The seven tiers

Initium sapientiae

The first things. Telling same from different, sorting what belongs together, knowing a statement from a question or a command, and learning that the word because gives a reason.

91 lessons · 19 units

Verba et res

The parts of an argument and how to name them. Claim, reason, and evidence; premise and conclusion; the difference between a fact, an opinion, and a preference; and the first fallacies in plain dress.

67 lessons · 13 units

Quid sequitur?

What follows from what. Categorical syllogisms, the difference between validity, truth, and soundness, necessary and sufficient conditions, the formal fallacies, and the discipline of stating an opponent’s case fairly before answering it.

117 lessons · 23 units

Ars persuadendi

Persuasion as a discipline. Ethos, pathos, and logos; the five canons; stasis theory; the Toulmin model; the competitive debate formats and how to flow a round; and the four-step refutation that answers the warrant rather than the words.

140 lessons · 25 units

Sub ratione

Formal and statistical reasoning. Truth tables and natural deduction, quantifier scope, inductive strength and Mill’s methods, base rates, the standard statistical misreadings, and close rhetorical analysis of primary texts.

136 lessons · 24 units

Disputatio

The apparatus of serious disputation. Modal logic and possible-worlds semantics, defeasible and non-monotonic reasoning, Walton’s argumentation schemes and their critical questions, pragma-dialectics, and the art of surfacing an unstated warrant in order to attack it.

Forthcoming · 2 sample lessons

Contra omnia

Argument at the frontier. Abstract argumentation frameworks and their extensions, Bayesian confirmation theory, inference to the best explanation and its critics, reflective equilibrium, the epistemology of peer disagreement, and the construction of a novel objection that anticipates the strongest reply available to it.

Forthcoming · 2 sample lessons