13 episodes

Are you confident you can reason clearly? Are you able to convince others of your point of view? Are you able to give plausible reasons for believing what you believe? Do you sometimes read arguments in the newspapers, hear them on the television, or in the pub and wish you knew how to confidently evaluate them?

In this six-part course, you will learn all about arguments, how to identify them, how to evaluate them, and how not to mistake bad arguments for good. Such skills are invaluable if you are concerned about the truth of your beliefs, and the cogency of your arguments.

Critical Reasoning for Beginners Oxford University

    • Education
    • 3.9 • 252 Ratings

Are you confident you can reason clearly? Are you able to convince others of your point of view? Are you able to give plausible reasons for believing what you believe? Do you sometimes read arguments in the newspapers, hear them on the television, or in the pub and wish you knew how to confidently evaluate them?

In this six-part course, you will learn all about arguments, how to identify them, how to evaluate them, and how not to mistake bad arguments for good. Such skills are invaluable if you are concerned about the truth of your beliefs, and the cogency of your arguments.

    Further reading and more... (Slides)

    Further reading and more... (Slides)

    So you've finished this series of podcasts. Find out where to go from here... Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    Evaluating Arguments Part Two

    Evaluating Arguments Part Two

    Part six of a six-part series on critical reasoning. In this final lecture we will look at fallacies. These are bad arguments that can easily be mistaken for good arguments. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    • 57 min
    Evaluating Arguments Part Two (Slides)

    Evaluating Arguments Part Two (Slides)

    Part six of a six-part series on critical reasoning. In this final lecture we will look at fallacies. These are bad arguments that can easily be mistaken for good arguments. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    Evaluating Arguments Part One

    Evaluating Arguments Part One

    Part five of a six-part series on critical reasoning. In this lecture we will continue with the evaluation of arguments - this time deductive arguments - focusing in particular on the notion of validity. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    • 1 hr 6 min
    Evaluating Arguments Part One (Slides)

    Evaluating Arguments Part One (Slides)

    Part five of a six-part series on critical reasoning. In this lecture we will continue with the evaluation of arguments - this time deductive arguments - focusing in particular on the notion of validity. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    What is a Good Argument? Validity and Truth

    What is a Good Argument? Validity and Truth

    Part four of a six-part series on critical reasoning. In this lecture we will learn how to evaluate arguments and how to tell whether an argument is good or bad, focusing specifically on inductive arguments. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

    • 52 min

Customer Reviews

3.9 out of 5
252 Ratings

252 Ratings

IsaacThePlatypus ,

Very Good, But Audio Only

This course was absolutely incredible. I really learned a lot from it, and it is easy to understand the subject, even for a beginner. A lot of this is due to the teacher; Marianne Talbot. She is incredible, very easy to understand, enjoyable to listen to and very passionate about what she is teaching.
The only problem is that it is audio only (a video version is available, but this is the audio one) and a few times she refers to something she has written down, presumably on a blackboard. Thankfully the slides she uses are included, so often after a little guessing, you can figure out what she is saying. It happens very rarely, but is worth a mention, and is the reason I rated 4/5 instead of 5/5.
I recommend this course highly to anyone interested in the subject.

Crowbar Man ,

Great class live, terrible podcast

The professor encourages the students to engage from an intuitive perspective, but since they have no training in formal logic, their comments are usually misguided and of no consequence for the listener. This is surely a fun course in person, but it does not work as a podcast.
The worst thing about the lectures is that
I CAN’T HEAR THE STUDENTS, SO THE PROFESSOR’S TALK BECOMES FRAGMENTED AND LOSES MEANING SINCE YOU ONLY HEAR HALF THE CONVERSATION. To make things worse, I can’t even hear the professor half the time since she keeps milling about the class to engage with the students and thus walking away from the microphone.
A discussion section does not work as a podcast. Since you can’t give all participants a professional microphone, only lectures make good podcasts.

Holliwoodinc ,

Wonderful!

Absolutely brilliant set of lectures! An invaluable resource for anyone who has any interest in improving themselves intellectually.

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