Reasoning

Course Information

Introduction

Welcome to Reasoning! My name is Jeff Maynes and I will be teaching the course. I typically go just by ‘Jeff.’ If you ever have questions about the course, keeping up, or, well, anything at all, free free to reach out. I’m often in my office (Piskor 109), and if my door is open, you are welcome to stop in. I also will be holding my student hours on Monday/Wednesdays from 1-2pm, and you can reach me by email at jmaynes@stlawu.edu.

Well-Being Policy

Here are two reasons I care about your well-being. First, a student who feels safe, welcome, and healthy, is a more successful student. If you are well, you’ll learn more. Second, and more importantly, your college experience, including this class, should contribute to a well-lived life. The information we cover, and the skills we practice, are in service to that well-lived life.

In practice, this means that if you are struggling in any way - academically, personally, whatever, please feel encouraged to set up a meeting or stop by my office to chat. I am always willing to listen, and where I can, help.

St. Lawrence also has a host of resources available to you with your intellectual, physical, and emotional wellness. You can find a handy guide to all of these resoruces on the Well-Being Resources page, and through SLU Thrives.

Course Materials

• All course readings will be made available on Canvas.

Course Description

We are regular consumers of arguments. In all likelihood, you’ve heard arguments for why you should vote a certain way, arguments for what actions are morally right or wrong, arguments for what you should believe in, arguments for which team is going to win, arguments for why you should eat at Dana instead of the Pub tonight. As a student, you are also asked to make arguments across your courses. In this class, we will focus on arguments themselves. What, exactly, is the argument being presented? How can I tell if it is a good argument or a bad argument? Most importantly, this is a class in being a critical reasoner - what we can to be better reasoners who are less susceptible to bad arguments and those who wield them.

Course Goals

1. Students will know the basic concepts of argument identification and evaluation.
2. Students will know the intellectual virtues, and the challenge that cognitive bias poses to developing them.
3. Students will be better able to identify arguments and distinguish them from other forms of communication.
4. Students will be better able to map arguments, explaining their logical structure.
5. Students will be better able to evaluate arguments based on their logical merits.
6. Students will be better able to monitor their own reasoning for situations where bias is likely.
7. Students will be better able to regulate their own reasoning in order to avoid bias.
8. Students will make progress towards being more intellectually virtuous reasoners, responsive to reasons and charitable in discussion.

Assignments and Grading

• Skills Mastery - 65%
• Contributions to Collective Learning - 10%
• Homework - 5%
• Reasoning Journal - 10%
• Final Reflection - 10%

Skills Mastery

Critical thinking is a skill, much like learning to play piano, throw a curveball, or build a chair. You become better at skills through practice, and you can think of this course as reasoning practice. You’ll spend your time in class going through problems with me and with your classmates. Outside of class, you’ll practice some more, and you are always able to meet with me to go over problems. We have five exam days (four during the semester, and the final exam block) that you can think of as recitals or game days. These are the days where you have to show your progress with the skills.

Each of these skills is one standard. Your grade for this portion of the class is based on how many standards you are able to pass by the end of the semester. To pass a standard you’ll need to show mastery of the standard on one of those exams.

The key to the course is that you get multiple attempts to pass each standard. For each standard you do not pass, you can take another shot at it on the next exam day. For example, the first exam covers standards 1 through 3. Suppose I pass standards 1 and 2, but not 3. Exam #2 covers standards 4 through 6. On that exam day, I’ll get an exam that has the new material, but also standard 3. If I pass standard 3 on the second attempt, it counts in exactly the same way as if I passed it the first time. What matters to me is that you gain these skills, not what the path to get there looks like.

There is some structured homework designed to help you keep up - typically a short reading and a practice problem each week. I expect this will be a fairly light load. Most of your time outside of class devoted to this course should be doing practice problems. You’ll find practice problems for each standard up on the course Canvas page.

If you do fall behind, you will have opportunities to catch up, but please keep in mind that you may have more standards than you could possibly complete during our exam times (which are 90 minutes long). Any time you find yourself struggling or falling behind, please come talk to me and we can work together on a plan to help you catch up. The final exam block is three hours long, and will be your final opportunity to pass any standards you have not yet passed.

Your grade will be determined by the total number of standards you pass by the end of the semester (it doesn’t matter which standards they are - the total is the only thing that matters to your grade).

Contributions to Collective Learning

This is essentially your participation grade, but I’ve named it ‘Contributions to Collective Learning’ to highlight something really important to me in this class. You are going to spend a lot of time doing practice problems. We get more out of practice when we practice together. Being in class, showing up for our practices, and fully engaging in the problems will not only help you better understand the material, but it will help your classmates as well.

