SCHEDULE -- under construction

All dates and topics are likely to change. Sources are on Moodle. Readings for a unit are to be done by the date shown unless otherwise specified.

Introduction, 8/23.

The Bones of Argument

How to Lie With or Without StatisticsUnit 1, 8/25. Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics. Reading due 8/26. All subsequent readings are due on the date the unit starts.
Unit 2, 9/8. Logic. No reading, but we'll be using Lewis Carroll's logic puzzles in class (see Moodle).
Unit 3, 9/13. The key to understanding now -- the past. 
Unit 4, 9/18. Writing.
Unit 5, 9/27. 1984.
Extra, 10/4. Critical thinking and religion.
Unit 5, 10/6. Science, or Nullius in verba.

Traps and Tricks

Unit 6, 10/18: The Shadow Knows.
Unit 7, 10/25: Righteous minds and other problems.
Unit 8, 11/1: Paradox.
Unit 9, 11/8: Categories.

Life on the Internet and Elsewhere

Unit 10, 11/15: Moral reasoning.
Unit 11, 11/29: Economics
Unit 12,  12/1: Random things

How to Lie with StatisticsREADINGS

Unit 1: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Huff, D. (1954, Reissued 1993.) How to lie with statistics. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co.

Unit 2: Logic

Hile, G. N. (n.d.) Lewis Carroll Puzzles. Retrieved from http://www.math.hawaii.edu/~hile/math100/logice.htm.

Unit 3: The key to understanding now: the past

Engels, Friedrich, and Karl Marx. (1848.) The Communist Manifesto.  Retrieved from https://gutenberg.org/ebooks/61.

U.S. Constitution Amendments I-X (Bill of Rights). (1786.) Retrieved from https://billofrightsinstitute.org/primary-sources/bill-of-rights.

Unit 4: Writing like it's 1984

Orwell, George. (1950.) "On Politics and the English Language." Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays. Secker and Warburg, London. Retrieved from http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. (1963.) "I Have a Dream." [Video recording.] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/embed/c_nvqRqTiKk?start=90

Lewis, C. S. (1938.) Out of the Silent Planet. London: John Lane, The Bodley Head. Retrieved from https://www.gutenberg.ca/ebooks/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet/lewiscs-outofthesilentplanet-00-h.html

Unit 5: 1984

Orwell, George. (1949). Nineteen Eight-Four. US: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, Inc.

Extra on critical thinking and religion:

Genesis 1.

Sun coming up over earth's limbAugustine. (c. 1160, Translation 2004.) "The Literal Meaning of Genesis." Excerpted from On Genesis (Works of Saint Augustine, vol I/13). Ed. John E. Rotelle; Tr. Edmund Hill. New City Press. Retrieved from http://www.scottmacdonald.net/genesis/Texts_files/Augustine%20Literal%20Meaning%20of%20Genesis%20bks%201-2.pdf (now a dead link, but you can get it on the Wayback Machine)

Unit 6: Science, or Nullius in verba

Coat of arms of the Royal Academy of ScienceSagan, Carl. (1997.) The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York: Ballantine Books,

Gould, Steven J. (1981.) The Mismeasure of Man. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. [May skip this one.]

Behe, Michael J. (2006.) Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution. New York: Free Press.

Part II: Tricks and Traps

The shadowUnit 6: The Shadow Knows

Johnson, Robert. (1991.) Owning Your Own Shadow. New York: HarperCollins.

Steiner, Claude. (1974, reissued 1990.) Scripts People Live. New York: Grove Press.

Your Righteous Mind coverUnit 7: Tricks and Traps

Haidt, Jonathan. (2013.) The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Random House.

Gladwell, Malcolm. (2019.) Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don't Know. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Unit 8: Paradox

Hofstadter, Douglas P. (1985.) Metamagical Themas: Questing for the Essence of Mind and Pattern. New York: Basic Books.

Chesterton, G. K. (1908.) Orthodoxy. Retrieved from https://www.ccel.org/ccel/chesterton/orthodoxy.

(From Chesterton, we want Chapter 2, from " For we must remember that the materialist philosophy" to "pass the mustard." Materialism means the belief that only matter and energy exist. Determinism is a belief that we do not have free will.)

C. S. Lewis. (1948, reissued 1986.) "On Living in an Atomic Age."  Collected in Present Concerns, pp. 73-80. (An alternative way to get it: this doodle video.)

Hooray for our side! signUnit 9: Categories

Berreby, David. (2005.) Us and Them: Understanding Your Tribal Mind. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

Part III: Applying our skills

Unit 10:

Lewis, C. S. (2014, original 1952.) Mere Christianity. Retrieved from http://wikilivres.ca/wiki/File:C._S._Lewis_-_Mere_Christianity.pdf (now a dead link).

Wilson, Edward. O. (2009, original 1978.) "On Human Nature." Excerpted in Science and Human Nature, Lynchburg College Symposium Readings Volume IX, Lynchburg, VA.   Go thru p. 181 ("...competing criteria of progress.")

Feser, Edward. (2009.) Aquinas. Oneworld Publications, Oxford.

Zen and the Art logoPersig, Robert. (1974.) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. William Morrow & Co., New York.

Kant, Immanuel. (2004; original 1785.) Tr. Thomas Kingsmill Abbott. Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals. Accessed 2022 from http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5682.epub.noimages?session_id=f1b771b15ec1baffa43cf1169d662bdedebc5246.
We want pp. 13 -15 (end with "such a will is above everything").

Unit 11:

Hazlitt, Henry. (1946.) Economics in One Lesson. Harper & Brothers. Accessed 2022 from https://www.liberalstudies.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Economics-in-One-Lesson_2.pdf.