Logic and Critical Thinking

Hello. I am a new member to the forum and more often a reader of posts than a responder. As my first proposed topic, I would like to ask a question. Several members speak with erudition and possess highly tuned critical-thinking skills and logic. Some members include, but are not limited to, Crash Frog, Omnivorous, Percy, NoseyNed, Holmes, and MiketheWiz. If I misspelled any of those names, I apologize.Anywho, I possess fairly tenuous critical thinking skills and know little of logic. I am naive and slow-witted. But I wish to change this. Recently I bought a book on C.T. and am attempting to take a course in logic in the fall. Would you have any advice or counsel to one who is learning to learn? Any books you recommend over others? Any comments or criticisms to one who craves a better education?P.S. I hope I did not come off too sycophantic.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

My thinking was shaped by studying maths and physics as well as computing. The latter less than the former. Computing is great for logic, but I find the others better for critical thinking.Physics for example enabled me to learn that there is much in the world that does not conform to my expectations. Its a very real lesson in not trusting my feelings to define my reality. As a quick and easy example, the fact that the moon is accelerating towards the earth seemed insane to me when I first heard it...but doing the maths behind it showed me that it must be true.I'm not sure you can learn logic or critical thinking from books, but from continous training over several years. The first thing is to be comfortable asking questions that you might think make you look stupid.That's my opinion anyway. Welcome to EvC! Not sycophantic just amnesiac...you forgot to mention me

Thanks, Modulous. I agree. I forgot many names I wish I had put down. Your posts were always a great read. Thank you kindly for the reply, and your time.

My opinion is a little bit like Modulous's. I don't think you learn critical thinking skills by reading a book on critical thinking but by doing critical thinking. But I do think reading is extremely important, because even more critical than thinking skills is having a great deal of acquired knowledge to think about. While I do think there is such a thing as "brains" or "smarts", a lot of quality thinking comes from just knowing a lot.--Percy

Read stuff that questions your own assumptions and way of thinking. Some of the most useful stuff that I have read that helps in my critical thinking skills is stuff that I disagree with.

Well said. Thank you Percy, Chiroptera. A problem I have is lacking the ability to better express myself. My original post is proof of this. I wish, I suppose, to sharpen and exercise my mind to a much fuller extent.

Question answers.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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A problem I have is lacking the ability to better express myself.

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A writing course. Several writing courses. I also keep a journal. Read a lot; I realize that a significant portion of my own writing skills came from internalizing other peoples' styles. (I've been a voracious reader since I learned to read.)

Welcome to EvC, inflixion, and thanks for the compliment.You've already taken the most important step--taking up the challenge of critical, independent thought. Like any other skill (or muscle), the mind grows stronger the more you use it. If you find something persuasive, ask yourself what makes it persuasive and whether that also makes it true. When you find something unpersuasive, figure out why you do, and whether you should. In both cases, question your own conclusions as strongly as you question the original proposition. Never stop asking the same hard questions of your own thoughts that you put to others.There is always someone smarter or more knowledgable, but to grant complete authority to the savant or the expert is to become sheep. You have to work hard to take and hold possession of your own sovereign mind.Question everything, your own conclusions most of all. The will to do that is half the battle.

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If you live where you have access to college or junior college classes I would recommend you investigate what they have to offer. Classroom discussion with a good teacher can be a very good way to develop critical thinking skills as well as expression.lfen

infixion

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Several members speak with erudition and possess highly tuned critical-thinking skills and logic. Some members include, but are not limited to...MiketheWiz.

