On several occasions, I've taught a course for a local university on "Critical Thinking Skills and the Media." As with any teaching responsibility, one probably gets more out of it than the students, who did generally seem to enjoy the class.

For the benefit of those who participate in debates or discussions of opinions, I'd like to offer this thread as an opportunity to help clarify and focus principles that make for sound "arguments." The term, "argument," is used not so much in reference to one's position in an "argument," as with regard to a matter of opinion.

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Briefly, I state that for an argument/opinion to be worthy of consideration, it must be:

1. Factually accurate -- insofar as that can be determined.

2. Free from logical fallacies. Another word for this is "spin."

To the extent that an argument is faithful to these two criteria, it is worthy of consideration (and unworthy if it does not). One might disagree with it, the result being a "difference of opinion." But that's OK. Differences of opinion are a good and healthy thing, often provoking deeper inquiry and reflection.

- - -

Most Internet discussions I've come across are cesspools of discourse. Facts are ingnored, and logical fallacies -- especially ad hominems and straw men -- abound. Read the comments under most any blog piece. Crude and rude! Unworthy of the human mind.

Web sites on the Right and Left of the political spectrum are awful. Subtract the spin from positions voiced on MoveOn.org, for example, and the movement would have to, well . . . Move On!

- - -

Now we enter another political season in the U.S. There will be spin - - already is! Spin is unworthy of human consciousness, playing to emotional prejudice and bias. It insults our intelligence. Candidates should be graded on a spin-o-meter. The ones who use the most would be the least trustworthy as a leader. Wouldn't that be a good idea for a web site?

- - -

This bulletin board has been relatively free-er of poor critical thinking skills than most others. This is a credit to participants, but I should also add that it's been hard work to moderate, at times. When to ban chronic spinners or spammers? How much time and energy to put in to try to point out fallacies? I'm constantly having to evaluate this. It's so much easier when mature adults with good critical thinking skills participate, and the energy level of the forum is so much higher and more enjoyable.

And so I offer this thread, to help sharpen critical thinking skills. What questions, comments, examples, elaborations would you like to offer? What resources do you find helpful?

I'm just wondering how one goes about discussing something for which you have little factual evidence and yet consider true, perhaps by way of intuitive knowing, without coming across as a "spinner" or poor critical thinker.

Jacques, that would certainly apply to matters of theology and philosophy, along with personal preferences. The latter are beyond debate; sometimes we like what we like for reasons that require no justification. For theology and philosophy, the criteria I posted above do apply, but obviously you can't always establish a factual basis for them.

Philosophical and theological opinions ought to be internally congruent, rationally persuasive, and free from logical fallacies in their justifications. Beyond that, it's pretty much about faith.

Let us make our assumptions explicit
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quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
Briefly, I state that for an argument/opinion to be worthy of consideration, it must be:

1. Factually accurate -- insofar as that can be determined.

2. Free from logical fallacies. Another word for this is "spin."

I would like to add another key criterion, having studied mathematics. All logic / argument is based upon certain assumptions; in mathematics these are made explicit as axioms -- "a statement on which an abstractly defined structure is based".

A problem with many discussions, especially political ones, is that the assumptions tend to be hidden. To the extent they are, their legitimacy cannot be question, even by those who hold them.

So I venture this:

A key skill to develop when sharpening our critical thinking, is to make any and all assumptions explicit and visible!

Respectfully,
ArcticStones

Phil,

I have this freind who loves reason, is an engineer,
worked on the F-16, and is an all-around great guy.
I really appreciate him and he has been a mentor to me.
He believes that logic and reason are the ne plus ultra of the modern world and God's greatest gift to
man. I'll call him Mister Spock.

Intellectually and spiritually, I no longer look up to him as I used to. Why? Mister Spock is a neoconservative and still supports the status quo.

WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH as George Orwell so eloquently stated.
Destroy the world to save the world!

