Registry

Module Specifications

Archived Version 2019 - 2020

Module Title	Critical Thinking and Health
Module Code	NS122
School	38
Online Module Resources
Module Co-ordinator	Dr Donal O'Mathuna	Office Number	H234
NFQ level	8	Credit Rating	5
Pre-requisite	None
Co-requisite	None
Compatibles	None
Incompatibles	None

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.

*Type*	*Hours*	*Description*
Workload	Full-time hours per semester
Lecture	36	Lecture and group discussion
Independent Study	89	Reading and preparation of assessment
Total Workload: 125

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 thinking
The 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 criticism
Milgram on obedience to authority; norms and deviance; the 'tyranny of public opinion'; critics as insiders and outsiders.

Argumentation
Aristotle 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 illness
The 'remission society'; self-stories; illness and 'narrative wreckage'; restitution, chaos and quest narratives; listening to illness stories; narrative and self-repair.

Suffering and the holocaust
Victor 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 responsibility
The 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 Socrates
Plato'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 psychosis
Psychosis 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 others
Emmanuel 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 responsibility
Roland Barthes on mythology and ideology; markets and personal responsibility; mythologies of responsible drinking, gambling, eating, cycling.

Assessment Breakdown
Continuous Assessment	100%	Examination Weight	0%

Type	Description	% of total	Assessment Date
Course Work Breakdown

Reassessment Requirement
Resit arrangements are explained by the following categories; 1 = A resit is available for all components of the module 2 = No resit is available for 100% continuous assessment module 3 = No resit is available for the continuous assessment component
Unavailable

Indicative Reading List

Arendt, H.: 2003, Responsibility and Judgement, Schocken Books, New York,
Arendt, H.: 2006, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, Penguin, New York,
Aristotle: 1991, The Art of Rhetoric, Penguin Classics,
Barthes, R.: 2009, Mythologies, Vintage Classics,
Cohen, S.: 2001, States of Denial: Knowing About Atrocities and Suffering, Polity Press, Cambridge,
Frank, A. W.: 1995, The Wounded Storyteller, University of Chicago Press, Chicago,
Frankl, V. E.: 2004, Man's Search for Meaning, 5th Ed, Rider, London,
Friere, P.: 1996, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Rev Ed, Penguin, London,
Horvath, P. & Forte, J.M.: 2011, Critical Thinking, Norva Science,
Karp, D.: 2001, The Burden of Sympathy: How Families Cope With Mental Illness, Oxford University Press, New York,
Kutz, C.: 2000, Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age, Cambridge University Press, New York,
Levi, P.: 1987, If This Is A Man/The Truce, Abacus, London,
Levinas, E.: 2006, Entre Nous: Thinking-Of-The-Other, Continuum, London,
Lifton, R.J.: 2000, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide, 2nd Ed, Basic Books, New York,
Milgram, S.: 2010, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Pinter & Martin,
Mill, J.S.: 1974, On Liberty, Penguin, Harmondsworth,
Mill, J.S.: 1979, Utilitarianism, 7th Ed, Longmans, Green & Co, London,
Peterson, J.D.: 2018, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, Allen Lane,
Plato: 2010, The Last Days of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Phaedro, Penguin Classics, London,
Toulmin, S.E.: 2003, The Uses of Argument, Cambridge University Press, New York,

Other Resources

None

Programme or List of Programmes

AFU	Age Friendly University Programme
BHS	Bachelor of Science in Health & Society

Archives: