Thinking Well

A Creative Commons (Free) Logic and Critical Thinking textbook complete with practice/homework exercises.

Primarily Written by Andrew Lavin.
With text from Michael Fitzpatrick, Matthew Van Cleave, and Matthew Knachel.

Note: I haven’t finished a solutions document yet for the practice exercises. I am working on it! Instructors can e-mail me for a partial document.
Another Note: Edition 4.0 is the result of some serious rethinking of the fallacies chapter. Thanks to Michael Fitzpatrick, the chapter now focuses explicitly on intellectual virtues and vices rather than fallacies. It can still be used to teach the traditional unit on fallacies, just see the note to instructors at the beginning of chapter 4.
E-mail me if you’d like a legacy copy of Chapter 4 for continuity with past semesters.

Thinking Well – Edition 4.0

Table of Contents:

  • Basic Concepts of Logic and Critical Thinking
  • Language, Meaning, and Definition
  • Argument Mapping
    • Including Missing Assumptions and Objections
  • Informal Fallacies
  • Basics of Categorical Logic
  • Propositional Logic
    • Including Symbolization and Truth Tables
  • Natural Deduction
    • Including 14 rules of Implication and Replacement (8 and 6 respectively)
  • Inductive Reasoning, Hypothetical Reasoning, Causal Reasoning, Statistical Reasoning (informal), etc.
  • Ethical Reasoning and Evaluation
  • Mental Heuristics and Biases
  • News Media Literacy and Fake News

Thinking Well has been used at…

  • CSU, Chico, Chico, CA
  • Butte College, Oroville, CA
  • Feather River College, Quincy, CA
  • Menlo College, Menlo Park, CA
  • Mount St. Mary’s University, Los Angeles, CA
  • Simmons College of Kentucky, Louisville, KY
  • Douglas College, New Westminster, BC
  • University of Colorado, Denver, CO
  • and more…

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