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Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking

(10 reviews)

Matthew Van Cleave, Lansing Community College

Copyright Year: 2016

Publisher: Matthew J. Van Cleave

Language: English

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Reviewed by "yusef" Alexander Hayes, Professor, North Shore Community College on 6/9/21

Formal and informal reasoning, argument structure, and fallacies are covered comprehensively, meeting the author's goal of both depth and succinctness. read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Formal and informal reasoning, argument structure, and fallacies are covered comprehensively, meeting the author's goal of both depth and succinctness.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

The book is accurate.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

While many modern examples are used, and they are helpful, they are not necessarily needed. The usefulness of logical principles and skills have proved themselves, and this text presents them clearly with many examples.

Clarity rating: 5

It is obvious that the author cares about their subject, audience, and students. The text is comprehensible and interesting.

Consistency rating: 5

The format is easy to understand and is consistent in framing.

Modularity rating: 5

This text would be easy to adapt.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

The organization is excellent, my one suggestion would be a concluding chapter.

Interface rating: 5

I accessed the PDF version and it would be easy to work with.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

The writing is excellent.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

This is not an offensive text.

Reviewed by Susan Rottmann, Part-time Lecturer, University of Southern Maine on 3/2/21

I reviewed this book for a course titled "Creative and Critical Inquiry into Modern Life." It won't meet all my needs for that course, but I haven't yet found a book that would. I wanted to review this one because it states in the preface that it... read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

I reviewed this book for a course titled "Creative and Critical Inquiry into Modern Life." It won't meet all my needs for that course, but I haven't yet found a book that would. I wanted to review this one because it states in the preface that it fits better for a general critical thinking course than for a true logic course. I'm not sure that I'd agree. I have been using Browne and Keeley's "Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking," and I think that book is a better introduction to critical thinking for non-philosophy majors. However, the latter is not open source so I will figure out how to get by without it in the future. Overall, the book seems comprehensive if the subject is logic. The index is on the short-side, but fine. However, one issue for me is that there are no page numbers on the table of contents, which is pretty annoying if you want to locate particular sections.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

I didn't find any errors. In general the book uses great examples. However, they are very much based in the American context, not for an international student audience. Some effort to broaden the chosen examples would make the book more widely applicable.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

I think the book will remain relevant because of the nature of the material that it addresses, however there will be a need to modify the examples in future editions and as the social and political context changes.

Clarity rating: 3

The text is lucid, but I think it would be difficult for introductory-level students who are not philosophy majors. For example, in Browne and Keeley's "Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking," the sub-headings are very accessible, such as "Experts cannot rescue us, despite what they say" or "wishful thinking: perhaps the biggest single speed bump on the road to critical thinking." By contrast, Van Cleave's "Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking" has more subheadings like this: "Using your own paraphrases of premises and conclusions to reconstruct arguments in standard form" or "Propositional logic and the four basic truth functional connectives." If students are prepared very well for the subject, it would work fine, but for students who are newly being introduced to critical thinking, it is rather technical.

It seems to be very consistent in terms of its terminology and framework.

Modularity rating: 4

The book is divided into 4 chapters, each having many sub-chapters. In that sense, it is readily divisible and modular. However, as noted above, there are no page numbers on the table of contents, which would make assigning certain parts rather frustrating. Also, I'm not sure why the book is only four chapter and has so many subheadings (for instance 17 in Chapter 2) and a length of 242 pages. Wouldn't it make more sense to break up the book into shorter chapters? I think this would make it easier to read and to assign in specific blocks to students.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The organization of the book is fine overall, although I think adding page numbers to the table of contents and breaking it up into more separate chapters would help it to be more easily navigable.

Interface rating: 4

The book is very simply presented. In my opinion it is actually too simple. There are few boxes or diagrams that highlight and explain important points.

The text seems fine grammatically. I didn't notice any errors.

The book is written with an American audience in mind, but I did not notice culturally insensitive or offensive parts.

Overall, this book is not for my course, but I think it could work well in a philosophy course.

Reviewed by Daniel Lee, Assistant Professor of Economics and Leadership, Sweet Briar College on 11/11/19

This textbook is not particularly comprehensive (4 chapters long), but I view that as a benefit. In fact, I recommend it for use outside of traditional logic classes, but rather interdisciplinary classes that evaluate argument read more

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

This textbook is not particularly comprehensive (4 chapters long), but I view that as a benefit. In fact, I recommend it for use outside of traditional logic classes, but rather interdisciplinary classes that evaluate argument

To the best of my ability, I regard this content as accurate, error-free, and unbiased

The book is broadly relevant and up-to-date, with a few stray temporal references (sydney olympics, particular presidencies). I don't view these time-dated examples as problematic as the logical underpinnings are still there and easily assessed

Clarity rating: 4

My only pushback on clarity is I didn't find the distinction between argument and explanation particularly helpful/useful/easy to follow. However, this experience may have been unique to my class.

To the best of my ability, I regard this content as internally consistent

I found this text quite modular, and was easily able to integrate other texts into my lessons and disregard certain chapters or sub-sections

The book had a logical and consistent structure, but to the extent that there are only 4 chapters, there isn't much scope for alternative approaches here

No problems with the book's interface

The text is grammatically sound

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

Perhaps the text could have been more universal in its approach. While I didn't find the book insensitive per-se, logic can be tricky here because the point is to evaluate meaningful (non-trivial) arguments, but any argument with that sense of gravity can also be traumatic to students (abortion, death penalty, etc)

No additional comments

Reviewed by Lisa N. Thomas-Smith, Graduate Part-time Instructor, CU Boulder on 7/1/19

The text covers all the relevant technical aspects of introductory logic and critical thinking, and covers them well. A separate glossary would be quite helpful to students. However, the terms are clearly and thoroughly explained within the text,... read more

The text covers all the relevant technical aspects of introductory logic and critical thinking, and covers them well. A separate glossary would be quite helpful to students. However, the terms are clearly and thoroughly explained within the text, and the index is very thorough.

The content is excellent. The text is thorough and accurate with no errors that I could discern. The terminology and exercises cover the material nicely and without bias.

The text should easily stand the test of time. The exercises are excellent and would be very helpful for students to internalize correct critical thinking practices. Because of the logical arrangement of the text and the many sub-sections, additional material should be very easy to add.

The text is extremely clearly and simply written. I anticipate that a diligent student could learn all of the material in the text with little additional instruction. The examples are relevant and easy to follow.

The text did not confuse terms or use inconsistent terminology, which is very important in a logic text. The discipline often uses multiple terms for the same concept, but this text avoids that trap nicely.

The text is fairly easily divisible. Since there are only four chapters, those chapters include large blocks of information. However, the chapters themselves are very well delineated and could be easily broken up so that parts could be left out or covered in a different order from the text.

The flow of the text is excellent. All of the information is handled solidly in an order that allows the student to build on the information previously covered.

The PDF Table of Contents does not include links or page numbers which would be very helpful for navigation. Other than that, the text was very easy to navigate. All the images, charts, and graphs were very clear

I found no grammatical errors in the text.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

The text including examples and exercises did not seem to be offensive or insensitive in any specific way. However, the examples included references to black and white people, but few others. Also, the text is very American specific with many examples from and for an American audience. More diversity, especially in the examples, would be appropriate and appreciated.

Reviewed by Leslie Aarons, Associate Professor of Philosophy, CUNY LaGuardia Community College on 5/16/19

This is an excellent introductory (first-year) Logic and Critical Thinking textbook. The book covers the important elementary information, clearly discussing such things as the purpose and basic structure of an argument; the difference between an... read more

This is an excellent introductory (first-year) Logic and Critical Thinking textbook. The book covers the important elementary information, clearly discussing such things as the purpose and basic structure of an argument; the difference between an argument and an explanation; validity; soundness; and the distinctions between an inductive and a deductive argument in accessible terms in the first chapter. It also does a good job introducing and discussing informal fallacies (Chapter 4). The incorporation of opportunities to evaluate real-world arguments is also very effective. Chapter 2 also covers a number of formal methods of evaluating arguments, such as Venn Diagrams and Propositional logic and the four basic truth functional connectives, but to my mind, it is much more thorough in its treatment of Informal Logic and Critical Thinking skills, than it is of formal logic. I also appreciated that Van Cleave’s book includes exercises with answers and an index, but there is no glossary; which I personally do not find detracts from the book's comprehensiveness.

Overall, Van Cleave's book is error-free and unbiased. The language used is accessible and engaging. There were no glaring inaccuracies that I was able to detect.

Van Cleave's Textbook uses relevant, contemporary content that will stand the test of time, at least for the next few years. Although some examples use certain subjects like former President Obama, it does so in a useful manner that inspires the use of critical thinking skills. There are an abundance of examples that inspire students to look at issues from many different political viewpoints, challenging students to practice evaluating arguments, and identifying fallacies. Many of these exercises encourage students to critique issues, and recognize their own inherent reader-biases and challenge their own beliefs--hallmarks of critical thinking.

As mentioned previously, the author has an accessible style that makes the content relatively easy to read and engaging. He also does a suitable job explaining jargon/technical language that is introduced in the textbook.

Van Cleave uses terminology consistently and the chapters flow well. The textbook orients the reader by offering effective introductions to new material, step-by-step explanations of the material, as well as offering clear summaries of each lesson.

This textbook's modularity is really quite good. Its language and structure are not overly convoluted or too-lengthy, making it convenient for individual instructors to adapt the materials to suit their methodological preferences.

The topics in the textbook are presented in a logical and clear fashion. The structure of the chapters are such that it is not necessary to have to follow the chapters in their sequential order, and coverage of material can be adapted to individual instructor's preferences.

The textbook is free of any problematic interface issues. Topics, sections and specific content are accessible and easy to navigate. Overall it is user-friendly.

I did not find any significant grammatical issues with the textbook.

The textbook is not culturally insensitive, making use of a diversity of inclusive examples. Materials are especially effective for first-year critical thinking/logic students.

I intend to adopt Van Cleave's textbook for a Critical Thinking class I am teaching at the Community College level. I believe that it will help me facilitate student-learning, and will be a good resource to build additional classroom activities from the materials it provides.

Reviewed by Jennie Harrop, Chair, Department of Professional Studies, George Fox University on 3/27/18

While the book is admirably comprehensive, its extensive details within a few short chapters may feel overwhelming to students. The author tackles an impressive breadth of concepts in Chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, which leads to 50-plus-page chapters... read more

While the book is admirably comprehensive, its extensive details within a few short chapters may feel overwhelming to students. The author tackles an impressive breadth of concepts in Chapter 1, 2, 3, and 4, which leads to 50-plus-page chapters that are dense with statistical analyses and critical vocabulary. These topics are likely better broached in manageable snippets rather than hefty single chapters.

The ideas addressed in Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking are accurate but at times notably political. While politics are effectively used to exemplify key concepts, some students may be distracted by distinct political leanings.

The terms and definitions included are relevant, but the examples are specific to the current political, cultural, and social climates, which could make the materials seem dated in a few years without intentional and consistent updates.

While the reasoning is accurate, the author tends to complicate rather than simplify -- perhaps in an effort to cover a spectrum of related concepts. Beginning readers are likely to be overwhelmed and under-encouraged by his approach.

Consistency rating: 3

The four chapters are somewhat consistent in their play of definition, explanation, and example, but the structure of each chapter varies according to the concepts covered. In the third chapter, for example, key ideas are divided into sub-topics numbering from 3.1 to 3.10. In the fourth chapter, the sub-divisions are further divided into sub-sections numbered 4.1.1-4.1.5, 4.2.1-4.2.2, and 4.3.1 to 4.3.6. Readers who are working quickly to master new concepts may find themselves mired in similarly numbered subheadings, longing for a grounded concepts on which to hinge other key principles.

Modularity rating: 3

The book's four chapters make it mostly self-referential. The author would do well to beak this text down into additional subsections, easing readers' accessibility.

The content of the book flows logically and well, but the information needs to be better sub-divided within each larger chapter, easing the student experience.

The book's interface is effective, allowing readers to move from one section to the next with a single click. Additional sub-sections would ease this interplay even further.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

Some minor errors throughout.

For the most part, the book is culturally neutral, avoiding direct cultural references in an effort to remain relevant.

Reviewed by Yoichi Ishida, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Ohio University on 2/1/18

This textbook covers enough topics for a first-year course on logic and critical thinking. Chapter 1 covers the basics as in any standard textbook in this area. Chapter 2 covers propositional logic and categorical logic. In propositional logic,... read more

This textbook covers enough topics for a first-year course on logic and critical thinking. Chapter 1 covers the basics as in any standard textbook in this area. Chapter 2 covers propositional logic and categorical logic. In propositional logic, this textbook does not cover suppositional arguments, such as conditional proof and reductio ad absurdum. But other standard argument forms are covered. Chapter 3 covers inductive logic, and here this textbook introduces probability and its relationship with cognitive biases, which are rarely discussed in other textbooks. Chapter 4 introduces common informal fallacies. The answers to all the exercises are given at the end. However, the last set of exercises is in Chapter 3, Section 5. There are no exercises in the rest of the chapter. Chapter 4 has no exercises either. There is index, but no glossary.

The textbook is accurate.

The content of this textbook will not become obsolete soon.

The textbook is written clearly.

The textbook is internally consistent.

