Embedded Files
I appear in ThinkerAnalytix's video, From Discord to Discourse, as a champion of their method of teaching critical thinking. I have collaborated with the nonprofit educational group since 2022.
NCSU Foundation grant.movthinkPACK is an initiative to expand the delivery of critical thinking instruction to thousands of NC State students in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Daniel Gruehn and I were awarded funding in a competition sponsored by the NC State University Foundation. I describe the effort in this video, created to accompany our proposal (June 2025).
"The purpose of the university is to produce wise, thoughtful, critical thinkers..."
- Colgate University mission statement
This March 2024 lecture, After How We Argue: What comes next? describes an advanced course-thinkESSAYS--that applies the tools of thinkBASICS and thinkASSUMPTIONS to longer essays. I also discuss a large quasi-randomized trial at NC State University to assess How We Argue's effectiveness.
"Discover Deduction: Critical Thinking Meets Civil Discourse" (Ethics of Argumentation Speaker Series, 6 October 2023).
In this lecture I describe 4 problems I see in my students’ thinking. They tend to be uncritical, uncharitable, undemocratic, and lonely. They also struggle to identify a speaker’s or text’s argument: its main claim, hidden premises, objections, and rebuttals. And they lack confidence in their evaluation of the argument’s soundness.
The solution: A method I call Discover Deduction teaches students to work with opponents to discover valid deductive arguments for each side’s main claim. I explain the method, discuss its shortcomings, and note its achievements. I conclude by describing a large quasi-randomized trial at NC State University assessing the method's effectiveness.
In this lecture I describe 4 problems I see in my students’ thinking. They tend to be uncritical, uncharitable, undemocratic, and lonely. They also struggle to identify a speaker’s or text’s argument: its main claim, hidden premises, objections, and rebuttals. And they lack confidence in their evaluation of the argument’s soundness.
The solution: A method I call Discover Deduction teaches students to work with opponents to discover valid deductive arguments for each side’s main claim. I explain the method, discuss its shortcomings, and note its achievements. I conclude by describing a large quasi-randomized trial at NC State University assessing the method's effectiveness.
Charity Chats: Dr. Gary Comstock on the ethics of eating meat, 8 Nov. 2021. ThinkerAnalytix invited Nate Otey and I "to model charitable disagreement." We discuss vegetarianism.
Can a cow think about her future? presentation at the Summer Institute on the Other Minds Problem: Animal Sentience and Cognition, University of Quebec at Montreal, June 26 - July 6, 2018.
Feeling matters, presentation at the Summer Institute on the Evolution and Function of Consciousness, University of Quebec at Montreal, June 29th to July 11th, 2012.
In April 2014, I interviewed Tom Regan in my office about his 1988 Los Angeles "War on Vivisection" speech.
Audios
Tom Regan's The Case for Animal Rights (2023). An essay written for the audiobook edition of The Case for Animal Rights. Martin Rowe of the Culture and Animals Foundation (CAF) invited me to make some personal observations about Tom's place in the history of animal rights. CAF marked the 40 year anniversary of the publication of the book with its first audio edition. Purchase the book through CAF or Amazon.
From Genetically Modified Crops to Fish and Farm Animals, KCRW radio, Aug. 20, 2010. A podcast hosted by Warren Olney.
Autonomy, Singularity, Creativity, a blog reporting on the culminating conference of this 3-year project at the National Humanities Center, Nov. 13 -15, 2008.
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