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Wireless Philosophy Teach You the Essentials of Critical Thinking">32 Animated Videos by Wireless Philosophy Teach You the Essentials of Critical Thinking

in Online Courses , Philosophy | July 6th, 2016 10 Comments

Do you know some­one whose argu­ments con­sist of bald­ly spe­cious rea­son­ing, hope­less­ly con­fused cat­e­gories, arch­i­pel­a­gos of log­i­cal fal­lac­i­es but­tressed by sea­walls of cog­ni­tive bias­es? Sure­ly you do. Per­haps such a per­son would wel­come some instruc­tion on the prop­er­ties of crit­i­cal think­ing and argu­men­ta­tion? Not like­ly? Well, just in case, you may wish to send them over to this series of Wire­less Phi­los­o­phy (or “WiPhi”) videos by phi­los­o­phy instruc­tor Geoff Pynn of North­ern Illi­nois Uni­ver­si­ty and doc­tor­al stu­dents Kel­ley Schiff­man of Yale , Paul Henne of Duke , and sev­er­al oth­er phi­los­o­phy and psy­chol­o­gy grad­u­ates.

What is crit­i­cal think­ing? “Crit­i­cal think­ing,” says Pynn, “is about mak­ing sure that you have good rea­sons for your beliefs.” Now, there’s quite a bit more to it than that, as the var­i­ous instruc­tors explain over the course of 32 short lessons  (watch them all at the bot­tom of the post), but Pynn’s intro­duc­to­ry video above lays out the foun­da­tion. Good rea­sons log­i­cal­ly sup­port the beliefs or con­clu­sions one adopts—from degrees of prob­a­bil­i­ty to absolute cer­tain­ty (a rare con­di­tion indeed). The sense of “good” here, Pynn spec­i­fies, does not relate to moral good­ness, but to log­i­cal coher­ence and truth val­ue. Though many ethi­cists and philoso­phers would dis­agree, he notes that it isn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly “moral­ly wrong or evil or wicked” to believe some­thing on the basis of bad rea­sons. But in order to think ratio­nal­ly, we need to dis­tin­guish “good” rea­sons from “bad” ones.

“A good rea­son for a belief,” Pynn says, “is one that makes it prob­a­ble. That is, it’s one that makes the belief like­ly to be true. The very best rea­sons for a belief make it cer­tain. They guar­an­tee it.” In his next two videos, above and below, he dis­cuss­es these two class­es of argument—one relat­ing to cer­tain­ty, the oth­er prob­a­bil­i­ty. The first class, deduc­tive argu­ments, occur in the clas­sic, Aris­totelian form of the syl­lo­gism, and they should guar­an­tee their con­clu­sions, mean­ing that “it’s impos­si­ble for the premis­es to be true while the con­clu­sion is false” (pro­vid­ed the form of the argu­ment itself is cor­rect). In such an instance, we say the argu­ment is “valid,” a tech­ni­cal philo­soph­i­cal term that rough­ly cor­re­sponds to what we mean by a “good, cogent, or rea­son­able” argu­ment. Some prop­er­ties of deduc­tive rea­son­ing— valid­i­ty , truth , and sound­ness —receive their own explana­to­ry videos lat­er in the series .

In abduc­tive argu­ments (or what are also called “induc­tive argu­ments”), above, we rea­son infor­mal­ly to the best, most prob­a­ble expla­na­tion. In these kinds of argu­ments, the premis­es do not guar­an­tee the con­clu­sion, and the argu­ments are not bound in rigid for­mal syl­lo­gisms. Rather, we must make a leap—or an inference—to what seems like the most like­ly con­clu­sion giv­en the rea­son­ing and evi­dence. Find­ing addi­tion­al evi­dence, or find­ing that some of our evi­dence or rea­son­ing is incor­rect or must be rethought, should force us to reassess the like­li­hood of our con­clu­sion and make new infer­ences. Most sci­en­tif­ic expla­na­tions rely on abduc­tive rea­son­ing, which is why they are sub­ject to retrac­tion or revi­sion. New evidence—or new under­stand­ings of the evidence—often requires new con­clu­sions.