Rubric

Code of Intellectual Conduct

1. Fallibility Principle – I recognize that I might be wrong.
2. Principle of Charity – I will put the views of others in the best possible light.
3. Truth-Seeking Principle – I will seek truth, not victory.
4. Principle of Clarity - I will be clear and precise in all of my claims.
5. Burden of Proof Principle – If I make a claim, I am obligated to defend it.
6. Response Principle – If a claim is successfully defended, I should believe it. If no claim is successfully defended, I should suspend judgment.

Homework

For each class period, you will be given practice problems to complete before class. The goal is for you to get some practice in on the concepts we’ll be covering that day on your own (and so homeworks cannot be done in groups!). I don’t expect that you’ll have the concepts mastered or get all of the homework problems correct. Rather, by trying the problems, and seeing what you are getting and what you are not, you’ll be better able to figure out how to improve. Homeworks will be checked for completion each class.

Reasoning Journal

You will also keep a weekly journal on Canvas that discusses instances of reasoning over the past week. In each post, you should do three things:

• Explain the context – what were you thinking about?
• Explain your own reasoning – what conclusion did you draw and why?
• Evaluate your reasoning – did you follow the principles of intellectual virtue? Did you fall prey to any cognitive biases? Did you use any metacognitive strategies? You can use any of the concepts from the reasoning portion of the course to complete your analysis.

The aim of the journal is to develop a habit of metacognitive awareness of your own reasoning – that is, to pay attention to how you are reasoning outside of the context of the classroom. Journals should be 250-500 words long (about 1-2 double-spaced) pages, and submitted on Canvas (using the Discussions page). They will be graded on an effort scale. To receive full credit your journal must:

• Be submitted on time
• Reflect on your own reasoning, not someone else’s.
• Include all three components noted in the description above.
• Include specific detail in your analysis (see example below).

Sample

(Imagine that this is at the end of a description of an argument I made that The Americans is the best show on television). I think I reasoned well in this instance, though not perfectly. I followed the principle of clarity when I pointed out that “best” is a rather vague term. I was primarily taking it to refer to the quality of writing and acting, while my friend interpreted it as “most enjoyable to watch.” I also followed the fallibility principle, as I noted that I may not be right about this. When my friend pointed out that Game of Thrones has won more Emmys, I did concede that other people who know a lot about television may disagree with me. I was, however, prone to motivated reasoning on this example. I really enjoy the show, and think it is underappreciated, so it may have made me more likely to interpret evidence in support of it more strongly.

Notice that, for each of the three principles or biases that I use, I give specific examples about how it applied. Be careful not to simply re-state the principle (e.g., “I followed the fallibility principle because I saw I might be wrong.”).

Final Reflection

The final reflection is your chance to do a self-evaluation of yourself as a reasoner. None of us are ideal reasoners, and while I hope this class has helped you improve in some areas, I expect the course will make you aware of weaknesses in your reasoning that you didn’t notice before. In this final reflection you should look back on your reasoning journals and your work on the skills to answer the following prompt:

What are your strengths as a critical reasoner, and where do you think you have room to improve? What can you do to keep working on those areas for improvement even after this course is over?

I will be looking for:

• Correct use of the class concepts like the principles of intellectual virtue, cognitive biases, etc.
• Supporting evidence from class used in your self-assessment;
• Perceptive self-evaluation that demonstrates intellectual honesty in applying the principles to oneself;
• A well-structured and well-written essay.

It will be due at the beginning of our final exam period, which is Tuesday, December 15th, at 1:30PM.

Course Policies

Respect for your classmates

We are a community, and every one of us is a part of it. Contributing to a healthy community is important, both because it affirms that each of us belongs and has a place here at St. Lawrence and in Philosophy courses, but also because we all learn better when we feel we can trust each other. We can trust each other to listen and think carefully about what we say. We can trust each other to value us as people, and to respect our dignity. We can trust each other to challenge us, but to do so with humility, recognizing that we all get things wrong.

As part of upholding this community, I expect that you will:

• Listen attentively while your classmates, or me, are talking.
• Arrive to class on time
• Show respect for your classmates, and avoid making disrespectful comments about their contributions, or showing clearly disrespectful body language in response to them.
• Be welcoming of your classmates ideas and contributions, and avoid making aggressive comments targeting your classmates or any group of people.

Late Assignment Policy

Here’s how I think about due dates: they are there for you. What does that mean? Well, one thing due dates help you do is structure your work, so that you are not hit with too many obligations at the same time. Another is that they help you learn how to work under a deadline, an experience you will have throughout your time at SLU and in your working life. Due dates also help make sure you are prepared for class. My policies on due dates are based on these goals.

