Which means I’ve been thinking a lot about my second love, teaching, and how I can integrate the modern into to the classical (if you will allow a blind man a little leeway in his similes).

I don’t know how many of you follow my Twitter account (@HORansome) but I recently found out that the course I helped redesign, PHIL105, has a a twitter feed, and that got me to thinking. How, I asked, can we integrate the twitter feed into the teaching of the class? At the moment the twitter feed is used outside of class, mostly to point students towards examples of bad reasoning, but there is no reason why it couldn’t be used in class by the students to suggest examples, in real time, to the teaching team.

The same should be true for the class’s bespoke e-mail address; why not get students to, say, submit their reconstructions of arguments in standard form via e-mail rather than the currently lengthy process of getting them to read out the reconstruction as someone at the lectern writes it out?

So, sometime next week we are going to experiment with the idea of integrating e-mail and Twitter into the class. It needs to be done with a certain amount of style; you can’t really have the lecturer constantly looking at incoming e-mails and tweets because it will disrupt the flow of the teaching, so a qualified assistant is going to be needed, one who can sort the good questions from the bad and know which reconstructions are going to be the most productive to put up on screen for the world to see. We also need to be cautious not to reveal who is sending us the questions or reconstructions; one virtue of going all ‘social media’ in the classroom is that people who might not want to raise their hand to ask a question might be willing to tweet or e-mail material if they know they won’t be outed.

I’m quite excited about this; I like teaching and I like making it easier for students to engage in the learning process. Now that wifi connections are pretty ubiquitous at the University of Auckland, and a lot of students have laptops of portable internet devices, this means we can make use of the technology¹.

More, as I say, news as it comes to hand.

Notes

1. Of course, it would be better if you could have integrated computers at each seat in the lecture theatre; that way you don’t have the problem of the person who might like to tweet a question but can’t because they have no tweeting device.

Related posts:

1. I’m all-a-twitter
2. A Conspiracy Week of Tweets 2010-08-22
3. A Conspiracy Week of Tweets 2010-09-05

Sunday saw me lead about ninety students around North Head. Usually we have Dave Veart from the Department of Conservation as our tour guide, but due to an illness last year and his being on a dig at the moment, I’ve become the (temporary) replacement.

As a sometime lecturer of the PHIL105 course, and one of the people responsible for coming up with the notion and implementation of a field-trip for a Philosophy class, it is rather fun to talk about the conspiracy theories in a far more relaxed way than I would in the classroom. I don’t like to boast¹ but I do enjoy public speaking and I have a certain talent for it (trained rather than natural); ninety-two (or so) captive souls and a chance to talk about the theories that got me thinking about the issues that now make up my thesis… Glorious.

In completely unrelated news, I made another video. There is method to this video-making madness; once the thesis is finished I plan to do a lot more interactive and video-related content in my lectures and presentations. Because I seem to have no impulse control whatsoever when it comes to staving off future events (or not worrying about them), I’m doing little tests here and there. The following video is representative of experimentalism. If you find it a) boring and/or b) derivative, then that is entirely my your problem.

Notes

1. Not strictly true.

Related posts:

1. The Deadly Gun
2. The Eleventh (and Penultimate) New Sermon of the Neo-Catholic Church
3. The Social Media Game

Cover both Dan Brown’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘Angels and Demons,’ as well as discuss what travesties of writing and historical revision he might be planning in his upcoming book, ‘The Lost Symbol.’

Expand on the Aoteroa/Te Wai Pounamu (New Zealand) section by adding in the ‘Celtic New Zealand’ thesis as a subject of discussion.

Talk even more about how Conspiracy Theories and Official Theories interrelate and how one can easily be the other.

Introduce the material from my upcoming talk to the New Zealand Skeptics¹ on Epistemically Authoritative Sources.

And (probably) lots more.

Notes

1. More on this later.

Related posts:

1. Five trivial items of notes in re my thesis
2. 1999?
3. CCE – Critical Thinking

In Semester One I am teaching up at the Med School again (thus ensuring that future medical professionals will be… well, who knows) and am engaging in a pilot e-learning version of my CCE Critical Thinking course. We’re incorporating an online component to the six week lectures and either it is going to be very exciting or a dismal flop (I can’t really see a third option at this point in time, but I am very tired and need about fifteen minutes prep time to have a single thought).