As for under­stand­ing probability—the like­li­hood that rea­sons pro­vide suf­fi­cient jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for infer­ring par­tic­u­lar conclusions—well… this is where we often get into trou­ble, falling vic­tim to all sorts of fal­lac­i­es. And when it comes to inter­pret­ing evi­dence, we’re prey to a num­ber of psy­cho­log­i­cal bias­es that pre­vent us from mak­ing fair assess­ments. WiPhi brings pre­vi­ous video series to bear on these prob­lems of argu­men­ta­tion, one on For­mal and Infor­mal Fal­lac­i­es and anoth­er on Cog­ni­tive Bias­es .

When it comes to a gen­er­al the­o­ry of prob­a­bil­i­ty itself, we would all ben­e­fit from some under­stand­ing of what’s called Bayes’ The­o­rem , named for the 18 th cen­tu­ry sta­tis­ti­cian and philoso­pher Thomas Bayes . Bayes’ The­o­rem can seem for­bid­ding, but its wide appli­ca­tion across a range of dis­ci­plines speaks to its impor­tance. “Some philoso­phers,” says CUNY grad­u­ate stu­dent Ian Olasov in his video les­son above, “even think it’s the key to under­stand­ing what it means to think ratio­nal­ly.”

Bayesian rea­son­ing, infor­mal log­ic, sound, valid, and true argu­ments… all of these modes of crit­i­cal think­ing help us make sense of the tan­gles of infor­ma­tion we find our­selves caught up in dai­ly. Though some of our less ratio­nal­ly-inclined acquain­tances may not be recep­tive to good intro­duc­to­ry lessons like these, it’s worth the effort to pass them along. And while we’re at it, we can sharp­en our own rea­son­ing skills and learn quite a bit about where we go right and where we go wrong as crit­i­cal thinkers in Wire­less Philosophy’s thor­ough, high qual­i­ty series of video lessons .

Find more help­ful resources in the Relat­eds below.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter,  please find it here . Or fol­low our posts on Threads , Face­book , BlueSky or Mastodon .

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site . It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal , Patre­on , and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Down­load 130 Free Phi­los­o­phy Cours­es: Tools for Think­ing About Life, Death & Every­thing Between

Carl Sagan Presents His “Baloney Detec­tion Kit”: 8 Tools for Skep­ti­cal Think­ing

How to Spot Bull­shit: A Primer by Prince­ton Philoso­pher Har­ry Frank­furt

Michael Shermer’s Baloney Detec­tion Kit: What to Ask Before Believ­ing

Daniel Den­nett Presents Sev­en Tools For Crit­i­cal Think­ing

“Call­ing Bull­shit”: See the Syl­labus for a Col­lege Course Designed to Iden­ti­fy & Com­bat Bull­shit

Oxford’s Free Course Crit­i­cal Rea­son­ing For Begin­ners Will Teach You to Think Like a Philoso­pher

1,700 Free Online Cours­es from Top Uni­ver­si­ties

Josh Jones  is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at  @jdmagness

by Josh Jones | Permalink | Comments (10) |

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Comments (10), 10 comments so far.

A great les­son for the gen­er­al pub­lic in crit­i­cal think­ing. I’m going to share it with the com­ment that “it needs to go viral.” NOTE: in the abduc­tive rea­son­ing por­tion “whoa” is mis­spelled as “woah.” The proof­read­er / writer in me is rebelling!

Thanks for the tip (and the kind words), Amirh!

good attempt

Shades of high school debate class. The hor­ror of all those Latin phras­es for argu­ment types, espe­cial­ly regard­ing log­i­cal fal­lac­i­es.

“Post hoc, ergo propter hoc” comes imme­di­ate­ly to mind. “Onus proban­di”, and the list goes on.

Had­n’t though much about them for at least a few decades. It’s a won­der those neu­rons had­n’t been recy­cled by now.

Thank’s for sav­ing me the time in watch­ing this stuff. I guess these ‘tuto­ri­als’ are exact­ly what is wrong with the prod­ucts of todays edu­ca­tion­al sys­tem, not a solu­tion for fix­ing it.

“Woah” is an accept­ed spelling.

Why are you pick­ing on him? You have a CLOSED MIND.

