Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life
528
Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life
528eBookThird Edition (Third Edition)
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Overview
Based in theory developed over the last 30 years, Richard Paul and Linda Elder's text focuses on an integrated, comprehensive concept of critical thinking that is both substantive and practical. It fosters the development of basic intellectual skills students need to think through content in any class, subject, or discipline, as well as through any problem or issue they face. Simply stated, this text offers students the intellectual tools students need for lifelong learning, and rational, conscientious living.
Now available from Rowman & Littlefield, the third edition features streamlined chapters, Think for Yourself activities, and a complete glossary of critical thinking terms. The Foundation for Critical Thinking continually offers new supplementary resources on its website (www.CriticalThinking.org) and online critical thinking community.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781538139493 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 03/15/2020 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 528 |
| Sales rank: | 579,348 |
| File size: | 8 MB |
| Age Range: | 18 Years |
About the Author
Dr. Richard Paul was a leading proponent of critical thinking and through his work and legacy remains an international authority in the field. He founded the Center for Critical Thinking at Sonoma State University in 1980, followed by the Foundation for Critical Thinking. He developed concepts, principles, and theory essentials to a robust and fairminded conception of critical thinking and authored more than 200 articles and seven books on the topic. He presented workshops to hundreds of thousands of educators over his 35-year career as a leader in the critical thinking movement.
Read an Excerpt
Whatever you are doing right now is determined by the way you are thinking. Whatever you feel—-all your emotions—- are determined by your thinking. Whatever you want—-all your desires—- are determined by your thinking. If your thinking is unrealistic, it will lead you to many disappointments. If your thinking is overly pessimistic, it will deny you due recognition of the many things in which you should properly rejoice.
Test this idea for yourself. Identify some examples of your strongest feelings or emotions. Then identify the thinking that is correlated with those examples. For example, if you feel excited about college, it is because you think that good things will happen to you in college. If you dread going to class, it is probably because you think it will be boring or too difficult.
In a similar way, if the quality of your life is not what you would wish it to be, it is most likely because it is tied to the way you think about your life. If you think about it positively, you will feel positively about it. If you think about it negatively, you will feel negative about it.
For example, suppose you came to college with the view that college was going to be a lot of fun and you were going to form good friendships with fellow students who would respect and like you and, what is more, that your love life would become interesting and exciting. And let's suppose that hasn't happened. If this were the thrust of your thinking, you now would feel disappointed and maybe even frustrated (depending on how negatively you have interpreted your experience).
For most people, thinking is subconscious, never explicitly put into words. For example, mostpeople who think negatively would not say of themselves, "I have chosen to think about myself and my experience in a negative way. I prefer to be as unhappy as I can make myself."
The problem is that when you are not aware of your thinking, you have no chance of correcting it if it is poor. When thinking is subconscious, you are in no position to see any problems in it. And, if you don't see any problems in it, you won't be motivated to change it.
Since few people realize the powerful role that thinking plays in their lives, few gain significant command of it. Most people are in many ways victims of their thinking, that is, hurt rather than helped by it. Most people are their own worst enemy. Their thinking is a continual source of problems, preventing them from recognizing opportunities, keeping them from exerting energy where it will do the most good, poisoning relationships, and leading them down blind alleys.
Or consider your success as a student in college. The single most significant variable in determining that success is the quality of your thinking. If you think well when you study, you will study well. If you think well when you read, you will read well. If you think well when you write, you will write well. And if you study well, read well, and write well, you will do well in college. Certainly your instructors will play a role in your learning. Some of them will do a better job than others of helping you learn. But even the best teachers cannot get into your head and learn for you. Even the best teachers cannot think for you, read for you, or write for you. If you lack the intellectual skills necessary for thinking well through course content, you will not be successful in college.
Here is the key question we are putting to you in this book. If the quality of a person's thinking is the single most significant determinant of both their happiness and their success—-as it is—-why not discover the tools that the best thinkers use and take the time to learn to use them yourself? Perhaps you will not become proficient in all of them, but for every tool you learn there will be a payoff.
This book will alert you to the tools the best thinkers use and will exemplify the activities and practice you can use to begin to emulate them. You will then have your destiny as a thinker in your own hands. The only thing that will stand in your way of becoming a better and better thinker, is your own willingness to practice. Here are some of the qualities of the best thinkers.
The best thinkers think about their thinking. They do not take thinking for granted. They do not trust to fate to make them good in thinking. They notice their thinking.
They reflect on their thinking. They act upon their thinking.
The best thinkers are highly purposeful. They do not simply act. They know why they act. They know what they are about. They have clear goals and clear priorities. They continually check their activities for alignment with their goals.
The best thinkers have intellectual "tools" which they use to raise the quality of their thinking. They know how to express their thinking clearly. They know how to check it for accuracy and precision. They know how to keep focused on a question and make sure that it is relevant to their goals and purposes. They know how to think beneath the surface and how to expand their thinking to include insights from multiple perspectives. They know how to think logically and significantly.
