6137 - Logic and critical thinking
Course information
- Title
- Logic and critical thinking
- Course number
- 6137.24
- Academic year
- 2024-2025
- ECTS
- 10.00
- Level
- Master
- Faculties
- History and Social Sciences
- Educations
- M.A. in History, MSSc in Social Science and Political Science
- Prerequisites
- Bachelor education or possess equivalent qualifications.
- Language of instruction
- Faroese
- Registration
- Students apply through the student affairs office lss@setur.fo
- Beginning date
- Friday, January 31, 2025
- End date
- Friday, May 30, 2025
Academic content
- Purpose
- The purpose of the course is to give the participants competence and tools to analyse and evaluate the validity in formal and informal argumentation, and thereby develop the competence for independent and critical thinking.
- Learning outcomes
- After completing the course, the students will be able to: • describe the main themes in logic • explain what a logical fallacy is • identify logical fallacies in specific cases • independently and critically analyse and evaluate the validity of an argument in writing and in speech. • Identify and analyse combined arguments in writing and in speech.
- Content
- We continuously face arguments in writing and speech. Be it in political debates, discussions about ethical questions, or scientific articles of different kinds. But how do we decide whether the arguments are valid? This course teaches classical formal logic as well as elements of informal logic, with special emphasis on identifying logical fallacies. Contemporary logic will also be introduced. These tools are necessary for critical thinking and will therefore do several exercises to develop the competence to use these tools in practice. Political debates will be analysed (e.g. concepts like ‘alternative facts’ and ‘post-truth’). Different ethical issues and scientific articles will be used as cases to illustrate how we can analyse whether the arguments are valid or not.
- Learning and teaching approaches
- The course contains 30 hours of teaching, and is organised as lectures, exercises and discussions.
Assessment
- Assessment method
- Written assignment (5 hours)
- Examination (internal/external)
- External
- Grading scale
- 7-scale
- Exam date/dates
- Week 25
- Deadline for withdrawal from exam
- Saturday, February 15, 2025
Academic responsibility and teachers
- Academic responsibility
- Jógvan Dalbø Hansen
- Teachers
- Jógvan Dalbø Hansen