I con­sid­er myself a crit­i­cal thinker and vision­ary in Edu­ca­tion. I am fin­ish­ing up a book on “Does Tech­nol­o­gy Makes Us Smarter? Con­ver­gence of Edu­ca­tion, Gen­er­a­tions and Tech­nol­o­gy in the 21st Cen­tu­ry”. How­ev­er, not being asso­ci­at­ed with a foun­da­tion, insti­tu­tion of high­er learn­ing or cur­rent­ly involved in Aca­d­e­m­ic Research, make’s it impos­si­ble for Crit­i­cal Thinkers, vision­ar­ies and those who think out­side the box to make any impact on the prob­lems edu­ca­tion is fac­ing.

There are a lot of peo­ple out there with Real World Expe­ri­ence that are keep out­side the walls by the sys­tem that enforces the rules.

So, I am Frus­trat­ed.

I start­ed skim­ming after “arch­i­pel­a­gos of log­i­cal fal­lac­i­es but­tressed by sea­walls of cog­ni­tive bias­es”. But I think I agree with the thrust of the argu­ment.

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Wireless Philosophy

This course is a part of Arts & humanities partners, a 11-course Topic series from Khan Academy.

Wi-Phi's mission is to introduce people to the practice of philosophy by offering lectures on philosophical issues and critical thinking concepts that are freely available in a form that is entertaining, interesting and accessible to people with no background in the subject. We see this as a part of a larger mission: building our collective capacity to engage in rational thought and discourse.  By providing the toolkit for building better minds, we hope that Wi-Phi plays some small role in realizing that goal.

This course contains 4 segments:

Critical thinking

The critical thinking section will teach you the skills to think clearly and independently. It will help you identify valid arguments, detect inconsistencies in reasoning, understanding logical connections between ideas, and construct and evaluate arguments.

Metaphysics and epistemology

Metaphysics is an area of philosophy concerned with what there is in the universe (ontology) and the nature of what exists. Epistemology is a related area interested in knowledge and how we know things about the universe.

Value theory

Value theory is an evaluative area of philosophy that includes ethics, aesthetics, social and political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and other areas.

History of philosophy

Are you interested in learning more about what philosophers have said in the past? Check out this section to learn more about the history of philosophical thought.

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Wireless Philosophy Videos

YouTube has a channel called “Wireless Philosophy.” Students can learn about philosophy with professors from Yale, Stanford, Oxford, MIT, and more. There are 130+ animated videos. Here is a link to the Wireless Philosophy YouTube channel. Attached is a list of Wireless Philosophy videos that might be relevant to the class (there are many more videos on the channel, many of them irrelevant to the class). The ones most relevant, of course, are those that are about critical thinking in general and about deductive and inductive arguments. There are also videos about cognitive biases and fallacies. These are also quite relevant. Finally, there are videos about knowledge and truth, which are less relevant to the class, but could be used with the right context.

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Answers In Reason

Exploring Wisdom, Challenging Ignorance

Wireless Philosophy – An Introduction to Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a topic oft raised by members of the atheist community.  We often like to promote ourselves as ‘the rational ones’, and we often see atheists telling members of the theist community that they need to apply critical thinking to their beliefs.  How many atheists have actually studied critical thinking though?  While I do try my best to introduce my own original work in each Answers in Reason article that I post, I thought a nice change of pace, and an informative and useful change of pace, would be to share various YouTube, Blog, and Podcast series or shows that may help people learn a little more about various topics such as critical thinking, ethics , epistemology, and various other subjects included in philosophy.  As my first such share I introduce a YouTube channel called Wireless Philosophy, and their series on Critical Thinking.  The videos themselves are reasonably short, but packed full of information.  They are worth a watch, whether you are new to the topic of critical thinking or are already well-informed.

Hi, I’m Dave. As you can already tell, I’m one of the authors at AiR, as well as a member of the podcast. I’m also the Dave you see on our live streams on Twitch and YouTube. I am an atheist. I don’t use the ‘lack of belief’ definition though, and use the ‘belief God does not exist’ definition for me. I have always been an atheist, and have never been part of a religion.

While I do enjoy discussions around the existence of God, I try to post a wider range of content here. My focus is mainly on philosophy, as that is the topic I enjoy. I have a BA in Philosophy and Psychology, and am waiting on the results for my MA in Philosophy. Will find out in December whether I have been awarded the degree!

This is why my posts tend to focus more on the philosophy side of things. I try to post a wider range of topics than just those surrounding theism and atheism. You will also find articles discussing arguments from atheists that I find to be lacking, or poorly argued. This is mostly because I want to see the atheist community improve its arguments, and to see atheists give stronger and better arguments.

