hi everyone this is the lecture to accompany chapter 1 in your textbook please read chapter 1 carefully as there's a lot of information in it that I simply don't have time to address in this lecture okay let's find out exactly what critical thinking is the word critical is often used to mean fault finding or negative as in why do you have to be so critical of everything I say but in philosophy in Academia the term critical thinking means something very different it means to think clearly and intelligently by using skilled judgment and observation it's discipline thinking that is governed by specific and clear intellectual standards critical thinking is not natural it is learned I like to describe humans as walking bundles of emotions and feelings with the occasional thought thrown in how often do you hear someone say or maybe you your your say this when asked about a controversial topic well I feel like and then go on to describe your thoughts and opinions on that topic you feel like but what do you think for the next week listen carefully when people are giving you their opinion they are very likely to say they feel something rather than think it since feeling is natural and thinking is hard this class is likely to make your brain hurt at least sometimes but but if you apply yourself you're going to learn to think more clearly and rationally see through really bad arguments and become a better writer and speaker and maybe make a difference in the world and that is certainly something to strive for so let's take a look at what we're going to be striving for in this class what are the intellectual standards that we seek first Clarity we need to understand exactly what is being expressed what exact ly as this person's saying sometimes people can be very vague and state things in a way that can be misunderstood or interpreted in a variety of different ways your job when looking at the claims that others make is to determine exactly what they are saying your job when making claims of your own is to be very very clear in your language second precision exactness and attention to detail what exactly is the problem what exactly are the potential solutions to that problem and what exactly are the benefits and drawbacks of those Solutions third is accuracy I love what the book says about this no matter how brilliant you may be you're almost guaranteed to make bad decisions based on false information we've seen the rise of fake news sites on the internet over the past few years sadly many people use that false information to come to conclusions and that can lead to really bad decisions make sure your information is true accurate timely and from good solid sources fourth relevance sticking to the point not segueing to another point to distract from the issue in question again this is very common particularly in political discussions where a politician doesn't answer a direct question but instead moves the conversation to a different topic that they want to discuss fifth consistency there is practical consistency where your ideas and your behavior match and then there's logical consistency where your beliefs are consistent with each other in the World At Large however you'll see a lot of hypocrisy where people say one thing but do another and irrational inconsistent thinking honing your critical thinking skills will make it easier to see these things in yourself and in others sixth logical correctness to think critically we need to be able to reason accurately from our claims and beliefs to come to good solid sound conclusions using good evidence seventh completeness thinking is always better if one takes the time to explore all aspects of an issue don't jump to conclusions based on limited evidence and finally fairness being open-minded impartial and non-biased this is extremely difficult for many people none of us like to be wrong and we fight and justify to maintain our ideas even though many of those ideas are based on false or misleading information we all have biases we tend to stereotype people who are not like us we identify what we call truth to be a part of our group's ideas but good critical thinking skills help us to see our own biases and recognize that fair-mindedness is essential you're a community college student and your main goal here is probably to get a good grade in this class use that good grade to get your degree and use that degree to get a good job or a better job than the one you have now if you're planning on being a journalist or a writer or an educator you definitely need this class but the author of this textbook make a really good point about what a liberal arts education is really for to teach you how to live well in order to do that you'll need good critical thinking skills so you can look at your beliefs make sure they make sense and are based on logical rational thought and good evidence look at and evaluate the ideas of others around you develop a belief system that's based in reality and leads to an ethical and meaningful life it's a big job but it's your job job and it's my job to help you but of course you will be using these skills in the workplace good critical thinking skills will help you solve problems think creatively analyze information and draw appropriate conclusions and then communicate those ideas clearly and accurately any employer would be thrilled to have someone with those skills working for them in life we often make decisions based on feelings rather than rational thought good critical thinking skills can help help us avoid bad personal decisions make more informed political decisions and just generally have a better life so what gets in the way of good critical thinking Being Human that's right humans are complex creatures with lots of mental barriers that get in the way of clear thinking let's look at some of them the first is egocentrism or self centeredness since it's easy and natural to see things from our own perspective and very difficult to try to see things in any other way all of us are egocentric to at least some degree the world actually does revolve around us or at least our little piece of the world does however even though it's a natural thing to be somewhat entric it really does get in the way of good critical thinking self-interested thinking is the tendency to accept and defend beliefs that harmonize with one's areas of self-interest for instance if you're business owner you might think a reduction of business taxes is a great thing because it would mean you specifically would pay less taxes if that's your main reason for wanting it though then that's egocentric I'm not saying it's not a good thing what I'm saying here is that we tend to want things that affect us positively despite the fact that they may affect others negatively another way in which we are egocentric is through the superiority bias this is a very common TR even if you don't think you have it you probably do at least in some respect for instance are you a better than average driver you probably think so 80% of people report that they are better than average at driving but wait a minute how can 80% of people be better than average only 50% of people can actually be better than average so at least 30% of those people are wrong which 30% not you of course see where I'm going with this we can't all be superior but we think that we are another thing that gets in the way of good critical thinking is group centered thinking as a species we tend to relate more to others who look like us talk like us think like us it's a survival mechanism that we've used for Millennia we were more likely to survive if we grouped together those group identities remain very strong to this very day and lead to things like group bias and conformism group bias is the tendency to see our group as Superior to all