1. Philosophy Pages.

Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking (8th Edition) by M. Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley, as the title suggests, is all about critical thinking through a process of simply asking the right kinds of questions. However, this is a book that has the potential to change the way a person looks at and interacts with the world. This book helps one peel back the layers to thoroughly evaluate the issues and to think carefully. The authors define critical thinking: “critical thinking, as we will use the term, refers to the following: 1) awareness of a set of interrelated critical questions; 2) ability to ask and answer critical questions at appropriate times; and the 3) desire to actively use the critical questions.”1

One of the best ways to improve your thinking is to study the common errors and pitfalls in reasoning. Learning about logical fallacies, or what makes an argument bad, is an essential element to becoming a more careful thinker. There are many resources for learning logic, and here's another great one:

An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments
And it's free to read and absorb online.

Check it out and enjoy!

Last week we featured the great resource, The Logic Classroom and mentioned the book by Elihu Carranza Logic Primer. Although you can purchase the paperback version online, the author has graciously offered this logic book as a free resource to Apologetics 315. Logic Primer is a 7-chapter book which will take you through a foundational study of logic.

Please fill out a quick form before downloading the PDF eBook.
Get the Logic Primer ebook by Elihu Carranza here.

Enjoy.

Looking for resources for better thinking? Here at Apologetics 315 we have the Basic Logic Primer. But along with the primer we have a number of suggested followup resources. One new resource to add to the list of tools is The Logic Classroom. The Logic Classroom is a course in basic logic. Each study has review questions, exercises, and answers to the exercises. It's layout and design is simple, but the content is great. This resource provided by Dr. Elihu Carranza, author of Logic Primer.

Check out The Logic Classroom here.
Enjoy.

In order to properly address questions about life, meaning, and faith, Christians need be critical thinkers. But what does that look like? On the Just Thinking radio broadcast and podcast, Ravi Zacharias discusses the importance of critical thinking. Listen to it in three parts, linked below.

Critical Thinking: A Christian Essential
[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Enjoy.

Want to learn the ins and outs of logic and critical thinking? Want to be a more discerning thinker when defending the faith? It's not too late to hop in for the Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking Course (part 2) at the Online Apologetics Academy. Taught by Brian Auten of Apologetics 315, this four-week course will be working through Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide (3rd Edition) by Bowell & Kemp. Along with reading and assignments, audio is supplied that applies these ideas and concepts to apologetic engagement.

---> Here's a sample audio from the first week. (36 min)
(This sample will only be available for a week)
Interested? Go to the Online Apologetics Academy for more.

Want to learn the ins and outs of logic and critical thinking? Want to be a more discerning thinker when defending the faith? Consider taking the Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking Course (part 2) at the Online Apologetics Academy. Taught by Brian Auten of Apologetics 315, this four-week course will be working through Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide (3rd Edition) by Bowell & Kemp. There will be weekly assignments, and weekly audio lectures discussing the application of the content to Christian apologetics. Part 1 of the course is helpful, but not required for enrolling in part 2 of the course. This course will give you a solid grasp of the foundations of critical thinking, the use and evaluation of arguments, and how these apply to the task of apologetics.

Interested? Go to the Online Apologetics Academy for more.
Questions welcome below.

How do you avoid bad thinking? How do you detect nonsense? By nonsense we mean fallacious reasoning. Robert J. Gula's book Nonsense is a great place to start to begin to think critically and to spot fallacies in reasoning. (Review here.) It's a book that is thorough with an informal style with plenty of entertaining examples. If it's a fallacy, it's probably in this book. In the final note of the book, Gula distills the book into 15 principles. Here is that content: 15 Ways to Detect Nonsense:

Many are familiar with deductive arguments (where the conclusion necessarily follows from the premises) and inductive arguments (where the conclusion follows from the premises with a varying degree of probability and strength). But how well acquainted is one with “seductive”(40) arguments?

