Registry
Module Specifications
Archived Version 2018 - 2019
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Description In this module, we explore what it means to be 'a critical thinker', how this is significant for scholarship and understandings of health issues, and the risks and benefits of critical thought. In addition, we examine issues of health, suffering and responsibility and use this as an opportunity to develop our critical faculties. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Learning Outcomes 1. Explore the significance of critical thinking as it relates to scholarship, university education and health. 2. Consider the limits to criticality in the face of authority, domination and norms. 3. Explain what counts as a persuasive scholarly argument. 4. Consider a range of critical questions and perspectives that help to illuminate the phenomenon of suffering. 5. Explore a range of critical questions and perspectives to do with matters of individual and social responsibility. 6. Adopt a reasoned critical position in relation to a particular proposition about individual responsibility. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
All module information is indicative and subject to change. For further information,students are advised to refer to the University's Marks and Standards and Programme Specific Regulations at: http://www.dcu.ie/registry/examinations/index.shtml |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indicative Content and
Learning Activities Critical thinkingThe academy as a site of critical argument; critical thinking as a goal of university education; students as critical thinkers; Paulo Friere and critical pedagogy; critical thinking and health.The limits of criticismMilgram on obedience to authority; norms and deviance; the 'tyranny of public opinion'; critics as insiders and outsiders.ArgumentationAristotle on persuasion and argument; Toulmin on what counts as scholarly argument; reading and judging an argument; making an argument.Arthur Frank on suffering, narrativity and illnessThe 'remission society'; self-stories; illness and 'narrative wreckage'; restitution, chaos and quest narratives; listening to illness stories; narrative and self-repair.Suffering and the holocaustVictor Frankl and Primo Levi- accounts of meaning and survival in the death camps; Robert Lifton on the Nazi Doctors; denial and bystanding; collective guilt; lessons for today.Hannah Arendt on evil and responsibilityThe trial of Adolf Eichmann; thoughtlessness as the source of greatest evil; having to live with oneself as a basis for moral judgement.Challenges of living with oneself 1: the case of SocratesPlato's account of the trial and death of Socrates; the examined life and the power of questions; resistance and sacrifice to live with oneself; lessons for public criticism.Challenges of living with oneself 2: the case of psychosisPsychosis and self-disturbance; self-viability and psychiatric designation; staying true to oneself; engaging to new identities.A contemporary call to responsibility: Jordan B. Peterson considered'!2 Rules for Life'; Peterson as a public intellectual.Responsibility and othersEmmanuel Levinas on the Face of the Other as a call to responsibility; David Karp on obligations to family in a context of serious mental illness; John Stuart Mill on non-participation in socially harmful practices; Christopher Kutz on complicity and collective responsibility.Mythology and responsibilityRoland Barthes on mythology and ideology; markets and personal responsibility; mythologies of responsible drinking, gambling, eating, cycling. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Indicative Reading List
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Other Resources None | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Programme or List of Programmes |
AFU | Age Friendly University Programme |
BHS | Bachelor of Science in Health & Society |
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2003 - 2004
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2004 - 2005
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2005 - 2006
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2006 - 2007
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2007 - 2008
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2008 - 2009
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2009 - 2010
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2010 - 2011
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2011 - 2012
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2012 - 2013
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2013 - 2014
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2014 - 2015
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2015 - 2016
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2016 - 2017
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2017 - 2018
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2018 - 2019
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2019 - 2020
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2020 - 2021
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2021 - 2022
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2022 - 2023
- See the module specification for NS122 in 2023 - 2024
- See the module specification for the current year