university of edinburgh critical thinking

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Critical Thinking

Course times & enrolment, course summary.

This course introduces students to the fundamentals of critical thinking. It will cover the basic structure and components of arguments, as well as some of the common fallacies in reasoning. Through practical exercises, students will strengthen their skills in identifying and evaluating arguments.

There will be a break between 13:00 and 14:00.

Course Details

Content of course.

The course proceeds in three steps. First, students will learn how to identify arguments in different communication contexts. Second, the course will show students how to reconstruct arguments in a simple logical form. This reconstruction allows them to evaluate the arguments and decide whether they are purely valid (a formal requirement) or sound (an argument which is valid and has true premises). Third, the course will introduce the difference between deductive and inductive arguments, as well as some common fallacies and rhetorical devices associated with both types of argument.

Teaching method(s)

Each session will be led by a presentation which will contain a series of exercises covering major points. The emphasis will be on learning through these exercises and encouraging students to provide their own examples. A workbook with further exercises and the answers will also be provided. 

Learning outcomes

On completion of this course, students will be able to:

identify arguments and clearly express them in their own words;

reconstruct arguments in simple logical form;

evaluate simple arguments for their validity and soundness;

recognise common fallacies in reasoning.

Core Readings

There is no essential reading. The recommended titles below may be of interest in following up the themes discussed in the course.

Bowell, T., Cowan, R. and Kemp, G., 2019. Critical Thinking: A Concise Guide . 5th ed. Abingdon: Routledge.

Chatfield, T., 2017. Critical Thinking: Your Guide to Effective Argument, Successful Analysis and Independent Study . London: Bloomsbury. London: Sage.

Van Cleave, M., 2016. Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking . Open Textbook Library [online]. Available at:  https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/introduction-to-logic-and-critical-thinking

If you have questions regarding the course or enrolment, please contact COL Reception at Paterson's Land by email [email protected] or by phone 0131 650 4400.

Student support

If you have a disability, learning difficulty or health condition which may affect your studies, please let us know by ticking the 'specific support needs' box on your course application form. This will allow us to make appropriate adjustments in advance and in accordance with your rights under the Equality Act 2010. For more information please visit the Student Support section of our website .

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Unless explicitly stated otherwise, all material is copyright © The University of Edinburgh 2024.

Thinking critically about your reading 

Reading at university is a demanding task. It can often seem difficult to question the work of academics, given that they are experts in their fields. But this is something you have to do to achieve strong marks at university and to avoid common pieces of feedback saying that you are being ‘too descriptive’ or ‘not critical enough’. So, how can you ‘think critically’ about what authors say? Here are some ideas to get you started:     

• Identify the author’s argument . This is a set of propositions of which one is a conclusion and the remainder are reasons for supporting that conclusion.      
• Ask yourself whether the author’s argument is based on flawed assumptions. What is underlying the author’s suggestions and is it logical? For example, an author may state “old people are scared of being robbed. They shouldn’t keep their money under the bed, then.” This assumes that elderly people are scared of being robbed, that they keep their money under their bed and that they are robbed because they keep their money under the bed. Are these assumptions reasonable? Is there evidence to support them?     
• Consider whether the author’s argument is based on flawed reasoning. Are they making a general conclusion based on only one example which may be unique? Can you think of any cases which their argument would not be applicable to? Are they assuming a causal connection when one may not exist? Just because two factors are correlated, it does not mean that one is causing the other. For example, the murder rate may increase when ice cream sales increase. This does not mean that ice cream sales are causing murders.      
• Identify the evidence presented by the author in favour of the argument. This could be statistics, examples, case histories, experiments, etc.      
• Assess the strength of the evidence and compare it with evidence provided by other authors. Does the evidence provided support all of the author’s claims, and to what extent does it do so? Does it conflict with evidence provided by other authors? If so, why might this be the case?    
• Judge the quality of the evidence. Check the date of the research. The conclusions drawn from old data may not apply in the modern world. Can you think of any reasons why this might be the case? What is the source of the evidence, and could it be biased? If someone has an interest in the matter, the evidence they present may be accurate, but they may not tell the full story, for example. If the author is using statistics, have they used a large enough sample to give reliable results? Is the sample representative of the population under study? What was the method of data collection, and could that have distorted the results? Has the author controlled for other factors in order to get closer to the causal effect of a given factor on an outcome?     