"It will be touch and go between oblivion and utopia until one or the other happens. I believe
the human, like the hydrogen molocule, is designed
to succeed, but if we should fail, Nature has other experiments." -Buckmister Fuller

I VOTE 4 UTOPIA!!!

I'll fumble around for my copy of Trancending the Levels of Consciousness by David Hawkins. As I recall Hawkins states that those at the level of
reason and logic are in the top %25, are accustomed to being the smartest guy in the room and believe that they have reached the apex and the acme of human development.

Not so, for reason is limited to categories of symbols and concepts and abstractions, without the
full appreciation of how those symbols and concepts and abstractions interrelate and cooperate as semiotic whole/parts or holons of God's creative pattern.

It's a forest and the trees thing, where the individual trees obscure the view of the forest.
Remember when Al Gore got lost in the woods and even the Secret Service has trouble locating him?

It's kind of like that for me. The engineers and
scientists are locked into a Dewey Decimal System
view of the universe, with a label and a slot for everything. Just look at the way this website is set up, for example. It's all linear and there is a separate thread for each topic. This may lead at times to hardening of the categories.

I think in clusters. Everything reminds me of everything else, which is, as some understand, the way our brains are wired. A hologram.

"If we fail to anticipate the unforseen or expect the unexpected in a universe of infinite possibilities, we may find ourselves at the mercy of anyone or anything which cannot be programmed,
categorized or easily referenced." -Agent Mulder

OTOH,

"But you've saved me! As difficult and frustrating as it's been sometimes, your goddamned strict rationalism and science have saved me a thousand times over! You've kept me honest...you, made me a whole person. I owe you everything...Scully, and you owe me nothing. I don't know if I can do this alone. I don't kow if I can...and if I quit now, they win."

So perhaps the subjective, the intuitive and the transrational hunch, the normally feminine attributes possessed by agent Mulder and the stereotypically masculine traits of reason, logic and objectivity which are attributes of agent Scully are intersubjective and interobjective and rely on each other, as the Body of Christ is joined together in and by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit.

Hawkins states that even at the level of altruism,
the Family of God may argue about how to best achieve an objective. Reading Acts, we can see that Paul and Peter faught at times and these were not such easy-going mellow laid-back people.

I'll borrow a cup of rationality from you, but systematic theology and philosophy at the rational
level bore me to tears these days, and those books
gather dust on my bookshelves.

Give me the Saints and the Mystics, the transrational, the holographic, the Semiotic Emergent Panentheism! (JohnBoy is storming the very gates of it!) Yes give me the Simple Feeling of Being as Ken Wilber calls it, the Fruit of the Spirit of the Apostle Paul, the Living Flame of Love of Saint John of the Cross, the Satyagraha and Ahimsa of Gandhi, the Imitation of Christ of Thomas a Kempis, the Practice of the Presence of Brother Lawrence, the Cloud of Unknowing, the Way
to Love of De Mello, the Mystic Fire of Aurobindo
the Divine Mother of Ramakrishna, the Self of Ramana Maharshi, the Self Realization of Yogananda
and the Atman of the Vedas, the Revelations of Julian of Norwich and the Great Spirit of the Aboriginals. Allah, Krishna, the Tao, the Void,
Nirvana, Satori, Zen, and the Beatific Vision.

Nevertheless, after the ecstacy, the laundry and even mystics have to pay the bills. And how I loathe politics... Still, what a Precious Gift
to be a Sentient Being and having you all to Love
and be Loved.

shalom!

spoonboy <*))))><

quote:

Originally posted by spoonboy:
...how I loathe politics...

Well, then don�t bring it into this thread.

quote:

A key skill to develop when sharpening our critical thinking, is to make any and all assumptions explicit and visible!

I agree, HP, to the extent that that's possible or relevant. Often (usually), one can assume certain shared "givens" in a discussion that don't need to be articulated. Our different understanding of the term "liberal" in another discussion is a case where it would have been helpful to clarify this earlier on. I'm just pointing out some bare-bones criteria, which (MM - note) aren't about promoting any system of reason or logic. Both inductive and deductive reasoning and reflection are involved; intuition and feeling can also come into play.

