unit 4

HUM 1020, Critical Thinking 1

Course Learning Outcomes for Unit IV Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. Evaluate the structure of perception. 2. Explain how experiences shape perception. 3. Examine the filters that mediate perception. 4. Differentiate between perceptions and beliefs. 5. Recognize the relationship between perceiving and believing. 6. Recognize the differences between believing something and knowing something. 7. Summarize and analyze the “Stages of Knowing.” 8. Develop knowledge by thinking critically about beliefs.

Reading Assignment Chapter 4: Perceiving, Believing, and Knowing

Film Assignment

Films (Choose 1):

 A Beautiful Mind

 http://www.abeautifulmind.com/

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0268978/

 http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/beautiful_mind/

 The Truman Show

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120382/

 http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/truman_show/

 The Village

 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0368447/

 http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/village/ Note about films: These have all been chosen based on how they help illustrate and enhance the main focus of each unit.

Unit Lesson

One of the basic building blocks of Critical Thinking involves how you see the world around you. Basic perception involves the senses, but human beings also filter those perceptions. You do not treat everything you see, hear, or touch in the same way, and a lot of the decisions about what to pay attention to AND what to ignore are made unconsciously, without you being aware that such decisions have been made.

Taking a closer look at your reasoning process, therefore, means taking a closer look at how you perceive things. W hat is filtered out? What is added? How do your expectations influence what you

UNIT IV STUDY GUIDE

Perceiving, Believing, and Knowing

HUM 1020, Critical Thinking 2

UNIT x STUDY GUIDE

Title

see and hear? How are other people influencing your perceptions? Where does your filter come from? Although the film for this unit, A Beautiful Mind, presents the story of a scientist who has schizophrenia, it is also a vehicle for illustrating and discussing the problems and limits of what anyone can claim to “know” based on perception.

Film Themes:

 Perception is reality.

 Increasing awareness of how we sense the world around us.

 Selecting, organizing and interpreting stimuli

 Knowing what has shaped our lenses, and how that affects our perception

 How we construct beliefs

 Stages of knowing