Bibliography   

Cottrell, S. (2011) Critical Thinking Skills: Developing Effective Analysis and Argument. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 9780230285293 (e-book).     

Cottrell, S. (2019) The Study Skills Handbook: Fifth Edition. London: Red Globe Press. ISBN: 9781137610898 (e-book).     

The Open University (2008) Thinking Critically. Available at: http://www.openuniversity.edu/sites/www.openuniversity.edu/files/brochures/Critical-thinking-Open-University.pdf [Accessed on 1st July, 2020]     

Wallace, M. and Wray, A. (2006) Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates. London: Sage Publications. ISBN: 9781446200261 (e-book). 

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Teaching Matters blog

Promoting, discussing and celebrating teaching at the university of edinburgh, critical thinking skill: challenges faced by international students in finance degrees.

In this post, Dr Kalsoom Jaffar reflects on the challenges international students face in gaining critical thinking skills, and shares her experience as a presenter at the Learning and Teaching Conference. Kalsoom is a Lecturer in Business Education (Finance) at Edinburgh Business School. This post is part of the Hot Topic: Learning and Teaching Conference 2022 .

Critical thinking is considered the foundation on which workplace decisions are based, and a skill that potential employers expect new graduates to possess. In the face of the debate about students lacking critical thinking skills and business programs developing new frameworks to tackle the issue, it is necessary to understand the issue from the students’ perspective. This is particularly important when it comes to international students studying in British universities. Despite their familiarity with higher study, they are also often learning in a language that is not their native tongue. That said, they bring with them rich and diverse educational traditions and professional experience – and different complexities.

Most universities have established learning and development centres to support students in their learning and academic writing. These programmes and centres aim to support international students in their effort to learn the skills that are essential to effective academic writing. However, it could be argued that these programs might be based on a premise of “blame-the-student thinking”, and ignore the fact that international students bring distinctive learning skills that can be viewed as a key positive for their development as academic writers.

As a finance lecturer and an international student, I understand the importance of critical thinking within finance essays. However, I believe that without understanding the underlying reasons behind the lack of these skills and the specific challenges international students face in becoming critical thinkers, it is not possible to really help them flourish. Therefore, I have decided to investigate the challenges international students face in gaining critical thinking skills to help them and fellow academics, who spend a good amount of their time helping these students to write a critical piece of work, come up with some solutions. This research has helped me examine how bridges of intercultural learning can be developed by helping students gain core skills (such as critical thinking) to place personal development within an understood students’ cultural context.

The research presented at the Learning and Teaching Conference in Edinburgh also transformed me in many ways. As an administrator, when setting the learning objectives for my degree programs and courses, I selected critical thinking skills to be the top priority. And this was done without thinking ‘how will I polish or help students gain this in the first place?’. This study allowed me to step back and see what challenges students already faced in gaining these skills so that I can reflect and set future goals. This will help them avoid the challenges posed by the absence of critical thinking ideas within their home education system or their lack of exposure to critical thinking generally.

I am a secondary data/quantitative researcher. I have never worked with primary data and never experienced collecting primary data. This is the first time in my professional journey that I am daring to change direction and come out of my comfort zone. However, I still can’t escape the impression that embracing this change is the academic equivalent for me of jumping into a pot of boiling water. I am on a teaching contract, and it looks like my professional journey will not be seeing me becoming a fully-fledged finance researcher any time soon. Therefore, for me to progress and develop on this teaching route, I need to conduct education research. Though I am naïve in this field of research, my understanding is that education research is always and only possible with primary data techniques. Starting with this research, for example, I needed to understand the basics of research, which I haven’t always had to worry about when I was conducting secondary research, such as say the philosophical paradigm.

