Proposed Table of Contents for a book on Critical Thinking

[icehorse]

Note: Strictly speaking this could be just a discussion. But I suspect debates will ensue

If you were going to co-author a book on critical thinking, what chapters do you think should be included?

Here are a few I'd include:

- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
- When in doubt, follow the money
- Learn to spot fallacy arguments or claims
- learn to spot slurs
- Use Occam's razor / common sense
- Suspect that everyone has an agenda and biases (even you)
- Be skeptical of dogma
- Distrust free lunches
- Don't underestimate the power of advertising, marketing, and propaganda
- Understand exponents and statistics
- Know that often "the devil is in the details"

 

[Heyo]

Note: Strictly speaking this could be just a discussion. But I suspect debates will ensue

If you were going to co-author a book on critical thinking, what chapters do you think should be included?

Here are a few I'd include:

- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
- When in doubt, follow the money
- Learn to spot fallacy arguments or claims
- learn to spot slurs
- Use Occam's razor / common sense
- Suspect that everyone has an agenda and biases (even you)
- Be skeptical of dogma
- Distrust free lunches
- Don't underestimate the power of advertising, marketing, and propaganda
- Understand exponents and statistics
- Know that often "the devil is in the details"

- PRATTs are red herrings, don't waste your time.

 

[Stevicus]

 

[Revoltingest]

I'll add....
- Try to really understand opposing arguments.
Counter them only after this.
- Don't see the opposition as evil. Seek merit
in their views.

 

[ChristineM]

A couple more chapters...

Egotism and where to throw it
You've reached a conclusion, now question it.

 

[timothy1027]

Note: Strictly speaking this could be just a discussion. But I suspect debates will ensue

If you were going to co-author a book on critical thinking, what chapters do you think should be included?

Here are a few I'd include:

- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
- When in doubt, follow the money
- Learn to spot fallacy arguments or claims
- learn to spot slurs
- Use Occam's razor / common sense
- Suspect that everyone has an agenda and biases (even you)
- Be skeptical of dogma
- Distrust free lunches
- Don't underestimate the power of advertising, marketing, and propaganda
- Understand exponents and statistics
- Know that often "the devil is in the details"

My suggestions:
- The importance of logic and reason
- Gaslighting
- Groupthink
- Lemming mentality
- En Vogue
- Projection
- Red Herring statements
- Adhominem arguments

 

[Quintessence]

Eh, always gotta start with philosophy. There's a lot of... paradoxically, there's a lot of "propaganda" about critical thinking out there by the "skeptic" community that isn't quite right. There's really only a few essential components of critical thinking, and the rest is flavor text:

• Know yourself - why everyone is biased and carries unprovable foundational assumptions
• Think different - how to get outside your own head and consider perspectives from other peoples and cultures
• Trust yourself - where practicing discernment builds your own personal map of the territory to navigate your life

Probably add to this a section on philosophy that covers epistemology and ontology heavily, possibly titled "why you don't actually know anything and are just making it all up as you go along." Then also add a few lessons learned from the discipline of psychology and how human and other animal behavior operates to illustrate common species biases, possibly titled "how circumstances dictate your behavior - heuristics, conditioning, and the environment."

 

[Augustus]

Learn to spot fallacy arguments

That is one of the worst bits of content you could include in an “intro to critical thinking “ book.

Giving people a rudimentary knowledge of fallacies will make them less able to think critically as frequently evidenced in RF (to be honest I don’t think people gain much practical benefit from having an advanced knowledge of them).

Claiming purported fallacies are more an impediment to thought and a reason to dismiss inconvenient information than an aid to critical thinking.

Most claimed fallacies are not fallacies, and all you do is give people a list of words they can use to shut down discussion while fooling themselves that they are thinking critically.

Anyone who can think critically should be able to explain problems in arguments without resorting to prepackaged sound bites that can be used in lieu of engaging the brain.

