Critical Thinking - An Upgrade For Your Mind
What you'll learn
- The ability to think and argue more clearly and effectively.
- Critical thinking skills for career, education, and life.
- Learn some of the most useful material I've developed as a professional philosopher at Oxford and London Universities.
Requirements
- No course requirements.
Description
This course aims to make you a more rigorous, effective, and creative thinker.
I have taught philosophy and critical thinking at Oxford University and the University of London. I've also written online courses for both Oxford University and Eton College, and published numerous popular philosophy books.
This course distils what I have found to be the most engaging and generally useful critical thinking material. It sharpens up thinking skills that you can then usefully apply in your career, your education, and in your personal life too.
The course develops skills and habits we all need to become more reliable judges of what's true:
skills that make us more penetrating thinkers - so that we are better able to both figure out for ourselves, and rationally persuade others, of what's true.
skills of intellectual self-defence - that can help immunise us against the influence of bad arguments, propaganda, psychological manipulation, prejudice, fake news, and bullshit.
Becoming a better critical thinker is not just an intellectual exercise. It's also about developing awareness, and especially self-awareness - of the biases and prejudices to which we're all prone and which may skew our judgement.
This course is designed to be highly engaging and accessible. I'm one of the world's leading popularizers of critical thinking and philosophy, with a reputation for explaining even complex ideas clearly.
The course is grounded in some of the most up-to-date research and thinking.
The course is unusual in that, while it covers the fundamentals - including cognitive biases, fallacies, and the basics of argumentation - it includes extra material students find particularly useful outside the classroom.
Feeling stuck or confused? You can communicate with me inside the course - I'll usually get back to you within 24 hours! There are some optional easy quizzes to help your understanding.
Who this course is for:
- Anyone wanting to develop their critical thinking to enhance their career and education.
- Anyone wanting to become a more effective, rigorous, and creative thinker.
Course content
- Preview04:32
- 03:24What Are Reasonable Beliefs And Why Do We Value Them?
- 02:55Illustration of Critical Thinking in Action
Instructor
![Stephen Law](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 64 64"%3E%3C/svg%3E){kind=avatar}
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 126 Reviews
- 583 Students
- 1 Course
Stephen Law is a professional philosopher. He taught and researched at the University of Oxford and University of London, and holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford.
Stephen has previously written online courses for both The University of Oxford and Eton College.
He is also author of many well-known introductions to philosophy and critical thinking, including the prize-winning The Philosophy Gym: 25 Short Adventures in Thinking and The Great Philosophers. He also published a highly acclaimed philosophy book for children: The Complete Philosophy Files.
Stephen has had many TV and radio appearances and speaks regularly at Literary Festivals and in schools.
He also edits THINK: Philosophy for Everyone for the Royal Institute of Philosophy.