This research is a small-scale project that aims to examine the critical thinking challenges that international students face in finance degrees in the UK. Previous educational experience, cultural differences and lack of support from academics are a few challenges faced by an international student. The results contribute to a body of knowledge potentially improving our collective understanding of what challenges international students to face in critical thinking, and make recommendations to other tutors and management as to how to help international students to develop this skill in the future. It will also help personally, providing me with opportunities to make new connections in the field.

Dr Kalsoom Jaffar

Dr Kalsoom Jaffar is a Lecturer in Business Education (Finance) and Head of Year 3 Edinburgh Business School at  The University of Edinburgh, Scotland. 

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• Help & FAQ

New atheism, open-mindedness, and critical thinking

• School of Divinity

Research output : Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter

Abstract / Description of output

Publication series, keywords / materials (for non-textual outputs).

• new atheism
• open-mindedness
• critical thinking
• Richard Dawkins
• William Hare

Access to Document

• 10.1007/978-3-319-54964-4_3

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• Critical Thinking Arts and Humanities 100%
• New atheism Arts and Humanities 100%
• Religions Social Sciences 28%
• Argument Arts and Humanities 14%
• New Atheist's Arts and Humanities 14%
• Interest Arts and Humanities 14%
• thinkers Arts and Humanities 14%
• Engagement Arts and Humanities 14%

Research output

Research output per year

New Atheism: Critical Perspectives and Contemporary Debates

Research output : Book/Report › Book

• Contemporary 100%
• New atheism 100%
• Atheism 100%
• Perspective 100%
• Research 33%

T1 - New atheism, open-mindedness, and critical thinking

AU - Cotter, Christopher

PY - 2017/6/8

Y1 - 2017/6/8

N2 - A common theme throughout the writings of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens is the importance of ‘critical thinking’. Not only do these authors believe that they themselves are critical thinkers, they also advocate critical thinking as a key element in their idealized atheistic future. This chapter has been written to assess the veracity of their claims to critical thinking in their engagements with ‘religion’, via an engagement with related literature on ‘open-mindedness,’ particularly the work of William Hare and Harvey Siegel. An analysis of this nature is not merely of academic interest, but is of great importance given the popularity of their books both within and outside the atheistic milieu, the near-canonical status that they have achieved, and the effects of their rhetoric upon the beliefs and practices of individuals in the ‘real’ world. The argument in this chapter flows sequentially through delineations of the concepts of ‘open-mindedness’ and ‘critical thinking’, and a demonstration of the New Atheists’ valorization of critical thinking, before discussing open-mindedness as a constituent part of critical thinking, and then building a three stage argument to demonstrate that the New Atheists are not open-minded, and that therefore they are not critical thinkers (in the context of their most popular considerations of ‘religion’).

AB - A common theme throughout the writings of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and the late Christopher Hitchens is the importance of ‘critical thinking’. Not only do these authors believe that they themselves are critical thinkers, they also advocate critical thinking as a key element in their idealized atheistic future. This chapter has been written to assess the veracity of their claims to critical thinking in their engagements with ‘religion’, via an engagement with related literature on ‘open-mindedness,’ particularly the work of William Hare and Harvey Siegel. An analysis of this nature is not merely of academic interest, but is of great importance given the popularity of their books both within and outside the atheistic milieu, the near-canonical status that they have achieved, and the effects of their rhetoric upon the beliefs and practices of individuals in the ‘real’ world. The argument in this chapter flows sequentially through delineations of the concepts of ‘open-mindedness’ and ‘critical thinking’, and a demonstration of the New Atheists’ valorization of critical thinking, before discussing open-mindedness as a constituent part of critical thinking, and then building a three stage argument to demonstrate that the New Atheists are not open-minded, and that therefore they are not critical thinkers (in the context of their most popular considerations of ‘religion’).