The textbook is fairly modular. For example, Chapter 3, together with a few sections from Chapter 1, can be used as a short introduction to inductive logic.

The textbook is well-organized.

There are no interface issues.

I did not find any grammatical errors.

This textbook is relevant to a first semester logic or critical thinking course.

Reviewed by Payal Doctor, Associate Professro, LaGuardia Community College on 2/1/18

This text is a beginner textbook for arguments and propositional logic. It covers the basics of identifying arguments, building arguments, and using basic logic to construct propositions and arguments. It is quite comprehensive for a beginner... read more

This text is a beginner textbook for arguments and propositional logic. It covers the basics of identifying arguments, building arguments, and using basic logic to construct propositions and arguments. It is quite comprehensive for a beginner book, but seems to be a good text for a course that needs a foundation for arguments. There are exercises on creating truth tables and proofs, so it could work as a logic primer in short sessions or with the addition of other course content.

The books is accurate in the information it presents. It does not contain errors and is unbiased. It covers the essential vocabulary clearly and givens ample examples and exercises to ensure the student understands the concepts

The content of the book is up to date and can be easily updated. Some examples are very current for analyzing the argument structure in a speech, but for this sort of text understandable examples are important and the author uses good examples.

The book is clear and easy to read. In particular, this is a good text for community college students who often have difficulty with reading comprehension. The language is straightforward and concepts are well explained.

The book is consistent in terminology, formatting, and examples. It flows well from one topic to the next, but it is also possible to jump around the text without loosing the voice of the text.

The books is broken down into sub units that make it easy to assign short blocks of content at a time. Later in the text, it does refer to a few concepts that appear early in that text, but these are all basic concepts that must be used to create a clear and understandable text. No sections are too long and each section stays on topic and relates the topic to those that have come before when necessary.

The flow of the text is logical and clear. It begins with the basic building blocks of arguments, and practice identifying more and more complex arguments is offered. Each chapter builds up from the previous chapter in introducing propositional logic, truth tables, and logical arguments. A select number of fallacies are presented at the end of the text, but these are related to topics that were presented before, so it makes sense to have these last.

The text is free if interface issues. I used the PDF and it worked fine on various devices without loosing formatting.

1. The book contains no grammatical errors.

The text is culturally sensitive, but examples used are a bit odd and may be objectionable to some students. For instance, President Obama's speech on Syria is used to evaluate an extended argument. This is an excellent example and it is explained well, but some who disagree with Obama's policies may have trouble moving beyond their own politics. However, other examples look at issues from all political viewpoints and ask students to evaluate the argument, fallacy, etc. and work towards looking past their own beliefs. Overall this book does use a variety of examples that most students can understand and evaluate.

My favorite part of this book is that it seems to be written for community college students. My students have trouble understanding readings in the New York Times, so it is nice to see a logic and critical thinking text use real language that students can understand and follow without the constant need of a dictionary.

Reviewed by Rebecca Owen, Adjunct Professor, Writing, Chemeketa Community College on 6/20/17

This textbook is quite thorough--there are conversational explanations of argument structure and logic. I think students will be happy with the conversational style this author employs. Also, there are many examples and exercises using current... read more

This textbook is quite thorough--there are conversational explanations of argument structure and logic. I think students will be happy with the conversational style this author employs. Also, there are many examples and exercises using current events, funny scenarios, or other interesting ways to evaluate argument structure and validity. The third section, which deals with logical fallacies, is very clear and comprehensive. My only critique of the material included in the book is that the middle section may be a bit dense and math-oriented for learners who appreciate the more informal, informative style of the first and third section. Also, the book ends rather abruptly--it moves from a description of a logical fallacy to the answers for the exercises earlier in the text.

The content is very reader-friendly, and the author writes with authority and clarity throughout the text. There are a few surface-level typos (Starbuck's instead of Starbucks, etc.). None of these small errors detract from the quality of the content, though.

One thing I really liked about this text was the author's wide variety of examples. To demonstrate different facets of logic, he used examples from current media, movies, literature, and many other concepts that students would recognize from their daily lives. The exercises in this text also included these types of pop-culture references, and I think students will enjoy the familiarity--as well as being able to see the logical structures behind these types of references. I don't think the text will need to be updated to reflect new instances and occurrences; the author did a fine job at picking examples that are relatively timeless. As far as the subject matter itself, I don't think it will become obsolete any time soon.

The author writes in a very conversational, easy-to-read manner. The examples used are quite helpful. The third section on logical fallacies is quite easy to read, follow, and understand. A student in an argument writing class could benefit from this section of the book. The middle section is less clear, though. A student learning about the basics of logic might have a hard time digesting all of the information contained in chapter two. This material might be better in two separate chapters. I think the author loses the balance of a conversational, helpful tone and focuses too heavily on equations.

Consistency rating: 4

Terminology in this book is quite consistent--the key words are highlighted in bold. Chapters 1 and 3 follow a similar organizational pattern, but chapter 2 is where the material becomes more dense and equation-heavy. I also would have liked a closing passage--something to indicate to the reader that we've reached the end of the chapter as well as the book.

I liked the overall structure of this book. If I'm teaching an argumentative writing class, I could easily point the students to the chapters where they can identify and practice identifying fallacies, for instance. The opening chapter is clear in defining the necessary terms, and it gives the students an understanding of the toolbox available to them in assessing and evaluating arguments. Even though I found the middle section to be dense, smaller portions could be assigned.

The author does a fine job connecting each defined term to the next. He provides examples of how each defined term works in a sentence or in an argument, and then he provides practice activities for students to try. The answers for each question are listed in the final pages of the book. The middle section feels like the heaviest part of the whole book--it would take the longest time for a student to digest if assigned the whole chapter. Even though this middle section is a bit heavy, it does fit the overall structure and flow of the book. New material builds on previous chapters and sub-chapters. It ends abruptly--I didn't realize that it had ended, and all of a sudden I found myself in the answer section for those earlier exercises.

The simple layout is quite helpful! There is nothing distracting, image-wise, in this text. The table of contents is clearly arranged, and each topic is easy to find.

Tiny edits could be made (Starbuck's/Starbucks, for one). Otherwise, it is free of distracting grammatical errors.

This text is quite culturally relevant. For instance, there is one example that mentions the rumors of Barack Obama's birthplace as somewhere other than the United States. This example is used to explain how to analyze an argument for validity. The more "sensational" examples (like the Obama one above) are helpful in showing argument structure, and they can also help students see how rumors like this might gain traction--as well as help to show students how to debunk them with their newfound understanding of argument and logic.

The writing style is excellent for the subject matter, especially in the third section explaining logical fallacies. Thank you for the opportunity to read and review this text!

Reviewed by Laurel Panser, Instructor, Riverland Community College on 6/20/17

This is a review of Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking, an open source book version 1.4 by Matthew Van Cleave. The comparison book used was Patrick J. Hurley’s A Concise Introduction to Logic 12th Edition published by Cengage as well as... read more

This is a review of Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking, an open source book version 1.4 by Matthew Van Cleave. The comparison book used was Patrick J. Hurley’s A Concise Introduction to Logic 12th Edition published by Cengage as well as the 13th edition with the same title. Lori Watson is the second author on the 13th edition.

Competing with Hurley is difficult with respect to comprehensiveness. For example, Van Cleave’s book is comprehensive to the extent that it probably covers at least two-thirds or more of what is dealt with in most introductory, one-semester logic courses. Van Cleave’s chapter 1 provides an overview of argumentation including discerning non-arguments from arguments, premises versus conclusions, deductive from inductive arguments, validity, soundness and more. Much of Van Cleave’s chapter 1 parallel’s Hurley’s chapter 1. Hurley’s chapter 3 regarding informal fallacies is comprehensive while Van Cleave’s chapter 4 on this topic is less extensive. Categorical propositions are a topic in Van Cleave’s chapter 2; Hurley’s chapters 4 and 5 provide more instruction on this, however. Propositional logic is another topic in Van Cleave’s chapter 2; Hurley’s chapters 6 and 7 provide more information on this, though. Van Cleave did discuss messy issues of language meaning briefly in his chapter 1; that is the topic of Hurley’s chapter 2.

Van Cleave’s book includes exercises with answers and an index. A glossary was not included.

Reviews of open source textbooks typically include criteria besides comprehensiveness. These include comments on accuracy of the information, whether the book will become obsolete soon, jargon-free clarity to the extent that is possible, organization, navigation ease, freedom from grammar errors and cultural relevance; Van Cleave’s book is fine in all of these areas. Further criteria for open source books includes modularity and consistency of terminology. Modularity is defined as including blocks of learning material that are easy to assign to students. Hurley’s book has a greater degree of modularity than Van Cleave’s textbook. The prose Van Cleave used is consistent.

Van Cleave’s book will not become obsolete soon.

Van Cleave’s book has accessible prose.

Van Cleave used terminology consistently.

Van Cleave’s book has a reasonable degree of modularity.

Van Cleave’s book is organized. The structure and flow of his book is fine.

Problems with navigation are not present.

Grammar problems were not present.

Van Cleave’s book is culturally relevant.

Van Cleave’s book is appropriate for some first semester logic courses.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Reconstructing and analyzing arguments

• 1.1 What is an argument?
• 1.2 Identifying arguments
• 1.3 Arguments vs. explanations
• 1.4 More complex argument structures
• 1.5 Using your own paraphrases of premises and conclusions to reconstruct arguments in standard form
• 1.6 Validity
• 1.7 Soundness
• 1.8 Deductive vs. inductive arguments
• 1.9 Arguments with missing premises
• 1.10 Assuring, guarding, and discounting
• 1.11 Evaluative language
• 1.12 Evaluating a real-life argument

Chapter 2: Formal methods of evaluating arguments

• 2.1 What is a formal method of evaluation and why do we need them?
• 2.2 Propositional logic and the four basic truth functional connectives
• 2.3 Negation and disjunction
• 2.4 Using parentheses to translate complex sentences
• 2.5 “Not both” and “neither nor”
• 2.6 The truth table test of validity
• 2.7 Conditionals
• 2.8 “Unless”
• 2.9 Material equivalence
• 2.10 Tautologies, contradictions, and contingent statements
• 2.11 Proofs and the 8 valid forms of inference
• 2.12 How to construct proofs
• 2.13 Short review of propositional logic
• 2.14 Categorical logic
• 2.15 The Venn test of validity for immediate categorical inferences
• 2.16 Universal statements and existential commitment
• 2.17 Venn validity for categorical syllogisms

Chapter 3: Evaluating inductive arguments and probabilistic and statistical fallacies

• 3.1 Inductive arguments and statistical generalizations
• 3.2 Inference to the best explanation and the seven explanatory virtues
• 3.3 Analogical arguments
• 3.4 Causal arguments
• 3.5 Probability
• 3.6 The conjunction fallacy
• 3.7 The base rate fallacy
• 3.8 The small numbers fallacy
• 3.9 Regression to the mean fallacy
• 3.10 Gambler's fallacy

Chapter 4: Informal fallacies

• 4.1 Formal vs. informal fallacies
• 4.1.1 Composition fallacy
• 4.1.2 Division fallacy
• 4.1.3 Begging the question fallacy
• 4.1.4 False dichotomy
• 4.1.5 Equivocation
• 4.2 Slippery slope fallacies
• 4.2.1 Conceptual slippery slope
• 4.2.2 Causal slippery slope
• 4.3 Fallacies of relevance
• 4.3.1 Ad hominem
• 4.3.2 Straw man
• 4.3.3 Tu quoque
• 4.3.4 Genetic
• 4.3.5 Appeal to consequences
• 4.3.6 Appeal to authority

Answers to exercises Glossary/Index

Ancillary Material

About the book.

This is an introductory textbook in logic and critical thinking. The goal of the textbook is to provide the reader with a set of tools and skills that will enable them to identify and evaluate arguments. The book is intended for an introductory course that covers both formal and informal logic. As such, it is not a formal logic textbook, but is closer to what one would find marketed as a “critical thinking textbook.”