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I did a search on mike's posts because I can't say I have noticed him that much. One particular post he wrote that stood out to me.http://EvC Forum: Science facts the bible knew before science -->EvC Forum: Science facts the bible knew before scienceYou decide whether he is fine tuned or not.Anyway, here are some ways you can train yourself to be better at this game.1) Be your own harsh critic.When you want to make a statement that seems completely logical to you, ask yourself if you can actually support it. Then, take a few deep breath and ask yourself if your explanation makes sense at all. Trust me, this simple self-control will save you many embarrassing moments.2) Try to anticipate how people will question your claim.Say you want to make a claim that the wind blows north and south. If you step back for a moment and think what your opponents are going to say, the most obvious thing that you should think of is that the wind might be blowing east and west. So, you should do at least a quick google search to see if the wind really blows north and south or east and west. Again, it would save you some embarrassing moments. Remember that your opponents can be very creative at critiquing your claims.3) Don't be afraid to question your own beliefs.This is probably the primary problem for many people. Most people are raised with a set of "facts" that were never confirmed by secondary sources. Many will be so dependent on these "facts" that questioning them is out of the question, despite overwhelming contradiction in the real world. Don't be like that.4) Be ready to admit that you were wrong.I know many people that would argue just to win. It's a bad habit and it will definitely keep you from thinking straight.5) Never assume that your opponents are unaware of certain facts and therefore you can pass an easy one.Trust me, there will always be someone out there that know whatever you think you're the only one that knows. Again, getting called on something can be quite embarrassing. Just stick with the fact and be willing to admit that you were wrong if it comes to it.6) The most important thing that I can think of right now is never forget that you are ignorant of most topics out there.Write this down on a note card and show it to yourself every once in a while if you have to. Too often do people forget that they don't know most of the things out there. I don't care if you're the most knowledgable person in the world or not. The fact is for every fact you know (or you think you know) there are a thousand other facts that you don't know about.7) And finally, stick with what you know.Don't try to take a leap out of your comfort zone. There is nothing wrong with not knowing much about certain things. If you do wander into an unknown territory, ask more questions than try to pull answers out of your hat.I don't know much about politics, and you will rarely ever find me talking about politics. Don't know much about UFO's either, and I'm not going to pretend that I'm a ufologist just because I just watched a sci-fi program on ufo's.What I just wrote may seem obvious enough. However, you'd be amazed to learn that not many people actually take a step back regularly and question their own knowledge or opinion. Remember that if you can't think of a reason why you believe what you believe, chances are that it's wrong.Added by edit.By the way, if you happen to stumble upon a "fact" or concept that you are sure will stump the so-called experts, and it seems too good to be true, chances are that it is. There's a reason why biologists are biologists, cosmologists are cosmologists, physicists are physicists, etc. It's their job to come up with hard-to-answer questions and investigate them. Especially if you sell tv's for a living, it's probably safe to approach the matter with caution than a blatent "I own all" statement.This message has been edited by rgb, 03-11-2006 06:13 AM

A logic course (with a good teacher) is a nice introduction. However as all have stated, you cannot become good at it simply by having taken a class or read a book on it.I would liken critical thinking skills to martial arts. You can't learn martial arts by simply taking one class or reading a book. Those can be very important in giving you a grounding in form and discipline, but what will take you the rest of the way is practice practice practice.The professor from whom I learned logic was thankfully into that mindset. Our book was a very basic book on logic, thin and setting out how it is conducted to a degree you can find nowadays on the internet. The majority of the course was taught by applying these different skills to real world problems/arguments. We had photocopies of arguments from many different fields and had to break them down into components and analyze them in various ways.Thus books are not as important, beyond perhaps as a resource. The key will be practicing analyzing arguments (well constructed and not) until it is pretty much second nature. Of course without some formal grounding, just as in martial arts, practice alone may not help and only seal in bad habits which may look cool and "skillful" to others, but do nothing in practice.I am sometimes amazed at how many people enjoy exhibitions of truly poor logic skills, falling for the cheapest and most common tricks (bad habits). Don't confuse rhetorical skill with logic. The best sounding argument can still be a load of trash.Also very important for yourself, don't use this skill only on other peoples' arguments, or those you oppose. Start getting comfortable saying... and meaning... "I don't know". When approached with a subject or an argument say "I don't know", and then dissect the argument searching to find out if it is true (not simply if it is wrong). Find if it works and see if its propositions are supported by doing further research and analyzing the research.Eventually when you face the same subjects enough you'll actually have built up a body of knowledge so you won't necessarily have to research every time, but can discuss issues from the state of knowledge currently in a field. Though it will still be important to understand if the new argument presents new info/logic one must deal with, or if any new research has been added on a subject.Finally, analysis alone is not enough. As I suggested above you will need to do some research, and that requires learning about fields. If you are interested in discussing science, then I heavily suggest you find a science field and take some courses in it. Though often boring, research methodology and statistics courses are invaluable in analyzing research from the actual data.Its one thing to be able to read an abstract, it is much much much more important to be able look at the methods/data/analysis sections of a research paper and understand how justified the conclusion is based on the methods/data.Success.AbE: Oh yeah, I forgot to add that if a person's argument is sound and supported by strong evidence, don't make a big production, just come right out and admit the other person is right. Or if you (or someone else) finds a mistake, admit it and move on. That goes along with being comfortable saying "I don't know".This message has been edited by holmes, 03-11-2006 11:46 AM

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holmes
"What you need is sustained outrage...there's far too much unthinking respect given to authority." (M.Ivins)

I just wanted to thank all of you again for your time and counsel. Your words are greatly appreciated and I hope I can do them justice by applying and utilizing them to fruition.Truly humbled,
Brian.

Welcome aboard, infixion.It seems people have made a bunch of suggestions about both critical thinking and writing.It seems to me that EvC is a nice, safe place to practice both. Lots to read and criticize, a chance to write and receive feedback (big time ) and some topics to think about.