Professional Documents
Culture Documents
All thinkers have their share of frustration: confusion, mental blocks, false starts and failures. These happen to everyone. Good thinkers, however, have learned strategies for dealing with their frustrations.
Tend to trust their reasoning and to have confidence in themselves Maintain a critical attitude throughout the problem-solving process
Tend to distrust their reasoning and lack confidence in themselves Lack a critical attitude and take too much for granted
These differences are matters of skill (not personality). If you have not yet learned to use the strategies of the good thinker, begin practicing.
5/9/2011
Exercise
For each of the following statements, write a brief response (one or two sentences) stating your position and explaining why you hold it.
Truth is an intensely personal matter: What is true for me is not necessarily true for you. We know ourselves better than others know us. One must live the way one thinks or end up thinking the way one has lived. Obey your thirst!
3. Resistance to change
This is the tendency to reject new ideas and new ways of seeing or doing without examining them fairly. Some causes of our tendency to resist change: Simple laziness Routine Excessive regard for tradition Insecurity We must not embrace every new idea uncritically, BUT we must be open to any idea, willing to suspend judgement long enough to test it, and readiness to accept it if it proves itself.
5/9/2011
4. Conformity
Harmful conformity is an act of cowardice, a sacrificing of independence for a lesser good. There is need for the courage to say No, to be different, to choose for yourself. Once we begin to conform, we quickly find ourselves saying and doing not what we believe is best, but what we believe others want or expect us to say and do. This dulls our ability to CT. It is not always easy to avoid conformity since friends, relatives and colleagues can exert considerable pressure on us. The right way to fight conformity is to choose for yourself, whether or not your choice agrees with others choices having the courage to be different, if that is the correct way.
Is this courage?
Take for example the following news story printed in a national newspaper.
The story Belgrade, Oct. 27 A few moments before she should have appeared on the stage at the Lioubliana Theatre last night, Mme. Alla Behr, a Slovene actress, was found hanging dead in her dressing-room. The reason for the suicide is unknown. The facts After the first act. Not at the Lioubliana, but the Klaegenfurt. Her name, Ella Beer. Not Slovene but Viannese. Not in her dressing-room but in her hotel. The reason was known.
5/9/2011
7. Oversimplifying
Insufficient focus. Not appreciating the importance of the matter / what is at stake. Give matters the importance that is due to them. Consequence of human and supernatural maturity.
8. Hasty conclusions
Conclude only when you are sure that a sound argument is valid, true and relevant.
Ponder. Count on past experience. Seek advice. Take your time. Be prudent.
9. Unwarranted assumption
To assume is to take something for granted, to expect that things will be a certain way because they have been that way in the past, or because we want them to be that way. This is natural and reasonable, even if on occasion they late prove incorrect. However, while refining problems and issues, it is better to make no assumptions at all.
5/9/2011
Some of the assumptions that occur and interfere with critical thinking include the following:
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Others familiar with the problem or issue will share your enthusiasm for the solution. Instead, people usually have their own preferred solution, opinion, ... Small imperfections in your solution will not affect peoples acceptance of it. Many times, subconsciously, they are looking for an excuse to reject your solution. If the solution is clear to you, it will be clear to others.Your understanding does not constitute clarity. The people who stand to benefit most from your solution will accept it automatically without any persuasion on your part.
NB:
If ever there is a lack of harmony then seek to reconcile the information.