CCO101 Thinking and Reasoning

This module CCO101 Thinking and Reasoning teaches me how to think critically.

The 3 aims are:

(1) to introduce useful elements in philosophy and philosophical thought processes;

(2) to teach conceptualisation and reasoning skills that can be applied to everyday issues; and finally,

(3) to discuss and facilitate the forming of sound responses to human-community issues and values.

For this Tutor-Marked Assignment (TMA), I was tasked to read and appraise the passage 'Reclaiming the Power of Play' by Stephen Asma, explaining why we agree or disagree with its conclusion in a 1200-word essay. The passage discusses the different aspects of play and argues that play is beneficial to humans.

When I first read the passage, I was overwhelmed as I was unclear what were his main claim, sub-claims and reasons for sub-claims. However, with the use of an argument map, I mapped out the author's claims and my own arguments and counter-arguments to his claims. Thus, the argument map was highly beneficial to me as I could see clearly what his main claim, sub-claims and reasons for sub-claims were.

In this TMA, I learnt how to map arguments, identify and explain erroneous reasoning, and also construct counterarguments in this assignment. I believe that the skill of mapping arguments can help me for my future assignments, especially in writing essays as an argument map makes it clearer to see the claims, sub-claims and reasons for sub-claims of any passage. It allowed me to see the structure of my entire essay clearly.

We also discussed several philosophical topics such as Mass Man, Propaganda, Justice and Hegemony in this module which I felt was interesting. There were certain philosophical ideas that were difficult to understand since this module was my first time facing philosophical topics. However, with much research done on my own, I could understand them better.

In conclusion, this module improved my critical thinking and reasoning skills. It also made me realise how important and beneficial critical thinking is and it can be applied to societal issues that we face.