Critical thinking - HOPV0229

• Title: Critical thinking
• Guaranteed by: Department of Economics and Empirical Legal Studies (22-KNH)
• Faculty: Faculty of Law
• Actual: from 2023
• Semester: summer
• Points: 0
• E-Credits: 4
• Examination process: summer s.:written
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:0/2, Ex [HT]
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: not taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Level: basic
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: Ing. Jakub Čihák, Ph.D.
• Incompatibility : HOPV0228, HP0681
• Is incompatible with: HOPV0228

Annotation

Critical thinking is one of the most important set of skills one can possess. The aim of the course is to equip students with materials and tools useful for assessing claims as well as reflection of own beliefs and construction of own arguments. The course will cover a wide range of topics from argumentation theory to the psychology of fallibility and reasoning, the scientific method and experiments, to media and data literacy.

Upon the completion of the course, the students should be able to analyse the structure of an argument, recognize its conclusion and premises, empirical and normative nature of propositions, strength of support for the conclusion, formal problems, logical fallacies, understand the psychological reasons for own and others’ fallibility, apply basics of scientific thinking, assess whether and how an empirical claim may be tested and the quality of scientific studies , be able to better evaluate uncertainty and reliability of information and have a better chance at recognizing misleadingly presented data, evaluate whether and how to attempt to refute someone’s incorrect belief. Furthermore, students will be able to write a thesis arguing for or against a particular thesis.

No previous specific courses are required to enroll in Critical Thinking.

Last update: Šicnerová Barbora, Mgr. (18.09.2023)

Requirements to the exam

1.      The Critical thinking course is concluded with ana examination.

2.      For successful completion of the course the student will receive 3 credits.

3.      The exam is written and consists of an essay and two reviews of other students' essays.

Last update: Šicnerová Barbora, Mgr. (18.09.2023)

Syllabus

The course includes the following topics:

-        Introduction: What is critical thinking?

-        Argumentation

-        Argument maps

-        Psychology of fallibility

-        Psychology of reasoning

-        Scientific method

-        Scientific experiments

-        The practice of science

-        Bayes‘ theoremers the following topics:  theorem

-        Media literacy

-        Data literacy

-        Psychology of attitude change

Last update: Šicnerová Barbora, Mgr. (18.09.2023)

Learning resources

Základní literatura:

1.      Kahneman, Daniel. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Ostatní literatura:

1.      Kahneman, D., Slovic, S. P., Slovic, P., & Tversky, A. (Eds.). (1982). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Cambridge university press.

2.      Kahneman, D., Sibony, O., & Sunstein, C. R. (2021). Noise: a flaw in human judgment. Hachette UK.

3.      Ioannidis, J. P. (2005). Why most published research findings are false. PLoS medicine, 2(8), e124.

4.      Mercier, H., & Sperber, D. (2011). Why do humans reason? Arguments for an argumentative theory. Behavioral and brain sciences, 34(2), 57-74.

5.      Nisbett, R. E., & Wilson, T. D. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psychological review, 84(3), 231.

6.      Silver, N. (2012). The signal and the noise: Why so many predictions fail-but some don't. Penguin.

7.      Wilson, T. D., & Bar-Anan, Y. (2008). The unseen mind. Science, 321(5892), 1046-1047.

Last update: Šicnerová Barbora, Mgr. (18.09.2023)