What is reasoning?

Reasoning is a definitive characteristic of human nature for consciously applying logic for making sense of things and for establishing and verifying facts. Reasoning is also important for changing or mitigating practices, institutions and values based on a set of information. It is closely associated with other fields such as philosophy, science, language, mathematics, and arts. The concept of reason is also referred to as rationality.

Reasoning is an extremely important aspect of human psychology. If you want to convince your opponent, your reasoning skills should be really strong. Take this free online course and polish your reasoning and arguing skills.

What is this course all about?

This course will teach you how to do it well. It will share with you some simple but vital rules to follow when thinking about any topic for debate. You will also get to learn some common and tempting mistakes that you should avoid in reasoning.  In this case you will also learn how to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments by others, and how to construct arguments of your own to obtain desirable results.

Table of Contents:

- How to analyze arguments
- How to Spot an Argument
- How to Untangle an Argument
- How to Reconstruct an Argument
- How to evaluate deductive arguments
- Propositional Logic and Truth Tables
- Categorical Logic and Syllogisms
- How to evaluate inductive arguments
- What are Inductive Arguments?
- Week Seven: Causal Reasoning
- Week Eight:  Probability and Decisions
- How to mess up arguments
- Fallacies of Vagueness and Ambiguity
- Fallacies of Relevance and Vacuity
- How to Refute an Argument
- How to Apply these Methods to Everyday Arguments

Author Bio:

This online course has been jointly prepared by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Ram Neta.

Walter is Chauncey Stillman Professor of Practical Ethics in the Philosophy Department and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. He has also served as vice-chair of the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association. Ram Neta is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.