I’d include a section on why most “fallacies”aren’t fallacies, and why critical thinkers shouldn’t use terms referring to generic fallacies.

The idea that being able to say “strawman” or “whataboutism” is some kind of key benefit for analytical insight is rather silly.

(For example where is the line between valid contextualisation and whataboutism? There isn’t one it’s just a highly subjective opinion so better people explain why it is not a relevant point than simply say “whataboutism! HE DID A WHATABOUTISM!)

 

[icehorse]

That is one of the worst bits of content you could include in an “intro to critical thinking “ book.

Giving people a rudimentary knowledge of fallacies will make them less able to think critically as frequently evidenced in RF (to be honest I don’t think people gain much practical benefit from having an advanced knowledge of them).

Claiming purported fallacies are more an impediment to thought and a reason to dismiss inconvenient information than an aid to critical thinking.

Most claimed fallacies are not fallacies, and all you do is give people a list of words they can use to shut down discussion while fooling themselves that they are thinking critically.

Anyone who can think critically should be able to explain problems in arguments without resorting to prepackaged sound bites that can be used in lieu of engaging the brain.

I’d include a section on why most “fallacies”aren’t fallacies, and why critical thinkers shouldn’t use terms referring to generic fallacies.

The idea that being able to say “strawman” or “whataboutism” is some kind of key benefit for analytical insight is rather silly.

(For example where is the line between valid contextualisation and whataboutism? There isn’t one it’s just a highly subjective opinion so better people explain why it is not a relevant point than simply say “whataboutism! HE DID A WHATABOUTISM!)

Spotting a fallacy and what to do about it are two very different things. I agree that "crying fallacy" is often a poor tactic. But knowing that you've just encountered one is just a useful bit of knowledge for whatever you're hearing. And spotting a fallacy doesn't mean you should assume the speaker has a bad intention. They could well be repeating something they heard.

Let's say you hear a false dilemma. You don't have to throw that conclusion into the discussion. But it could help you frame a more constructive response like: "You mentioned options A and B, but how about considering C?"

So yes, it's a hammer that can be misused - like most every tool. But sometimes a hammer is the correct tool.

 

[Debater Slayer]

That is one of the worst bits of content you could include in an “intro to critical thinking “ book.

Giving people a rudimentary knowledge of fallacies will make them less able to think critically as frequently evidenced in RF (to be honest I don’t think people gain much practical benefit from having an advanced knowledge of them).

Claiming purported fallacies are more an impediment to thought and a reason to dismiss inconvenient information than an aid to critical thinking.

Most claimed fallacies are not fallacies, and all you do is give people a list of words they can use to shut down discussion while fooling themselves that they are thinking critically.

Anyone who can think critically should be able to explain problems in arguments without resorting to prepackaged sound bites that can be used in lieu of engaging the brain.

I’d include a section on why most “fallacies”aren’t fallacies, and why critical thinkers shouldn’t use terms referring to generic fallacies.

The idea that being able to say “strawman” or “whataboutism” is some kind of key benefit for analytical insight is rather silly.

(For example where is the line between valid contextualisation and whataboutism? There isn’t one it’s just a highly subjective opinion so better people explain why it is not a relevant point than simply say “whataboutism! HE DID A WHATABOUTISM!)

I think the issues you outlined could be avoided by offering examples where logical fallacies don't apply as one might intuitively think, but I have found them to be extremely useful in a lot of practical situations, including academic ones (e.g., identifying the sunk cost fallacy and a fallacious appeal to intuition has allowed me to start over instead of trying to build on a fundamentally broken computer program).

If anything, I think the pandemic has demonstrated just how crucial identifying certain logical fallacies is and also how crucial identifying misapplication thereof is. Appeals to emotion, incredulity, and post hoc ergo propter hoc have proven to be deadly for some people who shunned medical consensus and advice on those grounds. Conversely, misapplying logical fallacies and dismissing said consensus as an "appeal to authority" or "appeal to popularity" has also led to similar results for some people.