KW - new atheism

KW - open-mindedness

KW - critical thinking

KW - scientism

KW - Richard Dawkins

KW - William Hare

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-319-54964-4_3

DO - 10.1007/978-3-319-54964-4_3

M3 - Chapter

SN - 9783319549620

T3 - Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures

BT - New Atheism

A2 - Cotter, Christopher R.

A2 - Quadrio, Philip Andrew

A2 - Tuckett, Jonathan

PB - Springer

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Academic writing

Advice and resources to support you with effective academic writing.

Approaches to writing

Assignment writing is a process which involves planning, drafting and reviewing what you are going to say. You will find you need to review your initial plan and edit it as you go along. You should expect to have to redraft some sections of writing.

You should also check any guidance given to you as part of your course, as conventions vary between subject areas.

One of the hardest things can be to get started writing an assignment. Sometimes this is a question of taking the time to reflect on what you are being asked to do in the assignment brief. 

Getting started with an assignment

The handout Getting started suggests a way in which you can break down your task, think about aspects of it and commit some of your initial ideas to paper. It also suggests ways you can start to adapt this method to suit you. Alternatively you may prefer to use a prompt list to start to analyse your title.

Getting started (pdf)       Getting started (Word rtf)

Essay title prompts (pdf)       Essay title prompts (Word rtf)

You will want to respond to the assignments you have been set as well as you can. This means paying attention to key words in the question or assignment brief. These are sometimes known as command or directive words because they tell you what to do. The document Directive words provides definitions of some of the commonly used words.

Directive words (pdf)       Directive words (Word rtf)   Directive words – British Sign Language translation (Media Hopper video)

Getting your ideas in order

In any written assignment you will be expected to organise and structure information which is synthesised from a range of sources. You will need to make notes from your readings to help you consolidate and connect your research to your question. The Reading at university page has strategies to help you develop effective skills for making notes from reading.

Reading at university

Making notes means you end up with lots of bits of writing which you need to link together for your reader. Sometimes it can be hard to know what to select and how to identify relationships between ideas and concepts.

There are suggestions in the Getting your ideas in order handout of practical ways in which you might reorganise your material in response to the task set. Playing around with the order can help you arrive at a line reasoning that will convince the reader. Aim to experiment and find out what works for you.

Getting your ideas in order (pdf)           Getting your ideas in order (Word rtf)

Essay parts and paragraphs

If you have been asked to write an academic essay, and you haven't done this before, you may be unsure of what is expected. The Parts of an essay handout gives a brief introductory overview of the component parts of an essay.

Parts of an essay (pdf)           Parts of an essay (Word rtf)

Paragraphs are the building blocks of an essay and are a way of organising your thinking and making your meaning clear in your writing for your reader. The handout Developing writing in paragraphs encourages you to think about the way you shape your paragraphs and when to move on to a new one.

Developing writing in paragraphs (pdf)          Developing writing in paragraphs (Word rtf) 

Build an argument as you go

Identifying and writing about good evidence is not enough. You need to build an argument. An argument is:

Using reasons to support a point of view, so that known or unknown audiences may be persuaded to agree. Cottrell, S. (2011)Critical thinking skills: developing effective analysis and argument. 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p52.

You can develop your argument as you read and write by creating a working hypothesis or basic answer in response to the assignment brief.  

Building an argument as you go (pdf)            Building an argument as you go (Word rtf)

As you move through your studies lecturers will expect more from your written work. They will expect the accurate attribution of ideas from others (including academic and other authors, and the ideas of those who teach you). There is general advice and resources for referencing and citations (and avoiding plagiarism) on the Referencing and citations page.

Referencing and citations

Your marker(s) will expect written pieces to be logically structured with fluid expression of thought, and with deeper and more critical engagement with the subjects and ideas you are reading and learning about. 

Aim to become familiar with the level of writing required by reading good quality examples.  At an advanced level you are aiming to write to the style you read in academic journals. 

As your written tasks become longer and more complex it can be helpful to reflect on your own writing process.

