Philosophy 4 Critical Thinking Prof. Dowden   Overview of the course   Let's face it. There are three kinds of people in the world: the kind who are good at a course like this, and the kind who are not. Throughout your day, you will want to keep your critical eye on the situation around you, and not blindly accept everything you see, hear or read, even if it's from your professor, who was joking in that last sentence. Our course is designed to develop your critical thinking skills, the basic skills of good reasoning that you need for the intelligent and responsible conduct of your life. The goal is to improve your ability to think and act reflectively, creatively and responsibly. Critical thinking skills involve the ability to reason, to assemble evidence in order to develop a position, and to communicate complex ideas. When you are using the yellow pages of the telephone book to locate a gorilla costume for Halloween, you don't look up "gorilla," do you? You already have that critical thinking skill.  Our course will improve your higher level skills. The major topics in our course include: thinking logically identifying argument structure, assessing the strength of arguments, generating arguments and explanations, avoiding fallacies of reasoning, demonstrating the principles of fair play in argumentation. The course is also designed to improve your writing by demonstrating that writing is a kind of problem-solving design process. 3 units of semester credit.   Prerequisites: There are no prerequisite courses, but to enroll in this course, you must be directly descended from two homo sapiens. If you weren't, then click here. You should enroll in this course the same way you would enroll in any other CSUS course, through standard registration procedures with CMS. If you are not a CSUS student, you may enroll to take just this course through the College of Continuing Education (phone 278-4433).  If you are still in high school, you may take this course through the ACE program.   Sales pitch: Not only will this course help to make you more logical and smarter and better prepared for all your other college courses, the material covered in this course should be especially helpful in improving your performance on tests you may take later to get into law school, business school, or graduate school such as the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test), the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test), or the GRE (Graduate Record Exam).   Getting started: To start the course, first obtain a Saclink password, then finish reading this web page, and click on the highlighted word "syllabus" at the bottom of the page. If that last sentence didn't make sense, don't worry because the rest of this web page is devoted to explaining what was just said.    Technology requirements for our course: The course is 100% on the Internet, so you will need computer access to the Internet. You will take this course wholly on some computer or other and won't attend in a regular classroom setting. You can use either your home computer or a campus computer or both. You can work on the weekly assignments for our course at any time that is convenient for you during the week, but you can't work ahead beyond the current week. You do not need to work at the time mentioned in the class schedule; you can work at 4:00 a.m. if you wish. Several times a week, you will need computer access to the the Internet using a web browser. Netscape and Internet Explorer are web browsers. If you are viewing this page on a computer, then you already have a web browser. If you don't own a computer, then you can use one in the campus computer labs. If you own a computer with a modem, but don't have access to the Internet, you can get this access by getting a SacLink computer account and the University's modem access telephone number. You can get this computer account for free by visiting a campus computer lab at Mendocino Hall 2004/2008 Mendocino Hall 2003/2007 Library 2000 Solano Hall 2001/2003 Tahoe Hall 1006/1007 and asking the student supervisor how to create a SacLink account. When you are assigned a SacLink account of, say, sac12345, then your e-mail address will become sac12345@csus.edu At the time you get your SacLink account, you can also get the toll-free campus telephone number for logging in by telephone-modem from your home computer. If you have your own access to the Internet from your home computer [either via a telephone modem or via a more high speed connection such as DSL or cable], then you don't need to bother getting the campus telephone number. If you use a computer in the campus computer labs, then you won't need that phone number either because on-campus computers don't use the telephone lines to connect to the Internet. In our course, you are required to have a SacLink account in order to become offically registered in the course. But you aren't required to use your SacLink account.  You can do all the assignment from AOL or wherever.   However, SacLink is free, and AOL is not. For more help with the computer details, call 278-7337. A final thought: Think of the glow of your computer monitor as being indoor sunshine.   The first day: We'll have an optional meeting the first day of class in the classroom mentioned in the Class Schedule just to learn how to get a SacLink account and how to get on the Internet. If you already know how to do this, then you don't need to come. I'm glad you're interested in taking the course. I'll try to help you if you get stuck anywhere. It's possible for everyone to get an A grade; I don't curve the results to force a certain number of D's and F's. If the University says the course is full, send me e-mail indicating this, and include your social security number and the number of the section you prefer and I'll probably add you right away. Usually the Philosophy Department re-opens each section of this course on the first day of classes and allows more students in. To contact me about the course, send e-mail to me (Professor Dowden) at dowden@csus.edu Click to view the syllabus.  Overview / Course Resources Instructor / Philosophy Dept. College of Arts and Letters / Admissions / CSUS The web address of this overview page is http://www.csus.edu/indiv/d/dowdenb/4/overview.htm Updated: Aug. 4, 2008