Books on Critical Thinking | Hacker News Reader

Books on Critical Thinking

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127 pointsraleighm36 comments

I find it more productive to study logic instead. I have a hard time seeing the difference between logic and critical thinking. If you think I'm wrong, just take a look at a bunch of kinds of logic[1] and tell me if critical thinking is not subsumed into at least one of them.

I put my money on inductive logic[2].

For beginners, I recommend the wonderful Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments[3].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_logic

[2] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-inductive/

[3] https://bookofbadarguments.com/

'Logic' as a topic generally centers around processes of formal reasoning whereas critical thinking usually also discusses human cognitive biases which is not something usually covered in discussions of formal reasoning. This is important because nobody engages is formal logic all (or even most) of the time. That would be very inefficient and probably impossible. Developing the habit (which is what discussions of critical thinking often center around) of thinking critically, rather than simply understanding the process of formal reasoning is essential.

This probably depends on what people are looking for. I agree with you that developing the habit of thinking critically is important (this is ostensibly the goal a liberal arts education and was once highly valued). However, I think many on seeing the title "Books on Critical Thinking" will expect resources for learning about and improving formal reasoning. For this, there's no substitute for the study of mathematical logic and math more generally.

> there's no substitute for the study of mathematical logic and math more generally

I disagree with that account. I realize I'm on hacker news, but I must say that philosophical logic is extremely valuable in itself, and can be successfully studied without any concern for mathematics.

I actually know a bunch of brilliant mathematicians, and their reasoning skills on informal reasoning are totally average.

I think part of that is covered in Rhetoric. A good book for Rhetoric, is "Modern Rhetoric" by Robert Penn Warren and Cleanth Brookes.

Absolutely. The study of rhetoric greatly enhances our ability to identify and evaluate persuasive language. In order words, it gives us a more accurate bullshit sensor.

When I say people should study logic, I don't mean necessarily its formal presentation. If you're not a mathematician, a philosopher or a computer scientist, informal logic is more than enough (and a bit of rhetoric certainly won't hurt). Besides, you can understand a lot even if you skip the formal bits, and there are good non-formal texts on many logic topics. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy[1] is definitely more approachable than the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[2] in that regard.

I'd also like to point out that the book[3] I recommended for beginners in the comment above is entirely informal.

[1] https://www.iep.utm.edu/

[2] https://plato.stanford.edu/

[3] https://bookofbadarguments.com/

"When I say people should study logic, I don't mean necessarily its formal presentation."

If that's the case, you probably shouldn't have linked to that Wikipedia article because it's mostly about formal logic systems. Regardless, I'd usually classify studying informal fallacies more under critical thinking than logic strictly speaking. There's an entirely different set of formal logical fallacies that apply to formal logic.

I did link to a book on informal fallacies. And I do not agree with your classification. It's narrow and doesn't reflect the history of the field. Logic is a tool for mathematicians, philosophers, and computer scientists. Like any versatile tool, it can be adapted for different — but related — tasks.

On the topic: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/

I agree with your call to study logic. There is something systematically empirical about logic & epistemological philosophy[1]. Over the years,I have read a bunch of critical thinking books and have found myself wanting something at a lower level of abstraction. A recommendation based on recent reading would be "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding"[2]

[1]https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Enquiry_Concerning_Human_Un...

Did you find Hume's writing approachable? I'm skeptic by nature and always wanted to read him, but nowadays I tend to read articles instead of diving into 18th-century books...

Although I had similar apprehensions before I started reading Hume, I have found his writing approachable. For "Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", I found this edition with explanations of certain words/phrases by Jonathan Bennett very useful: https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/hume1748.pdf

Thanks!

Unfortunately "The Art of Critical Thinking" is completely plagiarized:

https://fooledbyrandomness.com/dobelli.htm

Pretty damning.

A week or two ago, in a post about books on leadership, someone posted about the US Army's ADRP 6-22 Army Leadership handbook, which I started reading. https://www.benning.army.mil/mssp/PDF/adrp6_22_new.pdf

Apparently, they keep track of terminology they deprecate in former revisions of the handbook. "Critical Thinking" being one of them as it is "No longer a formally defined term." (Page vi)

So, what does "Critical Thinking" mean to you?

For those coming here interested in learning about formal/mathematical logic, see "Teach Yourself Logic: A Study Guide" (previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18757972)

Skeptics Guide to the Universe https://www.amazon.com/Skeptics-Guide-Universe-Really-Increa...

Does anyone know of any particular critical thinking genre books, that somehow focus more on the particulars of language usage? Something that gets into things like the shortcomings of language in properly describing the complexity of reality, as well as detecting usage (both intentional and unintentional) that would indicate potential underlying rhetorical manipulation (intentional), or fallacious thinking (unintentional)?

This may be an example of the equivocation fallacy[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation

That would be one example of a fallacy.....I guess maybe what I'm trying to get at is more so something that addresses the more common (frequency of occurrence) examples of ~"imperfect communication" (fallacies &/or rhetorical techniques, intentional or not), that can be most commonly observed in modern day media, both traditional (news) and social (forums, facebook/twitter, etc).

I think you're describing a very broad scope of phenomenons. Maybe this will become clearer if you either narrow it a bit or divide them into different, more precise, cases.

Oh, very much so, the entire spectrum, but sorted by most commonly used/abused. How might one accomplish such a feat would be tough, but even something reasonable accurate with examples of usage would be interesting to read.

These might help:

https://www.iep.utm.edu/lang-phi/ https://www.iep.utm.edu/austin/#SH2b https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/

What's with fivebooks? This is the 4th link from that domain in the last 24h.

It's all spam. The book links are local but redirect to Amazon Affiliate links (and lack the required disclosure).

I'm not affiliated with that website, but it's worth noting that the footer of every page has this disclosure notice: "Five Books participates in the Amazon Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases."

Someone hired a new lazy social media manager with too many hn accounts or friends? lol

I'm not sure why they're being posted now, but I really like Five Books. You get more depth than most book aggregation websites.

I have read the art of thinking clearly, but was quite unimpressed.

It is unfortunate that Thinking Fast and Slow has received some negative feedback over the years, mostly due to questionable sources and conclusions.

https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-und...

Why is it unfortunate?

I am guessing he means it is unfortunate because it was considered a good book for critical thinking but over time people have come to realize a lot of its studies, reasoning, and arguments are flawed - but many people have already read the book without knowing that.

I've never read the book, so I don't have an opinion on it.

The link you supplied only affects a single chapter in the book, but your phrasing suggests there is more to this story...

I believe Daniel Kahnemann was asked about this in his interview to Farnam Street: https://fs.blog/daniel-kahneman/

It was refreshing how open he was to accepting that his research, even decades after its original publication, could have lapses and errors. Research, after all, builds on corpus of knowledge existing at the time, and we should expect corrections as the underlying base shifts & corrects itself.

Be careful, it's only the priming-related chapter (called 'The Associative Machine' in the book) that put "too much faith in underpowered studies". Not the entire book!

Take six months to slow-read it. The book is a synthesis of forty years of Kahneman's research and his collaboration with his late colleague, Tversky. A range of topics are covered; it still absolutely merits reading.

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