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Dan O'Reilly was an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Thompson Rivers University in the department of Philosophy, History and Politics. He is now retired.  He taught undergraduate courses in philosophy with his area of specialty in logic, scientific reasoning, law and rights.  He conducted research in political philosophy, having published on the logical structure of rights. He was involved in the Open Learning Initiative having taught causal and statistical reasoning using causal graphs with a software application called the Causal Laboratory. In the fall of 2007, he was a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University working on causality lab exercises.  He was also very involved in both online course and online community development, having presented at numerous conferences on both topics. In 2005, he received Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) funds through the Strategic Research Cluster Program to develop the Small Cities Online Research Community. In the fall of 2006, he was co-recipient with a number of other co-researchers and community partners of a $1,000,000 SSHRC Community University Research Alliance (CURA) grant, The Small Cities CURA Mapping Quality of Life and Culture CURA Research Program, to investigate quality of life indicators relevant to online space.  As part of this research project, he leased land, developed resources and conducted workshops in Second Life. 

Library Contact Research

Courses I Taught

The following descriptions are from the TRU Calendar. Clicking the title of the course enables you to find out more information about that course and a link to that course's outline.

PHIL 111 - Introduction to Critical Thinking (2,1,0)

This course helps students distinguish between good and bad reasoning. The student is introduced to logical analysis, which entails an examination of the meaning of logical terms and an investigation of their contribution to the arguments in which they occur. Considerable attention will be given to representing the logical structure of arguments and deciding their validity or invalidity.

PHIL 121 - Introduction to Philosophy (2,1,0)

PHIL 121 is a general introduction to philosophy. Some questions typically covered include: What is mortality? Is there a God? Is there life after death? What can we know and how can we know it? What is the nature of reality? Is there free will? Are there fundamental rights? What constitutes a "good life"? What is the nature of society? What form of government should we have? What is the law, and should the law always be obeyed? What is the relation of the mind to the body? Can computers think? What is art? Is censorship a good idea? Readings will be taken from classic and/or modern texts.

PHIL 222 - Elementary Formal Logic (2,1,0)

Introduction to contemporary symbolic or formal logic. The course will examine both sentential and predicate logic through the development of a system of deduction based upon semantic tableau techniques and natural deduction. Syntax and semantics will be discussed at an elementary level. Translation of natural language arguments into the formal logic for analysis will be done.

PHIL 240 - Understanding Scientific Reasoning (2,1,0)

Starting with the notions of valid and invalid arguments the course examines the justification of theoretical hypotheses, statistical hypotheses, and causal hypotheses. Essentially, the student will be provided with skills for exploring the nature and testing of scientific theories, causes and correlations, and rational decision making. With this theoretical framework the student will examine various contemporary issues: Is there a causal connection between smoking and lung cancer? Is there a causal link between pornography and sexual violence? etc.

PHIL 330 - Moral and Political Philosophy (3,0,0)

The continuation of Philosophy 201, Introduction to Ethics. Topics include: political philosophy, including theories of political and legal obligation and authority, legal reasoning, society and the state. Readings in classic and contemporary texts.

PHIL 430 - Philosophy of Law (3,0,0)

The course deals with various topics in law from the basic "What is law?" to specific issues in law, such as "What are rights?" Of primary importance are the relations between legal rules and the rules of ethics and custom, the difference between law and mere coercion, the social and ethical foundation of law and legitmacy, the limits of law and the state, citizens' rights against the state and one another, and the norms of our legal system.

Publications
  • "Are There Any Fundamental Legal Conceptions?", University of Toronto Law Journal, Volume 49 (1999), pp. 271-279.

    • [You can read this article online using Adobe format.]

  • "Using the 'Square of Opposition' to Highlight the Deontic and Alethic Relations Constituting Rights", University of Toronto Law Journal, Volume 45 (Summer 1995), Number 3, pp. 279-310.

    • [You can read this article online using either of two formats: (1) Adobe format—large file which requires Adobe Reader, or (2) HTML format—small file but not as good quality.]

Web Page, Presentations, & Other Research

Presented on “Student Satisfaction in Critical Thinking Using WebCT”

I gave two presentations at the Canadian WebCT Users' Conference 2003.  (photos of conference)

I am collaborating in a research project, undertaken at Carnegie Melon University, studying the use of software to teach causal and statistical reasoning. The software focuses on the qualitative analysis of causal and statistical reasoning versus the usual quantitative approach.

I am the Web Master for the Cultural Future of Small Cities, which is a three-year SSHRC research program initiated by the Kamloops Art Gallery and the University College of the Cariboo in Kamloops, British Columbia.

I presented the use of WebCT for delivering Philosophy Courses over the WWW at the BC Philosophy Conference at UBC (May 2002).

I presented the use of WebCT for delivering Philosophy Courses over the WWW at the American Philosophical Association AGM - Eastern Division in Atlanta, Georgia (December 2001).

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