“Seductive” arguments are another name for informal fallacies, the subject S. Morris Engel takes up in his excellent book entitled With Good Reason: An Introduction to Informal Fallacies. In addition to the great content one will find in each chapter, the book is full of exercises (with an answer key at the end of each chapter for selected questions), diagrams, cartoons, and examples to help illustrate and reinforce the various points being made throughout the book on fallacies.
The book is divided into two parts: “Logic and Language” and “Informal Fallacies.”

The Fallacy Friday Podcast is the weekly audio version of Matthew Flannagan's Fallacy Friday posts over at the MandM blog. Apologetics315 is producing the audio version, released every Friday as well. Subscribe using:
• RSS Feed, or Via iTunes, or one-click.

Today's episode:
Affirming the Consequent (text | MP3)
Enjoy.

The Fallacy Friday Podcast is the weekly audio version of Matthew Flannagan's Fallacy Friday posts over at the MandM blog. Apologetics315 is producing the audio version, released every Friday as well. Subscribe using:
• RSS Feed, or Via iTunes, or one-click.

Today's episode:
Denying the Antecedent (text | MP3)
Enjoy.

The Fallacy Friday Podcast is the weekly audio version of Matthew Flannagan's Fallacy Friday posts over at the MandM blog. Apologetics315 is producing the audio version, released every Friday as well. Subscribe using:
• RSS Feed, or Via iTunes, or one-click.

Today's episode: Equivocation (text | MP3)
Enjoy.

The Fallacy Friday Podcast is the weekly audio version of Matthew Flannagan's Fallacy Friday posts over at the MandM blog. Apologetics315 is producing the audio version, released every Friday as well. Subscribe using:
• RSS Feed, or Via iTunes, or one-click.

Today's episode: Ad Ignorantiam
(Arguments from Ignorance) (text | MP3)
Enjoy.

If you are looking for more resources to sharpen your logic and critical thinking skills, you might want to add this podcast to your list: The Critical Thinker (RSS | iTunes). If you want to go deeper with the resources the author provides, there are some paid resources at his Critical Thinker Academy as well. If you just want to look at logical fallacies, subscribe to the Fallacy Friday podcast.

The Critical Thinker (RSS | iTunes)

Enjoy.

The Fallacy Friday Podcast is the weekly audio version of Matthew Flannagan's Fallacy Friday posts over at the MandM blog. Apologetics315 is producing the audio version, released every Friday as well. Subscribe using:
• RSS Feed, or Via iTunes, or one-click.

Today's episode: Ad Populum
(Appeals to Popularity) (text | MP3)
Enjoy.

The Fallacy Friday Podcast is the weekly audio version of Matthew Flannagan's Fallacy Friday posts over at the MandM blog. Apologetics315 is producing the audio version, released every Friday as well. Subscribe using:
• RSS Feed, or Via iTunes, or one-click.

Today's episode: Ad Misericordiam (Appeal to Pity)
(text | MP3)
Enjoy.

The Fallacy Friday Podcast is the weekly audio version of Matthew Flannagan's Fallacy Friday posts over at the MandM blog. Apologetics315 is producing the audio version, released every Friday as well. Subscribe using:
• RSS Feed, or Via iTunes, or one-click.

Today's episode: Petitio Principii (Begging the Question) (text | MP3)
Enjoy.

Looking for tools to be a better thinker? You might have a look at this Basic Logic Primer, or listen to the Fallacy Friday podcast, or the Logical Fallacies 1 or Logical Fallacies 2 podcasts. But one of the best free online resources for critical thinking is Critical Thinking Web. To see what sort of material the course covers, check out the site map here. An excellent resource.

Go to Critical Thinking Web.

Enjoy.

The Fallacy Friday Podcast is the weekly audio version of Matthew Flannagan's Fallacy Friday posts over at the MandM blog. Apologetics315 is producing the audio version, released every Friday as well. Subscribe using:
• RSS Feed, or Via iTunes, or one-click.

Today's episode: False Cause & Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc (text | MP3)
Enjoy.