Further Discussion on the Concept Personal Experience

One of the concepts that we learned about this semester that caught my eye the most was the idea of how personal experience is used for accepting and rejecting claims.  Epstein explained personal experience as, “our most reliable source of information about that world is our own experience”. Before this class I never really thought about what made me make the decisions I make every day. But now after reading the section about personal experience, now I can truly see how much personal experience effects my decisions.  It’s like that common saying “you learn from your mistakes”.  If you have done something personally in the past that didn’t turn out good for you then if you are put in the same situation you will probably not put yourself in the situation.  It’s same for the opposite idea if something worked out for you then you will probably do it again so you can have the same good results.  So all in all, even though this wasn't a huge concept in the text, I think to me this is a very important one for everyone to know since I see most people use it in every day life.

What I Have Learned This Semester

Over this semester I have learned the many different aspects of an argument and claim.  I have learned about the different fallacies that affect people’s judgment of the validity of claims.  I have also learned about other aspects of critical thinking that also affects people’s judgment other than fallacies such as personal experience and appeal to authority. I have learned how to analyze a claim to see if it is valid, invalid, weak, or strong.

In this semester, I have also learned how to create examples for each of these concepts.   And from these examples I am not able to find and evaluate if a claim or argument is valid, invalid, weak or, strong. Overall, this class has allowed me to see the variety of concepts, if they are extremely simple or more focused and complex, that are used all together to form the idea of critical thinking. Before this class I never knew how many factors were truly involved in the area of critical thinking.

Class Analysis

My favorite thing about this class is the way we learn each chapter’s material. The three blogs are really useful because they really make you learn the material you are covering because you are forced to explain a topic in your own words. You can do this without reading it thoroughly and teaching it to yourself first.

My least favorite thing was the group projects and papers.  I think the thing I hate the most about classes is when we have group projects. I know they are meant to help you learn how to work with others but this can only be achieved if everyone is willing to give effort and 99% of the time there is at least one group member who is not willing to do so. I don’t think it is fair that people who really care about their academics have their grades end up in jeopardy because they are stuck nagging people who don’t care as much as you do.

          A way this segment of the class can be improved is if you make group project optional. So instead giving three group projects you can make it possible for people to do it by themselves. The first day of class you can take a survey of what they would rather do giving them the option to take their own grade in their own hands. Other than that I can’t think of any other improvements.