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Graduate course on Reasoning, one week intensive, Lund, Autumn 2012

May 5, 2012 by Steve

Below are a few details about an intensive graduate course on reasoning to be held over one week at Lund University in Sweden.  Credits earned will be transferable, and there is a possibility that help with accommodations may be made available.

LUND UNIVERSITY
Reasoning, 7,5 ECTS
Lecturer: Frank Zenker
Course dates: One week (Mo-Fr 10-12 and 14-16) in autumn 2012. Enter your date preferences now:
http://www.doodle.com/8r8b6vaxbaqnt7iq
If you would like to take this course please get in touch with the instructor now. E-mail & webpage

Course description
The study of reasoning—deductive, inductive, abductive, belief revision, defeasible, cross cultural, conversational, argumentative—is a major focus of investigation in both psychology and philosophy. Next to more traditional issues arising from the rationality debate, this includes a focus on fallacious reasoning and its reduction through education, the development of pragmatics, and the study of human reasoning process through neuro-imaging techniques.

Aim: The aim of this course is to enable learners to orient themselves in this research area (which may reasonably be called interdisciplinary) to the extent that they can actively participate in current empirical research and discourse on this matter.
We will work through select parts of a recently compiled selection of “classics” from a reader by Adler and Rips (2008). The three major themes are: 1. Foundations of Reasoning (Philosophical Viewpoints; Fallacies and Rationality), 2. Modes of Reasoning (Deductive Reasoning; Induction; Dual and Integrative Approaches; Abduction and Belief change; Causal and Counterfactual Reasoning; Argumentation); 3. Interactions of Reasoning in Human Thought (Reasoning and Pragmatics; domain-specific, Goal Based, and Evolutionary Approaches; Reasoning and Cultures; Biology, Emotions, and Reasoning).

Workload/Grading: Successful completion requires reading 20 to 30 pages per meeting, and the preparation and delivery of a max. 30 minute group presentation on one of the above subthemes (the presentation requires additional reading of ca. 60-90 pages). Learners are expected to focus on at least one of the above subthemes (see the table of content under the link below).
Grading occurs on the basis of presentation, an intermediate quiz, peer feedback, and a final paper (of 10-15 pages) due within 2 months after the end of the course.

Prerequisites: A background in mathematics or logic may be found helpful for some (but not all) subthemes. Learners with a background in the empirical sciences are especially welcome. A background in philosophy is not necessary to successfully conclude the course. Those interested in pursuing empirical work are assumed to have a background in empirical research methodology (which is not provided in this course). The course is open to students at Master’s level and up. The language of instruction is English.

Reference
Adler, J.E., and Rips, L.J. (2008). Reasoning. Studies of Human Inference and its Foundations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (will be made available).
http://www.amazon.com/Reasoning-Studies-Human-Inference-Foundations/dp/0521848156

For more information contact Frank Zenker, Department of Philosophy & Cognitive Science, Kungshuset, Lundagård, 222 22 Lund, Sweden, Tel. 0046.70.148 31 35, http://www.fil.lu.se/persons/person.asp?filpers=792.

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AILACT Responds to Peter Wood

May 3, 2012 by Steve

Some RAIL readers may recall the fracas that developed between Peter Wood, of the NAS and AILACT around the end of 2011.  Unfortunately, it’s a fracas in which RAIL played a direct role–something I sincerely regret. Though I had written what I hoped was a moderate-in-tone post questioning Wood’s use of the term ‘critical thinking’ before this, it was a guest post by Don Lazere that really earned Wood’s anger in sufficient quantity for him to denounce both RAIL and AILACT in a post at the Chronicle of Higher Education website. Many members of AILACT, including myself, found Wood’s characterization of the organization and its conception of critical thinking in this post to be both unfair and inaccurate.  In order to respond to Wood’s charges, the Board of AILACT wrote the following reply, which appears in the organization’s April Newsletter.  It is reproduced here, in its entirety, by permission of the Board.  In addition to setting the record straight about AILACT and the sense of critical thinking it endorses, I hope that it sets the stage for a more constructive dialogue between AILACT and Wood, and with others who care about critical thinking and its place in higher education.

A Reply by the AILACT Board to Peter Wood’s CHE Comments on “Critical Thinking” Continue Reading »

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Critical thinking about irony

April 30, 2012 by drcateh

Jezebel has a few things to tell us regarding critical thinking and racism, mostly “keep it simple stupid.”  Stop making excuses to believe that there is no racism or that it’s sufficiently over that it can be employed ironically.  That ignorance is a failure in critical thinking.

Writers Jim Cooke and elenabo/Shutterstock use a disquotational appeal to truth:

You know how you can tell that black people are still oppressed? Because black people are still oppressed.

