Week 1: reason · methodology
Criticism along philosophy's three branches
Use methodological, ethical, and aesthetic criticism as three independent severity tests.
In this lesson
- Read the core idea (2 min).
- Walk through one worked example.
- Take the 4-question quiz; pass with 4/4 or better.
Hook
We have a powerful machine: bold conjecture, severe test, criticism, improvement. But criticism of what kind? It turns out there are three independent kinds of criticism a claim can face — and treating them as the same is one of the most common reasoning errors in everyday argument.
This lesson maps the three classical branches of philosophy onto three independent severity tests. Once you can name which branch a criticism is coming from, you can also name when an argument is dodging — answering an aesthetic objection with empirical data, or vice versa.