About the Contributors

Matthew Van Cleave ,   PhD, Philosophy, University of Cincinnati, 2007.  VAP at Concordia College (Moorhead), 2008-2012.  Assistant Professor at Lansing Community College, 2012-2016. Professor at Lansing Community College, 2016-

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An Introduction To Reasoning (CC BY-NC-SA license)

• Brief Contents: An Introduction To Reasoning
• Google Book: An Introduction To Reasoning

Detailed Contents (with links to Parts and Chapters)

Preface & Notes Preface  

Notes & Bibliography  

Real-World Reasoning (RW) Introduction

Classifying 1  (flag words; reasoning vs. non-reasoning)

Classifying 2  (justifying belief vs. explaining; inferring vs. arguing)

Analyzing 1  (propositions; conjunctions)

Analyzing 2  (standard form; rewriting sentences; things to omit)

Reasoning Substitutes  (various ways not to reason, or to short-circuit reason-giving, by claiming the reasons are obvious, pointing imprecisely at reasons, shifting the burden of proof, appealing to ignorance, abusing flag words, begging the question)

Problems With Meaning  – (imprecise language, euphemism, metaphor, vagueness, weasel words, ambiguity)

Two Criteria Of Evaluation  – (soundness; valid-strong-weak; ignoring confidence indicators)

Everyday Inferences – Sources, Character, Motives  (sources, character, motives: argument from authority; various ad hominems) 

Everyday Inferences – Emotional Reasons For Practical Conclusions  (Decision-making)

Everyday Inferences – Reasoning With Properties, Parts, & Relations  (Identity/difference, part-whole, symmetricality, chain (with relations), transitivity) 

Everyday Inferences – Reasoning With Classes & Propositions  (chain (with classes), instantiation, affirming the antecedent, chain (with propositions), elimination)

Warrants  – (Adding warrants/missing premises, sincerity & charity)

Diagramming - Basic  (Standard form and diagramming of single-target reasoning) 

Diagramming - Complex  (Multiple targets, either from a single set of reasons or in sequence)

Diagramming - Dialogue (Objections, objections to objections, support for objections)

Diagramming - Very Long Passages  

Propositional & Categorical Reasoning (P&C) Validity & Non-Validity  (Note: there is a section on valid-strong-weak (and soundness) in RW's Two Criteria)

Logical Structure Of Propositions  (Negations, Conjunctions, Disjunctions, Conditionals)

Necessary & Sufficient Conditions

Big 8 Method  (Single-step derivation using 8 basic rules)

Method Of Derivation  (Multi-step derivation)

Truth Tables & Truth Trees   Categorical Reasoning  (Very rudimentary introduction)

Inductive & Scientific Reasoning (I&S) Valid, Strong, Weak  (Note: there's a separate section on valid-not valid in P&C, and a quick section on valid-strong-weak and soundness in RW's Basic Evaluation.)

Causation, Causal Explanation & Causal Inferences  (Causation & Causal Explanation, Inference to a Cause, Inference to an Effect)

Analogy & Inference To The Best Explanation  (Hypothesis development when at a loss)

Experimental Methods  (Controlled, Randomized, Prospective, Retrospective, Natural) 

Mill's Methods

Induction  (Generalization, Instantiation and Induction to a Particular)

Problems In Induction  (Problem of Induction, New Riddle of Induction, Lottery Paradox. Philosophical appendix - No Exercises.)

Association Diagrams & Cross-Tabulations  (Association, Cross-Tabulations, Present-Present Fallacy)

Explanation-Building  (including INUS Conditions)

Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking (CC by Attribution - most open license)

• Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking (open.umn.edu/opentextbooks)

Chapter 1: Reconstructing and analyzing arguments

1.1 What is an argument?

1.2 Identifying arguments

1.3 Arguments vs. explanations

1.4 More complex argument structures

1.5 Using your own paraphrases of premises and conclusions to reconstruct arguments in standard form

1.6 Validity

1.7 Soundness

1.8 Deductive vs. inductive arguments

1.9 Arguments with missing premises

1.10 Assuring, guarding, and discounting

1.11 Evaluative language

1.12 Evaluating a real-life argument

Chapter 2: Formal methods of evaluating arguments

2.1 What is a formal method of evaluation and why do we need them?

2.2 Propositional logic and the four basic truth functional connectives

2.3 Negation and disjunction

2.4 Using parentheses to translate complex sentences

2.5 “Not both” and “neither nor”

2.6 The truth table test of validity

2.7 Conditionals

2.8 “Unless”

2.9 Material equivalence

2.10 Tautologies, contradictions, and contingent statements

2.11 Proofs and the 8 valid forms of inference

2.12 How to construct proofs

2.13 Short review of propositional logic

2.14 Categorical logic

2.15 The Venn test of validity for immediate categorical inferences

2.16 Universal statements and existential commitment

2.17 Venn validity for categorical syllogisms

Chapter 3: Evaluating inductive arguments and probabilistic and statistical fallacies

3.1 Inductive arguments and statistical generalizations

3.2 Inference to the best explanation and the seven explanatory virtues

3.3 Analogical arguments

3.4 Causal arguments

3.5 Probability

3.6 The conjunction fallacy

3.7 The base rate fallacy

3.8 The small numbers fallacy

3.9 Regression to the mean fallacy

3.10 Gambler’s fallacy

Chapter 4: Informal fallacies

4.1 Formal vs. informal fallacies

4.1.1 Composition fallacy

4.1.2 Division fallacy

4.1.3 Begging the question fallacy

4.1.4 False dichotomy

4.1.5 Equivocation

4.2 Slippery slope fallacies

4.2.1 Conceptual slippery slope

4.2.2 Causal slippery slope

4.3 Fallacies of relevance

4.3.1 Ad hominem

4.3.2 Straw man

4.3.3 Tu quoque

4.3.4 Genetic

4.3.5 Appeal to consequences

4.3.6 Appeal to authority

An Introduction to Philosophy (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.)

• An Introduction to Philosophy (qcc.cuny.edu)

How to Read this Text

Chapter 1    Introduction

Chapter 2    The Greeks: The Origins of Philosophy in the West

Chapter 3    Philosophy of Religion and the Problem of God

Chapter 4    Metaphysics

Chapter 5    Epistemology

Chapter 6    The Mind- Body Problem

Chapter 7    Freedom and Determinism

Chapter 8    Ethics

Chapter 9    Social Philosophy

Chapter 10  Political Philosophy

Chapter 11  Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics

Chapter 12  Conclusion

Written Assignments

Discussion Topics

Bibliography

Links to Philosophy Reference Works and Sites

Problem Solving (lumenlearning.com)

Cognition Topics

History of Cognition

Classification and Categorization

Executive Function and Control

Reasoning and Inference

Decision Making

Social Cognition

Two more for consideration:

• Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking Version 1.4 (Lansing Community College)
• Public Speaking

Critical Thinking & Reasoning: Introduction

Critical Thinking & Reasoning: Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Logic and the Role of Arguments

Critical Thinking & Reasoning: Understanding Fallacies

Critical Thinking and Reasoning: Formal Fallacies

Critical Thinking & Listening: Informal Fallacies

Critical Thinking & Reasoning: Conclusion

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• Next: More Thinking: OER >>
• Last Updated: Mar 13, 2024 3:04 PM
• URL: https://library.fvtc.edu/Thinking

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The 17 Best Books on Critical Thinking (to Read in 2024)

All products were independently selected by our editors and contributors. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

The aim of improving your skill of critical thinking isn’t just to be able to reason and give logical arguments about a subject skillfully; your goal is to get to the right answer, to make the right decisions and choices for yourself and others.

Critical thinking helps you:

First , improve the quality of your decisions and judgments, and reevaluate your beliefs objectively.

The human mind is rarely objective. However, mastering the skill of critical thinking keeps your mind objective, at least about those things based on facts.

Take for example the beliefs you have about yourself; Some are based on facts, some on subjective (negative) opinions of others.

Second , become an independent thinker (learn to think for yourself); take ownership of your values, beliefs, judgments, and decisions.

Mastering critical thinking is essential , especially in our modern times, because you must:

• Make a tone of decisions every day;
• Think and come to the right conclusion fast;
• Solve (mostly alone) your problems and issues;
• Weigh carefully facts and information you receive from the dozens of sources you have at your disposal;
• Reevaluate your strategies, beliefs, and habits periodically.

Critical thinking is a skill that you must learn; you’re not born with it. To make your journey a little easier, we’ve gathered the best critical thinking books so you can learn from the masters. Get inspired to become a critical thinker in no time!

The best books on critical thinking:

Table of Contents

1. Critical Thinking: A Beginner’s Guide to Critical Thinking, Better Decision Making, and Problem Solving – Jennifer Wilson

2. wait, what: and life’s other essential questions- james e. ryan, 3. think smarter: critical thinking to improve problem-solving and decision-making skills – michael kallet, 4. brain power: learn to improve your thinking skills – karl albrecht, 5. the art of thinking clearly – rolf dobelli, 6. being logical: a guide to good thinking – d.q. mcinerny, 7. predictably irrational, revised and expanded edition: the hidden forces that shape our decisions – dr. dan ariely, 8. a more beautiful question: the power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas – warren berger, 9. a rulebook for arguments – anthony weston, 10. thinking, fast and slow – daniel kahneman, 11. the organized mind: thinking straight in the age of information overload – daniel j. levitin, 12. don’t believe everything you think: the 6 basic mistakes we make in thinking – thomas e. kida, 13. the decision book: 50 models for strategic thinking – mikael krogerus, roman tschäppeler, philip earnhart, jenny piening, 14. weaponized lies: how to think critically in the post-truth era – daniel j. levitin, 15. the demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark paperback – carl sagan, ann druyan, 16. how to think about weird things: critical thinking for a new age – theodore schick, lewis vaughn, 17. the 5 elements of effective thinking – edward b. burger, michael starbird.

As the title says, this book introduces you to the art of critical thinking. You’ll discover in it:

• What is critical thinking in practice,
• The different thought processes of critical thinking,
• How will your life be better mastering critical thinking,
• The things your brain needs to enjoy exercising critical thinking,
• Techniques you can use for solving problems,
• How to become a better decision maker, Strategies to use in your critical thinking processes,
• Ways to make good decisions when more people (not just you) are involved,
• Tips to frame your questions in order to maximize the efficiency of your critical thinking.

Wisdom comes from observation, learning, practice, and asking the right questions.

Using examples from history, politics, and his own personal life, James e Ryan shows you the importance of knowing how to:

• Ask questions and gain a better understanding,
• Get to be more curious,
• Push yourself to take action,
• Make your relationship stronger,
• And stay focused on the important things in life.

Related:  Critical Thinking Examples

The book starts with the five fundamental questions:

• Couldn’t we at least…?
• How can I help…?
• What truly matters….?

Knowing how to formulate, address, and deliver the right questions doesn’t leave room for misunderstandings, misinterpretations; asking the wrong questions will most probably give you a wrong answer.

This book (Wait, What?: And Life’s Other Essential Questions) will make you feel (more) courageous; after all, asking questions thanks courage. Asking yourself and others the right questions helps you make informed decisions and decisive action.

This book is a guide on how to train your brain to work even more for you. The author (Michael Kallet) is a critical thinking trainer and coach and gives you a practical set of tools and techniques for critical thinking in your day-to-day life and business.

If you want a clear, actionable step by step program to:

• Improve your critical thinking skills,
• A better understanding of complex problems and concepts,
• And how to put them in practice, then this book is for you.

Learn how to discover the real issues that need a solution, so you don’t waste your time in trying to solve imaginary problems. Increase your mental toughness, useful and productive thought.

In this book, Karl Albrecht shows you how to:

• Build your mental strength,
• Think more clearly logically and creative,
• Improve your memory,
• Solve problems,
• Make decisions more effectively.

Karl Albrecht talks in this book about the six functional abilities you need to have and become more adaptable and an innovative thinker.

The book is packed with practical exercises, fascinating illustrations, games, and puzzles to improve your mental capabilities.

The art of thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli is a window into human psychology and reasoning; how we:

• Make decisions;
• Evaluate choices and options;
• Develop cognitive biases.

This book helps you notice and recognize erroneous thinking and make better choices and decisions, change unwanted behaviors and habits.

It will change the way you think about yourself and life in general because you have in this book 99 short chapters with examples of the most common errors of judgment and how to rectify them.

If you wish to think more clearly, make better decisions and choices, reevaluate your biases, and feel better about yourself, this book is for you.

When you decide you want to study the field of logic more closely and improve your critical thinking, this book might be exactly what you need. It’s written clearly and concisely laying out for you the basic building blocks of logic and critical thinking.

The ancient civilizations understood better than us how important is to study logic and rhetoric. With the help of this book, you’ll bring back into your life these essential things that our modern society forgot and missed to teach you as a child.

Having increased logical thinking doesn’t mean to ignore your emotions. It means to start from your emotions and together, (emotions and logic) to take better decisions and see more clearly your choices to move forward in life.

“Predictably Irrational, The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” is a book packed with examples of how:

• Irrational are our choices;
• We make decisions on impulse;
• We fool ourselves with optimism- “that must work for me.”

The author presents you, in this book, a large number of mental traps and flawed tendencies which can make your life harder.

After reading this book, you’ll be better informed about a variety of human flaws and how to avoid being trapped by irrational thinking. You’ll be better prepared to make decisions and choices based more on facts rather than subjective personal opinions.

Knowing how to ask the right questions is determining your success about many things in your life:

• Influencing others,
• Getting out of tricky situations,
• Reevaluating your beliefs,
• Offering yourself and others compassion,
• Overcoming mistakes and fears.

Warren Berger shows you in this book examples of people who are successful (partially) because they are experts in asking questions and don’t have preconceived ideas about what the answers should be.

This book helps you avoid wasting your innovative and brilliant ideas by presenting them in the same way over and over and getting nowhere over and over.

Asking yourself (and others) the right questions gives you the opportunity to display your ideas in a way that those around you feel compelled to listen.

This book is impressive because, Anthony Weston gives you a lot of excellent and practical advice, ordered in a logical and clear manner.

The examples in this book are realistic and useful, ranging from deductive to oral arguments, from argumentative essays to arguments by analogy.

Once you read this book you’ll want to have it on hand to sort out all sorts of situations you’ll encounter in your day-to-day life.

Daniel Kahneman, the author of this book, is a renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics.

In this book, you will discover where you can and cannot trust your intuition; how to use the two systems that drive the way you think.

The first system is fast, intuitive, and emotional; the second system is slower, based on facts, and more logical.

