Course Content
- Seminal concepts of Linguistics and Language Philosophy that we need.
- How rational are we, humans? Rationality and rationalization
- Definitions of truth, the criteria of critical thinking
- Formal and informal fallacies, cognitive biases and their evolutionary roots
- Classifications of cognitive biases (focus: research-related and political biases)
- Preconscious/Unintended errors versus consciously applied biases (manipulation)
- Speaker/Writer-side versus Listener/Reader-side biases
- Manipulative appeals to Ethos, Logos, and Pathos (speech analysis)
- The border between persuasion and manipulation (was Habermas an idealist?)
- The slippery slope from unintended distortions over mild manipulation to blatant war propaganda - manipulation as a symptom of political decay
Key Skills
- Analyzing argumentations for formal and informal fallacies
- Identifying and debunking manipulative attempts
- Naming recognized fallacies and cognitive biases
- Writing a short persuasive but non-manipulative policy brief
- Minimizing fallacies and subconscious biases in own writing
Course Progression
- Theoretical framework (4–5 lessons)
- Interactive and individual exercises, learning and applying the terms of text analysis (4-5 lessons)
- Term-end Writing: writing and submitting a persuasive but non-manipulative debate brief / opinion essay on a political issue dealt with in another IUfU course (home assignment)
- Evaluation (1 lesson)
Participants are required to
- Attend at least 75% of contact lessons (sessions build on each other);
- Complete at least 75% of home assignments (Quizlet, learning = doing);
- Submit and orally defend their policy brief.
- Instructor: Robert Gulyas