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

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. Students must not miss more than one of the total number of five scheduled sessions. Should a student miss more than one but no more than two sessions, he or she is encouraged to ask the teacher to assign extra assignments to compensate for the absences by 13/12/2020. Students who exceed the given number of absences or fail to compensate for their absences are not eligible for sitting the final exam.

Short In-class Presentation

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.

Interactive Moodle Activities

Students will be presented with a number of interactive revision and language support tasks which will be made available via https://e-learning.vscht.cz/. Students who complete at least five of all Moodle Activities with an average score of at least 70 % will earn 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. The Final Test amounts to 50 % of the final grade.

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. The weight of the Oral Exam is 30 % of the final grade.

Activity Weight

1. Short In-class Presentation 10 %

2. Interactive Moodle Activities 10 %

3. Final Written Test 50 %

4. Final Oral Exam 30 %

Total: 100 %