Richard Paul

Linda Elder

This title is about becoming a better thinker in every aspect of your life: in your career, and as a consumer, citizen, friend, parent, and lover. Discover the core skills of effective thinking; then analyze your own thought processes, identify weaknesses, and overcome them.

Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life

Critical Thinking

Miranda Watson

In many ways we live in an irrational world surrounded by many forms of irrational beliefs and behaviors. For example, despite the success of science in providing plausible explanations based on careful study of evidence gathered through disciplined observations, many people still believe in unsubstantiated systems such as astrology. Many people, when faced with a problem, follow their "gut” impulses. Many follow leaders whose only claim to credibility is skill in manipulating a crowd and whipping up enthusiasm. Few people seem to recognize the power of sound thinking in helping us solve problems and live fulfilling lives. Few people, in short, have genuine confidence in reason. 

If you can't think of any examples, do not conclude that you always use concepts appropriately. Assume instead that you, like everyone else, regularly commit conceptual errors, and that your failure to remember them now is a function of self-deception. 

Critical thinking: The most fundamental concept of critical thinking is simple and intuitive: All humans think. It is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or down-right prejudiced. Critical thinking begins, then, when we start thinking about our thinking with a view toward improving it. 

Critical Thinking Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life

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