About the Course
Basic Information
Time and location
Classes will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:00am, in Corliss–Brackett House (45 Prospect St), Room 106.
Course Description
In this course you'll learn how to analyze arguments philosophically, extracting their essential elements and mapping their structure in order to determine how they work, what assumptions they're relying on, and whether they're any good. You'll develop your critical faculties by examining arguments from both mass media and the philosophical literature, on topics ranging from voting rights and prison sentencing to free will and the existence of God. You'll also learn to direct these faculties inward, clarifying your own thinking so that you can produce rigorous and effective argumentative writing of your own.
Structure
Our focus in this course is the development of a particular skill: argument analysis. This is a difficult skill, one that must be practiced to be mastered, and so you'll be given lots of time to practice in this course. I'll lecture only enough to introduce you to essential concepts and make sure you understand what you're being asked to do—you'll spend much of your time in class working in small groups to interpret and evaluate arguments by generating argument maps (visual representations of argument structure) while I circulate to provide guidance and feedback. The arguments you'll be asked to analyze will grow more complex as the course goes on: we'll start with simple toy arguments and newspaper editorials, and by the end of the course you'll be able to map the argument structure of an entire academic article.
Materials
You'll be creating your argument maps using the free online visualization tool MindMup, so you'll need to have your laptop in class every day. (If you don't have access to a laptop, please let me know as soon as possible so that we can find an alternative solution.) You should also bring a notebook so that you can take notes by hand: I'll ask you to keep your laptop closed when you're not using it to map arguments. Finally, there is no textbook to buy for this course. Instead, links to each class session's readings will be posted to our Schedule page.
Work and assessment
Classwork and homework
Since the argument maps you produce in class will be turned in and will count toward your grade, you'll need to arrive at every class session on time and ready to participate. This includes having done the assigned reading. There will also be weekly homework assignments, which you'll need to turn in before midnight every Sunday. Most of these will be relatively short, but three of them, one at the end of each of the first three units, will be more substantial—I've labeled these as "take-home unit tests" to differentiate them from the shorter assignments. In addition, you'll need to complete both a 2000-word final paper and a cumulative take-home final exam. All if this work can be submitted via our Assignments page. Late work won't be accepted unless you've been given an extension prior to the due date—get in touch with me if you need an extension.
It's expected that, on average, you'll spend seven hours outside of class per week doing work for this course: four hours reading and three hours completing homework assignments. It's also expected that you'll spend twenty hours outside of class working on your final paper and ten hours working on your take-home final exam.
Grading
Your grade in the course will be calculated as follows:
- Classwork: 30%
- Take-home unit tests: 20%
- Other homework assignments: 15%
- Final paper: 20%
- Take-home final exam: 15%
Academic honesty
You're encouraged complete your homework assignments in collaboration with your fellow students—all I ask is that, when you submit, you include a list of your collaborators. As for final papers and final exams: while you're free to discuss your work with fellow students, what you turn in to me must be work you've completed yourself. Brown University's policies on cheating and plagiarism can be found in the Academic Code.
Academic support
Accessibility and accommodations
Brown University is committed to full inclusion of all students. Please inform me early in the term if you have a disability or other conditions that might require accommodations or modification of any of these course procedures. You may speak with me after class or during office hours. For more information, please contact Student and Employee Accessibility Services at 401-863-9588 or SEAS@brown.edu. Students in need of short-term academic advice or support can contact one of the deans in the Dean of the College office.
English language learners
Brown University welcomes students from around the country and the world, and the unique perspectives international and multilingual students bring enrich the campus community. To empower multilingual learners, an array of support is available including language and culture workshops and individual appointments. For more information about English Language Learning support at Brown, contact the ELL Specialists at ellwriting@brown.edu.