Instructor: Chris Eliasmith
Office hours: Wed. 3-4 and by appointment, HH331.
Time: Tues/Thursday 10-11:20a
Place: AL113

T.A.s:
Paul Simard Smith (psimards_at_uwaterloo.ca)
Nathan Haydon (nhaydon_at_uwaterloo.ca)
Tommy Blanchard (tblancha_at_uwaterloo.ca)

Office hours:
Nathan: Mon 10-11, HH337
Tommy: Fri 2-3, HH337
Paul: Wed 3:00-4:00, HH364

Course Description: In this course we will examine various kinds of complex problem solving and reasoning including: reasoning with statistics; reasoning with logic; informal argumentation; scientific explanation; and analogy. Students will beintroduced to conceptual tools to help them reason, and identify poor reasoning, in both formal and informal settings. Topics traditionally in either philosophy (logic, vagueness) and psychology (social determinants of reasoning) courses will be addressed.

Example: Homeopathy on CBC marketplace Jan, 2011.

Example: Problems with polls on CBC April 25, 2011

Example: Changing belief on MotherJones.com April 18, 2011

Course material

• Syllabus
• Lecture notes
• Some more truth tables
• Fun examples
• Relevant links

• In-class papers (you can miss four papers with no penalty)
• Portfolio I - NOTE: Paper copies of all late portfolios must be handed in before the next class.
• Portfolio II - NOTE: Paper copies of all late portfolios must be handed in before the next class.
• Portfolio examples
• Portfolio quotes to practice on (submit one!)
• How to avoid plagiarism
• Reasons to take this (kind of) course (submit one!)

Tests

Note: If you want help with the midterm questions, please supply your best guess as to the answer when asking about a question. The T.A.s won't give out answers.

• Possible questions for Midterm I. Example questions with answers. There are more example questions here (no answers). There is an online test here.
• Possible questions for Midterm II. Example questions with some answers.

If you have any questions, feel free to email me.