PHL1030 Thinking
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Handbook entry - a brief description of the subject can be found in the handbook entry. The handbook also provides information about the unit leader, the semester and mode in which the unit is available, the contact hours and the assessment requirements.
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MUSO/Blackboard site - there is a MUSO/Blackboard site for this unit where assessment tasks, lecture notes and other unit resources will be posted. Once enrolled, students taking this unit are advised to check MUSO/Blackboard regularly.
About this subject:
Suppose you feel like a cup of coffee. Do you (a) learn ancient Greek; (b) have a stress test; (c) join the Environmental Defence Fund; or (d) go to a café? If you answered (d), you're able to think effectively. Although this bit of thinking may not get you a job at NASA, it is nonetheless a perfectly straightforward example of the kind of cognitive skills we all employ many times each day of our lives.
There are, however, limits on our abilities to think clearly and effectively. The complexity of a subject or problem, or the particular content of a thinking task may hinder our ability to deal successfully with it. Moreover, human beings are subject to illusions of thought just as we are to illusions of perception. Indeed some thinking tasks lead us up the garden path even when we are experts in the area.
We know a great deal of theory that explains what good thinking is, but it is much easier to teach people the theory than to give them the skills necessary to use it. The assumptions of this course are that thinking clearly requires assimilating these skills, and that at least some of them can in fact be taught. The aims of the course are to help students think more clearly and effectively as well as to learn about the theory of thinking. Our intention, therefore, is that when students have completed this course, they will be better able to solve problems and achieve their goals than when they began.
Textbooks:
There is one text that is required reading for this unit. It is:
This study guide will be available from the Monash Bookshop, Clayton, at the start of semester. For enrolled students, it will also be available via the unit's MUSO/Blackboard site.PHL1030/2030 Study Guide. Thinking. Analysing Arguments.
There are also these recommended textbooks (optional):
Alec Fisher: Critical Thinking: an introduction (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Anne Thomson, Critical Reasoning: a practical introduction. London. Routledge, 2002.
Jill LeBlanc, Thinking Clearly. New York: W.W. Norton & co. 1988.
Jamie Whyte, Crimes Against Logic. McGraw-Hill, 2004.