Anyway, at some point new thesis materials will appear online. I’ve also got a curious tale to tell about refereeing, but I may have to be cautious in just how it gets told.

Be Seeing You.

Related posts:

1. CCE – Critical Thinking
2. The ‘Manifesto…’
3. No Dentith Files this week

ARI has shipped 1.1 million books as part of the “Free Books for Teachers” program. So if the books have a lifespan of four to five years, then four to five million students are reading Ayn Rand’s novels in their English classes. By the end of the decade, over seven million kids will have read Ayn Rand.

Aside from the fact that I think it’s scary someone wants kids to read Rand (I think her greatest accomplishment is that she wrote thick books) this is also a great example of what we philosophers like to call a ‘fallacy.’

Aside from working on the thesis, getting well and moving offices (and who says a man can’t multitask) I am slowly building up a store of new examples for PHIL105, the class I am ‘triumphantly’ returning to in the summer semester.

So why is this a good example, you might ask? And has it anything to do with Conspiracy Theories? The answer to the latter is no, unfortunately (unless you think the actions of the ARI are malacious, covert and out to achieve some ignoble end). In regards to the former question, well…

The arguer assumes that the unsolicited books are going to be put to use in the classroom. This is, of course, not necessarily the case. I’m no expert on North American schools, but I suspect they have a curriculum, assigned texts and, of course, limited teaching time. Most teachers tend to select books based upon their knowledge of the work, how useful they think it has been in the past, et cetera. A new, unsolicited text, unless highly recommended, probably isn’t going to creep into the reading list. Sure, some whackjob teacher might end up using it, but I suspect a lot of them will end up in the bookstall at the school fair.

What kind of fallacy is this an example of? It’s an example of insufficient evidence; the arguer assumes that, by the end of the decade, over seven million kids will have read Ayn Rand. Structure-wise, it looks a little like this:

P1. ‘The Fountainhead’ is available as an assignable reading in sixty-two percent of New Zealand secondary schools.
Therefore, probably,
C1. It has been found useful in many New Zealand secondary schools.
Therefore (probably),
C2. ‘The Fountainhead’ might be a useful assigned reading for secondary-aged children.

Yes it might, but might does not imply is (somewhere, out there, a philosopher giggles).

This kind of fallacy is common; the fact that five million copies of a certain book have been sent out to schools throughout a country is just an empty claim if there is no further evidence or theory to base an argument about. You might as well argue that as Bibles are found throughout a majority of houses in New Zealand then most New Zealanders are Christian. The former does not imply the latter without further justification.

Enough of that. Work to do. Back to the paucity of postings.

Related posts:

1. Ayn Rand
2. For Jack
3. The Generation Game

Vicki Hyde’s ‘Oddzone‘ (New Holland, Auckland, 2006) is, for me, a mixed bag. I probably know just a little too much on the subjects it covers for this to be useful; I either know more detail than the chapters cover or the critical thinking material is just a little too thin (for someone who, in the words of the FHG, is a ‘professional critical thinker’).

I also have some small but niggling issues. On what is really a very minor matter Hyde claims that UFO just means Flying Saucer (p. 36), which isn’t a given (although I do approve of her using UAP (Unidentified Aerial Phenomena)). On a far more important issue I think she a bit of sneaky trick. It’s towards the end of her introductory critical thinking chapter.

Hyde presents what appears to be a logic puzzle and then states that amongst all the answers people have come up with to it, virtually no one ever claims the answer is that she is either lying or mistaken (p. 28). I don’t think this is a particularly fair trick to play on people; if you pose a conundrum (her label) most of your audience is going to think that it is solvable (even if it requires a piece of clever thinking). Psychologically, I think it is fair to say, we write off the possibility that the person posing the conundrum is lying (that there is an answer); indeed, the way the conundrum is posed makes it look as if it can be answered. A response of ‘You’re lying’ doesn’t seem to solve the puzzle.

(The other response she thinks should be offered, ‘You’re mistaken’ also seems to be psychologically locked off because, at least in her case, if you’ve asked someone to come along and give a talk to your group you’re not expecting them to be (overly) mistaken in their thinking…)

Now, Hyde is right to say that we should be sceptical (at some appropriate level) in regards to the utterances of others (we should, at least, admit the possibility that some testimony is false), but the conundrum she poses isn’t the right kind of example to teach this important lesson. This is because the conundrum doesn’t solicit the principle in the right way; people who hear it are, I suspect, going to feel just a little cheated by its solution. Which is a pity, because, overall, the chapter is quite good as an introduction to some core principles of critical thinking and if I decide to teach another introductory course on scepticism in the near future I’d be keen to use it.

