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Virginia Tech

PHIL-1504: Critical Thinking

Description: Introduction to critical thinking, the examination of the reasons (grounds, evidence) for claims on any subject matter. Mastery of central concepts of critical thinking: argument, claim, validity and invalidity, strength and weakness, deduction and induction, fallacy, objection and response. Techniques for critical reconstruction and evaluation of arguments, including ethical ones. Formal logic techniques for evaluation of truth-functional and categorical arguments, akin to mechanical computation or derivation. Application of techniques to arguments appearing in ordinary language passages.

Pathways: 5F Quant & Comp Thnk Found., 10 Ethical Reasoning

Course Hours: 3 credits

Prerequisites: N/A

Required By: N/A

Corequisites: N/A

Crosslist: N/A

Repeatability: N/A

Sections Taught: 39

Average GPA: 2.93 (rounds to B)

Strict A Rate (No A-) : 21.33%

Average Withdrawal Rate: 4.59%

Gregory Novack202434.1%32.4%16.2%4.6%7.2%5.5%2.8531
Ted Parent202050.1%37.3%9.2%1.7%1.7%0.0%3.185
Claudio D'amato202152.3%32.3%8.0%2.0%2.7%2.7%3.353

Grade Distribution Over Time

1234GPA
Spring 2019Summer I 2019Fall 2019Spring 2020Summer I 2020Fall 2020Spring 2021Summer I 2021Fall 2021Spring 2022Summer I 2022Fall 2022Spring 2023Summer I 2023Fall 2023Spring 2024Fall 2024Term050% W