Reason and Rational Decision Making PHIL 1250

Vivian Guest

PHIL 1250/Wood

Course Response

Becoming a Critical Thinker

I took this course for a few reasons. The first was I wanted to see what a Philosophy course would be like, the second was I figured if I took a course called “Reason and Rational Decision Making” perhaps my husband would stop accusing me of being illogical. In someways the course was what I expected, in others I was surprised. But on the whole I feel the course has been a good one for me and my goals in education and my career as a writer. As to my current career, being a mother, it has not helped me a lot, but this is only because when dealing with five-year-old twin boys logic does not play much of a role, other than to frustrate the parent. 

The class was a lot like I expected a Philosophy class to be, a lot of questioning things that we take for granted and a good deal of learning the structures and rules of different arguments. I question the name of the course. We stayed away from the actual decision making of any given topic, but stayed more at the analyzing of the arguments we base those divisions on. Critical Thinking would be a better course title, a little less mis-leading. 

Most of my goals in education are geared toward enriching my own life and expanding my mind, not so much geared toward getting a degree, although I would like to get one, as a degree is not necessary for my goals as a writer. This class fit in with those goals. My parents raised me to question things and I to this day marvel at people who will believe anything that is forwarded to the email or shared on Facebook. After this class I can now identify what fallacies are being used to manipulate in the things I come across, where as before these things would make me think “I know this is wrong, but I can’t tell you way exactly.” Honestly, it does not do me a whole lot of good because now that I can tell you exactly what is wrong I would then have to explain it. 

I am able to see things more logical now, and I think I may be finally conquering my childhood fears of logic puzzles. But my husband still thinks I am illogical. At least now I can pick apart his arguments as to why he thinks that.