Another example is that, in general, it seems to me that a lot of people assume that what is intuitive must also be correct, which is a highly unreliable assumption in a lot of contexts—such as in some contexts in statistics, probability, and quantum physics, where certain correct answers are so counterintuitive as to defy belief. We have unprecedented access to information and misinformation, so I think we should also be taught in schools about the various pitfalls in which our thought processes can get caught and when to trust or question them.

I see logical fallacies as an excellent subject to include in a book or course on critical thinking, but only if there's extensive guidance on situations where they may seem to apply but actually don't (e.g., appealing to relevant, qualified authority or appealing to emotion when emotion is the main or only relevant factor in a decision, such as the choice of a gift). In my opinion, identifying them is a good way to temper—not eliminate, but at least temper—some of the biases and unreliable heuristics we have as humans.

 

[Augustus]

Spotting a fallacy and what to do about it are two very different things. I agree that "crying fallacy" is often a poor tactic. But knowing that you've just encountered one is just a useful bit of knowledge for whatever you're hearing.

This assumes you have in fact spotted one and are not being fooled by the labels into thinking you’ve spotted one.

I can’t say I’ve ever benefited from knowing any generic fallacy terminology in terms of spotting bad arguments that I wouldn’t have otherwise have spotted. Thinking in terms of generic fallacies can make you imagine perfectly good arguments are fallacious though.

Few people deliberately “cry fallacy”, they are just fooled into thinking they are being insightful by being told about generic textbook examples of “fallacious arguments” while not understanding real world arguments tend not to be cut and blow dried.

Most claimed fallacies are not actually fallacies, and the only reason such muddled thought is possible is because of the terminology.

The idea that so many people think knowledge of fallacies is an important part of critical thinking seems somewhat ironic to me. As the theory doesn’t match the reality.

Let's say you hear a false dilemma. You don't have to throw that conclusion into the discussion. But it could help you frame a more constructive response like: "You mentioned options A and B, but how about considering C?"

You needed to know the term false dilemma to do that?

 

[Debater Slayer]

Eh, always gotta start with philosophy. There's a lot of... paradoxically, there's a lot of "propaganda" about critical thinking out there by the "skeptic" community that isn't quite right.

I strongly agree with this. I have found a subset of "skeptics," such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, to be quite prone to tribalism and confirmation bias (ironically) when talking about "reason" or "critical thinking." An example is when they overlook or oversimplify the multitude of complex socioeconomic and cultural factors that shape people's beliefs and boil down any religious belief to "irrationality," "delusion," etc.

This is compounded by their overconfidence in their own supposedly "rational" approach, which renders quite a lot of their biases and faulty arguments even more impervious to correction or introspection.

 

[We Never Know]

Note: Strictly speaking this could be just a discussion. But I suspect debates will ensue

If you were going to co-author a book on critical thinking, what chapters do you think should be included?

Here are a few I'd include:

- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
- When in doubt, follow the money
- Learn to spot fallacy arguments or claims
- learn to spot slurs
- Use Occam's razor / common sense
- Suspect that everyone has an agenda and biases (even you)
- Be skeptical of dogma
- Distrust free lunches
- Don't underestimate the power of advertising, marketing, and propaganda
- Understand exponents and statistics
- Know that often "the devil is in the details"

--- be humble because sometimes you might be the problem without realizing it.

 

[Debater Slayer]

You needed to know the term false dilemma to do that?

I grew up in an ultra-conservative society, and I can tell you that at least in my case, yes, I needed to read about logical fallacies before I could spot certain examples that may seem clear to some people. Some heavily dogmatic worldviews just foster particularly misleading thought processes that can take active effort to later unpick and temper with a decent understanding of how our biases work.

 

[Heyo]

That is one of the worst bits of content you could include in an “intro to critical thinking “ book.

