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Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking

Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking
Learning the Art of Critical Thinking There is nothing more practical than sound thinking. No matter what your circumstance or goals, no matter where you are, or what problems you face, you are better off if your thinking is skilled. As a manager, leader, employee, citizen, lover, friend, parent — in every realm and situation of your life — good thinking pays off. Poor thinking, in turn, inevitably causes problems, wastes time and energy, engenders frustration and pain. Critical thinking is the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances. What is really going on in this or that situation? Successfully responding to such questions is the daily work of thinking. Ask yourself these — rather unusual — questions: What have you learned about how you think? If you are like most, the only honest answers to these questions run along the lines of, “Well, I suppose I really don’t know much about my thinking or about thinking in general. Related:  Critical ThinkingLearning

Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful – Medium Around 2003 I came across Charlie Munger’s 1995 speech, The Psychology of Human Misjudgment, which introduced me to how behavioral economics can be applied in business and investing. More profoundly, though, it opened my mind to the power of seeking out and applying mental models across a wide array of disciplines. A mental model is just a concept you can use to help try to explain things (e.g. Hanlon’s Razor — “never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness.”). There are tens of thousands of mental models, and every discipline has their own set that you can learn through coursework, mentorship, or first-hand experience. There is a much smaller set of concepts, however, that come up repeatedly in day-to-day decision making, problem solving, and truth seeking. This post is my attempt to enumerate the mental models that are repeatedly useful to me. How-to Use This List I find mental models are useful to try to make sense of things and to help generate ideas.

Decision Making Techniques and Skills from MindTools.com Free Workbook Offer! Find Out More JoinBefore Mar 22 FREE Toolkit Offer Get our new Take Control of Your Time Toolkit FREE when you join the Mind Tools Club before midnight, March 22. Loading... Got it! We use cookies to give you the best experience of our website. Cookie Consent plugin for the EU cookie law Get the Free Newsletter Get the Free Newsletter Learn new career skills every week, and get our Personal Development Plan Workbook FREE when you subscribe. Privacy Policy Browse Tools by Category Start Here (2) How to Make Decisions Making the Best Possible Choices 14 How Good Is Your Decision Making? Decision Making Models (6) Choosing Between Options (9) Deciding Whether to Go Ahead (9) Financial Decisions (4) Improving Decision Making (13) The Impact of Ethics and Values (3) Group Decision Making (9) Further Resources Bite–Sized Training (6) Book Insights (16) Expert Interviews (6) Processing Please wait... AddThis Sharing Sidebar Share to Facebook , Number of shares , Number of shares668 Hide Show

Strategy List: 35 Dimensions of Critical Thought S-1 Thinking Independently Principle: Critical thinking is independent thinking, thinking for oneself. Many of our beliefs are acquired at an early age, when we have a strong tendency to form beliefs for irrational reasons (because we want to believe, because we are praised or rewarded for believing). Critical thinkers use critical skills and insights to reveal and reject beliefs that are irrational. In forming new beliefs, critical thinkers do not passively accept the beliefs of others; rather, they try to figure things out for themselves, reject unjustified authorities, and recognize the contributions of genuine authorities. They thoughtfully form principles of thought and action; they do not mindlessly accept those presented to them. If they find that a set of categories or distinctions is more appropriate than that used by another, they will use it. Independent thinkers strive to incorporate all known relevant knowledge and insight into their thought and behavior. Go to top

Ways a Judge Should, and Should Not, Be Impartial Judges should be impartial. Everyone agrees on that. But behind the single word “impartiality” lurk several distinct issues that need to be disentangled. First consider the facts of a specific case: who did what to whom. It's problematic to have a bias about the facts of the case. Judicial impartiality with respect to the parties to a case is also generally desirable. What about the law? Last, how active may a judge be in case management, for instance by suggesting motions or arguments to parties?

Hope, Cynicism, and the Stories We Tell Ourselves To live with sincerity in our culture of cynicism is a difficult dance — one that comes easily only to the very young and the very old. The rest of us are left to tussle with two polarizing forces ripping the psyche asunder by beckoning to it from opposite directions — critical thinking and hope. Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naïveté. Finding fault and feeling hopeless about improving the situation produces resignation — cynicism is both resignation’s symptom and a futile self-protection mechanism against it. A plant needs water in order to survive, and needs the right amount of water in order to thrive. Let’s consider for a moment the notion of an un-false view of the world — the journalistic ideal of capital-T truth. The twentieth century was both the golden age of mass media and a century marked by two world wars, the Great Depression, the AIDS crisis, and a litany of genocides.

Free typing lessons, lots of typing games and typing test Glossary of Critical Thinking Terms Glossary: A-B accurate: Free from errors, mistakes, or distortion. Correct connotes little more than absence of error; accurate implies a positive exercise of one to obtain conformity with fact or truth; exact stresses perfect conformity to fact, truth, or some standard; precise suggests minute accuracy of detail. Accuracy is an important goal in critical thinking, though it is almost always a matter of degree. It is also important to recognize that making mistakes is an essential part of learning and that it is far better that students make their own mistakes, than that they parrot the thinking of the text or teacher. It should also be recognized that some distortion usually results whenever we think within a point of view or frame of reference. ambiguous: A sentence having two or more possible meanings. analyze: To break up a whole into its parts, to examine in detail so as to determine the nature of, to look more deeply into an issue or situation. authority: Back to top Glossary: C

A Code of Conduct for Effective Rational Discussion — LimbicNutrition The Fallibility Principle When alternative positions on any disputed issue are under review, each participant in the discussion should acknowledge that possibly none of the positions presented is deserving of acceptance and that, at best, only one of them is true or the most defensible position. Therefore, it is possible that thorough examination of the issue will reveal that one’s own initial position is a false or indefensible one. The Truth-Seeking Principle Each participant should be committed to the task of earnestly searching for the truth or at least the most defensible position on the issue at stake. The Clarity Principle The formulations of all positions, defences, and attacks should be free of any kind of linguistic confusion and clearly separated from other positions and issues. The Burden of Proof Principle The burden of proof for any position usually rests on the participant who sets forth the position. The Principle of Charity The Relevance Principle The Acceptability Principle

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