A Short Course in Intellectual Self Defense: Find Your Inner Chomsky

by Normand Baillargeon, Andrea Schmidt (Translator), Charb (Illustrator)

Overview

What is the relationship between democracy and critical thinking? What must a citizen in a democracy know to make the word democracy meaningful? In A Short Course in Intellectual Self-Defense, historian and educator Normand Baillargeon provides readers with the tools to see through the spin and jargon of everyday politics and news reporting in order to decide for themselves what is at stake and how to ask the necessary questions to protect themselves from the manipulations of the government and the media. Whether the issue be the call to what we’re told will be a bloodless war, the "debate" around Intelligent Design, or the meaning of a military expenditure, Baillargeon teaches readers to evaluate information and sort fact from official and media spin.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609800048
Publisher:	Seven Stories Press
Publication date:	01/04/2011
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	336
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

NORMAND BAILLARGEON is Professor of Education Fundamentals at the University of Québec in Montreal, where he teaches on the history of pedagogy and the philosophy of education.

Table of Contents

Introduction     11
Some Indispensable Tools for Critical Thinking
Language     19
Introduction     20
Tracherous Words     24
The Art of Mental Trickery and Manipulation: Some Everyday Fallacies     50
Mathematics: Those Who Refuse to Be Conned, Count!     87
Introduction     87
Treating Common Forms of Innumeracy     89
Probability and Statistics     110
On the Justification of Belief
Personal Experience     171
Introduction     171
Perceiving     172
Remembering     189
Judging     196
Empirical and Experimental Science     223
Introduction     223
Science and Experimentation     228
Science and Epistemology     242
A Few Questions for the Critical Reading of Research Results     261
The SEARCH Model     263
The Media     267
Introduction     268
Another Kind of Democracy     273
The Propaganda Model of Media     277
Thirty-one Strategies for Fostering a Critical Approach to the Media     290
Conclusion     307
Independent Media Guide     309
Suggested Readings     321
Notes     327
About the Author     333
About Seven Stories Press     335