Critical thinking is more than knowing what one believes and why one believes it, but examining for oneself whether one's beliefs and opinions make sense, or are worthy of belief. It's about the "examined life," rather than the unconscious, unreflective, unexamined life, which, as Socrates noted, is not worth living.

- - -

MM notes: I think in clusters. Everything reminds me of everything else, which is, as some understand, the way our brains are wired. A hologram.

I understand. But it doesn't follow that using factual inaccuracies or logical fallacies to support an opinion (of which you have definite, strong ones ) helps to support your position. It doesn't. Justifying an opinion using misinformation or fallacies doesn't necessarily mean that an opinion is "wrong" (it could still be worthy for other reasons), only that the justifications put forth don't effectively support the opinion. You can try to minimize the importance of reason in the overall scheme of things (and I agree: reason has its limitations), but there's no denying that logical fallacies and misinformation are unworthy of human intelligence. Whenever we use these to support a belief/opinion, we've lost credibility.

Your post above misses the main point I'm making in this thread and actually seems to be discounting the importance of critical thinking skills. There's no conflict between the notion of the brain/mind as holographic and what I'm saying. "Clusters" are just the way information is organized -- a context. How we sort it out and make sense of things is another matter.

Phil,

Thomas Merton, who has been called one of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century, had a firm
grasp of reason and rational thought, and knew most
of the leading intellectuals of his day, yet sought
to abandon all of this for an eremetical life.

"Truth, yes it must be Truth!" -Merlin's answer to King Aurthur when asked which virtue was the highest.

Notice that the wikipedia entry on truth lists ony one transrationl thinker, Ghandi. This is a strong indicator that truth and rational thought are in large part seen as equal by the wikipedia editors.

http://en.wikipedia.org.wiki/Truth


"Our reach must exceed our grasp, or what's a heaven for?" - Robert Browning

Although something of a transrational thinker, and having experienced such atates firsthand, I do find many warnings from Merton and others about the dangers
of false mysticisms of various kinds, and have run into many such potholes along the road.

So, you have my attention...

This should be an easy one, and since you and I have had some experience, how would you apply critical thinking skills to assisting a fundamentalist of whatever stripe in aquiring a more rational outlook?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Fundamentalism

http://www.fundamentalists-anonymous.org


If you don't care for that idea, we could discuss
Satan's greatest invention for Global Domination
which led to the rise of the other ones, Communism
and Militarism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F...onal-reserve_banking

When Gandhi told us that love NEVER has a justification for violence, or when the Dalai Lama
sat on the Mall in Washington D.C. and told us that sooner or later we would have to relinquish
the concept of ever expanding growth, were they lacking in critical thinking skills?

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who
falsely believe that they are free."

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Thank you, brother Phil -spoonage

quote:

Thomas Merton, who has been called one of the great intellectuals of the twentieth century, had a firm
grasp of reason and rational thought, and knew most
of the leading intellectuals of his day, yet sought
to abandon all of this for an eremetical life.

Michael, you're confusing rationality and intellectual endeavor with critical thinking. Merton never, ever abandoned the latter (neither did he abandon reason, intellectual life, and correspondence with intellectuals). His analyses of social issues and East-West dialogue written from his hermitage at Gethsemane demonstrate a deep capacity for critical thinking. You never find in him any use of fallacies or misinformation to manipulate or propagandize. He was adamantly opposed to this.

Your responses on this thread and participation in others demonstrate little evidence or understanding of critical thinking. Indeed, you seem determined to excuse yourself from this discipline. How about just lurking on this thread to see what you can learn from it, and also taking a break from the religion and culture forum for awhile. You're welcome to join the discussion again through questions or efforts to clarify.