The author argues that knowing how to use these two systems can make a huge difference in how you:

• Design your strategies,
• Predict consequences,
• Avoid cognitive biases,
• (and even simple things like) choosing the colors for your home office.

If you want to improve your critical thinking, know when you should use logic (instead of using emotions), and become mentally stronger this book is definitely for you.

Critical thinking can’t be created in a cluttered mind. It’s like trying to prepare a gourmet meal for your loved ones in a cramped and dysfunctional kitchen.

As if is not enough all the information you store in your mind from what you personally experience every day, our modern times forcefully adds to that information a lot of junk.

The book “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload” by Daniel J. Levitin will help you sort out and organized your thoughts with the help of the four components in the human attentional system:

• Mind wandering mode;
• Central executive mode;
• Attentional filter;
• Attentional switch.

The book is showing you how you can improve your critical thinking and make better decisions concerning many areas of your life.

This book can (really) change your life if you’re dealing with procrastination, multitasking, the inability to switch off and block the outside world.

All in all, you’ll be better prepared to think straight in the age of information overload.

Thomas E. Kida talks in this book very elegantly about the six basic mistakes your thinking can make.

• The first mistake is being mesmerized by stories and ignoring the facts or statistics.
• The second mistake is searching to confirm what we already know or believe.
• The third mistake is to discount the role that chance and coincidence play in our life.
• The fourth mistake is believing that what you see it’s always the reality.
• The fifth mistake is to oversimplify things.
• The sixth mistake is to believe (trust) faulty memories.

This book can be for you an eye-opener into critical thinking, accepting who you are as you are, and improving the way you choose and make decisions.

Did you know you have a strategy for everything you do? From brushing your teeth to making new friends? From choosing a career to dealing with difficult people?

Considering you have a strategy for everything you do, it’s only logical the try to improve every day the way you develop your strategies and don’t leave it to chance, habit, or convenience.

“The Decision Book: 50 Models for Strategic Thinking” can improve your critical thinking and help you make your life easier and more enjoyable.

This book is interactive and provokes you to think about some of the strategies that don’t bring you the results you want.

It contains 58 illustrations offering summaries for known strategies such as the Rubber Band Model, the Personal Performance Model, and the Black Swan Model.

This book is for you if you want to improve the flexibility of your thinking, accept challenges more comfortable, feel more in control of your decisions and choices.

From this book, by Daniel Levitin, you’ll learn how to think critically and avoid being manipulated by things like misleading statistics and graphics, extreme view, or fake news.

The book contains three main sections:

• Evaluating numbers – how to read statistics and data to find out what lurks underneath and make a more objective analysis
• Evaluating words – how to assess the information you receive from experts, understanding the difference between incidence and prevalence, risk perceptions, and probabilistic thinking
• Evaluating the world – how to interpret scientific methods for different types of reasoning (induction, deduction, abduction)

This book will help you improve your critical thinking providing you with a lot of food for thought.

You know how in a criminal trial they call two experts that have divergent opinions on the same facts? Depending on whose side they are? This book teaches you to see the truth.

Although written in the 1990s, this bestseller book is still relevant in today’s society.

With both intelligence and compassion, Carl Sagan lays out the importance of education, logic, and science. This book will show you a ton of practical skills for assessing arguments, recognizing logical fallacies, and applying the scientific method.

Sagan felt that reason and logic could make the world a better place.

This book contains invaluable instructions on logic and reason using critical thinking, without being dull or difficult to understand.

Schick and Vaughn effectively laid out the key elements on how to assess evidence, sort through reasons, and recognize when a claim is likely to be accurate, making this book an absolute must-read for all students.

If you want to be better at decision-making based on sound evidence and argument, then this book is for you.

If you ever found yourself stuck on a problem, or having trouble in forming new ideas, this book will guide you in finding creative solutions to life’s difficult challenges.

This book emphasizes the value of effective thinking, how it can be mastered, and how to integrate it into everyday life.

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Carmen Jacob

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Make Your Own List

Philosophy Books

The best books on critical thinking, recommended by nigel warburton.

Thinking from A to Z by Nigel Warburton

Do you know your straw man arguments from your weasel words? Nigel Warburton , Five Books philosophy editor and author of Thinking from A to Z,  selects some of the best books on critical thinking—and explains how they will help us make better-informed decisions and construct more valid arguments.

Interview by Cal Flyn , Deputy Editor

Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl Bergstrom & Jevin West

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World — And Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success by Matthew Syed

The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

Critical Thinking: Your Guide to Effective Argument, Successful Analysis and Independent Study by Tom Chatfield

1 Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World by Carl Bergstrom & Jevin West

2 thinking, fast and slow by daniel kahneman, 3 factfulness: ten reasons we're wrong about the world — and why things are better than you think by hans rosling, 4 black box thinking: the surprising truth about success by matthew syed, 5 the art of thinking clearly by rolf dobelli, 6 critical thinking: your guide to effective argument, successful analysis and independent study by tom chatfield.

I t’s been just over two years since you explained to us what critical thinking is all about. Could you update us on any books that have come out since we first spoke?

Calling Bullshit by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West started life as a course at the University of Washington. It is a book—a handbook really—written with the conviction that bullshit, particularly the kind that is circulated on the Internet, is damaging democracy , and that misinformation and disinformation can have very serious consequences. Bullshitters don’t care about truth. But truth is important, and this book shows why. It is focussed on examples from science and medicine, but ranges more widely too. It’s a lively read. It covers not just verbal bullshit, bullshit with statistics (particularly in relation to big data) and about causation, but also has a chapter on bullshit data visualisations that distract from the content they are about, or present that data in misleading ways. Like all good books on critical thinking this one includes some discussion of the psychology of being taken in by misleading contributions to public debate.

In How To Make the World Add Up , Tim Harford gives us ten rules for thinking better about numbers, together with a Golden Rule (‘Be curious’). Anyone who has listened to his long-running radio series More or Less will know how brilliant Tim is at explaining number-based claims – as I read it, I hallucinated Tim’s reassuring, sceptical, reasonable, amused, and  patient voice. He draws on a rich and fascinating range of examples to teach us (gently) how not to be taken in by statistics and poorly supported claims. There is some overlap with Calling Bullshit , but they complement each other. Together they provide an excellent training in how not to be bamboozled by data-based claims.

[end of update. The original interview appears below]

___________________________

We’re here to talk about critical thinking. Before we discuss your book recommendations, I wonder if you would first explain: What exactly is critical thinking, and when should we be using it?

There’s a whole cluster of things that go under the label ‘critical thinking’. There’s what you might call formal logic , the most extreme case of abstractions. For example take the syllogism: if all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, you can deduce from that structure of arguments that Socrates is mortal. You could put anything in the slots of ‘men,’ ‘Socrates,’ ‘mortal’, and whatever you put in, the argument structure remains valid. If the premises are true, the conclusion must be true. That kind of logic, which can be represented using letters and signs rather than words, has its place. Formal logic is a quasi-mathematical (some would say mathematical) subject.

But that’s just one element of critical thinking. Critical thinking is broader, though it encompasses that. In recent years, it’s been very common to include discussion of cognitive biases—the psychological mistakes we make in reasoning and the tendencies we have to think in certain patterns which don’t give us reliably good results. That’s another aspect: focussing on the cognitive biases is a part of what’s sometimes called ‘informal logic’, the sorts of reasoning errors that people make, which can be described as fallacious. They’re not, strictly speaking, logical fallacies, always. Some of them are simply psychological tendencies that give us unreliable results.

The gambler’s fallacy is a famous one: somebody throwing a die that isn’t loaded has thrown it three times without getting a six, and then imagines that, by some kind of law of averages, the fourth time they’re more likely to get a six, because they haven’t yet got one yet. That’s just a bad kind of reasoning, because each time that you roll the dice, the odds are the same: there’s a one in six chance of throwing a six. There’s no cumulative effect and a dice doesn’t have a memory. But we have this tendency, or certainly gamblers often do, to think that somehow the world will even things out and give you a win if you’ve had a series of losses. That’s a kind of informal reasoning error that many of us make, and there are lots of examples like that.

I wrote a little book called Thinking from A to Z which was meant to name and explain a whole series of moves and mistakes in thinking. I included logic, some cognitive biases, some rhetorical moves, and also (for instance) the topic of pseudo-profundity, whereby people make seemingly deep statements that are in fact shallow. The classical example is to give a seeming paradox—to say, for example ‘knowledge is just a kind of ignorance,’ or ‘virtue is only achieved through vice.’ Actually, that’s just a rhetorical trick, and once you see it, you can generate any number of such ‘profundities’. I suppose that would fall under rhetoric, the art of persuasion: persuading people that you are a deeper thinker than you are. Good reasoning isn’t necessarily the best way to persuade somebody of something, and there are many devious tricks that people use within discussion to persuade people of a particular position. The critical thinker is someone who recognises the moves, can anatomise the arguments, and call them to attention.

So, in answer to your question: critical thinking is not just pure logic . It’s a cluster of things. But its aim is to be clear about what is being argued, what follows from the given evidence and arguments, and to detect any cognitive biases or rhetorical moves that may lead us astray.

Many of the terms you define and illustrate in Thinking from A to Z— things like ‘straw man’ arguments and ‘weasel words’—have been creeping into general usage. I see them thrown around on Twitter. Do you think that our increased familiarity with debate, thanks to platforms like Twitter, has improved people’s critical thinking or made it worse?

I think that improving your critical thinking can be quite difficult. But one of the ways of doing it is to have memorable labels, which can describe the kind of move that somebody’s making, or the kind of reasoning error, or the kind of persuasive technique they’re using.

For example, you can step back from a particular case and see that somebody’s using a ‘weak analogy’. Once you’re familiar with the notion of a weak analogy, it’s a term that you can use to draw attention to a comparison between two things which aren’t actually alike in the respects that somebody is implying they are. Then the next move of a critical thinker would be to point out the respects in which this analogy doesn’t hold, and so demonstrate how poor it is at supporting the conclusion provided. Or, to use the example of weasel words—once you know that concept, it’s easier to spot them and to speak about them.

Social media, particularly Twitter, is quite combative. People are often looking for critical angles on things that people have said, and you’re limited in words. I suspect that labels are probably in use there as a form of shorthand. As long as they’re used in a precise way, this can be a good thing. But remember that responding to someone’s argument with ‘that’s a fallacy’, without actually spelling out what sort of fallacy it is supposed to be, is a form of dismissive rhetoric itself.

There are also a huge number of resources online now which allow people to discover definitions of critical thinking terms. When I first wrote Thinking from A to Z , there weren’t the same number of resources available. I wrote it in ‘A to Z’ form, partly just as a fun device that allows for lots of cross references, but partly because I wanted to draw attention to the names of things. Naming the moves is important.

“People seem to get a kick out of the idea of sharing irrelevant features—it might be a birthday or it might be a hometown—with somebody famous. But so what?”

The process of writing the book improved my critical thinking quite a lot, because I had to think more precisely about what particular terms meant and find examples of them that were unambiguous. That was the hardest thing, to find clear-cut examples of the various moves, to illustrate them. I coined some of the names myself: there’s one in there which is called the ‘Van Gogh fallacy,’ which is the pattern of thought when people say: ‘Well, Van Gogh had red hair, was a bit crazy, was left-handed, was born on the 30th of March, and, what do you know, I share all those things’—which I do happen to do—‘and therefore I must be a great genius too.’

I love that. Well, another title that deals with psychological biases is the first critical thinking book that you want to discuss, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow . Why did you choose this one?

This is an international bestseller by the Nobel Prize-winning behavioural economist—although he’s principally a psychologist—Daniel Kahneman. He developed research with Amos Tversky, who unfortunately died young. I think it would have been a co-written book otherwise. It’s a brilliant book that summarizes their psychological research on cognitive biases (or its patterns of thinking) which all of us are prone to, which aren’t reliable.

There is a huge amount of detail in the book. It summarizes a lifetime of research—two lifetimes, really. But Kahneman is very clear about the way he describes patterns of thought: as using either ‘System One’ or ‘System Two.’ System One is the fast, intuitive, emotional response to situations where we jump to a conclusion very quickly. You know: 2 + 2 is 4. You don’t think about it.

System Two is more analytical, conscious, slower, methodical, deliberative. A more logical process, which is much more energy consuming. We stop and think. How would you answer 27 × 17? You’d have to think really hard, and do a calculation using the System Two kind of thinking. The problem is that we rely on this System One—this almost instinctive response to situations—and often come out with bad answers as a result. That’s a framework within which a lot of his analysis is set.

I chose this book because it’s a good read, and it’s a book you can keep coming back to—but also because it’s written by a very important researcher in the area. So it’s got the authority of the person who did the actual psychological research. But it’s got some great descriptions of the phenomena he researches, I think. Anchoring, for instance. Do you know about anchoring?

I think so. Is that when you provide an initial example that shapes future responses? Perhaps you’d better explain it.

That’s more or less it. If you present somebody with an arbitrary number, psychologically, most people seem prone when you ask them a question to move in the direction of that number. For instance, there’s an experiment with judges. They were being asked off the cuff: What would be a good sentence for a particular crime, say shoplifting? Maybe they’d say it would be a six-month sentence for a persistent shoplifter.