Giving people a rudimentary knowledge of fallacies will make them less able to think critically as frequently evidenced in RF (to be honest I don’t think people gain much practical benefit from having an advanced knowledge of them).

Claiming purported fallacies are more an impediment to thought and a reason to dismiss inconvenient information than an aid to critical thinking.

Most claimed fallacies are not fallacies, and all you do is give people a list of words they can use to shut down discussion while fooling themselves that they are thinking critically.

Anyone who can think critically should be able to explain problems in arguments without resorting to prepackaged sound bites that can be used in lieu of engaging the brain.

I’d include a section on why most “fallacies”aren’t fallacies, and why critical thinkers shouldn’t use terms referring to generic fallacies.

The idea that being able to say “strawman” or “whataboutism” is some kind of key benefit for analytical insight is rather silly.

(For example where is the line between valid contextualisation and whataboutism? There isn’t one it’s just a highly subjective opinion so better people explain why it is not a relevant point than simply say “whataboutism! HE DID A WHATABOUTISM!)

One of the most important tool of critical thinking is knowing and understanding fallacies and spotting them - in your own arguments.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Note: Strictly speaking this could be just a discussion. But I suspect debates will ensue

If you were going to co-author a book on critical thinking, what chapters do you think should be included?

Here are a few I'd include:

- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
- When in doubt, follow the money
- Learn to spot fallacy arguments or claims
- learn to spot slurs
- Use Occam's razor / common sense
- Suspect that everyone has an agenda and biases (even you)
- Be skeptical of dogma
- Distrust free lunches
- Don't underestimate the power of advertising, marketing, and propaganda
- Understand exponents and statistics
- Know that often "the devil is in the details"

You have left out how words work and if even criticial thinking has a limit.

In general terms for truth, evidence, reason, logic, skepticism, critical thinking and all other related words,it always end in how to deal with the negatives and if human cognition has a limit.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

I grew up in an ultra-conservative society, and I can tell you that at least in my case, yes, I needed to read about logical fallacies before I could spot certain examples that may seem clear to some people. Some heavily dogmatic worldviews just foster particularly misleading thought processes that can take active effort to later unpick and temper with a decent understanding of how our biases work.

That is not unique to those cultures. It also happens in Western secular societies.

 

[SomeRandom]

I strongly agree with this. I have found a subset of "skeptics," such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, to be quite prone to tribalism and confirmation bias (ironically) when talking about "reason" or "critical thinking." An example is when they overlook or oversimplify the multitude of complex socioeconomic and cultural factors that shape people's beliefs and boil down any religious belief to "irrationality," "delusion," etc.

This is compounded by their overconfidence in their own supposedly "rational" approach, which renders quite a lot of their biases and faulty arguments even more impervious to correction or introspection.

Ahh the forebearers to the so called “Skepticsphere” that happened in many an online Atheist space a few years back.
(I swear that community alone could be studied by psychiatrists for years lol
Oof the whirlpool of weirdness that group lead younger me into lol. But that’s neither here nor there)

Your post reminded me of a video made by a somewhat prominent name in the community, The Amazing Atheist (no longer a fan, but my angsty younger self liked him.) In if he made a comment on his own journey that I found kind of interesting.
He basically said that due to his religious upbringing, leaving religion did not alleviate him of his culturally imposed biases and habits. All he did was swap one dogma for another.

It kind of does show just how much of a hangover religious dogma imposes on folks. Even as they denounce it publicly

 

[ratiocinator]

Note: Strictly speaking this could be just a discussion. But I suspect debates will ensue

If you were going to co-author a book on critical thinking, what chapters do you think should be included?