Hopefully you will enjoy some of my content, and I hope even more that it makes you look at certain arguments and ideas in a different way. Plus, hopefully some atheists that dismiss philosophy out of hand might actually see it’s more interesting than they first though. Philosophy is an awesome subject!

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Comments (2) on “Wireless Philosophy – An Introduction to Critical Thinking”

Dave writes, “..we often see atheists telling members of the theist community that they need to apply critical thinking to their beliefs.”

Yes, true of course. What we see far less often are atheists applying critical thinking to their own beliefs. That’s the process which determines whether someone is really a person of reason, or just another ideologist.

Atheists are often eager to challenge the qualifications of holy books to provide credible answers to the very largest of questions, as they should. It is however rare to find an atheist who is equally eager to apply this entirely valid challenge to their own chosen authority, human reason.

In my view, that’s when these subjects start to become interesting, when all chosen authorities of all parties have been challenged with equal rigor, and all found to lack proven qualifications.

I agree. I have noted that many of the atheist community will not second guess themselves.

I know some who have spent ages critically analysing any evidence for the existence of god, or any pseudoscientific claim and then have reached a point where suddenly they don’t fact check any more.

I understand that it can take a lot of work to get to a certain position, but sometimes you might have got there in a faulty way, or misunderstand certain aspects. Be the definitions of “objective” and “subjective” in relation to morals and morality, the definition of atheism, evidence for an alternative medical procedure that is showing promise or what.

We are people. We are fallible. It does frustrate me that those of us whom pride us on how sceptical, critical and rational we are can act so irrationally and uncritically. I have been guilty of it myself. Sometimes when changing a mind, or having you mind changed, respect matters: https://www.answers-in-reason.com/misc/changing-mind-respect-matters/

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1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology

Philosophy, One Thousand Words at a Time

Critical Thinking: What is it to be a Critical Thinker?

Author: Carolina Flores Categories: Logic and Reasoning , Philosophy of Education , Epistemology, or Theory of Knowledge Word count: 997

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We often urge others to think critically. What does that really mean? How can we think critically?

This essay presents a general account of what it is to be a critical thinker and outlines both traditional and more recent approaches to critical thinking.

1. What is Critical Thinking?

Speaking generally, critical thinking consists of reasoning and inquiring in careful ways, so as to form and update one’s beliefs based on good reasons . [1] A critical thinker is someone who typically reasons and inquires in these ways, having mastered relevant skills and developed the disposition to apply them. [2]

2. Traditional Components: Logic and Fallacies

Traditional views of critical thinking focus on deductive arguments. Arguments are sets of reasons given for a conclusion. Deductive arguments are arguments where the reasons given are supposed to be logically conclusive, that is, to guarantee the conclusion. E.g., the following is a deductive argument:

• Socrates is a man.
• All men are mortal.
• Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Arriving at new beliefs through deductive arguments is a way of forming beliefs based on good reasons. Accordingly, critical thinking traditionally focusses on these skills: [3]

• distinguishing arguments (instances where you are offered reasons for a conclusion) from mere assertions, rhetorical questions, and attempts at manipulation through irrelevant considerations;
• identifying conclusions of arguments (what the person offering the argument wants to persuade you to believe), and the reasons or premises for that conclusion;
• reconstructing streamlined, complete statements of arguments in standard form (as a numbered list of premises with the conclusion at the end), or using diagrams; [4]
• assessing the logical structure of deductive arguments: answering ‘Is there any way for the premises to be true while the conclusion is false?’
• understanding arguments’ claims: e.g., defining unclear terms;
• determining whether premises are true or likely;
• imagining, proposing, and charitably responding to objections, i.e, reasons given to doubt or deny arguments’ logic, premise(s), or conclusion. [5]

To develop these skills, traditional critical thinking courses typically include propositional logic and the study of common good argument forms. [6]

They also often teach how to identify fallacies —faulty patterns of reasoning that deceptively appear to be good arguments. [7] These include:

• affirming the consequent (“If Kat had won the prize, she would have had an A; Kat had an A; therefore, Kat won the prize”);
• the ad hominem fallacy—where people attack the person making an argument instead of considering their argument;
• begging the question —offering reasons for a conclusion that assume the conclusion, and many others. [8]

3. Additional Formal Tools: Evidence and Statistics

We often form beliefs based on observations that, unlike deductive arguments, do not provide conclusive reasons for a belief: e.g., you might conclude that your sibling is angry at you from their facial expressions or come to believe you have a cold because you have a runny nose. Here, these observations or evidence might support the belief formed but do not guarantee the truth of your belief.