Reflect on your writing process (pdf)            Reflect on your writing process (Word rtf)

Different types of academic writing

Academic writing is much more than just an essay. You might be asked to write a lab or business report, a policy brief, a blog post, a journal article or a reflection piece for example. These tend to be subject and task specific so you need to check the assignment brief and any criteria for details of their purpose, formatting, structure, things to include etc.

Reflective academic writing

In some subjects, assessment may be based on critical reflection. This can be a challenge as it is a very particular style and form of writing which you may not have come across before. As well as check your assignment brief for specifics, the University’s Employability Consultancy have created a Reflection Toolkit of resources, models and questions to help you develop your reflective writing skills.

The Reflection Toolkit

School-level support

Take advantage of any writing development sessions organised through or learning materials offered by your School, Deanery or course. These will help you develop the specific writing skills you need for your discipline or subject area.

Writing your own title

If you have to write your own title in response to the brief you have been set, you need to think about how to frame this.  The Formulating your own title handout suggests some aspects to consider.

Formulating your own title (pdf)          Formulating your own title (Word rtf)

Differences from non-academic writing

If you are studying during a career break, or part-time while still working, you need to be aware that academic writing is a very different skill from other forms of writing you may have done in the workplace. Academic writing tends to be more formal, requiring succinct prose rather than bullet points, and it is more about the argument than simply conveying, or describing, information. Writing for assessment requires you to think carefully about your assignment and criteria, your argument and content, use of your subject specific conventions (e.g. language, style etc.), and your audience.

Your written work needs to be grounded in and backed up by appropriate and informed opinion and sources, rather than solely by personal opinion and experience. Academic written work will also make fewer absolute statements. Language is often more tentative or cautious.

Academic Phrasebank is a collection of general phrases taken from academic sources created by John Morley at the University of Manchester. The phrases are sorted into writing and assignment themes such as being critical and writing conclusions.

This article was published on 2024-02-26

• Schools & departments

Reflection Toolkit

About the site.

Welcome to the Reflection Toolkit.

This is a place where you can find information and support whether you are looking to reflect yourself or facilitate reflection in others. 

Before you move on, you might want to take a second and ask yourself:

• Why am I on this site?
• What/who brought me here?
• What do I want to take away from this site?
• How will I know I have gotten what I needed?

You might really like answering this kind of question, or you maybe you don’t. In either case, if you took the time to think about the questions you will have started a reflection. Self-questioning like this, to better understand ourselves, our motivations, and our experiences, is at the heart of reflection.

You may very well know the process of reflection under different names, for example ‘reviewing’, 'analysing' or ‘processing’.

Below you can find the different sections that together make the Reflection Toolkit.

Reflectors' Toolkit

This section is for people who want to reflect. You will find resources, models and questions that can help start your reflections and structure them.

Facilitators' Toolkit

Considerations and information about implementing reflection in courses, workshops and other initiatives.  

This section contains a review of literature on reflection and a list of helpful literature to explore the area further.

Definition of reflection

For the purpose of this site, reflection or critical reflection is defined as:

the conscious examination of past experiences, thoughts, and ways of doing things.  Its goal is to surface learning about oneself and the situation, and to bring meaning to it in order to inform the present and the future.  It challenges the status quo of practice, thoughts, and assumptions and may therefore inform our decisions, actions, attitudes, beliefs, and understanding about ourselves.

Reflection can be used for many things including:

• Allowing us to improve our own practice to gain better outcomes in the future
• Increasing/improving our performance and skills
• Increasing our awareness of our abilities and attributes and our evidence for these
• Developing and expanding our employability
• Evaluating the quality and success of our action plans
• Applying theoretical knowledge/frameworks to real experiences and using this to expand our understanding of the underlying theory.

Questions, feedback and about us

If you have questions, didn’t find the things you needed, or have any feedback about the site - please email us at [email protected] .

We want to help and are always looking to improve.

L ead authors Dr Gavin McCabe and Tobias Thejll-Madsen .