(I’m also somewhat curious as to whether Hyde really thinks the example belongs in that chapter; it’s printed as an aside and part of me wonders whether it is there to fill the book out rather than as an illustration vital to the discourse. Then again, this might just be a reflection of my prejudices about layouts coming to the fore.)

Related posts:

1. More Words of Wisdom from the Ivory Pagoda
2. A Case Study in Critical Thinking: The North Head Conspiracy Theory
3. Critical Conspiratorial Thinking

Related posts:

1. The Social Media Game
2. More Words of Wisdom from the Ivory Pagoda
3. Busman’s Holiday

Brain Stab, with thanks to PHIL105 Productions, presents the Critical Thinker’s Toolkit – Blogosphere Edition

First Tool: Argument extraction, analysis, classification and evaluation

The ‘Critical Thinker’s Toolkit’ has this to say on arguments; half the battle is done when an argument is presented formally. Any piece of prose meant as an argument can be reconstructed into what is called ‘Standard Form.’ Take the philosophical chestnut, often paraphrased and misunderstood by prominent Objectivists of:

‘Socrates is a man, and men are mortal, so he must be mortal too.’

This piece of prose can be separated into a conclusion, the statement the arguer wishes prove and the premises, the reasons used to support the conclusion. In our example it is clear that the conclusion, the statement that the argument seems to want to prove, is the claim that ‘Socrates is mortal’ whilst the premises, the reasons, for holding this to be so are that ‘Socrates is a man’ and ‘All men are mortal.’

We can now present this argument as follows:

Premise 1: Socrates is a man
Premise 2: All men are mortal
Conclusion: Therefore, Socrates is mortal

Once the premises and the conclusion are so specified we can analyse the argument’s logical structure; do the premises of the argument guarantee the truth of its conclusion or do they merely suggest it? In the preceding example the premises guarantee, or entail the conclusion. These kinds of arguments we will call deductive. Deductive arguments are those where the premises are intended to guarantee the truth of the conclusion. Not all such arguments are good, however. Here is an example.

“My fax machine is a knife; my hard drive is a fork; I can eat a meal with my fax machine & hard drive.”

Reconstructed in Standard Form the argument looks something like this.

Premise 1: My fax machine is a knife
Premise 2: My hard drive is a fork
Conclusion: I can eat a meal with my fax machine and hard drive.

This is a deductive argument, but it is a bad deductive argument; the conclusion is not entailed by the premises. We can fix such an argument by adding in a suppressed premise, a premise statement that was not in the original argument but one that we could plausibly claim the arguer intended, such as:

Premise 3: I eat my meals with a knife and fork

With this extra premise included the conclusion is now entailed by the premises. It is, however, a stupid argument and we will spend no further time on it.

Some arguments have conclusions which are suggested, not entailed, by their premises, like this one:

Premise 1:Most of the cats I have owned are Tonkinese
Premise 2: Lek is a cat I have owned
Conclusion: Therefore, probably, Lek was a Tonkinese

This second argument suggests its conclusion; it is still possible that Lek was one of the many non-Tonkinese cats I have owned. These kinds of arguments we will call inductive.

Inductive arguments are good or bad in matters of degree.

The final task of argument analysis is that of deciding whether the premises are plausible. We are not often in a position to decide whether a premise is true; even the claim ‘All men are mortal’ may well turn out to be false should anti-agaptics ever come into existence. Thus we usually talk about premise plausibility; given what we know is this particular premise plausible. If a premise is implausible then the argument is not good; if a premise is plausible then the argument, if it is deductive is intended to entail a plausible conclusion whilst if the argument is inductive then the argument is intended to suggest, to some degree of likelihood, a plausible conclusion.

Second Tool: The Blank Slate

High-price lifestyle gurus such as Hedley Merricut like to tell you what to believe; the Toolkit, however, advocates approaching an argument without preconceptions. Don’t import your fancy ideas.

