Critical
Thinking, Analysis, and Interpretation
Course Description
This course explores the nature, function, and purposes
of critical thinking, close analysis, and interpretation
of available evidence, as these thinking skills can be applied
in the settings of the social service professions. The primary
purpose of the course is to bring out some of the most important
aspects of critical thinking as it can help social service
professionals to better address the sorts of problems that
they frequently encounter, including the issues that commonly
confront their clients. We will pay particularly close attention
to factors that interfere with critical thinking and to ways
that this interference may be eased or even removed.
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Learning Objectives
Participants who complete this course should be able to:
- Identify and explain crucial features of critical thinking
- Explain the relationship between critical thinking and creative
thinking
- Describe general ways in which critical thinking applies to
real life problems
- Discuss the relationship between critical thinking and moral
reasoning
- Apply critical thinking to an understanding of diversity
- Identify obstacles/barriers to critical thinking, and identify
ways to remove these obstacles/barriers
- Apply critical thinking techniques to specific problems
Bibliography and suggestions for further
reading
Black, Max. The Prevalence of Humbug
and Other Essays. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University
Press, 1982.
Carroll, Lewis. Alice’s Adventures
in Wonderland (1865) and Through
the Looking-Glass (1871). (Many editions available.)
Copi, Irving M. and Carl Cohen. Introduction
to Logic. 11th edition. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall,
2002.
Feinberg, Joel, and Russ Shafer-Landau, eds. Reason
and Responsibility. 11th ed. Wadsworth, 2002.
Hume, David. Enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding (1748, 1777). (Many editions available.)
Pirie, Madsen. The Handbook of the Fallacy.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985.
Weston, Anthony. A Rulebook for Arguments.
2nd edition. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992.
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