Homework assignments are designed to prepare you for class, and so all homeworks need to be ready for that class session. No late homework will be accepted for credit, but I will still help if you have questions about a late homework problem.

The journal entries can be a bit more flexible. If you need an extra day or two to finish a journal entry, just ask me ahead of time. I will only say no if requests for extensions are becoming a habit.

Exams can only be rescheduled under the most pressing of circumstances. Please look ahead as soon as the semester starts for any potential conflicts and come talk to me immediately if you expect any. Our final exam block is Tuesday, December 15th, from 1:30-4:30pm. Please make sure that you will be able to attend!

Academic Honesty and AI Use

Unless I specifically ask you to, you may not use Generative AI tools (like ChatGPT, Grammarly Pro, Claude, Notebook LM, etc.) for any purpose in this class. The reason is simple: we are building basic skills in this class, and if you have someone else (a person or computer) do the work for you, you are not building your skills. I can lift a lot more weight with a forklift than I can with my arms, but if I want to improve my strength for my sport, I better not bring a forklift to my gym sessions.

Your writing assignments (journal and final reflection) are not evaluated on grammar. The one thing I am looking for with those assignments is thoughtful metacognitive reflection on your own thinking. Using an AI, even if just to improve the grammar, risks obscuring or even replacing your own observations. You will get more from these assignments with messy but honest reflection than you will with polished, AI generated or even AI influenced work. As such, AI use is not permitted for these assignments either.

Pass/Fail

Due to the grading structure, this course cannot be taken on a pass/fail basis.

Access and Accommodations

St. Lawrence and I are dedicated to fostering inclusive learning environments for all students and welcomes students with disabilities into all of the University’s educational programs. Student Accessibility Services (SAS) assists students with disabilities in reducing campus-wide and classroom-related barriers. If you have or think you have a disability and experience academic barriers, please contact SAS to discuss appropriate accommodations or support. Visit Fox Hall or Student Accessibility Services for more information. You can contact SAS at (315) 229-5537 or via email at studentaccessibility@stlawu.edu.

Title IX Statement

MEMBERS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE COMMUNITY—students, employees, and guests— should expect to be free from retaliation, discrimination, harassment, and sexual misconduct, behavior that is inherently abusive of the humanity that each of us brings to the campus community. St. Lawrence University and its faculty are committed to supporting our students and seeking an environment that is free of discrimination, harassment, and sexual misconduct. St. Lawrence strongly encourages students to report retaliation, discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment, sexual exploitation, domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, or sexual assault to St. Lawrence University’s Title IX office. Discrimination on the basis of sex includes discrimination on the basis of assigned sex at birth, sex characteristics, pregnancy and pregnancy related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.

If you speak with a faculty member about an incident that involves a Title IX matter or matter of other discrimination or harassment, that faculty member must notify SLU’s Title IX Coordinator that you shared that experience. This is true even if you ask the faculty member not to disclose the incident. Moreover, if you disclose an incident of retaliation, discrimination, harassment, or sexual misconduct in an academic assignment, the faculty member must also report that experience to the Title IX Coordinator.

Once a report is made, the reporting individual can expect to receive email outreach from the Title IX Coordinator, who will provide resources and possible resolution options. If the impacted person is not a threat to themselves or others, the impacted person will be free not to respond to the offer to meet. You can find more information for resources and reporting options at: https://www.stlawu.edu/offices/title-ix/reporting-options-confidential-and-nonconfidential-resources.

Title IX also protects students who are pregnant or need assistance for pregnancy related conditions. If you are pregnant, the Title IX Coordinator can assist you in understanding your rights and options as well as provide supportive measures. Lindsey Tropper (Cohen) is the Title IX Coordinator at St. Lawrence University (Student Center Room 302; lcohen@stlawu.edu; 315-229-5334).

Calendar

The course is organized around the three questions that all critical thinkers should ask:

1. What do you mean by that?
2. What is your evidence for that?
3. What follows from that?

Each unit is organized around one of these questions, though as you’ll see, the third question is a little extra complicated, and so I’ve split it into two smaller units. Each unit is followed by a practice day where we’ll go through extra problems, and an exam day.

For each day, there is both a standard being covered and a ‘reasoning in the world’ (RIW) topic. We will typically spend the first 20-30 minutes of class on the reasoning the world topic before spending the rest of class on the standard. For each class session you should read the lesson for that standard, and do any practice problems listed at the bottom of it. You can find those lessons on Canvas.

Unit One – What do you mean by that?

Unit Two – What is your evidence for that?

Unit Three – What follows from that? Deduction

Unit Four – What follows from that? Induction

Unit Five – Bringing it all together

Final Exam - Tuesday, December 15th, 1:30-4:30pm