Critical Thinking is a Transversal Skill and as such it finds its place across all subjects and specialisations; however, it becomes particularly useful in situations when it comes to arguing, persuading, or simply communicating and conveying meaning. Critical Thinking is not a matter of exchanging opinions, verbal juggling, or clever sophistry – quite the opposite, actually –, but let us not get ahead of ourselves and explore the matter together in our Critical Thinking seminar. Upon successful completion of the course, students will become familiar with key principles and methods of Critical Thinking; these include argument structure (both implicit and explicit) analysis and interpretation, argument mapping, common argument types (induction, deduction, arguments from analogy), informal logic, logical fallacies, discourse analysis, and the study of rhetorical devices, refutation, and counterarguments. Students will be encouraged to practice acquired knowledge and skills by discussing a number of case studies and selected theoretical issues related to the fields of business, philosophy, and ethics. The course is taught in English and its secondary ambition is to provide students with useful vocabulary, phrases, and functional language which will allow them to efficiently formulate arguments and express fine nuances of meaning in English. The course will provide students with language support activities. The course is taught in English.

Assessment includes attendance, active participation, short in-class presentation, interactive Moodle activities, final written test, and final oral exam.

Assessment Details

Course Attendance

Students are expected to attend the classes and actively participate in assigned in-class activities.

Each student is entitled to deliver one short in-class presentation at the beginning of the seminar. If the number of students signed up for the seminar exceeds the number of seminar sessions, the presentation will be assigned as a team presentation. The aim of the presentation is to summarise the discussion of the previous class and open space of clarifying and further attending to any unfinished business; this presentation will be assigned at the end of every session. Students who give this presentation will earn up to 10 % of their final grade.

Final Written Test

The aim of the test is to assess students’ knowledge the subject matter covered during the course (as presented in course handouts) as well as their ability to practically apply this knowledge in assigned questions, tasks, and activities.

Final Oral Exam

The aim of the test is to assess students’ knowledge the subject matter covered during the seminar (as presented in course handouts) as well as their ability to practically apply this knowledge in assigned questions, tasks, and activities in discussion with the teacher.

R: Bowel, Tracy and Kemp, Gary. Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide. Routledge 2020.

R: Foresman, Galen A., et al. The Critical Thinking Toolkit. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 2017.

A: Baggini, Julian and Fosl, Peter S. The Philosophers Toolkit. A Compendium of Philosophical Concepts and Methods. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., 2010.

1. Defining Critical Thinking: What is it and what is it good for?

2. The language of Critical Thinking: A quick note.

3. Introduction to informal logic

4. Defining arguments, standard form, argument mapping

5. Neutral Language?

6. Assessing and evaluating arguments: an introduction

7. Classifying Arguments: Deduction, Induction, Analogy

8. Assessing and evaluating arguments II: Validity and Soundness

9. Logical and Cognitive Fallacies

10. Arguments and Counterarguments

11. Logical and Cognitive Fallacies Continued

12. Conditions

13. Arguing with Modality: Certainty and Probability

14. Discourses and Rhetoric