other groups this could be our nation our race our family our political affiliation our religion or any other group to which we belong we see people who do not fit into our group as Outsiders and are more likely to treat them with suspicion conformism is our tendency to follow our crowd to do what they do in order to be accepted the book gives two very disturbing examples of this tendency the first one is Ash's line experiment where he showed test subjects a line of a certain length then gave them three other lines and asked them which of those three lines was the same length as the first line he'd shown them now if they were by themselves almost all of them picked the correct answer however if they were with someone else and that someone else was a person whose secret job it was to convince them that they were wrong almost a third of them were convinced to pick the wrong answer so we can obviously be swayed by others an even more disturbing example is milgram's shock experiment you can read about it in the text but the gist of it was that perfectly nice normal people like you and me were coerced into giving what they thought were potentially deadly electric shocks to other people now you might think that you would never do that but you would probably be wrong something to think about unwarranted assumptions and stereotypes assumptions are beliefs that we hold about things that we simply accept as true we've never had any proof that they were true we just believe them we take them for granted and we don't really think about them very much much of our day is passed on us acting on assumptions so they can certainly be necessary and useful if they are warranted and that means based on good reasons however unwarranted assumptions are not based on good reasons some of our assumptions are based on stereotypes this is where we draw conclusions about individual people not based on their individual qualities or characteristics but instead based on what we think is true about the groups to which they belong and how do we arrive at stereotypes about groups often through a fallacy of reasoning known as Hasty generalization and that means coming to conclusion based on two little evidence so it's kind of a cognitive circle of error we draw a conclusion about a group based on the examples of one or two people and then we apply that conclusion to every other individual in that group so as you can see it might be a good idea to rethink our ideas about other groups as they're often based on assumptions that we've simply accepted as facts relativistic thinking is another way that we subvert critical thinking it's the view that truth is a matter of opinion that what's true for one person may not be true for another person and that's okay now in this day and age of people on totally opposite sides of the opinion Spectrum you might need to agree to disagree with a friend or relative in order to keep the peace but that's not what I'm talking about here is the truth a matter of opinion if you think so you're guilty of subjectivism which means that the truth is objective and depends on Whose truth it is cultural relativism holds that the truth is a matter of social or cultural opinion the book uses the example of French culture which holds that drinking wine is a good thing and Iranian culture which totally forbids its use it's morally permissible in France and immoral and impermissible in Iran whose right well I certainly wouldn't want to get into an argument on that point obviously most people don't think that all truth is relative but many people do in some areas but just because ethical questions are difficult to argue that doesn't mean that we should assume that what's true is totally dependent on an individual's beliefs why is that well let's look relativism doesn't promote tolerance you might think that it does as in Live and Let Live but look at it this way if you live in an intolerant Society you are therefore morally obligated to be an intolerant person and it makes it impossible for us to look at our own culture and point out things that we see as unacceptable but are considered by a majority of citizens to be right cultural relativism states that we should go along with the majority even if we're very troubled by doing that because it's part of our culture and that's the way we do things and it also makes it impossible to point out or criticize other cultures customs and beliefs like say slavery or female genital mutilation or child marriage because of course if that culture thinks it's morally correct who are we to say otherwise the fact that there are deep disagreements in ethics does not mean that there is no objective moral truth ethics is not just a matter of opinion think about it people vehemently disagree about questions like is there a god is there life after death those kinds of things but just because people can't come to agreement about it that doesn't mean that there is not an objective truth about it but and this is a big but that truth cannot be determined by opinion or consensus the truth what really is what truly exists sometimes exists outside of our ability to determine it that having been said the truth about many things is discernible we know of something is true if it accurately and precisely describes some part of our world our universe ourselves we don't come to that knowledge through opinion we come to it through observation experimentation and critical thinking if nothing else we should be more intellectually humble and open-minded and willing to look at our beliefs more critically and hear the arguments of others one of the main ways in which we subvert critical thinking is through wishful thinking in other words believing what we suspect to be true or wish to be true without evidence and often despite evidence to the contrary again this error is rampant among humans to quote deanes the easiest thing of all is to deceive oneself for what a man wishes he generally believes to be true people have been inventing myths about the way they think the World works or the way it should be for Millennia and passing those ideas around look at this list of things that many people think have some truth to them a person diagnosed with a fatal disease may have such a fear of death that they turn to an alternative form of treatment that has no scientific evidence that it will work these are the lengths to which our brains will go in these circumstances doing an end run around rational thinking because we really want something to be the case or we truly believe believe that it is the case so here are some of the key intellectual traits that distinguish critical thinkers from well from everyone else on the planet they State their claims as clearly and precisely as they can to make themselves clearly understood they understand that humans are prone to thinking errors and try to avoid them they admit that they don't know everything and they don't always insist on being right they welcome criticism of their beliefs and are willing to revise those beliefs on the basis of good claims evidence and reasoning they base their beliefs on facts not on what they would like to be true they are independent thinkers they value true beliefs over comfortable ones they have perseverance and are willing to take the time to search for the truth yes it's hard I teach some fun and easy classes but this is not one of them I have to work hard to make sure I understand the concepts I teach and I'm always reviewing my notes and looking for examples of those Concepts in the real world so that I can show you how critical thinking Works in our lives and how a lack of critical thinking can be potentially damaging but the rewards that come from utilizing good critical thinking skills are worth it this is the end of the lecture on chapter one