Aug 29, 2016
When is it worth your time to try to have a rational conversation with someone? When should you give up? What are the conditions that have to be satisfied for a rational conversation to even be possible? That's the topic of this episode. Overview: - the problem that Sam Harris is struggling with - a Q&A question from...
Aug 22, 2016
In this episode we look at persuasion through the eyes of seduction experts and the pickup artist community. - why critical thinking educators need to talk about persuasion - why scientific rationality is a social achievement that takes effort and vigilance to maintain - preparing students for life outside the dojo...
Aug 12, 2016
If I was asked to teach a graduate seminar in the philosophy and methods of persuasion, how would I organize the content? What would my syllabus look like? In this episode I answer that question, and start working my way down the syllabus (we cover the first two items in this episode). Here are the topic categories on...
Aug 5, 2016
In this episode I explore reasons why standard critical thinking textbooks say almost nothing about the psychology of human reasoning and persuasion. Topics include: - argumentation as rhetoric vs argumentation as tool for philosophical reasoning - why Plato was so hard on the Sophists - what it was like...