Here are a few I'd include:

- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
- When in doubt, follow the money
- Learn to spot fallacy arguments or claims
- learn to spot slurs
- Use Occam's razor / common sense
- Suspect that everyone has an agenda and biases (even you)
- Be skeptical of dogma
- Distrust free lunches
- Don't underestimate the power of advertising, marketing, and propaganda
- Understand exponents and statistics
- Know that often "the devil is in the details"

The big problem here is that it all seems to be about avoiding problems, with nothing about how to make good arguments.

There is obviously a need to know how to recognise and avoid fallacies, but it's useless by itself. So, just off the top of my head, you'd need something about deductive and inductive arguments. Under deductive arguments, you'd need to cover categorical logic and truth-functional logic. You'd also need some basic introduction to probability and statistics (which people are terribly bad at assessing intuitively). For example, your very first point about extraordinary claims is based on a Bayesian probability calculation.

 

[wellwisher]

Note: Strictly speaking this could be just a discussion. But I suspect debates will ensue

If you were going to co-author a book on critical thinking, what chapters do you think should be included?

Here are a few I'd include:

- Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence
- When in doubt, follow the money
- Learn to spot fallacy arguments or claims
- learn to spot slurs
- Use Occam's razor / common sense
- Suspect that everyone has an agenda and biases (even you)
- Be skeptical of dogma
- Distrust free lunches
- Don't underestimate the power of advertising, marketing, and propaganda
- Understand exponents and statistics
- Know that often "the devil is in the details"

Critical thinking boils down to knowing how to tell the difference between emotional thinking and rational thinking. When our brain writes to memory, emotional tags are added to the sensory content. Our memory has both sensory content; sensory based facts, and emotional tags. This tagging is why our strongest sensory memories also have the strongest feelings.

This writing schema also allow us to use both sides of the brain; sensory content is more left brain while the emotional tag is more right brain. We can use both sides together or we can think using either side of the brain as the leader; emotion or content leading. Both sides together is hardest to do.

The difference between the two approaches to our memory; feelings first or sensory content first, is that there are only a finite number of emotional tags, so these tend to be recycled. Sensory content has much more diversity and subtle detail, being composed of endless combinations of the five senses. Any place you travel in the world has unique special sensory content, and all can make you feel; tag, awe.

For example, if I asked you to list your ten favorite foods; from memory, these will all have similar feelings of enjoyment and satisfaction. However, they can be all over the board in terms of sensory details such as plating; sight, smell and taste.

The pitfall of emotional thinking; emotions leading, is sometimes irrelevant memory content is brought out, to reinforce the emotion, simply because its has the same tag. However, these sensory details or facts may not have anything to do with the emotional argument at hand; devil is in the details. You ten favorite foods may criss cross, with some memory blurred between.

For example, man made global warming and climate change makes use of fear. This topic is rarely discussed without emotions; fear and urgency. The fear tag is also connected to all the things in your memory that you may fear. A fear tag first approach can amplify the need to do something, beyond the pure logic of the relevant science details, since it may also includes your night mares.

Politics tends to lure people into emotional thinking; fear, hate, arrogance. conviction, etc., which often leads to dogmatic and group think connected by emotions. Simply by knowing if someone or a group is using emotional thinking, tells us that there may be cross contamination in their arguments, that they may not even be aware of, that is reinforcing an emotional loop; neural chemical release induction.

The right brain where emotion reigns does spatial thinking; 3-D. This is part of the reason for cross contamination; 3-D assortment for that emotion. But the level of detail in 3-D can blurs the lines between details that can be better seen in the 2-D. left side of the brain; cause and affect.

Another example are the adults; teachers, conditioning children to become medical lab rats; gender bending. This is not being driven by only logic or science, but by free market emotional lure and blackmail. If someone starts to be led by emotions, they have been lure into emotional thinking and cross contaminated arguments will start to appear, to reinforce their feelings; loops.

Little children cannot reason, but they can think emotionally and adults should not be encouraging this since it can reduce their future ability to think critically. They need to be taught to question. Emotional thinking may be useful if the goal is a zombie army that can be led by emotional prompts; dog whistles.