Developing Critical Thinking Skills

by pirata 6 Replies latest jw friends

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  pirata

  Critical thinking, ie. "Independent thinking", is still a relatively new concept for me. For the majority of my life I avoided having opinions, scoring poorly in school on reports were we were supposed to give our opinion on political, social, or controversial issues. My mistaken impression of critical thinking was that it was "Thinking with a view solely to criticize". One of the warnings against University has been that critical thinking / philosophy courses have caused some to lose faith in the Bible or in the Truth.

  Now I know that Critical Thinking is simply determining the meaning or significance behind an argument to determine if it is true. However, the fallacies, specific concepts of logic and reason, etc, are still very fuzzy to me.

  Can anyone recommend any good books/references that can help to develop critical thinking skills?
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  Mad Sweeney

  What Does the Bible Really Teach?

  Keep Yourself In God's Love

  Oh wait, that's not right!

  If you like history, David Hackett Fisher's "Historians' Fallacies" is pretty good.

  For just a primer on logic and fallacies, you might try http://www.logicalfallacies.info/ or http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

  And of course George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language" will help you to avoid some of the horrible writing that seems commonplace. (I think I probably need to give it another read myself; it's been a few years.) It's here: http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm
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  Terry

  JUST KIDDING!

  1) The English: Are They Human?

  

  2) How You Can Bowl Better Using Self-Hypnosis

  

  3) Jewish Chess Masters on Stamps

  

  4) Toilet Paper Origami

  

  5) Dead Pet: Send Your Best Little Buddy off in Style

  

  6) Bombproof your Horse

  

  7) Nuclear War: What's in It for You?

  

  8) The Bible Cure for Irritable Bowl Syndrome

  

  9) Teleportation: A How To Guide

  

  10) Paint it Black: A Guide to Gothic Homemaking

  
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  Terry

  The book that started me off was 10 Philosophical Mistakes by Mortimer J. Adler

  
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  BabaYaga

  Terry, that list of books has just made my day!
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  serenitynow!

  I think you should take a Logic course. Or just go to the philosophy section at Borders and browse. There are lots of interesting philosophy books.
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  Balsam

  If your wondering about biblical scholarship Bart Erhman is outstanding, any of his books are worth reading. His books really helped me to look at the bible with a critical eye and not be eager to grab at some religious understanding of the New Testement.