The philosophical method - logic and argument

Language and Mind: What is rationality? What is consciousness? How do we manage to express our thoughts and experiences in language? 

Metaphysics and Epistemology: what exists, what is its nature and how can we acquire knowledge of it? 

In this first lecture, using Descartes famous argument for the claim “I think therefore I am’, we examine how to identify and evaluate arguments. 

Part three of a six-part series on critical reasoning. In this lecture we will focus on how to identify and analyse arguments, and how to set arguments out logic book-style to make them easier to evaluate. 

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of logic. Logic, the study of reasoning and argument, first became a serious area of study in the 4th century BC through the work of Aristotle. He created a formal logical system, based on a type of argument called a syllogism, whic ...  Show more

Associate Professor Zach Weber from the University of Otago chats about logic.