You may have been brought up by Scientologists, Radical Feminists or Libertarians and those debates around the dinner-table might well have left an impression on you. The Toolkit once had an editor who had been told by his father never to trust a man with corduroy trousers, and such formative influences can easily become biases when you hear the arguments of another. Think of it this way; if you were trying to convince a Socialist of the evils of their ways you wouldn’t want them to automatically trout the party line; you would want them to reason along with you. The notion of the Blank Slate asks that you do the same; approach each argument from a position of innocence and then, once you understand the arguer’s position, then you can begin to pick it apart.

Third Tool: The ability to assign the Burden of Proof

The Critical Thinker’s Toolkit has the following to say on the ‘Burden of Proof;’ learn who has to hold it. The ‘Burden of Proof’ tells us that if you make a statement you must be prepared to defend that statement. Here is a helpful list:

People who argue against the status quo
People who put forward a controversial claim
People who put forward a claim which could easily be checked by gathering evidence without much effort
People who start an argument
The Prosecution in a trial
Site managers in matters of safety
Whistle blowers
Sub-ordinates who disobey orders that are handed down by an appropriate procedure

The moral of the story is this: if a statement is implausible then you will need to provide some kind of argument in support of it. Implausibility here can mean factually implausible and also socially or consensus implausibility. If you hold a view in variance to the general population then expect to defend said view until such time that you can demonstrate why your position is superior.

Fourth Tool: The Principle of Charity

In its less rambunctious rants the Toolkit recommends the application of Charity to other people’s arguments; not everyone makes their points as succinctly as you do. Applying the principle of Charity allows for the best possible reconstruction of an argument, something we might all learn to appreciate. For more details, seek the wise counsel of Mr. Olthwaite.

Fifth Tool: Irreverence

Aside from the sage advice given by the Critical Thinker’s Toolkit, of course, itself the Toolkit recommends you treat all sources of an argument as irrelevant. What matters is the argument itself, not its delivery. The same goes with whatever possible effects the argument might have; the consequences of an argument should have no effect on how good it is. Imagine yourself as a good Socialist, prim and proper. Your opponent is a nasty, smelly Objectivist, arrogant as the day is long. Now, even though it seems justifiable in the sense of social grace to dismiss your opponent’s views out of hand as a critical thinker you should ignore who is giving the argument and, instead, focus on what exactly they are saying. Just in the same way that a Climate Change Denier might have something worthwhile to say on the subject of local vs. global temperature changes an Objectivist might have something decent to report on the matter of civil liberties, a point you might well never get to hear should you dismiss all they say on their reported views alone. The Toolkit understands your mistake but you have to admit that such mistakes can be truly regrettable.

Sixth Tool: The ability to find a counterexample

The Toolkit’s advice when evaluating an argument is to question whether the premises, if true, could have a false conclusion.

Take, for example, this old chestnut:

Premise 1: If it has been raining then the grass will be wet.
Premise 2: The grass is wet
Conclusion: Therefore, it has been raining.

This is a deductive argument; the arguer has intended the conclusion to be entailed from the truth of the premises. It is also a bad deductive argument because nothing in the premises forces the truth of the conclusion. The grass might well be wet but it doesn’t have to be because it has been raining; I might well have had the sprinklers on or the kids next door could have been using their waterslide. For one effect we can have a multitude of causes, and rain is simply one cause for the grass being wet.

What the Toolkit has just described, then, is a counter-example, an example of additional information that, if true, would show that the argument is bad. If any such information can be brought to bear on a deductive argument then it shows that the argument does not logically entail its conclusion and thus the argument must be thought of as bad.

Counter-examples are funny creatures; whilst it is easy to imagine counterexamples to bad deductive arguments it can be a little difficult to do the same for those frequently encountered inductive ones. Inductive counter-examples are those whereby the premises show that the conclusion is unlikely but be warned; this doesn’t mean that the conclusion could be true, just that on the balance of probabilities you would not expect it to be so.

Concluding Thoughts

This is just a taster of the kinds of things you will learn about should you take a Critical Thinking course. Aside from the Toolkit you would also learn about the common fallacies, more in-depth argument reconstruction techniques and, most probably, a whole lot on how to construct good arguments of your own. For those of you not engaged in undergraduate tertiary study I would recommend seeking out your local university’s Adult Education or Continuing Education unit. It’s amazing what you will learn, and even those of you who are already Critical Thinkers can always do with a little revision or a tune-up. And who knows; you might get me as your tutor. You’d like me, even if it turned out that we had wildly different political views.

Related posts:

1. Sloping Burdens
2. Henry Kissinger, how I’m missing yer…
3. September the Eleventh