Critical thinkers know how to adjust their beliefs appropriately in light of their evidence. [9] So critical thinking requires developing abilities to:

• assess evidence without being unduly swayed by what one already believes;
• recognize when a claim counts as evidence for (or against) a conclusion;
• identify when evidence is strong (or weak);
• determine the extent to which people’s views should change, given their evidence.

To develop these abilities, drawing on knowledge of probability can be helpful: e.g., basic probability offers a recipe for determining when an observation counts as evidence for a belief: when that observation is more likely if the belief is true than if it is not . It also teaches us that updating your beliefs when you get new evidence requires taking into account both (a) how confident you were on that belief beforehand and (b) how strongly the evidence supports that (new) belief. [10]

For these reasons, recent approaches to critical thinking often include instruction in probability. [11] And, because we often get evidence in the form of statistics, often presented through diagrams and graphs, such approaches tend to highlight the importance of basic statistical concepts, [12] and the ability to interpret diagrams and graphs. [13]

4. Applied Skills as Part of Being a Critical Thinker

Being a critical thinker requires more than having technical tools (such as the tools of logic or probability) stored away. It requires consistently applying them in the real world .

In recent discussions of what it is to be a critical thinker, there has been increased emphasis on navigating our informational environments in savvy ways. This requires avoiding false, misleading, manipulative, or distracting claims online, as well as making sure that one gathers information from a wide variety of reliable sources. [14] It also requires calibrating one’s trust well: one should remain open to hearing those who disagree and not let prejudice and implicit bias affect whom one trusts. [15] , [16]

Applying the tools of critical thinking throughout one’s life requires overcoming cognitive biases: [17] e.g.:

• not always accepting answers that come to mind first;
• resisting confirmation bias (the tendency to gather and interpret evidence in ways that confirm our beliefs), [18] and;
• avoiding motivated reasoning (the tendency to reason in ways that help us believe what we wish were true, and not what is true). [19]

More generally, becoming a critical thinker requires shifting from a defensive mindset to a truth-seeking one and developing intellectual virtues such as intellectual humility and open-minded curiosity. [20] , [21] Without those, the tools of critical thinking may end up being deployed to entrench false or unreasonable beliefs.

5. Conclusion

Critical thinking is about reasoning and inquiring so as to form and update one’s beliefs based on good reasons. Because critical thinking skills are valuable in a world that emphasizes the ability to navigate information, becoming a critical thinker is practically useful to us as individuals.

It is also of crucial social and political value: e.g., a well-functioning democracy requires citizens who think critically about the world. [22] And critical thinking has liberatory potential: it provides us with tools to criticize oppressive social structures and envisage a more just, fair society. [23]

Acknowledgments

Thanks to the Teaching Philosophy Facebook Group for literature recommendations. Thanks to Chelsea Haramia, Sabrina Huwang, Izilda Jorge, Thomas Metcalf, Nathan Nobis, Elise Woodard, and anonymous referees for feedback.

[1] This definition is similar to Ennis’s (1991) definition: critical thinking, in his view, is “reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do” (Ennis 1991, p. 6). See Hitchcock 2010 for an overview of definitions of critical thinking. 

[2] While I define critical thinking in a general way here, there is disagreement about whether there are any general tools for critical thinking, as opposed to merely topic-specific ones.

There are also closely related debates about the extent to which specific critical thinking skills transfer to new domains and tasks, and about whether we should teach critical thinking on its own or, instead, in the context of specific disciplines, with discipline-internal standards made clear and an emphasis on content acquisition. See Willingham 2019 for discussion, including references to relevant empirical research.

People who have mastered critical thinking skills in a domain or subject area tend to be experts in those areas. See Expertise: What is an Expert? by Jamie Carlin Watson

[3] See this Khan Academy/Wi Phi Philosophy course for an overview.