The evidence is overwhelming.  Even if it were not, irony takes a delicate hand and is almost impossible to deliver from a position of privilege.

Their anger is inspiring but humour is difficult to think about critically.  Many of us have no understanding of how it works and why what seems to be a simple pleasure can cause so much harm.  Perhaps that is as important a subject for teaching critical thinking as argumentation?  Humour can be a hindrance or boon, and understanding the reasoning it involves may help us use it better.

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14th International Workshop on Non-Monotonic Reasoning (NMR 2012)

April 30, 2012 by Steve

CALL FOR PARTICIPATION

NMR 2012

14th International Workshop on Non-Monotonic Reasoning (NMR 2012)

http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/NMR12/

Co-located with KR 2012, DL 2012, CILC 2012, AI*IA 2012, KiBP 2012

Rome, Italy

June 8-10, 2012

IMPORTANT DATES FOR REGISTRATION

NMR-12 Registration fee includes lunches for three workshop days,
coffee breaks, and one ticket for the social event.

Previous registration at KR2012 allows for a reduced fee (for early
registrations only).

Discounted Early Registration ends:  May 11
Late Registration ends:              May 31
on site registration:                7-10 June

In this year, NMR will share a joint session together with the International
Workshop on Description Logics (DL 2012).
A special fee for joint registration with DL-12 is also available.

Details on NMR 2012 fees are available at
http://www.dbai.tuwien.ac.at/NMR12/registration.html

Information on accommodations can be found at
http://www.dis.uniroma1.it/~kr12/?p=hotels

STUDENT GRANTS Continue Reading »

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Critical stakes

April 27, 2012 by drcateh

I keep hearing from colleagues in other disciplines that the stakes are incredibly low in contemporary psychology.  Requests for explanation get me no further than utterances of despair over the stranglehold caused by increased ethical standards for research on humans.  There will be no more Stanford prison experiments or Milgram authority tests.  All that is left are either peculiar lab objectifications of the social or discourse analysis.

I don’t understand the despair:  we’ve learned what we needed to from Zimbardo and Milgram, surely.  The new social psychology involved with cognition and discourse provides good fodder for argumentation studies (or at least it can).  It encourages critical thinking that will be informed by empirical analysis of what works, rather than armchair speculations.  All this feeds democracy.

Argumentation and discourse analysis (of which I have only the vaguest understanding) seem especially important given the current proliferation of discourse.  Discourse may also be the site of some of the most persistent stumbling blocks to social justice.  Micro-inequalities and implicit bias impede women’s and minorities’ social and political participation.

Cecelia Ridgeway suggests implicit bias may be a central cause for the stalled gender revolution:  despite the massive improvements for women in wealthy countries during the 20th century the progress stalled around 1990.  On the major markers of social status (income, wealth, and political participation as I recall), we are still where we were 22 years ago!

While Ridgeway argues we cannot directly affect our cognitive biases, given their deep and unconscious operation, we can certainly affect their impact on our discourse, watch for it, and compensate.  We can revise our hiring and promotion practices, we can change more casual standards too perhaps, e.g. by making direct eye-contact with marginalized people.  That could be part of critical thinking too, and might aid its impact. Attention to micro-inequalities may be critical too in the sense of necessary to push beyond the stall, and psychology is helping us sort them out.  The stakes remain pretty high for women and minorities.

Posted in Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Discourse Analysis | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

(Another) Fallacies Infographic

April 24, 2012 by Steve

My but these things are popular. This one comes to us via yourlogicalfallacyis.com and is free to download in three sizes. The graphic is also downloadable as vector art for those saavy and motivated enough to want to work with the image some more. In terms of design I think I like this one the best of all those shared on RAIL so far. (You can see the others here and here.) It also avoids the tricky business of classification and therefore might be more useful for teaching purposes. Below is a (crummy) screenshot. The files available for download are much higher quality.

Who are those three chaps in the middle there?

It is interesting that the fallacies seem to be bubbling up as a meme in the culture at large like this. I wonder if it’s a sign of sorts that people have had enough of the shoddy, transparently shortsighted and self-interested discourse that has come to characterize so much of public life and are starting to crave discourse of a different kind–perhaps more rational, thoughtful, and careful.  That would be nice…and timely too.

Posted in Connections, Critical Thinking, Discussion, Fallacies, Teaching | Tagged , , | Leave a Comment »

The Trouble with Experts

April 22, 2012 by Steve

Here’s a short documentary on appeal to expert authority, produced by the CBC.  I found it by way of Ben Goldacre’s secondary blog. If you don’t know about Goldacre or his work on calling out abusive and phony experts in the UK, you should. His blog Bad Science is highly recommended reading.

The documentary:

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