I am now at the University of the Ozarks (AR) as an Assistant Professor of philosophy, transitioning from Young Harris College (GA) as an Associate Professor of philosophy and religious studies and department chair (during a pandemic!). This syllabus was made for a course at my previous institution.
I taught my first Basic Reasoning course for Kirkwood Community College’s Philosophy Department in Fall 2006. At the time, I was a grad student and the department policy was that adjuncts had to choose from a small selection of typical critical thinking textbooks. Although as an undergrad I found my reasoning and logic courses beneficial, my later research in hermeneutics and literacy pedagogy led me to concerns about the seeming lack of erotetic logic and the hermeneutic priority of questioning in reasoning instruction. I have published articles on this, such as my “Hermeneutic Priority and Phenomenological Indeterminacy of Questioning” (2018). I know these concerns are shared by others, and I find Benjamin Hamby’s “Libri ad Nauseam: The Critical Thinking Textbook Glut” (in Paideusis, 21:1, 2013) to get at them with precision. There Hamby stresses that instruction should move beyond argument analysis and evaluation, and instead should reflect a sound theoretical understanding that acknowledges the central role of critical thinking dispositions, offers a more nuanced approach to the teaching of fallacies and of inference, and stresses dialectic and argument revision.
I wanted to design a General Education Core fulfilling course on basic reasoning, as well as a required course for the philosophy minor (Young Harris College only has a minor) that takes Hamby’s and others’ arguments into consideration. I wanted to create a course that puts reasoning in context with dialogue. I currently have a contract with Bloomsbury for a book on the role of questions in reasoning, titled Using Questions to Think, which should be in press within the year. I would love to use this as a supplement for standard critical thinking textbooks, such as Bassham’s and Irwin’s Critical Thinking: A Student’s Introduction (2012). I tried to design a critical thinking course in light of these three coordinates: a sound theoretical underpinning for thinking, a nuanced approach to fallacy and inference, and a stress on argument in the context of dialogue. My course units move from dialogue, to inference and logic, to theory.
My specific goals in the course include creating a dynamic dialogue space in the classroom, concentrating student abilities in logical analysis, and improving student fluency in theory. I create daily dialogue through use of the National School Reform Faculty’s protocol, the “Text Rendering Experience.” Each day students bring in a word, phrase, and sentence (with citations and explanations for each) they see as significant for the reading assignment. Students share their “three things” with one another in small groups, and we build from small group exchanges to whole class discussion. Students find it particularly difficult to identify three things for discussion in our logic homework assignments, but even then the discussion helps us isolated nuanced issues in logical analysis such as strategies for proofs like starting from the conclusion and working backwards to premises. During the section on reading Kant’s critique of reason, I have students fill out focused reading guides (directing their attention to specific pages and passages) — where they select to answer three out of six possible questions. They work together to complete the reading guides in addition to discussing their “three things” with one another. These discussions prove invaluable for clarifying Kant’s answers to questions about why validity works the way it does or why complete thoughts (or judgements) work the way they do. That is, our discussion of Kant helps put all our other work in a specific theoretical light. For the final research project, students provide a proposal of a single “critical thought” with an explanation why it is critical (using course materials), and then present their research to the class. The difficulty of the assignment is that it actually is odd to state a single critical thought out of context. What ends up happening is that they pick a thought and then think critically about it.
A few of my favorite elements of the syllabus and course include: the detailed structured routine of the schedule, the unit on Kant, and the open-book-open-note-speak-with-everyone-in-the-class learning celebrations (aka exams). The students initially express a lot of frustration at not being able to grasp the readings in a quick skim, but over time come to feel like critical thinking badasses where they recognize their efforts pay off — especially when they turn to readings from other courses with ease. I see the moves from Unit I to Unit II as scaffolding and preparation for reading Kant. The students love the daily discussions, the reliability, and the topics themselves. The students regularly express appreciation for learning about “white fragility” and “critique of ideology,” and many express joy at learning to do proofs. However, they very much dislike reading Kant — yet they always say they understand why it’s needed and appreciate that they had to do it. And they really get into topics like the nature of time or arguments for and against the existence of a god.
This course has helped me see more clearly how learning celebrations, reading guides, inclusion of diverse voices, and student-driven culminating research contribute to student success in learning and engagement, and I have made strides to include these in my other courses. I’ve considered making the course easier by putting Kant first or removing Kant altogether, but just cannot bring myself to do so. Of course, it’s unreasonable to expect 18-20 year olds to be able to pick up Kant and just read him. I give students a lot of support with the reading guides and self-selected three things of interest, and always have a few tricks up my sleeve (not just video clips!) ready in lecture discussions to help them grasp the content.
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Nathan Eric Dickman
Nathan Eric Dickman (PhD, The University of Iowa) is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of the Ozarks. He researches in hermeneutic phenomenology, philosophy of language, and comparative questions in philosophies of religions. He has taught a breadth of courses, from Critical Thinking to Zen, and Existentialism to Greek & Arabic philosophy. In “Using Questions to Think” (Bloomsbury, 2021), he examines the roles questions play in critical thinking and logical reasoning. In “Philosophical Hermeneutics and the Priority of Questions in Religions” (Bloomsbury, 2022), he examines roles of questions in the speech of religious figures. In “Interpretation: A Critical Primer” (Equinox, 2023), he examines scaffolds of questions in the interpretation of texts.