But if you prime a judge by giving an anchoring number—if you ask, ‘Should the sentence for shoplifting be more than nine months?’ They’re more like to say on average that the sentence should be eight months than they would have been otherwise. And if you say, ‘Should it be punished by a sentence of longer than three months?’ they’re more likely to come down in the area of five , than they would otherwise.

So the way you phrase a question, by introducing these numbers, you give an anchoring effect. It sways people’s thinking towards that number. If you ask people if Gandhi was older than 114 years old when he died, people give a higher answer than if you just asked them: ‘How old was Gandhi when he died?’

I’ve heard this discussed in the context of charity donations. Asking if people will donate, say, £20 a month returns a higher average pledge than asking for £1 a month.

People use this anchoring technique often with selling wine on a list too. If there’s a higher-priced wine for £75, then somehow people are more drawn to one that costs £40 than they would otherwise have been. If  that was the most expensive one on the menu, they wouldn’t have been drawn to the £40 bottle, but just having seen the higher price, they seem to be drawn to a higher number. This phenomenon occurs in many areas.

And there are so many things that Kahneman covers. There’s the sunk cost fallacy, this tendency that we have when we give our energy, or money, or time to a project—we’re very reluctant to stop, even when it’s irrational to carry on. You see this a lot in descriptions of withdrawal from war situations. We say: ‘We’ve given all those people’s lives, all that money, surely we’re not going to stop this campaign now.’ But it might be the rational thing to do. All that money being thrown there, doesn’t mean that throwing more in that direction will get a good result. It seems that we have a fear of future regret that outweighs everything else. This dominates our thinking.

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What Kahneman emphasizes is that System One thinking produces overconfidence based on what’s often an erroneous assessment of a situation. All of us are subject to these cognitive biases, and that they’re extremely difficult to remove. Kahneman’s a deeply pessimistic thinker in some respects; he recognizes that even after years of studying these phenomena he can’t eliminate them from his own thinking. I interviewed him for a podcast once , and said to him: ‘Surely, if you teach people critical thinking, they can get better at eliminating some of these biases.’ He was not optimistic about that. I’m much more optimistic than him. I don’t know whether he had empirical evidence to back that up, about whether studying critical thinking can increase your thinking abilities. But I was surprised how pessimistic he was.

Interesting.

Unlike some of the other authors that we’re going to discuss . . .

Staying on Kahneman for a moment, you mentioned that he’d won a Nobel Prize, not for his research in psychology per se but for his influence on the field of economics . His and Tversky’s ground-breaking work on the irrationality of human behaviour and thinking forms the spine of a new field.

Let’s look at Hans Rosling’s book next, this is Factfulness . What does it tell us about critical thinking?

Rosling was a Swedish statistician and physician, who, amongst other things, gave some very popular TED talks . His book Factfulness , which was published posthumously—his son and daughter-in-law completed the book—is very optimistic, so completely different in tone from Kahneman’s. But he focuses in a similar way on the ways that people make mistakes.

We make mistakes, classically, in being overly pessimistic about things that are changing in the world. In one of Rosling’s examples he asks what percentage of the world population is living on less than $2 a day. People almost always overestimate that number, and also the direction in which things are moving, and the speed in which they’re moving. Actually, in 1966, half of the world’s population was in extreme poverty by that measure, but by 2017 it was only 9%, so there’s been a dramatic reduction in global poverty. But most people don’t realise this because they don’t focus on the facts, and are possibly influenced by what they may have known about the situation in the 1960s.

If people are asked what percentage of children are vaccinated against common diseases, they almost always underestimate it. The correct answer is a very high proportion, something like 80%. Ask people what the life expectancy for every child born today is, the global average, and again they get it wrong. It’s over 70 now, another surprisingly high figure. What Rosling’s done as a statistician is he’s looked carefully at the way the world is.

“Pessimists tend not to notice changes for the better”

People assume that the present is like the past, so when they’ve learnt something about the state of world poverty or they’ve learnt about health, they often neglect to take a second reading and see the direction in which things are moving, and the speed with which things are changing. That’s the message of this book.

It’s an interesting book; it’s very challenging. It may be over-optimistic. But it does have this startling effect on the readers of challenging widely held assumptions, much as Steven Pinker ‘s The Better Angels of Our Nature has done. It’s a plea to look at the empirical data, and not just assume that you know how things are now. But pessimists tend not to notice changes for the better. In many ways, though clearly not in relation to global warming and climate catastrophe, the statistics are actually very good for humanity.

That’s reassuring.

So this is critical thinking of a numerical, statistical kind. It’s a bit different from the more verbally-based critical thinking that I’ve been involved with. I’m really interested to have my my assumptions challenged, and Factfulness is a very readable book. It’s lively and thought-provoking.

Coming back to what you said about formal logic earlier, statistics is another dense subject which needs specialist training. But it’s one that has a lot in common with critical thinking and a lot of people find very difficult—by which I mean, it’s often counter-intuitive.

One of the big problems for an ordinary reader looking at this kind of book is that we are not equipped to judge the reliability of his sources, and so the reliability of the conclusions that he draws. I think we have to take it on trust and authority and hope that, given the division of intellectual labour, there are other statisticians looking at his work and seeing whether he was actually justified in drawing the conclusions that he drew. He made these sorts of public pronouncements for a long time and responded to critics.

But you’re right that there is a problem here. I believe that most people can equip themselves with tools for critical thinking that work in everyday life. They can learn something about cognitive biases; they can learn about reasoning and rhetoric, and I believe that we can put ourselves as members of a democracy in a position where we think critically about the evidence and arguments that are being presented to us, politically and in the press. That should be open to all intelligent people, I think. It is not a particularly onerous task to equip yourself with a basic tools of thinking clearly.

Absolutely. Next you wanted to talk about Five Books alumnus Matthew Syed ‘s Black Box Thinking .

Yes, quite a different book. Matthew Syed is famous as a former international table tennis player, but—most people probably don’t know this—he has a first-class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from Oxford as well.

This book is really interesting. It’s an invitation to think differently about failure. The title, Black Box Thinking, comes from the black boxes which are standardly included in every passenger aircraft, so that if an accident occurs there’s a recording of the flight data and a recording of the audio communications as the plane goes down. When there’s a crash, rescuers always aim to recover these two black boxes. The data is then analysed, the causes of the crash, dissected and scrutinized, and the information shared across the aeronautic industry and beyond.

Obviously, everybody wants to avoid aviation disasters because they’re so costly in terms of loss of human life. They undermine trust in the whole industry. There’s almost always some kind of technical or human error that can be identified, and everybody can learn from particular crashes. This is a model of an industry where, when there is a failure, it’s treated as a very significant learning experience, with the result that airline travel has become a very safe form of transport.

This contrasts with some other areas of human endeavour, such as, sadly, much of healthcare, where the information about failures often isn’t widely shared. This can be for a number of reasons: there may be a fear of litigation—so if a surgeon does something unorthodox, or makes a mistake, and somebody as a result doesn’t survive an operation, the details of exactly what happened on the operating table will not be widely shared, typically, because there is this great fear of legal comeback.

The hierarchical aspects of the medical profession may have a part to play here, too. People higher up in the profession are able to keep a closed book, and not share their mistakes with others, because it might be damaging to their careers for people to know about their errors. There has been, historically anyway, a tendency for medical negligence and medical error, to be kept very quiet, kept hidden, hard to investigate.

“You can never fully confirm an empirical hypothesis, but you can refute one by finding a single piece of evidence against it”

What Matthew Syed is arguing is that we need to take a different attitude to failure and see it as the aviation industry does. He’s particularly interested in this being done within the healthcare field, but more broadly too. It’s an idea that’s come partly from his reading of the philosopher Karl Popper, who described how science progresses not by proving theories true, but by trying to disprove them. You can never fully confirm an empirical hypothesis, but you can refute one by finding a single piece of evidence against it. So, in a sense, the failure of the hypothesis is the way by which science progresses: conjecture followed by refutation, not hypothesis followed by confirmation.

As Syed argues, we progress in all kinds of areas is by making mistakes. He was a superb table-tennis player, and he knows that every mistake that he made was a learning experience, at least potentially, a chance to improve. I think you’d find the same attitude among musicians, or in areas where practitioners are very attentive to the mistakes that they make, and how those failures can teach them in a way that allows them to make a leap forward. The book has a whole range of examples, many from industry, about how different ways of thinking about failure can improve the process and the output of particular practices.

When we think of bringing up kids to succeed, and put emphasis on avoiding failure, we may not be helping them develop. Syed’s argument is that we should make failure a more positive experience, rather than treat it as something that’s terrifying, and always to be shied away from. If you’re trying to achieve success, and you think, ‘I have to achieve that by accumulating other successes,’ perhaps that’s the wrong mindset to achieve success at the higher levels. Perhaps you need to think, ‘Okay, I’m going to make some mistakes, how can I learn from this, how can I share these mistakes, and how can other people learn from them too?’

That’s interesting. In fact, just yesterday I was discussing a book by Atul Gawande, the surgeon and New Yorker writer, called The Checklist Manifesto . In that, Gawande also argues that we should draw from the success of aviation, in that case, the checklists that they run through before take-off and so on, and apply it to other fields like medicine. A system like this is aiming to get rid of human error, and I suppose that’s what critical thinking tries to do, too: rid us of the gremlins in machine.

Well, it’s also acknowledging that when you make an error, it can have disastrous consequence. But you don’t eliminate errors just by pretending they didn’t occur. With the Chernobyl disaster , for instance, there was an initial unwillingness to accept the evidence in front of people’s eyes that a disaster had occurred, combined with a fear of being seen to have messed up. There’s that tendency to think that everything’s going well, a kind of cognitive bias towards optimism and a fear of being responsible for error, but it’s also this unwillingness to see that in certain areas, admission of failure and sharing of the knowledge that mistakes have occurred is the best way to minimize failure in the future.

Very Beckettian . “Fail again. Fail better.”

Absolutely. Well, shall we move onto to Rolf Dobelli’s 2013 book, The Art of Thinking Clearly ?

Yes. This is quite a light book in comparison with the others. It’s really a summary of 99 moves in thinking, some of them psychological, some of them logical, some of them social. What I like about it is that he uses lots of examples. Each of the 99 entries is pretty short, and it’s the kind of book you can dip into. I would think it would be very indigestible to read it from cover to cover, but it’s a book to keep going back to.

I included it because it suggests you can you improve your critical thinking by having labels for things, recognising the moves, but also by having examples which are memorable, through which you can learn. This is an unpretentious book. Dobelli doesn’t claim to be an original thinker himself; he’s a summariser of other people’s thoughts. What he’s done is brought lots of different things together in one place.

Just to give a flavour of the book: he’s got a chapter on the paradox of choice that’s three pages long called ‘Less is More,’ and it’s the very simple idea that if you present somebody with too many choices, rather than freeing them and improving their life and making them happier, it wastes a lot of their time, even destroys the quality of their life.

“If you present somebody with too many choices, it wastes a lot of their time”

I saw an example of this the other day in the supermarket. I bumped into a friend who was standing in front of about 20 different types of coffee. The type that he usually buys wasn’t available, and he was just frozen in this inability to make a decision between all the other brands that were in front of him. If there’d only been one or two, he’d have just gone for one of those quickly.

Dobelli here is summarising the work of psychologist Barry Schwartz who concluded that generally, a broader selection leads people to make poorer decisions for themselves. We think going into the world that what we need is more choice, because that’ll allow us to do the thing we want to do, acquire just the right consumable, or whatever. But perhaps just raising that possibility, the increased number of choices will lead us to make poorer choices than if we had fewer to choose between.

Now, that’s the descriptive bit, but at the end of this short summary, he asks ‘So what can you do about this practically?’ His answer is that you should think carefully about what you want before you look at what’s on offer. Write down the things you think you want and stick to them. Don’t let yourself be swayed by further choices. And don’t get caught up in a kind of irrational perfectionism. This is not profound advice, but it’s stimulating. And that’s typical of the book.

You can flip through these entries and you can take them or leave them. It’s a kind of self-help manual.

Oh, I love that. A critical thinking self-help book .

It really is in that self-help genre, and it’s nicely done. He gets in and out in a couple of pages for each of these. I wouldn’t expect this to be on a philosophy reading list or anything like that, but it’s been an international bestseller. It’s a clever book, and I think it’s definitely worth dipping into and coming back to. The author is not claiming that it is the greatest or most original book in the world; rather, it’s just a book that’s going to help you think clearly. That’s the point.

Absolutely. Let’s move to the final title, Tom Chatfield’s Critical Thinking: Your Guide to Effective Argument, Successful Analysis and Independent Study . We had Tom on Five Books many moons ago to discuss books about computer games . This is rather different. What makes it so good?

Well, this is a different kind of book. I was trying to think about somebody reading this interview who wants to improve their thinking. Of the books I’ve discussed, the ones that are most obviously aimed at that are Black Box Thinking , the Dobelli book, and Tom Chatfield’s Critical Thinking . The others are more descriptive or academic. But this book is quite a contrast with the Dobelli’s. The Art of Thinking Clearly is a very short and punchy book, while Tom’s is longer, and more of a textbook. It includes exercises, with summaries in the margins, it’s printed in textbook format. But that shouldn’t put a general reader off, because I think it’s the kind of thing you can work through yourself and dip into.