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A good review of the meaning of critical thinking skills can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

quote:

Critical thinking is useful only in those situations where human beings need to solve problems, make decision, or decide in a reasonable and reflective way what to believe or what to do. That is, just about everywhere and all the time. Critical thinking is important wherever the quality of human thinking significantly impacts the quality of life (of any sentient creature). For example, success in human life is tied to success in learning. At the same time, every phase in the learning process is tied to critical thinking. Thus, reading, writing, speaking, and listening can all be done critically or uncritically. Critical thinking is crucial to becoming a close reader and a substantive writer.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
[qb]
2. Free from logical fallacies. Another word for this is "spin."

[/qb]

Thanks, Phil. This is a great website. IMO, people often get stuck in faulty thinking owing to their need to defend agaisnt some emotional threat or conflict. Many of the examples used on that website imply this.

The point about defense mechanisms that lead to faulty thinking is that they are usually quite automatic and resistant to change as long as the threat remains unconscious and/or intolerable.

I want to present the definition of a few defense mechanisms that I think often underlie logical fallacies. As presented in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder-4-TR:

ratiionalization -- The individual deals with emotinal conflict or internal or external stressors by concealing the true motivations for his/her own thoughts, actions, or feelings through the elaboration of reassuring or self-serving but incorrect explanations.

intellectualization -- The individual deals with emotional conflict or internal or external stressors by the excessive use of abstract thinking or the making of generalizations to control or minimize disturbing feelings.

Here's one that is associated with the black-and-white thinking fallacy. It is the sickest of the three.

splitting -- The individual deals with emotinal conflict or internal or external stressors by compartmentalizaing opposite affect states and failing to integrate the positive and negative qualities of the self or others into cohesive images. Because ambivalent affects cannot be experienced simultaneously, more balanced views and expectations of self or others are excluded from emotional awareness. Self and obect images tend to alternate between polar opposites...

Good point, shasha. I think defense mechanisms can and do contribute to uncritical thinking. We've had a couple of splitters here through the years, and I remember from my counseling days how difficult it was to work with borderline personality disorders.

One can learn to improve critical thinking skills, but that would mean checking one's defenses and other kneejerk reactions to information. The Catholic philosopher, Bernard Lonergan, has detailed the process as follows:

1. Be Aware - includes information from the outside world, and thoughts, feelings, desires, etc. from one's inner life. It also includes one's beliefs, preconceptions, and assumptions. This is the step where misinformation and misperception should be eliminated.

2. Be Intelligent - what do I believe, think, feel -- and why? What makes sense to me? Here, one comes to own one's inner attitudes and leanings. A preliminary belief, attitude or explanation emerges, hopefully free from logical fallacies.

3. Be Reasonable - How can I test the belief or explanation arrived at in level 2? How can I know that my explanation or belief from level 2 is the best way to understand things? Here we must really be free from logical fallacies. In going through this step, which is about confirming/verifying #2, one comes to an authentic grasp of facts, beliefs, convictions, etc. From time to time, this explanation ought to be bumped back to #2 for continuing reflection.

4. Be Responsible - good decision-making, which is not the topic of this thread, but which is impossible to accomplish without the above 3 movements.

Lonergan points out that it's natural for our human consciousness to undertake these movements, and that each level entails a more intense exercise of our human spirit. Simple observation (Level 1) doesn't invest us as much as responsible behavior (Level 4), for example.

Our consciousness is constantly involved in all 4 levels, observing, evaluating, deciding. Sometimes we can spend a long period on one of these levels before moving it along; sometimes things move to level 3 and it's enough. The areas of concern can be about relationships, job, diet, etc. Anything! Obviously, the more important the decision, the more urgent the need to go through the movements.

Inadequate development of critical thinking skills means inadequate development of human consciousness. That's why I loathe spiritualities that seem to take an anti-intellectual stance, or which emphasize "trans-rational experiences" in such manner as to invalidate the importance levels 2 and 3. We need to exercise critical thinking with regard to even our most sublime spiritual experiences. Only then can we truly integrate them and open ourselves more authentically to ongoing growth.

Phil,

One thing Thomas Merton did say was that the West
had a slightly more benign form of totalitarianism than the communists. . .

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Post deleted as it is totally irrelevant to the thread topic.

Phil