[4] An example of an argument in standard form is: 1. Socrates is a man; 2. All men are mortal; 3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. For other examples of arguments in standard form, see Anderson’s “Putting an Argument in Standard Form.” For examples of argument diagrams, as well as a useful program to construct such diagrams, see Cullen’s “Philosophy Mapped” website .

[5] Charitably responding involves responding to the strongest version of the objection.

[6] Propositional logic is the simplest branch of logic, i.e. the formal study of arguments and reasoning. See Tom Metcalf’s Formal Logic: Symbolizing Arguments in Sentential Logic by for an introduction.

[7] Wikipedia has extensive lists of good argument forms and of common fallacies . See Boardman et al. 2017, Howard-Snyder 2020, Lau 2011 , Vaughn 2018 for examples of critical thinking textbooks that take the traditional approach.

[8] To see why these are fallacies, note that, for all that is said, Kat could have had an A without winning the prize; perhaps she simply had high exam scores. And note that morally bad people can give good arguments.

[9] Philosophers also use the term ‘evidence’ in more technical senses than ‘relevant observations’. See Kelly 2016 for discussion of these different senses.

[10] Indeed, we can capture this insight into a domain-general formula for how to update beliefs: Bayes’ theorem. Bayes’ theorem tells us how to weigh our previous confidence and the strength of evidence. For a short explanation of Bayes’ Theorem, see Better Explained, “A Short and Intuitive Explanation of Bayes’ Theorem” . For more detailed discussion of Bayesianism, see Joyce 2019.

[11] Manley 2019.

[12] See Gigerenzer et al. 2007 for discussion of the practical importance of these concepts. An especially important statistical concept is that of base rate . The base rate of a feature in a population is what fraction of the population have that feature. Neglecting the base rate leads to the base rate fallacy , where one ends up adjusting one’s beliefs incorrectly in response to evidence (for example, taking a fallible positive test for a rare disease to indicate that one is extremely likely to have that disease, where, given the rarity of the disease, that remains unlikely).

[13] Battersby 2016.

[14] See Bergstorm and West’s “Calling Bullshit” syllabus for a range of helpful tools for avoiding such claims, and The News Literacy Project for resources on developing a healthy news diet.

[15] See Nguyen’s “Escape the Echo Chamber.” for helpful discussion of common issues with trust calibration and with information gathering.

[16] Implicit bias involves believing and acting “on basis of prejudice and stereotypes without intending to do so”: see Brownstein 2019.

When one discredits members of marginalized groups due to (conscious or unconscious) prejudice, one commits an epistemic injustice: see Fricker 2007. For an introduction to epistemic injustice, see Huzeyfe Demitras’s Epistemic Injustice .

[17] Cognitive biases are systematic deviations from how we should reason. See Kahneman 2011 for an accessible overview of research on cognitive biases.

[18] Nickerson 1998 .

[19] Kunda 1990.

[20] An intellectual virtue is a personality trait or disposition that is helpful in reasoning well and acquiring knowledge. Some examples are intellectual humility, open-mindedness, curiosity, and perseverance. See Zagzebski 1996.

[21] See Galef’s TED talk “Why you think you’re right – even if you’re wrong” for discussion of the importance of these traits.

[22] Dewey 1923.

[23] Freire 1968/2018, hooks 2010.

Anderson, Jeremy. “Putting an Argument in Standard Form.”

Battersby, Mark. 2016. Is That a Fact?: A Field Guide to Statistical and Scientific Information . Broadview Press.

Bergstrom, Carl T. and West, Jevin. 2019. “Calling Bullshit: Data Reasoning in a Digital World.” (website)

Better Explained. 2020. “A Short and Intuitive Explanation of Bayes’ Theorem.” (website)

Boardman, Frank, Cavender, Nancy M, and Kahane, Howard . 2017. Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life. Cengage Learning.

Brownstein, Michael, “Implicit Bias”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Cullen, Simon. “Philosophy Mapped: Open Resources for Philosophy Visualization.” 

Demirtas, Huzeyfe. 2020. “Epistemic Injustice.” 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology .

Dewey, John. 1923. Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. Macmillan.

Ennis, Robert. 1991. “Critical Thinking: A Streamlined Conception.” Teaching Philosophy , 14(1):5-24.

Frankfurt, Harry G. 1986. On Bullshit . Princeton University Press.