It’s clearly written and accessible, but it is designed to be used on courses as well. Chatfield teaches a point, then asks you to test yourself to see whether you’ve learnt the moves that he’s described. It’s very wide-ranging: it includes material on cognitive biases as well as more logical moves and arguments. His aim is not simply to help you think better, and to structure arguments better, but also to write better. It’s the kind of book that you might expect a good university to present to the whole first year intake, across a whole array of courses. But I’m including it here more as a recommendation for the autodidact. If you want to learn to think better: here is a course in the form of a book. You can work through this on your own.

It’s a contrast with the other books as well, so that’s part of my reason for putting it in there, so there’s a range of books on this list.

Definitely. I think Five Books readers, almost by definition, tend towards autodidacticism, so this is a perfect book recommendation. And, finally, to close: do you think that critical thinking is something that more people should make an effort to learn? I suppose the lack of it might help to explain the rise of post-truth politics.

It’s actually quite difficult to teach critical thinking in isolation. In the Open University’s philosophy department, when I worked there writing and designing course materials, we decided in the end to teach critical thinking as it arose in teaching other content: by stepping back from time to time to look at the critical thinking moves being made by philosophers, and the critical thinking moves a good student might make in response to them. Pedagogically, that often works much better than attempting to teach critical thinking as a separate subject in isolation.

This approach can work in scientific areas too. A friend of mine has run a successful university course for zoologists on critical thinking, looking at correlation and cause, particular types of rhetoric that are used in write ups and experiments, and so on, but all the time driven by real examples from zoology. If you’ve got some subject matter, and you’ve got examples of people reasoning, and you can step back from it, I think this approach can work very well.

But in answer to your question, I think that having some basic critical thinking skills is a prerequisite of being a good citizen in a democracy . If you are too easily swayed by rhetoric, weak at analysing arguments and the ways that people use evidence, and prone to all kinds of biases that you are unaware of, how can you engage politically? So yes, all of us can improve our critical thinking skills, and I do believe that that is an aspect of living the examined life that Socrates was so keen we all should do.

December 4, 2020

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Nigel Warburton

Nigel Warburton is a freelance philosopher, writer and host of the podcast Philosophy Bites . Featuring short interviews with the world's best philosophers on bite-size topics, the podcast has been downloaded more than 40 million times. He is also our philosophy editor here at Five Books , where he has been interviewing other philosophers about the best books on a range of philosophy topics since 2013 (you can read all the interviews he's done here: not all are about philosophy). In addition, he's recommended books for us on the best introductions to philosophy , the best critical thinking books, as well as some of the key texts to read in the Western canon . His annual recommendations of the best philosophy books of the year are among our most popular interviews on Five Books . As an author, he is best known for his introductory philosophy books, listed below:

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1 Introduction to Critical Thinking

I. what is c ritical t hinking [1].

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally about what to do or what to believe.  It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking. Someone with critical thinking skills is able to do the following:

• Understand the logical connections between ideas.
• Identify, construct, and evaluate arguments.
• Detect inconsistencies and common mistakes in reasoning.
• Solve problems systematically.
• Identify the relevance and importance of ideas.
• Reflect on the justification of one’s own beliefs and values.

Critical thinking is not simply a matter of accumulating information. A person with a good memory and who knows a lot of facts is not necessarily good at critical thinking. Critical thinkers are able to deduce consequences from what they know, make use of information to solve problems, and to seek relevant sources of information to inform themselves.

Critical thinking should not be confused with being argumentative or being critical of other people. Although critical thinking skills can be used in exposing fallacies and bad reasoning, critical thinking can also play an important role in cooperative reasoning and constructive tasks. Critical thinking can help us acquire knowledge, improve our theories, and strengthen arguments. We can also use critical thinking to enhance work processes and improve social institutions.

Some people believe that critical thinking hinders creativity because critical thinking requires following the rules of logic and rationality, whereas creativity might require breaking those rules. This is a misconception. Critical thinking is quite compatible with thinking “out-of-the-box,” challenging consensus views, and pursuing less popular approaches. If anything, critical thinking is an essential part of creativity because we need critical thinking to evaluate and improve our creative ideas.

II. The I mportance of C ritical T hinking

Critical thinking is a domain-general thinking skill. The ability to think clearly and rationally is important whatever we choose to do. If you work in education, research, finance, management or the legal profession, then critical thinking is obviously important. But critical thinking skills are not restricted to a particular subject area. Being able to think well and solve problems systematically is an asset for any career.

Critical thinking is very important in the new knowledge economy.  The global knowledge economy is driven by information and technology. One has to be able to deal with changes quickly and effectively. The new economy places increasing demands on flexible intellectual skills, and the ability to analyze information and integrate diverse sources of knowledge in solving problems. Good critical thinking promotes such thinking skills, and is very important in the fast-changing workplace.

Critical thinking enhances language and presentation skills. Thinking clearly and systematically can improve the way we express our ideas. In learning how to analyze the logical structure of texts, critical thinking also improves comprehension abilities.

Critical thinking promotes creativity. To come up with a creative solution to a problem involves not just having new ideas. It must also be the case that the new ideas being generated are useful and relevant to the task at hand. Critical thinking plays a crucial role in evaluating new ideas, selecting the best ones and modifying them if necessary.

Critical thinking is crucial for self-reflection. In order to live a meaningful life and to structure our lives accordingly, we need to justify and reflect on our values and decisions. Critical thinking provides the tools for this process of self-evaluation.

Good critical thinking is the foundation of science and democracy. Science requires the critical use of reason in experimentation and theory confirmation. The proper functioning of a liberal democracy requires citizens who can think critically about social issues to inform their judgments about proper governance and to overcome biases and prejudice.

Critical thinking is a   metacognitive skill . What this means is that it is a higher-level cognitive skill that involves thinking about thinking. We have to be aware of the good principles of reasoning, and be reflective about our own reasoning. In addition, we often need to make a conscious effort to improve ourselves, avoid biases, and maintain objectivity. This is notoriously hard to do. We are all able to think but to think well often requires a long period of training. The mastery of critical thinking is similar to the mastery of many other skills. There are three important components: theory, practice, and attitude.

III. Improv ing O ur T hinking S kills

If we want to think correctly, we need to follow the correct rules of reasoning. Knowledge of theory includes knowledge of these rules. These are the basic principles of critical thinking, such as the laws of logic, and the methods of scientific reasoning, etc.

Also, it would be useful to know something about what not to do if we want to reason correctly. This means we should have some basic knowledge of the mistakes that people make. First, this requires some knowledge of typical fallacies. Second, psychologists have discovered persistent biases and limitations in human reasoning. An awareness of these empirical findings will alert us to potential problems.

However, merely knowing the principles that distinguish good and bad reasoning is not enough. We might study in the classroom about how to swim, and learn about the basic theory, such as the fact that one should not breathe underwater. But unless we can apply such theoretical knowledge through constant practice, we might not actually be able to swim.

Similarly, to be good at critical thinking skills it is necessary to internalize the theoretical principles so that we can actually apply them in daily life. There are at least two ways to do this. One is to perform lots of quality exercises. These exercises don’t just include practicing in the classroom or receiving tutorials; they also include engaging in discussions and debates with other people in our daily lives, where the principles of critical thinking can be applied. The second method is to think more deeply about the principles that we have acquired. In the human mind, memory and understanding are acquired through making connections between ideas.

Good critical thinking skills require more than just knowledge and practice. Persistent practice can bring about improvements only if one has the right kind of motivation and attitude. The following attitudes are not uncommon, but they are obstacles to critical thinking:

• I prefer being given the correct answers rather than figuring them out myself.
• I don’t like to think a lot about my decisions as I rely only on gut feelings.
• I don’t usually review the mistakes I have made.
• I don’t like to be criticized.

To improve our thinking we have to recognize the importance of reflecting on the reasons for belief and action. We should also be willing to engage in debate, break old habits, and deal with linguistic complexities and abstract concepts.

The  California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory  is a psychological test that is used to measure whether people are disposed to think critically. It measures the seven different thinking habits listed below, and it is useful to ask ourselves to what extent they describe the way we think:

• Truth-Seeking—Do you try to understand how things really are? Are you interested in finding out the truth?
• Open-Mindedness—How receptive are you to new ideas, even when you do not intuitively agree with them? Do you give new concepts a fair hearing?
• Analyticity—Do you try to understand the reasons behind things? Do you act impulsively or do you evaluate the pros and cons of your decisions?
• Systematicity—Are you systematic in your thinking? Do you break down a complex problem into parts?
• Confidence in Reasoning—Do you always defer to other people? How confident are you in your own judgment? Do you have reasons for your confidence? Do you have a way to evaluate your own thinking?
• Inquisitiveness—Are you curious about unfamiliar topics and resolving complicated problems? Will you chase down an answer until you find it?
• Maturity of Judgment—Do you jump to conclusions? Do you try to see things from different perspectives? Do you take other people’s experiences into account?

Finally, as mentioned earlier, psychologists have discovered over the years that human reasoning can be easily affected by a variety of cognitive biases. For example, people tend to be over-confident of their abilities and focus too much on evidence that supports their pre-existing opinions. We should be alert to these biases in our attitudes towards our own thinking.

IV. Defining Critical Thinking

There are many different definitions of critical thinking. Here we list some of the well-known ones. You might notice that they all emphasize the importance of clarity and rationality. Here we will look at some well-known definitions in chronological order.

1) Many people trace the importance of critical thinking in education to the early twentieth-century American philosopher John Dewey. But Dewey did not make very extensive use of the term “critical thinking.” Instead, in his book  How We Think (1910), he argued for the importance of what he called “reflective thinking”:

…[when] the ground or basis for a belief is deliberately sought and its adequacy to support the belief examined. This process is called reflective thought; it alone is truly educative in value…

Active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends, constitutes reflective thought.

There is however one passage from How We Think where Dewey explicitly uses the term “critical thinking”:

The essence of critical thinking is suspended judgment; and the essence of this suspense is inquiry to determine the nature of the problem before proceeding to attempts at its solution. This, more than any other thing, transforms mere inference into tested inference, suggested conclusions into proof.

2) The  Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal  (1980) is a well-known psychological test of critical thinking ability. The authors of this test define critical thinking as:

…a composite of attitudes, knowledge and skills. This composite includes: (1) attitudes of inquiry that involve an ability to recognize the existence of problems and an acceptance of the general need for evidence in support of what is asserted to be true; (2) knowledge of the nature of valid inferences, abstractions, and generalizations in which the weight or accuracy of different kinds of evidence are logically determined; and (3) skills in employing and applying the above attitudes and knowledge.

3) A very well-known and influential definition of critical thinking comes from philosopher and professor Robert Ennis in his work “A Taxonomy of Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities” (1987):

Critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do.

4) The following definition comes from a statement written in 1987 by the philosophers Michael Scriven and Richard Paul for the  National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking (link), an organization promoting critical thinking in the US:

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness. It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue, assumptions, concepts, empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions, implications and consequences, objections from alternative viewpoints, and frame of reference.

The following excerpt from Peter A. Facione’s “Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction” (1990) is quoted from a report written for the American Philosophical Association:

We understand critical thinking to be purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based. CT is essential as a tool of inquiry. As such, CT is a liberating force in education and a powerful resource in one’s personal and civic life. While not synonymous with good thinking, CT is a pervasive and self-rectifying human phenomenon. The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fairminded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit. Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal. It combines developing CT skills with nurturing those dispositions which consistently yield useful insights and which are the basis of a rational and democratic society.

V. Two F eatures of C ritical T hinking

A. how not what .

Critical thinking is concerned not with what you believe, but rather how or why you believe it. Most classes, such as those on biology or chemistry, teach you what to believe about a subject matter. In contrast, critical thinking is not particularly interested in what the world is, in fact, like. Rather, critical thinking will teach you how to form beliefs and how to think. It is interested in the type of reasoning you use when you form your beliefs, and concerns itself with whether you have good reasons to believe what you believe. Therefore, this class isn’t a class on the psychology of reasoning, which brings us to the second important feature of critical thinking.

B. Ought N ot Is ( or Normative N ot Descriptive )

There is a difference between normative and descriptive theories. Descriptive theories, such as those provided by physics, provide a picture of how the world factually behaves and operates. In contrast, normative theories, such as those provided by ethics or political philosophy, provide a picture of how the world should be. Rather than ask question such as why something is the way it is, normative theories ask how something should be. In this course, we will be interested in normative theories that govern our thinking and reasoning. Therefore, we will not be interested in how we actually reason, but rather focus on how we ought to reason.

In the introduction to this course we considered a selection task with cards that must be flipped in order to check the validity of a rule. We noted that many people fail to identify all the cards required to check the rule. This is how people do in fact reason (descriptive). We then noted that you must flip over two cards. This is how people ought to reason (normative).

• Section I-IV are taken from http://philosophy.hku.hk/think/ and are in use under the creative commons license. Some modifications have been made to the original content. ↵

Critical Thinking Copyright © 2019 by Brian Kim is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Critical Thinking (The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series) Paperback – Illustrated, April 7, 2020

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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ The MIT Press; Illustrated edition (April 7, 2020)
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About the author

Jonathan haber.

