Being a better thinker can improve your relationships, your work, and your emotional intelligence. But “improving your thinking” is so abstract; it’s hard to know where to start, or what starting would even look like. In this course, you'll learn how to do just that from Alyssa Lowery Ph.D., a philosophy instructor at Vanderbilt University.

We often think of thinking as an isolated, solitary activity. But after this lesson, you'll be able to recognize the way in which thinking happens with other people.

Being a great thinker starts before you ever crack open a book or enter a conversation. After this lesson, you'll be able to begin cultivating the virtue of open-mindedness.

Our cultural emphasis on efficiency is often in tension with what makes for great thinking: patience and care. After this lesson, you'll be able to take your time with an idea or question, setting yourself up for a thought you can be proud of.

Some of the most critical tools in your thinking toolkit are distinctions. After this lesson, you'll be able to deploy one essential distinction to avoid being swept into a haze of messy ideas.

A place where vagueness often slips into thinking or conversations is in confusing descriptive and normative sentences. After this lesson, you'll be able to use this distinction to this more carefully about these important concepts.

You might already be skeptical of Wikipedia, but what makes for an actually trustworthy source of information? After this lesson, you'll be able to trace an idea to its source and then make sure it meets your standards.

Generalizations are both fast and useful, but sometimes they become a way to avoid thinking carefully about a topic. After this lesson, you’ll be able to use generalizations effectively, and avoid them when necessary.

Now, what's this really about? After this lesson, you'll be able to use the philosophical trick of "thought experiments" to clear away the fluff and get to an idea's core principles.

Perhaps the most famous philosopher of all time, Socrates, opened almost all of his conversations with one question: "What is that?" After this lesson, you'll be able to avoid being stumped by this simple question and instead provide a clear account of your subject matter.

When you already know you're right, it's really easy to dismiss your opponents. After this lesson, you'll be able to use the principle of charity to make sure you give those who disagree with you their proper due.

One of the most familiar fallacies is the ad hominem. But after this lesson, you'll be able to point out this fallacy accurately and avoid a common mistake: making the ad hominem fallacy's evil twin.

A common phrase is "begging the question." But for philosophers, this phrase has a very particular meaning. After this lesson, you'll be able to use the phrase in its philosophical sense and avoid the fallacy to which it refers.

Answers are overrated! After this lesson, you'll be able to ask two key questions to get to the heart of any issue, problem, or conversation.

Some of our most popular ideas rely on untenable claims about truth as a whole. After this lesson, you'll be able to avoid these often contradictory claims and speak more confidently on one of the most fundamental questions.

It's tempting to think that thinking alone can solve all of your problems, but sometimes you need to use a different approach. After this lesson, you'll be able to recognize situations where thinking might come up short and deploy another strategy instead.

Now that you have finished the course, how do you ensure that you get the best out of these lessons? Learn in this lesson.