This work is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Licence . 

The University of Edinburgh Open Educational Resources

• Edinburgh’s OERs

Critical Thinking in Global Challenges

These videos formed part of a course run by Professor Mayank Dutia and Dr Celine Caquineau from the School of Biomedical Sciences, which aimed to provide the opportunity to better understand what critical thinking is, and to practice and enhance critical thinking skills. The course used the context of some important global challenges that affect us all, and to which we have no clear “correct” solutions: for example, the risk and spread of serious infectious diseases in epidemics in modern societies, the implications of increasing human population on global resources, energy, environment and climate, and the challenges of human health and wellbeing in the modern world. Possible solutions to global issues such as these are hotly debated, and give the perfect setting to practice recognizing and evaluating facts, ideas, opinions and arguments.

These videos can me downloaded from Media Hopper Create .

[Featured image: Free Thinking, Public Domain Image, Geralt, needpix.com ]

• 02 - Edinburgh at its best
• College of Science and Engineering
• EdinburghOER

Centre for Ethics and Critical Thought

About critique.

CRITIQUE draws together scholars from across Schools and Colleges at University of Edinburgh in a dynamic hub for ethical and critical analysis of urgent social challenges such as climate change, economic exploitation, racial segregation, gender oppression, and political violence.

Deeply committed to methodological pluralism, its members deploy a variety of methodological approaches to political and social theory, ranging from analytic philosophical methods to genealogy, from history of political thought to immanent critique, from feminist and critical race theoretical methodologies to legal analysis.

Work produced at the Centre contributes to the excellent intellectual environment of the university and aims to intervene effectively in public debates.   

Thematically, we build on three interrelated and mutually sustaining pillars, around which we will stimulate interdisciplinary and experimental conversations: Ethics, Critique and Praxis. 

This pillar invites reflection on the ethical dimensions of contemporary political and social phenomena, agents and institutions, deploying methodologies inspired by the analytical philosophical tradition.

This pillar encompasses critical theoretical research that is historically and sociologically informed.

This pillar focuses all members’ attention on the imperative of translating their theoretical work beyond the walls of the university and academia more generally.

Made at the tip of Africa. ©

A Crash Course in Critical Thinking

What you need to know—and read—about one of the essential skills needed today..

Posted April 8, 2024 | Reviewed by Michelle Quirk

• In research for "A More Beautiful Question," I did a deep dive into the current crisis in critical thinking.
• Many people may think of themselves as critical thinkers, but they actually are not.
• Here is a series of questions you can ask yourself to try to ensure that you are thinking critically.

Conspiracy theories. Inability to distinguish facts from falsehoods. Widespread confusion about who and what to believe.

These are some of the hallmarks of the current crisis in critical thinking—which just might be the issue of our times. Because if people aren’t willing or able to think critically as they choose potential leaders, they’re apt to choose bad ones. And if they can’t judge whether the information they’re receiving is sound, they may follow faulty advice while ignoring recommendations that are science-based and solid (and perhaps life-saving).

Moreover, as a society, if we can’t think critically about the many serious challenges we face, it becomes more difficult to agree on what those challenges are—much less solve them.

On a personal level, critical thinking can enable you to make better everyday decisions. It can help you make sense of an increasingly complex and confusing world.

In the new expanded edition of my book A More Beautiful Question ( AMBQ ), I took a deep dive into critical thinking. Here are a few key things I learned.

First off, before you can get better at critical thinking, you should understand what it is. It’s not just about being a skeptic. When thinking critically, we are thoughtfully reasoning, evaluating, and making decisions based on evidence and logic. And—perhaps most important—while doing this, a critical thinker always strives to be open-minded and fair-minded . That’s not easy: It demands that you constantly question your assumptions and biases and that you always remain open to considering opposing views.

In today’s polarized environment, many people think of themselves as critical thinkers simply because they ask skeptical questions—often directed at, say, certain government policies or ideas espoused by those on the “other side” of the political divide. The problem is, they may not be asking these questions with an open mind or a willingness to fairly consider opposing views.

