Thinking Like a Philosopher
Learn to cut through confusion, challenge your own instincts, and construct solid arguments. Explore how history's most durable ideas help you decide what is true, what is fair, and how to live well.
Like Duolingo, but for Thinking Like a Philosopher. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
22 levels across 3 sections, about 44 minutes end to end, roughly 9 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Sharpening Your Everyday Thinking; Deciding How to Act and Live; and Questioning Reality, Knowledge, and Society. It starts from scratch.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in Thinking Like a Philosopher
- In philosophy, an argument is not an angry quarrel or a shouting match
- A philosophical argument consists of premises (supporting reasons) offered to back up a conclusion (the main claim)
- Stating a strong feeling or insulting an opponent expresses an opinion but provides no premises
- Validity describes whether the conclusion must follow from the premises, regardless of whether the premises are true
- If an argument has a valid structure but begins from a false premise (e.g., "All fish can fly; salmon are fish; therefore salmon can fly"), the conclusion can easily be false
- Philosophers distinguish between validity (the structural link) and soundness (a valid structure built entirely on true premises)
- Deductive reasoning aims for absolute certainty: if the premises are true, the conclusion cannot possibly be false
- Inductive reasoning draws generalized patterns from observations, yielding conclusions that are probable rather than strictly guaranteed
- A single counterexample can disprove an inductive generalization, whereas a valid deductive conclusion is locked in by its definitions and rules
- Steelmanning means reformulating an opponent's argument into its clearest, most compelling version before responding to it
- Attacking an exaggerated or flimsy caricature (strawmanning) prevents you from actually testing whether your own position is solid
- Philosophers use steelmanning because refuting the strongest version of an objection is the only way to genuinely confirm your own view
- Arguing purely over the conclusion leads to circular shouting because conclusions are just the end result of underlying premises
- Productive disagreement requires breaking the conclusion down into the specific factual claims and moral principles that support it
- Once you pinpoint the single shared or disputed premise, you can investigate that specific claim instead of repeating your conclusion
- Philosophical disagreements often get stuck because both speakers assume their foundational values are obvious facts
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives Thinking Like a Philosopher the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
In philosophy, what do you need to make a real argument?
Get it right to open this lesson and 21 more in the app.
Where Thinking Like a Philosopher takes you
- 1
Sharpening Your Everyday Thinking
- Untangling Everyday Arguments
- Exposing Hidden Assumptions
- 2
Deciding How to Act and Live
- Navigating Right and Wrong
- Finding Meaning and Purpose
- 3
Questioning Reality, Knowledge, and Society
- Testing What You Can Truly Know
- Solving the Puzzle of the Self
- Designing a Just Society
3 sections · 7 units · 22 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
Thinking Like a Philosopher is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Philosophy for Everyday Thinking
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Start Thinking Like a Philosopher today.
Download Tomo, search Thinking Like a Philosopher, and play your first lesson in under a minute.