Jonathan Haber is an educational researcher, writer and recovering entrepreneur working in the field of technology-enabled learning and teacher education. His Degree of Freedom One Year BA project, which involved trying to learn the equivalent of a BA in just twelve months using only Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and other forms of free learning, has been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Wall Street Journal and other major media sources. His writing on education-related topics has also appeared in Slate, EdSurge and other publications.

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16 Best Free Online Critical Thinking Courses

Written by Argumentful

Critical thinking is one of the most fundamental skills you could focus on. In fact, these skills are so important that many educational institutions have listed them among their central goals. Critical thinking helps you sort the true from the false.

The bad news is that not many people own these skills. Einstein famously said:

“Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.”

The good news though is that you can improve your thinking and you can do it without breaking the bank.

Below are listed 16 of the best free online critical thinking courses with details regarding their contents.

Go on, choose your preferred course and take action today! (You can thank me later😉!)

P.S. Apart from the general critical thinking courses, I’ve included 5 specific ones which focus on today’s burning issues- fake news and climate change , as well as correctly interpreting randomized clinical trials and screening trials. See numbers 12 to 16 below.

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Critical reasoning for beginners, critical thinking classes at fayetteville state university, logical and critical thinking, critical thinking: fundamentals of good reasoning, philosophy and critical thinking, critical thinking & problem solving, introduction to critical thinking and logic, teaching critical thinking through art with the national gallery of art.

• Critical thinking: Reasoned Decision Making

The Science of Everyday Thinking

Critical thinking at university: an introduction, making sense of news, sorting truth from fiction: civic online reasoning, making sense of climate science denial, thinking critically: interpreting randomized clinical trials, thinking critically series: interpreting screening trials.

Offered by : University of Oxford

Description :

4 hours, 6 modules

1: The Nature of Arguments

How to recognise arguments and what the nature of an argument is

2: Different Types of Arguments

Different types of arguments, in particular deductive and inductive arguments

3: Setting Out Arguments Logic Book Style

How to identify and analyse arguments, and how to set arguments out logic book-style to make them easier to evaluate

4: What is a  Good Argument? Validity and Truth

How to evaluate arguments and how to tell whether an argument is good or bad, focusing specifically on inductive arguments

5: Evaluating Arguments Part One

Evaluation of arguments – this time deductive arguments – focusing in particular on the notion of validity

6: Evaluating Arguments Part Two

Fallacies: bad arguments that can easily be mistaken for good arguments

Also available on YouTube and iTunes

Offered by : Fayetteville State University

24 videos, 24 hours

Lectures from Spring 2011 Critical Thinking classes at Fayetteville State University held by Gregory B. Sadler. The textbook used was Moore And Parker’s Critical Thinking 9th edition .

• Issues, claims, arguments
• Arguments and non-arguments
• Value Judgments
• Complex arguments, unstated premises
• Deductive and inductive arguments with implicit premises
• Deductive and inductive arguments
• Information sources
• Experts and appeal to authority
• Critical thinking and advertising
• Rhetorical devices

Offered by : University Of Auckland

8 Weeks of study, 4 hours weekly

• Identify common flaws in belief construction
• Recognise and reconstruct arguments
• Evaluate arguments as being good or bad
• Analyse arguments using basic logical tools
• Apply basic logical strategies in areas such as science, moral theories and law

Offered by : IsraelX

9 weeks, 4-6 hours per week

You can create a free account on edx.org and have access to the course for 2 months. After 2 months, you can pay £37 to get unlimited access to the course.

The objective of the course is to improve the student’s ability in the basic skills of critical thinking:

• how to recognize arguments,
• how to interpret them,
• how to evaluate them,
• how to construct them.

Lesson 1. What’s “Critical Thinking?” Lesson 2. What are Arguments Made Of? Lesson 3. From Premises to Conclusions Lesson 4. Recognizing Arguments: Introduction Lesson 5. Argument vs. The Text Containing It Lesson 6. Recognizing Conclusions Lesson 7. Arguments vs. Explanations Lesson 8. Argument Diagrams: Introduction Lesson 9. More about Argument Diagrams Lesson 10. Argument Diagrams: Examples Lesson 11. Hedges Lesson 12. Disclaimers Lesson 13. Examples Lesson 14. Rhetorical Language Lesson 15. Referential Attribution Lesson 16. Principles of Interpretation Lesson 17. Implicit Premises Lesson 18. What’s a Good Argument? Lesson 19. More Virtues of Arguments Lesson 20. Argument Ad Hominem Lesson 21. Argument Ad Verecundiam Lesson 22. Argument Ad Populum Lesson 23. Argument Ad Ignorantiam Lesson 24. Argument Ad Baculum and Ad Misericordiam Lesson 25. Venn Diagrams Lesson 26. Beyond Venn Lesson 27. Modus Ponens Lesson 28. Modus Tollens Lesson 29. Conditionals Lesson 30. Reductio Ad Absurdum Lesson 31. Process of Elimination Lesson 32. Separation of Cases Lesson 33. Truth Trees: An Example Lesson 34. How to Grow Truth Trees Lesson 35. Truth Trees: Another Example Lesson 36. Reflexive Relations Lesson 37. Symmetric Relations Lesson 38. Transitive Relations Lesson 39. Inductive Generalization Lesson 40. What’s a Good Sample? Lesson 41. The New Riddle of Induction Lesson 42. From Induction to Causation Lesson 43. Evaluating Causal Generalizations Lesson 44. Argument from Analogy: Basics Lesson 45. Argument from Analogy: Examples Lesson 46. Who Needs Analogues? Lesson 47. Inference to the Best Explanation Lesson 48. Experimentation Lesson 49. Building an Argument Lesson 50. Writing Up an Argument

Offered by : The University of Queensland

6 weeks, 1-4 hours per week

• How to think with clarity and rigour
• How to identify, analyse and construct cogent arguments
• How to think of solutions to the central problems of philosophy
• How to engage in philosophical conversations with others about topics that matter

Offered by : Rochester Institute of Technology

3 weeks, 4-6 hours per week

• How to perform strategic analysis and assessment
• How to perceive and assess a critical need and design a tailored solution
• How to identify key stakeholders and ensure their needs are met
• How to employ adaptive problem-solving
• How to work through obstacles collaboratively
• How to analyse failure to improve future performance

Offered by : Saylor.org Academy

This course will introduce you to critical thinking, informal logic, and a small amount of formal logic. Its purpose is to provide you with the basic tools of analytical reasoning, which will give you a distinctive edge in a wide variety of careers and courses of study. While many university courses focus on the presentation of content knowledge, the emphasis here is on learning how to think effectively. Although the techniques and concepts covered here are classified as philosophical, they are essential to the practice of nearly every major discipline, from the physical sciences and medicine to politics, law, and the humanities.

• Unit 1: Introduction and Meaning Analysis
• Unit 2: Argument Analysis
• Unit 3: Basic Sentential Logic
• Unit 4: Venn Diagrams
• Unit 5: Fallacies
• Unit 6: Scientific Reasoning
• Unit 7: Strategic Reasoning and Creativity

Offered by : Smithsonian Institution

16 weeks, 3-4 hours per week

• How to use Artful Thinking Routines to strengthen thinking.
• How to facilitate meaningful conversations in your classroom using art for artful learning and artful teaching.
• How to help learners of all levels develop more discerning descriptions, evidence-based reasoning, and meaningful questioning habits.
• Key strategies for using content information to push original thinking deeper.
• Exciting, immersive activities for any type of classroom.
• How to use online teaching resources from the National Gallery of Art, including downloadable Artful Thinking lesson plans
• Unit 0: Welcome (2 hours)
• Unit 1: Diving into Thinking Routines (3-4 hours)
• Unit 2: Observing and Describing (3-4 hours)
• Unit 3: Reasoning with Evidence (3-4 hours)
• Unit 4: Questioning and Investigating (3-4 hours)

Critical thinking: reasoned decision making

Offered by : Tecnológico de Monterrey

4 weeks, 5-8 hours per week

• Identify the theories that support critical thinking
• Employ a methodology for the application of critical thinking
• Relate the elements that make up the stages of critical thinking
• Analyse the standards of critical thinking practice
• Assess the responsibility of perpetuating the intellectual values of the resolution analysis
• Distinguish the vices of thought in decision making
• Apply critical thinking to groups

1. Thinking according to our times

1.1 Why critical thinking?

1.2 The exciting world of thinking and criticism

2. Evaluating our modes of thought

2.1 Intellectual values of a good thinker

2.2 Evaluating our critical thinking skills. Avoiding vices and biased thinking

3. Elements and standards of critical thinking

3.1 Elements of a critical thinking process

3.2 Standards to apply to our thinking modes

4. Articulating our decisions making process

4.1 The logic of our decisions and the behaviour derived from them

4.2 How to improve our critical thinking skills and become a fair-minded thinker

12 weeks, 2-3 hours per week

The course explores the psychology of our everyday thinking: why people believe weird things, how we form and change our opinions, why our expectations skew our judgments, and how we can make better decisions. We’ll discuss and debate topics such as placebos, the paranormal, medicine, miracles, and more.

You will use the scientific method to evaluate claims, make sense of evidence, and understand why we so often make irrational choices. You will begin to rely on slow, effortful, deliberative, analytic, and logical thinking rather than fast, automatic, instinctive, emotional, and stereotypical thinking.

• tools for how to think independently, how to be skeptical, and how to value data over personal experience.
• examining the mental shortcuts that people use and misuse, and apply this knowledge to help make better decisions, and improve critical thinking.

Offered by : University of Leeds

2 weeks, 4 hours weekly

• What is critical thinking?
• A model for critical thinking
• Why is critical thinking important at university?
• Challenges to thinking critically at university
• How can you improve your critical thinking?
• How will critical thinking help you at university?

Offered by : University of Hong Kong

4 weeks, 2-3 hours per week

This course will help you identify reliable information in news reports and become better informed about the world we live in. A discussion on journalism from the viewpoint of the news audience.

• What makes news? The blurred lines between news, promotion and entertainment.
• Why does news matter? Social sharing and the dynamics of the news cycles.
• Who provides information? How to evaluate sources in news reports.
• Where is the evidence? The process of verification.
• When should we act? Recognizing our own biases.
• How do we know what we know? Becoming an active news audience.

You’ll learn to:

• Distinguish news from opinion; media bias from audience bias; assertion from verification
• Apply critical thinking skills to examine the validity of information
• Contextualize the knowledge gained from news report
• Respond quickly to daily news events and make an informed decision

Offered by : Massachusetts Institute of Technology

9 weeks, 2-4 hours per week

Course aimed at fighting fake news and misinformation

Educators—from teachers to librarians—will learn about:

• New knowledge that can be applied in your lessons and resources for your own students.
• How to shift from ineffective information literacy practices towards the kinds of strategies employed by professional fact-checkers.

Unit 1: Search Like a Fact Checker

Unit 2: The Two Big Fact Checker Moves: Lateral Reading & Click Restraint

Unit 3: Evaluating Different Types of Evidence

Unit 4: Adapting Civic Online Reasoning

7 weeks, 2-4 hours per week

WEEK 1: Understanding The Climate Controversy During the first week of the course, we introduce the course content, interact with each other and complete an introductory survey. The week continues with an exploration of political consensus, the drivers and psychology of climate science denial and an overview of the controversy surrounding this topic.

WEEK 2: Global Warming Is Happening In week two, we will look at the indicators of global warming and myths related to temperature and glaciers.

WEEK 3: We Are Causing Global Warming Week three focuses on the ways in which humans cause climate change and the myths associated with the greenhouse effect and the rise in carbon dioxide.

WEEK 4: The Past Tells Us About The Future This week looks at the history of climate change in order to model future climate change. We also address myths related to models.

WEEK 5: We Are Feeling The Impacts Of Climate Change Week five covers climate feedbacks and the impacts of climate change on the environment, society and the weather.

WEEK 6 and 7: Responding to Denial The final weeks of the course look more closely at the psychology of science denial and debunking techniques. We also complete a peer assessment that asks students to practice debunking strategies on real myths that can be found in today’s media.

Approach: mini-lectures, video interviews, quizzes, activities, a peer assessed writing assignment, and readings.

Offered by : Stanford University

1 week, 2-3 hours

This course seeks to fulfil the clinical community’s need to improve skills in the critical evaluation of clinical research papers. Competency in critical appraisal skills can have a significant impact by improving clinical practice, quality of research projects, and peer-review of manuscripts and grants. The course will utilize efficient and engaging videos with relevant clinical examples to cover essential research methodology principles.

• Analyse the concepts of randomization and blinding in reducing bias.
• Develop strategies to critically appraise randomized clinical trials and determine if study results are valid.
• Analyse the key design features of screening studies.
• Develop strategies to critically appraise screening studies and determine if study results are valid.

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Critical thinking definition

Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.

Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.

However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.

People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:

• Developing technical and problem-solving skills
• Engaging in more active listening
• Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
• Seeking out more diversity of thought
• Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:

• What information should be included?
• Which information resources should the author look to?
• What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
• What is the most effective way to show information?
• How should the report be organized?
• How should it be designed?
• What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?

Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?

Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.

Are there any services that can help me use more critical thinking?

We understand that it's difficult to learn how to use critical thinking more effectively in just one article, but our service is here to help.

