Liberal Arts and the Humanities
120 Philosophy
Courses
Argument Diagramming (CC BY-NC-SA)
Potentially useful to a broad range of students, Argument Diagramming provides an introduction to exploring and understanding arguments. This course will explain what the parts of an argument are and how to break arguments into their parts and create diagrams to show how those parts relate to each other.
Causal and Statistical Reasoning (CC BY-NC-SA)
This course provides an introduction to causal and statistical reasoning. After taking this course, students will be better prepared to make rational decisions about their own lives and about matters of social policy. They will be able to assess critically—even if informally—claims that they encounter during discussions or when considering a news article or report. A variety of materials are presented, including Case Studies where students are given the opportunity to examine a causal claim, and the Causality Lab, a virtual environment to simulate the science of causal discovery. Students have frequent opportunities to check their understanding and practice their skills.
Logic & Proofs (CC BY-NC-SA)
This is an introductory course designed for students from a broad range of disciplines, from mathematics and computer science to drama and creative writing. The highly interactive presentation makes it possible for any student to master the material. Concise multimedia lectures introduce each chapter; they discuss, in detail, the central notions and techniques presented in the text, but also articulate and motivate the learning objectives for each chapter.
Monographs
Animals & Ethics 101: Thinking Critically About Animal Rights (CC BY-SA)
This book provides an overview of the current debates about the nature and extent of our moral obligations to animals. We will explore the most influential and most developed answers to these questions – given by philosophers, scientists, and animal advocates and their critics – to try to determine which positions are supported by the best moral reasons.
Supplemental Materials
The Republic of Plato (Public Domain, Project Gutenberg)
Transcript of Benjamin Jowett’s 1888 translation of this work. This text attempts to capture all that is of value in the early versions. It is based largely on the third edition, “revised and corrected throughout,” of 1888, but incorporating the complete Stephanus numbering that is found only in a two-volume version published in 1908.
WISC-Online Philosophy Learning Objects (CC BY-NC)
A collection of learning objects on topics in philosophy.
Textbooks
Critical Thinking (CC BY)
Using a combination of the newest findings in hemispheric science, neuropsychology, and brain development, along with the long-established rhetorical algorithms for analyzing the structure of arguments, this course explores the boundaries of critical and creative thinking in pursuit of developing a clearer and more robust model for the construction and deconstruction of various for