Chapter 4
Assessing Your Thinking Skills
IN THIS CHAPTER
Trying out your critical thinking skills
Steering clear of thinking errors
Appreciating the value of emotional and creative intelligences
English mathematician and physicist Sir Issac Newton was a pretty clever chap, but a key part of his cleverness was being open-minded and curious, and thinking in unconventional ways. These are the hallmarks and the key skills of the critical thinker. And the good news? Everyone can develop them. So if you read only one chapter in the book, make it this one! It offers an overview of all the aspects of thinking that people often overlook. For too long courses supposed to help you think have plodded through various kinds of “rules” and exercises that use only a tiny, narrow kind of “thinking.”
In this chapter I explain why these days, informal logic is moving away from its focus on dissecting arguments that seem valid but aren’t, towards a view of truth and the appropriate use of arguments that puts a much greater emphasis on the context. The skills needed turn out to be much more social than mathematical.
After all, if arguments are restricted to those involving clear propositions, most ...
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