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Back to Think Again IV: How to Avoid Fallacies

Think Again IV: How to Avoid Fallacies, Duke University

4.6
126 ratings
•
23 reviews

About this Course

How to Avoid Fallacies Think Again: How to Reason and Argue Reasoning is important. This series of four short courses will teach you how to do it well. You will learn simple but vital rules to follow in thinking about any topic at all and common and tempting mistakes to avoid in reasoning. We will discuss how to identify, analyze, and evaluate arguments by other people (including politicians, used car salesmen, and teachers) and how to construct arguments of your own in order to help you decide what to believe or what to do. These skills will be useful in dealing with whatever matters most to you. Courses at a Glance: All four courses in this series are offered through sessions which run every four weeks. We suggest sticking to the weekly schedule to the best of your ability. If for whatever reason you fall behind, feel free to re-enroll in the next session.We also suggest that you start each course close to the beginning of a month in order to increase the number of peers in the discussion forums who are working on the same material as you are. While each course can be taken independently, we suggest you take the four courses in order. Course 1 - Think Again I: How to Understand Arguments Course 2 - Think Again II: How to Reason Deductively Course 3 - Think Again III: How to Reason Inductively Course 4 - Think Again IV: How to Avoid Fallacies About This Course in the Series: We encounter fallacies almost everywhere we look. Politicians, salespeople, and children commonly use fallacies in order to get us to think what they want us to think. Think Again: Fallacies will show how to identify and avoid many of the fallacies that people use to get us to think the way they want us to think. In this course, you will learn about fallacies. Fallacies are arguments that suffer from one or more common but avoidable defects: equivocation, circularity, vagueness, etc. It’s important to learn about fallacies so that you can recognize them when you see them, and not be fooled by them. It’s also important to learn about fallacies so that you avoid making fallacious arguments yourself. Suggested Readings Students who want more detailed explanations or additional exercises or who want to explore these topics in more depth should consult Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic, Ninth Edition, Concise, Chapters 13-17, by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Robert Fogelin. Course Format Each week will be divided into multiple video segments that can be viewed separately or in groups. There will be short ungraded quizzes after each segment (to check comprehension) and a longer graded quiz at the end of the course....

Top reviews

By LB

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Sep 25, 2017

This course has been incredible and more than anything because of the energy put by the instructors, I truly thank you for helping the world to become a better place to live.\n\nfrom Colombia, Luis.

By CK

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May 30, 2017

This course will be immensely helpful in structuring my thoughts in a logical and manner by addressing pertinent material and avoiding fallacy traps. Thank you so much!!!

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23 Reviews

By KRISHNA CHAITANYA B

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Jan 15, 2019

Excellent course on a deep dive into the world of arguments and their analysis, albeit this particular course deals with a part of it called fallacies. I really liked the course content, lecture delivery style, the quiz questions and the explanation provided to support the answers of the questions. However, for some of the questions that you encounter in the quiz, there is little supporting material in the lecture itself. I guess one can get a very good learning by going through the suggested text book in parallel. But since they suggested that the textbook is optional, I haven't gone through it yet. And without the text book, this course is probably a little bit incomplete.

This course can be made better by suggesting relevant sections in the book to go through as and when required. Probably that would better equip us in answering the quiz correctly.

By José Antonio Aguilar Islas

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Nov 16, 2018

Great course!

By Cristian Navarro

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May 08, 2018

Incredible, such passion and dedication shown by the professors. I'm really grateful for this course.

By Ana Paula Bellamy

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Apr 30, 2018

some of the videos were confusing fro english speakers

By Luis Eduardo Vázquez Cárdenas

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Mar 23, 2018

It might benefit from a wider variety of more thorough examples.

By matthew symes

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Mar 04, 2018

Excellent !

By Doug Mongerson

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Dec 23, 2017

I found a few technical errors that were confusing. The quiz on counterexamples appe

By Tãrún Köśhy

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Dec 12, 2017

This series has been quite brilliant. These lectures totally changed the way I formulate my arguments and also help me identify fallacies of arguments of others and mine as well. Overall I strongly recommend this course as well as the entire Think Again series.

By Sumanta Sarathi Sharma

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Nov 22, 2017

Interesting Course

By Mark James Robertson

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Oct 03, 2017

Very well explained and discussed.

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