When people do this, they’re engaging in “weak-sense critical thinking”—a term popularized by the late Richard Paul, a co-founder of The Foundation for Critical Thinking . “Weak-sense critical thinking” means applying the tools and practices of critical thinking—questioning, investigating, evaluating—but with the sole purpose of confirming one’s own bias or serving an agenda.

In AMBQ , I lay out a series of questions you can ask yourself to try to ensure that you’re thinking critically. Here are some of the questions to consider:

• Why do I believe what I believe?
• Are my views based on evidence?
• Have I fairly and thoughtfully considered differing viewpoints?
• Am I truly open to changing my mind?

Of course, becoming a better critical thinker is not as simple as just asking yourself a few questions. Critical thinking is a habit of mind that must be developed and strengthened over time. In effect, you must train yourself to think in a manner that is more effortful, aware, grounded, and balanced.

For those interested in giving themselves a crash course in critical thinking—something I did myself, as I was working on my book—I thought it might be helpful to share a list of some of the books that have shaped my own thinking on this subject. As a self-interested author, I naturally would suggest that you start with the new 10th-anniversary edition of A More Beautiful Question , but beyond that, here are the top eight critical-thinking books I’d recommend.

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark , by Carl Sagan

This book simply must top the list, because the late scientist and author Carl Sagan continues to be such a bright shining light in the critical thinking universe. Chapter 12 includes the details on Sagan’s famous “baloney detection kit,” a collection of lessons and tips on how to deal with bogus arguments and logical fallacies.

Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments Into Extraordinary Results , by Shane Parrish

The creator of the Farnham Street website and host of the “Knowledge Project” podcast explains how to contend with biases and unconscious reactions so you can make better everyday decisions. It contains insights from many of the brilliant thinkers Shane has studied.

Good Thinking: Why Flawed Logic Puts Us All at Risk and How Critical Thinking Can Save the World , by David Robert Grimes

A brilliant, comprehensive 2021 book on critical thinking that, to my mind, hasn’t received nearly enough attention . The scientist Grimes dissects bad thinking, shows why it persists, and offers the tools to defeat it.

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don't Know , by Adam Grant

Intellectual humility—being willing to admit that you might be wrong—is what this book is primarily about. But Adam, the renowned Wharton psychology professor and bestselling author, takes the reader on a mind-opening journey with colorful stories and characters.

Think Like a Detective: A Kid's Guide to Critical Thinking , by David Pakman

The popular YouTuber and podcast host Pakman—normally known for talking politics —has written a terrific primer on critical thinking for children. The illustrated book presents critical thinking as a “superpower” that enables kids to unlock mysteries and dig for truth. (I also recommend Pakman’s second kids’ book called Think Like a Scientist .)

Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters , by Steven Pinker

The Harvard psychology professor Pinker tackles conspiracy theories head-on but also explores concepts involving risk/reward, probability and randomness, and correlation/causation. And if that strikes you as daunting, be assured that Pinker makes it lively and accessible.

How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion and Persuasion , by David McRaney

David is a science writer who hosts the popular podcast “You Are Not So Smart” (and his ideas are featured in A More Beautiful Question ). His well-written book looks at ways you can actually get through to people who see the world very differently than you (hint: bludgeoning them with facts definitely won’t work).

A Healthy Democracy's Best Hope: Building the Critical Thinking Habit , by M Neil Browne and Chelsea Kulhanek

Neil Browne, author of the seminal Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking, has been a pioneer in presenting critical thinking as a question-based approach to making sense of the world around us. His newest book, co-authored with Chelsea Kulhanek, breaks down critical thinking into “11 explosive questions”—including the “priors question” (which challenges us to question assumptions), the “evidence question” (focusing on how to evaluate and weigh evidence), and the “humility question” (which reminds us that a critical thinker must be humble enough to consider the possibility of being wrong).

Warren Berger is a longtime journalist and author of A More Beautiful Question .

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