Introduction
A.
official description:
1.
reasoning, argumentation and writing
2.
reasoning, rhetoric, research
C.
Why a GE requirement?
1.
college learners pass through three stages of intellectual development
before becoming sophisticated critical thinkers.
a)
Dualism. Very young or unsophisticated thinkers tend to see
the world in polar terms: black and white, good and bad, and so on. These
students also have what Perry calls a "cognitive egocentrism" - that
is, they find it difficult to entertain points of view other than the ones they
themselves embrace. If they have no strong beliefs on a topic, they tend to
ally themselves absolutely to whatever authority they find appealing. At this
stage in their development, students believe that there is a "right"
side, and they want to be on it. They believe that their arguments are
undermined by the consideration of other points of view.
b)
Relativism. As students progress in their academic careers,
they come to understand that there often is no single right answer to a
problem, and that some questions have no answers. Students who enter the stage
of relativism are beginning to contextualize knowledge and to understand the
complexities of any intellectual position. However, the phase of relativism has
some pitfalls - among them that students in this phase sometimes give
themselves over to a kind of skepticism. For the young relativist, if there is
no Truth, then every opinion is as good as another. At its worst, relativism
leads students to believe that opinion is attached to nothing but the person
who has it, and that evidence, logic, and clarity have little to do with an
argument's value.
c)
Reflectivism. If students are properly led through the phase
of relativism, they will eventually come to see that, indeed, some opinions are
better than others. They will begin to be interested in what makes one argument
better than another. Is it well reasoned? Well supported? Balanced?
Sufficiently complex? When students learn to evaluate others' points of view,
they will begin to evaluate their own. In the end, they will be able to commit
themselves to a point of view that is objective, well reasoned, sophisticated -
one that, in short, meets all the requirements of an academic argument.
2.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill's evaluation of democracy as a
form of government, persuasion is the worst method of social
control—except for all the others.
D.
Argument based on research
1.
fact, experiment, interpretation
2.
communities of discourse, scientific, scholarly, other
3.
my use of research and creation of research—the classÕs
E. Logos, Pathos, Ethos
1. Aristotle and others
F.
Sustainability
1.
what is it—triple bottom line
2.
sustainability in education
G.
Course Outline