The Atelier of Mind · learning how to learn
Critical Thinking
How to weigh a claim, name the flaw in an argument, and change your mind at the right speed.
Finding the claim, testing the reasons, and asking what evidence would change the answer.
Syllabus · 4 units · ~14 hours
Unit I — Anatomy of an Argument
Claims, premises, conclusions · Hidden assumptions and how to surface them · Deduction, induction, abduction in plain terms
Unit II — Testing Reasons
Relevance, sufficiency, acceptability · Counterexamples as a habit · The principle of charity
Unit III — Evidence That Counts
Anecdote versus data · Correlation, causation, and the third variable · Asking what would change your mind
Unit IV — Argument in Practice
Mapping a newspaper editorial · Writing a fair summary of a view you reject · Disagreeing without fouling
Confirmation, anchoring, availability — the standard equipment of human judgment, and where each one bites.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~10 hours
Unit I — Two Systems
Fast and slow thinking · Heuristics: useful until they are not · Bias as by-product, not defect
Unit II — The Common Species
Confirmation bias and motivated search · Anchoring and the first number's pull · Availability and the vividness tax · Sunk costs and the arithmetic of walking away
Unit III — Bias About Bias
The bias blind spot · Debiasing: what little actually works · Checklists and the outside view
Straw men, false dilemmas, and motte-and-bailey moves — spotted in live arguments, not textbook cartoons.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~8 hours
Unit I — Fallacies of Distraction
Ad hominem and the genetic fallacy · Straw man, and its repair: the steel man · Whataboutism and the red herring
Unit II — Fallacies of Structure
False dilemma · Slippery slope: when it is and is not a fallacy · Begging the question, properly defined
Unit III — Field Work
A week of fallacy-spotting in the news · Why naming the fallacy is not yet an argument · Repairing a broken argument instead of scoring it
Lateral reading, sample sizes, and the distance between a finding and a headline about a finding.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~12 hours
Unit I — Who Is Telling Me This
Lateral reading: leave the page to judge the page · Provenance, incentive, and track record · Primary, secondary, and the game of telephone
Unit II — Inside a Study
Sample size, and who was sampled · Control groups and what they control for · Effect size versus statistical significance
Unit III — From Finding to Headline
Press releases and the exaggeration gradient · Cherry-picking and the file drawer · A checklist to run before you repeat a claim
Holding beliefs at the strength the evidence earns — and updating in public without losing face.
Syllabus · 3 units · ~10 hours
Unit I — Degrees of Belief
Belief as a dial, not a switch · Calibration: being right about how often you are right · Base rates and the priors you already hold
Unit II — Updating Well
Bayes' rule without the algebra · Distinguishing new evidence from mere repetition · Strong opinions, loosely held — put to the test
Unit III — The Social Cost of Updating
Face, identity, and public reversal · Formats for productive disagreement · Keeping a record of your own predictions