Critical, skeptical thinking often isn't easy. It's not that it's unnatural, but more credulous attitudes are easier to adopt and maintain because they take less work. Skepticism requires some training, patience, and above all practice. Most of those who seek out such training and practice are involved in scholarly studies like philosophy, but everyone could benefit from them as well. Where does one start?
Summary
Title: Thinking from A to Z
Author: Nigel Warburton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0415222818
Pro:
• Handy, easy to understand, and accessible for ordinary readers
• Communicates the nature of common fallacies in a manner that is engaging rather than dry
• Nice text for any class on critical thinking and writings skills
Con:
• No bibliography or index
Description:
• Large number of basic fallacies and flaws in reasoning, arranged in alphabetical order
• Concise reference that steers clear of jargon and technical terminology
• Good reference for people needing information on fallacies and arguments
Book Review
There are a lot of books out there designed to teach people how to think more critically, but most are a bit dense and complex for the average reader. One, Thinking from A to Z, by Nigel Warburton, goes a bit further than most in making the material accessible to a wider audience.
Warburton, a Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University, designed his book to be a short encyclopedia of basic errors and fallacies often encountered in people's reasoning and arguments. It isn't an exhaustive or a definitive compendium, but it does touch upon many if not most of the issues and problems people are most likely to encounter. He also offers advice on ways to critique such errors when they are encountered and how to avoid committing them yourself. Just as important, the explanations and examples that Warburton provides are clear, understandable, and largely jargon-free (in fact, he makes a point of avoiding too much use of Latin terminology).
He even gives a number of errors unusual names so that they might be a bit more memorable to the average reader. There is the problem of humptydumptying, whereby a person gives an unusual and private meaning to a word with a more common and public definition and thus causes unnecessary confusion. Then there is the Van Gogh Fallacy which occurs whenever someone says something like "Van Gogh was poor and misunderstood in his lifetime, yet he is now recognized as a great artist; I am poor and misunderstood, so I too will eventually be recognized as a great artist."
As entertaining and engaging as the descriptions are, it isn't enough that a person simply sits down and reads about these various errors in reasoning. Even the most rigorous training is insufficient without adequate practice alongside - and that means that people who buy this book in the hopes of learning how to think more critically will have to make the effort to practice as well.
Thinking from A to Z, by Nigel Warburton
In this case, practice involves reading others' arguments more carefully in the deliberate effort to identify fallacies, flaws, and errors. There is no shortage of source material - just about any speech given by a politician or pundit is likely to have several clear problems just waiting to be identified. The goal is, of course, to get to the point where you don't have to read with the purpose of finding flaws; eventually, you should notice them without having to hunt.
Perhaps the principle drawback of Warburton's book is that it doesn't really do anything to help you with that practice. Also, if you see something in an argument that looks fishy to you, there really isn't any way for you to look it up in the book to see if there is an entry on it. Then again, helping you practice your critical thinking skills isn't the purpose of this book - it's to give you some of the basic tools you need in order to practice. For further help in that task, you'll have to look elsewhere. But if you are interested in improving your ability to think and reason skeptically, you'll need to start somewhere, and this book is a great aid in that.
No comments:
Post a Comment