Freire, Paulo. 2018 [1968]. Pedagogy of the Oppressed . Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing . Oxford University Press.

Galef, Julia. 2016. “Why You Think You’re Right – Even If You’re Wrong.” TED Talk.

Gigerenzer, Gerd, Gaissmaier, Wolfgang, Kurz-Milcke, Elke, Schwartz, Lisa M and Woloshin, Steven. 2007. “Helping Doctors and Patients Make Sense of Health Statistics.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest , 8(2):53-96.

bell hooks. 2010. Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom . New York and London: Routledge.

Hitchcock, David. 2020. “ Critical Thinking ” , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Howard-Snyder, Frances, Howard-Snyder, Daniel, and Wasserman, Ryan. 2020. The Power of Logic . McGraw-Hill.

Joyce, James, “ Bayes’ Theorem ” , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow . Macmillan.

Kelly, Thomas. 2016. “ Evidence ” , The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2016 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.).

Kunda, Ziva. 1990. “The Case for Motivated Reasoning.” Psychological Bulletin , 108(3):  480-498.

Lai, Emily R. 2011. “Critical Thinking: A Literature Review.” Pearson’s Research Reports , 6: 40-41.

Lau, Joe YF. 2011. An Introduction to Critical Thinking and Creativity: Think More, Think Better . John Wiley & Sons.

Manley, David. 2019. Reason Better: An Interdisciplinary Guide to Critical Thinking . Toronto, ON, Canada: Tophat Monocle.

Metcalf, Thomas. 2020. “Formal Logic: Symbolizing Arguments in Sentential Logic.” 1,000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology .

The News Literacy Project.

Nguyen, Thi. 2018. “Escape the Echo Chamber.” Aeon.

Nickerson, Raymond S. 1998. “Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises.” Review of General Psychology , 2(2):175-220.

Pynn, Geoff. 2020. “Critical Thinking: Fundamentals.” Wireless Philosophy/Khan Academy .

Vaughn, Lewis. 2018. The Power of Critical Thinking: Effective Reasoning About Ordinary and Extraordinary Claims . Oxford University Press.

Willingham, Daniel T. 2019. “How to Teach Critical Thinking.” Education: Future Frontiers , 1:1-17.

Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. 1996. Virtues of the Mind: An Inquiry into the Nature of Virtue and the Ethical Foundations of Knowledge . Cambridge University Press.

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Translation

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Download this essay in PDF . 

About the Author

Carolina Flores is a post-doctoral fellow at UC Irvine and will be an assistant professor at UC Santa Cruz starting in 2023. She earned her Ph.D. at Rutgers University, New Jersey. She specializes in philosophy of mind and social epistemology. She is especially interested in why it is so hard to change people’s minds, and in what that tells us about the mind and about human relationships and political persuasion. CarolinaFlores.org

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Unit 5: Emerging technologies

About this unit.

All of our lives are shaped by technology every day, and increasingly, these technologies are structuring the opportunities we have to live, work, play, and relate to one another. As technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) creep further into our lives, the need is greater than ever for careful reflection on their nature and implications.

In this unit, we explore the ethical dimensions of technology, seeking to inject some nuance into our understanding of technology and its role in our lives.

Introduction

• Unit introduction (Opens a modal)

Is technology as neutral as we think it is?

• Is technology as neutral as we think it is? (Opens a modal)
• Evaluating the argument (Opens a modal)
• Comprehending the argument 2 questions Practice

Should online platforms prevent the spread of false information?

• Should online platforms prevent the spread of false information? (Opens a modal)

Should online platforms censor hate speech?

• Should online platforms censor hate speech? (Opens a modal)

Are there hidden dangers in robots that look like us?

• Are there hidden dangers in robots that look like us? (Opens a modal)

Should we use killer robots to fight our wars?

• Should we use killer robots to fight our wars? (Opens a modal)

Do drones make war too easy?

• Do drones make war too easy? (Opens a modal)

Will autonomous vehicles live up to their promise?

• Will autonomous vehicles live up to their promise? (Opens a modal)

Should we worry about our diminishing sphere of privacy?

• Should we worry about our diminishing sphere of privacy? (Opens a modal)

Does predictive policing make us all safer?

• Does predictive policing make us all safer? (Opens a modal)

What if robots did all the work?

• What if robots did all the work? (Opens a modal)