The best thinkers distinguish their thoughts from their feelings, and desires. They know that wanting something to be so does not make it so. They know that one can be unjustifiably angry, afraid, or insecure. They do not let unexamined emotions determine their decisions. They have "discovered" their minds and they examine the way their minds operate as a result. They take deliberate charge of those operations. (Chapter 1)
The best thinkers routinely take thinking apart. They "analyze" thinking. They do not trust the mind to analyze itself automatically. They realize that the art of analyzing thinking is an art one must consciously learn. They realize that it takes knowledge (of the parts of thinking) and practice (in exercising control over them). (Chapter 2)
The best thinkers routinely evaluate thinking—-determining its strengths and weaknesses. They do not trust the mind to evaluate itself automatically. They realize that the automatic ways that the mind evaluates itself are inherently flawed. They realize that the art of evaluating thinking is an art one must consciously learn. They realize that it takes knowledge (of the universal standards for thinking) and practice (in exercising control over them).
This book, as a whole, introduces you to the tools of mind that will help you reason well through the problems and issues you face, whether in the classroom, in your personal life, in your professional life. If you take these ideas seriously, and practice using them, you can take command of the thinking that ultimately will command the quality of your life.
Table of Contents
IntroductionChapter 1: Become a Fairminded Thinker
Chapter 2: The First Four Stages of Development: At What Level of Thinking Would You Place Yourself?
Chapter 3: Self-Understanding
Chapter 4: The Parts of Thinking
Chapter 5: Standards for Thinking
Chapter 6: Ask Questions That Lead to Good Thinking
Chapter 7: Master the Thinking, Master the Content
Chapter 8: Discover How the Best Thinkers Learn
Chapter 9: Redefine Grades as Levels of Thinking and Learning
Chapter 10: Make Decisions and Solve Problems
Chapter 11: Deal with Your Irrational Mind
Chapter 12: How to Detect Media Bias and Propaganda in National and World News
Chapter 13: Fallacies: The Art of Mental Trickery and Manipulation
Chapter 14: Develop as an Ethical Reasoner
Chapter 16: Strategic Thinking
Chapter 17: Becoming an Advanced Thinker: Our Conclusion
Appendix A: a brief history of the idea of critical thinking
Appendix B: sample analysis of the logic of . . .
Glossary
Preface
PREFACE
You are what you think. That's right. Whatever you are doing right now, whatever you feel, whatever you want—all are determined by the quality of your thinking. If your thinking is unrealistic, it will lead you to many disappointments. If your thinking is overly pessimistic, it will deny you due recognition of the many things in which you should properly rejoice.
Test this idea for yourself. Identify some examples of your strongest feelings or emotions. Then identify the thinking that is correlated with those examples. For example, if you feel excited about college, it is because you think that good things will happen to you in college. If you dread going to class, it is probably because you think it will be boring or too difficult.
In a similar way, if the quality of your life is not what you would wish it to be, it is most likely because it is tied to the way you think about your life. If you think about it positively, you will feel positive about it. If you think about it negatively, you will feel negative about it.
For example, suppose you came to college with the view that college was going to be a lot of fun and you were going to form good friendships with fellow students who would respect and like you and, what is more, that your romantic relationships would become interesting and exciting. And let's suppose that hasn't happened. If this were the thrust of your thinking, you now would feel disappointed and maybe even frustrated (depending on how negative your experience has been interpreted by your thinking).
For most people, thinking is subconscious,neverexplicitly put into words. For example, most people who think negatively would not say of themselves, "I have chosen to think about myself and my experience in largely negative terms. I prefer to be as unhappy as I can be."
The problem is that when you are not aware of your thinking, you have no chance of correcting poor thinking. When thinking is subconscious, you are in no position to see any problems in it. And, if you don't see any problems in it, you won't be motivated to change it.
The truth is that since few people realize the powerful role that thinking plays in our lives, few gain significant command of it. Therefore, most people are in many ways victims of their own thinking, that is, harmed rather than helped by it. Most people are their own worst enemy. Their thinking is a continual source of problems, preventing them from recognizing opportunities, keeping them from exerting energy where it will do the most good, poisoning relationships, and leading them down blind alleys.
In this book we are concerned with helping you take charge of what you do, what you learn, and how you feel by taking command of how and what you think. We hope that you will discover the power of your thinking and will choose to develop it in ways that serve your interests, as well as the well-being of others.
The single most significant variable in determining the quality of what you learn in college is your thinking. Certainly your, teachers will play a role in your learning. Some of them will do a better job than others of helping you learn. But even the best teachers can help you very little if you lack the intellectual skills necessary for thinking well through course content.
This book introduces you to the tools of mind you need to reason well through the problems and issues you face, whether in the classroom, in your personal life, or in your professional life. If you take these ideas seriously, you can do something for yourself of lifelong value.
If all goes as we plan it, you gradually will become more and more aware of the thinking that causes you problems. And you will be able to change that thinking so you can experience a more satisfying life. You will find that learning, both inside and outside of class, will become more and more rewarding. You will increasingly be able to take the ideas you are learning in class and apply them to your life in a useful way.
The choice is yours, and the quality of your choice can only be as good as the thinking you use to come to that choice. If you think that taking command of your thinking is not important (perhaps you assume that you already have that command), this book won't help you learn to think any better than you do now. If, however, you sense that you have not yet achieved the personal control over your thinking we are speaking of, and you recognize its potential value, you will read on, and progressively take the steps to create personal control and power.