We are a team specializing in writing essays and other assignments for college students and all other types of customers who need a helping hand in its making. We cover a great range of topics, offer perfect quality work, always deliver on time and aim to leave our customers completely satisfied with what they ordered.

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Critical Thinking

Jonathan Haber was an educational researcher, writer and entrepreneur working in the fields of critical-thinking education, assessment, and technology-enabled learning whose work has been featured in the New York Times , the Boston Globe , the Chronicle of Higher Education , and the Wall Street Journal . He is the author of another MIT Press Essential Knowledge book, MOOCs , and The Critical Voter .

How the concept of critical thinking emerged, how it has been defined, and how critical thinking skills can be taught.

Critical thinking is regularly cited as an essential twenty-first century skill, the key to success in school and work. Given our propensity to believe fake news, draw incorrect conclusions, and make decisions based on emotion rather than reason, it might even be said that critical thinking is vital to the survival of a democratic society. But what, exactly, is critical thinking? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Jonathan Haber explains how the concept of critical thinking emerged, how it has been defined, and how critical thinking skills can be taught and assessed.

Haber describes the term's origins in such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, and science. He examines the components of critical thinking, including structured thinking, language skills, background knowledge, and information literacy, along with such necessary intellectual traits as intellectual humility, empathy, and open-mindedness. He discusses how research has defined critical thinking, how elements of critical thinking have been taught for centuries, and how educators can teach critical thinking skills now.

Haber argues that the most important critical thinking issue today is that not enough people are doing enough of it. Fortunately, critical thinking can be taught, practiced, and evaluated. This book offers a guide for teachers, students, and aspiring critical thinkers everywhere, including advice for educational leaders and policy makers on how to make the teaching and learning of critical thinking an educational priority and practical reality.

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Critical Thinking By: Jonathan Haber https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12081.001.0001 ISBN (electronic): 9780262357340 Publisher: The MIT Press Published: 2020

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• [ Front Matter ] Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12081.003.0011 Open the PDF Link PDF for [ Front Matter ] in another window
• Series Foreword By Bruce Tidor Bruce Tidor Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/12081.003.0001 Open the PDF Link PDF for Series Foreword in another window
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Global history is not just significant events on a timeline, it is also the ordinary, mundane moments that people experience in between. Graphic novels can capture this multidimensionality in ways that are difficult, and sometimes impossible, in more traditional media formats, says Stanford history professor Tom Mullaney .

Tom Mullaney, a professor of history in the School of Humanities and Sciences, uses graphic novels in his teachings to help students appreciate different experiences and perspectives throughout history. (Image credit: Ilmiyah Achmad)

Mullaney has incorporated graphic novels in some of his Stanford courses since 2017; in 2020, he taught a course dedicated to the study of world history through comic strip formats.

While graphic novels are not a substitute for academic literature, he said he finds them a useful teaching and research tool. They not only portray the impact of historic events on everyday lives, but because they can be read in one or two sittings, they get to it at a much faster rate than say a 10,000 word essay or autobiography could.

“It accelerates the process of getting to subtlety,” said Mullaney, a professor of history at Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences . “There’s just so much you can do, and so many questions you can ask, and so many perspective shifts you can carry out – like that! You can just do it – you show them something, they read it and BOOM! It’s like an accelerant. It’s awesome.”

For example, in Thi Bui’s graphic novel The Best We Could Do , themes of displacement and diaspora emerge as she talks about her family’s escape from war-torn Vietnam to the United States. The illustrated memoir shows Bui’s upbringing in suburban California and the complicated memories her parents carry with them as they move about their new life in America. In other chapters, she depicts her mother and father back in Vietnam and what their own childhood was like amidst the country’s upheaval.

Graphic novels like The Best We Could Do and also Maus , Art Spiegelman’s seminal portrayal of his Jewish family’s experience during the Holocaust, illustrate the challenges and subtleties of memory – particularly family memory – and the entanglements that arise when narrating history, Mullaney said.

Graphic novels prime readers for the complexity of doing and reading historical research and how there is no simplistic, narrative arc of history. “When I read a graphic novel, I feel prepared to ask questions that allow me to go into the harder core, peer-reviewed material,” Mullaney said.

The everyday moments that graphic novels are exceptionally good at capturing also raise questions in the reader’s mind, Mullaney said. Readers sit in the family living room and at the kitchen table with Spiegelman and Bui and follow along as their characters try to understand what their parent’s generation went through and discover it’s not always easy to grasp. “Not everything mom and dad say makes sense,” said Mullaney.

These seemingly mundane moments also present powerful opportunities for inquiry. “The ordinary  is where the explanation lives and where you can start asking questions,” Mullaney added.

Graphic novels can also depict how in periods of war and conflict, violence can become part of everyday existence and survival. The simplicity of the format allows heavy, painful experiences to emerge from a panel untethered and unweighted from lengthy descriptions or dramatizations.

“They’re banal. They’re not dramatic. There are no strings attached. In a work of nonfiction, in an article or book, it would be almost impossible to do that. There would have to be so much expository writing and so much description that you would lose the horror of it,” Mullaney said.

A ‘fundamental misunderstanding’

Graphic novels like Maus and The Best We Could Do were included in Mullaney’s 2020 Stanford class, Global History Through Graphic Novels .

In 2020, Tom Mullaney, a professor of history, taught Global History Through Graphic Novels , a course that paired graphic novels such as Art Spiegelman’s Maus with archival materials and historical essays to examine modern world history from the 18th to the 21st century. He created a poster for the class, as shown here. (Image credit: Tom Mullaney)

In the course, Mullaney paired graphic novels with archival materials and historical essays to examine modern world history from the 18th to the 21st century.

The course syllabus also included the graphic novels Showa , Shigeru Mizuki ’s manga series about growing up in Japan before World War II, and Such a Lovely Little War , about Marcelino Truong’s experience as a child in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

Most recently, Mullaney has offered to teach a variation of the Stanford course to the public, free for high school and college students , this summer.

Registration for the online course opened shortly after news emerged and made international headlines that Maus was banned by a Tennessee school board for its depiction of nudity and use of swear words.

Within two days of Mullaney’s course registration opening, over 200 students from across the world signed up.

Mullaney believes that there is a “fundamental misunderstanding” about what young people can process when it comes to negotiating complex themes and topics – whether it is structural racism or the Holocaust. They just need some guidance, which he hopes as a teacher, he can provide.

“I think students of high school age or even younger, if they have the scaffolding they need – which is the job of educators to give them – they can handle the structural inequalities, darknesses and horrors of life,” he said.

Mullaney noted that many teenagers are already exposed to many of these difficult issues through popular media. “But they’re just doing it on their own and figuring it out for themselves – that’s not a good idea,” he said.

Mullaney said he hopes he can teach Global History Through Graphic Novels to Stanford students again this fall.

For Stanford scholars interested in learning more about the intersection of graphic novels and scholarship, there is a newly established working group through the Division of Literatures, Cultures and Languages, Comics, More than Words .

Media Contacts

Melissa De Witte, Stanford News Service:  [email protected]

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80 High-scoring Critical Thinking Essay Topics

To criticize someone does not solely mean disrespecting someone or highlighting their shortcomings.

When writing a critical thinking essay, it is important to analyze the critical thinking essay topics thoroughly and discuss both the advantages and disadvantages of the situation.

A recent research indicated that 52% of difficulties in academic writing lay in vocabulary and 47% in writing resources. Both of these might be important in choosing a critical essay topic.

Table of Contents

The Challenges of Choosing Good Critical Thinking Topics

It is not that easy to shortlist some critical thinking topics for students. The topic they pick must have a plethora of data available for research and more. Here are common challenges of picking up critical essay topics for students.

During my high school time, I had a very hard time figuring out a topic for my critical thinking essay. I could have gone with Shakespeare’s stuff like others but that would be too much for me.

All I needed was something different and very unique in my shortlisted critical thinking essay topics. After spending hours in the library and discussing with my colleagues and professor, I finally thought about going with mental health and society expectations.

As I took a lot of time finding this topic, I knew where to research it and how to find the supporting evidence. All in all, the essay went very well and helped me secure top scores. Hence you should take your time with choosing critical thinking topics for students.

80 Interesting Critical Thinking Essay Topics

Here are 100 topics for critical thinking you can count on for writing a killer critical thinking essay.

20 New Critical Thinking Topics For Students

This is the first list of critical thinking paper topics that has some very unique and easy-to-research critical analysis topics.

• How is social media impacting our relationships and self-esteem?
• The causes and effects of income inequality.
• Effective ways of reducing gun violence these days.
• Ways to ensure pay equity in an organizational setup.
• How are climate change and equity related?
• Working ways of preventing racial profiling.
• Different ways to ensure access to healthcare.
• How can we deal with the refugee crisis well?
• Discussing the  challenges in learning for students with autism  these days.
• What are the reasons behind youth homelessness?
• The negative impact of mass incarceration.
• How can we address education equity well?
• The historical injustices of indigenous rights.
• Effective ways to analyze barriers to disability rights?
• Different ways to examine stereotypes and promote respect.
• The causes of food insecurity these days.
• How to address the mental health stigma effectively?
• Ways to end human trafficking.
• The hurdles in the way of clean water access for all.
• Effective ways to ensure digital privacy.

20 Critical Thinking Essay Topics Related to Technology

Still couldn’t shortlist some topics for critical essay? Don’t fret as we have more critical essay topics for you here.

• The ethical considerations of using AI.
• How can we assure privacy in this digital age?
• Effective strategies that we can employ against cybersecurity threats.
• Will automation take all of the human jobs?
• The challenges of interconnected devices.
• The access to technology and internet connectivity these days.
• What should we know about the ethical implications of biometric technology?
• The difference between Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR).
• What are the ethical implications of using big data?

Hopefully, you are having a good time going through our list of critical thinking topics for discussion. Keep on reading as more of such critical thinking essay topics from a professional  paper writing service  are coming your way.

• The Disadvantages of Quantum Computing.
• How is social media breaching our online privacy? 
• The benefits and risks of Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology.
• The concept and principles of Digital Rights Management (DRM).
• The impact of surveillance technologies on civil liberties and privacy.
• How can we ensure ethics in biotechnology?
• How can we explore the benefits and challenges of integrating technology? 
• Assessing the implications of wearable devices on health, privacy, and society.
• The regulatory challenges of autonomous vehicles.
• The potential and limitations of 5G Technology.
• The psychological impact of digital addiction on students. 

10 critical thinking essay topics related to the environment

There are so many things you can choose for a critical thinking essay on the environment. Here’s a list of critical thinking topics for discussion in this category.

• The negative impact of climate change on human beings.
• The consequences of deforestation we should know about.
• Is plastic pollution too dangerous for human survival in the future?
• The transition to renewable energy sources and overcoming challenges.
• The causes and implications of biodiversity decline.

You would already have noticed that most critical topics are debatable and open to differing points of view. Here are more essay topics:

• The bad impact of excessive Co2 emissions.
• The concept of sustainable agriculture.
• The challenges of water scarcity and solutions.
• The most common sources of air pollution.
• How is ecosystem restoration possible these days?

20 Interesting Topics for Critical Essay

An interesting critical topic can make your piece enticing to read. Here’s another list of critical thinking essay topics you can consider.

• How is mental illness portrayed in literature?
• How is social media shaping political discourse?
• What students usually miss out on when collecting resources for  how to write an autobiography  well.
• How is technology influencing human relationships?
• The negative representation of gender in movies.
• How has language evolved and what is its cultural significance?
• Things we should know about the psychology of conspiracy theories.
• How are religion and politics interacting these days?
• Things we should know about environmental racism.
• The ethics of animal testing biotechnicians must know.
• How does advertising impact consumer behavior?
• Things we must know about the philosophy of happiness.
• How is cybersecurity possible in the digital age?
• How can parenting style influence child development?
• Discussing the efficiency of healthcare systems.
• The Economics of Healthcare: Assessing the efficiency and equity of healthcare systems.
• How is food of cultural significance in different societies?
• How is race represented in contemporary art?
• How is globalization impacting cultural diversity?
• The Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence.

10 Critical Thinking Topics for Discussion Related to Culture

Researching culture could be a great idea. Here are some critical thinking essay topics related to culture.

• The disadvantages of cultural appropriation in fashion.
• Effective strategies to preserve endangered languages.
• How to cope with the cultural stereotypes in the media?
• The relationship between globalization and cultural homogenization.
• Analyzing Cultural Relativism vs. Universalism.
• The challenges of Indigenous Cultural Preservation and successes in maintaining traditions.
• Different types of cultural assimilations in Immigration.
• Is cultural heritage conservation even possible these days?
• How is multiculturalism working in Education?
• The role of culture in international relations and diplomacy.

Useful Resources for Students

Students can check out these important resources to improve their critical thinking abilities before shortlisting a topic or two.

• You can watch videos on Youtube about how to be a creative thinker.
• You can go through this book  The Foundation for Critical Thinking  by Richard W. Paul, Linda Elder to improve your understanding.
• You can also go through the critical thinking flowchart to improve your understanding.

Final Thoughts

To be able to write a good critical thinking essay, you must be able to start well with a good topic. A good topic will not only get you on the right track but will also help you find ample resources to convey your ideas well. Going through a critical thinking essay example is also a way to learn the art of choosing a topic for one. All in all, this article was all about letting you know of interesting and unique critical thinking essay topics to work on.

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