Is negativity critical, cool, and courageous?

[coberst]

Is negativity critical, cool, and courageous?

 

‘To be negative’ is not the same as ‘to be critical’.

 

The dictionary has many definitions for the word “critical”, but I would choose the critical (decisive) meaning, as regarding learning, to be—exercising or involving careful judgment or judicious evaluation.

 

A negative persona is an attitude of non-acceptance.

 

I think that part of the problem is that too many of us have only an accept button and a reject button.

 

Accept or reject are not the only options one has. The most important and generally overlooked, especially by the young, is the option to ‘hold’.

 

It appears to me that many young people consider that ‘to be negative is to be cool’. This leads them into responding that “X is false” when responding to any statement that “X is true”.

 

When a person takes a public position affirming or denying the truth of Y they are often locking themselves into a difficult position. If their original position was based on opinion rather than judgment their ego will not easily allow them to change position once they have studied and analyzed Y.

 

The moral of this story is that holding a default position of ‘reject or accept’, when we are ignorant, is not smart because our ego will fight any attempt to modify the opinion with a later judgment. Silence, or questions directed at comprehending the matter under consideration, is the smart decision for everyone’s default position.

 

By hold I mean ‘not making any decision until due diligence has been executed’.

 

Our options are reject, accept, and hold. I claim that ‘hold’ is the most important and should be the most often used because everyone is ignorant of almost everything.

 

Do you accept, reject, or hold judgment regarding my claim?

[lemit]

Reject.

 

Even though I haven't been a college student in many years, I still have some contact with them. But I don't think that's my reason. I think I just don't like being boxed in by logical constructs.

 

You give two choices that will reflect positively on the responder. I can do what you say is the intelligent thing to do, or I can agree with your opinion of what is the intelligent thing to do. That gives me a feeling of having my choices spoon-fed to me and causes me, as a distinct and thinking human, not to withhold judgment, but rather to avoid that particular intellectual vortex.

 

Your post contains very interesting logic. I'm sorry I have to reject it.

 

--lemit

[Kriminal99]

Reject. I cannot adopt the behavior you ask until the root problem is dealt with.

 

If I hold judgment on a claim, the less knowledgeable observer among us will falsely conclude that I have accepted, and that the claim was correct and superior to anything I could say. In addition people often proceed as if the claim was valid and true and are less receptive to any counterargument I might present in the future.

 

However more often than not it is the case that a person has simply reformed a problem to which I already know the answer, and I must simply translate the problem to one that I know how to answer. Often, they do such a thing with the purposeful intent of getting me to hold just long enough to give everyone the false impression that their claim was valid, and that I have nothing to say about it.

 

I find that If I reject using my best understanding of the problem so far, I can later extend that understanding and deal with any future counterarguments. If I hold on the problem, no one will listen when I develop that further understanding.

 

This is more of an issue with in person communication though. (Which is why I like forums better for this sort of thing)

[coberst]

It is true that silence is assumed to be consent or complete apathy by those who think that there are only two options.

 

How do we deal with this dilemma? We can declare with great energy that we are not accepting or rejecting the statement but are holding until further evidence is gathered. Such a course of action takes a great deal of effort and one cannot spend their day doing just this sort of action.

 

If we do take this action we can very easily cause everyone who knows us to quickly learn that we are an above average thinker and they will soon learn that our silence does not mean either acceptance or rejection. I think that it may be worth while for those we consider worth the effort to learn that we are not your average uncritical thinker. Who knows, maybe we might advance the general level of sophistication of our circle of friends.

[Ioes]

By hold I mean ‘not making any decision until due diligence has been executed’.

by who's standards?

the person's who is making the decision?

if so then the option hold is always chosen, when applicable, thus not really making it a choice.

as for accept/reject, you can't ask people to choose from the two, if someone happens to pick one, it's because people usually tend to respond questions with an answer from the given options.

[coberst]

by who's standards?

the person's who is making the decision?

if so then the option hold is always chosen, when applicable, thus not really making it a choice.

as for accept/reject, you can't ask people to choose from the two, if someone happens to pick one, it's because people usually tend to respond questions with an answer from the given options.

 

Critical Thinking is the art and science of good judgment. One must slowly develop their own standard of good judgment as they seek to become intellectually sophisticated.

 

The first step toward solving our problems is to learn CT (Critical Thinking).

 

CT is an acronym for Critical Thinking. Everybody considers themselves to be a critical thinker. That is why we need to differentiate among different levels of critical thinking.

 

Most people fall in the category that I call Reagan thinkers—trust but verify. Then there are those who have taken the basic college course taught by the philosophy dept that I call Logic 101. This is a credit course that teaches the basic principles of reasoning. Of course, a person need not take the college course and can learn the matter on their own effort, but I suspect few do that.

 

The third level I call CT (Critical Thinking). CT includes the knowledge of Logic 101 and also the knowledge that focuses upon the intellectual character and attitude of critical thinking. It includes knowledge regarding the ego and social centric forces that impede rational thinking.

 

Most decisions we have to make are judgment calls. A judgment call is made when we must make a decision when there is no “true” or “false” answers. When we make a judgment call our decision is bad, good, or better.

 

Many factors are involved: there are the available facts, assumptions, skills, knowledge, and especially personal experience and attitude. I think that the two most important elements in the mix are personal experience and attitude.

 

When we study math we learn how to use various algorithms to facilitate our skill in dealing with quantities. If we never studied math we could deal with quantity on a primary level but our quantifying ability would be minimal. Likewise with making judgments; if we study the art and science of good judgment we can make better decisions and if we never study the art and science of judgment our decision ability will remain minimal.

 

I am convinced that a fundamental problem we have in this country (USA) is that our citizens have never learned the art and science of good judgment. Before the recent introduction of CT into our schools and colleges our young people have been taught primarily what to think and not how to think. All of us graduated with insufficient comprehension of the knowledge, skills, and attitude necessary for the formulation of good judgment. The result of this inability to make good judgment is evident and is dangerous.

 

I am primarily interested in the judgment that adults exercise in regard to public issues. Of course, any improvement in judgment generally will affect both personal and community matters.

 

To put the matter into a nut shell:

1. Normal men and women can significantly improve their ability to make judgments.

2. CT is the domain of knowledge that delineates the knowledge, skills, and intellectual character demanded for good judgment.

3. CT has been introduced into our schools and colleges slowly in the last two or three decades.

4. Few of today’s adults were ever taught CT.

5. I suspect that at least another two generations will pass before our society reaps significant rewards resulting from teaching CT to our children.

6. Can our democracy survive that long?

7. I think that every effort must be made to convince today’s adults that they need to study and learn CT on their own. I am not suggesting that adults find a teacher but I am suggesting that adults become self-actualizing learners.

8. I am convinced that learning the art and science of Critical Thinking is an important step toward becoming a better citizen in today’s democratic society.

 

 

 

Bertrand Russell on Critical Thinking

 

“ABSTRACT: The ideal of critical thinking is a central one in Russell's philosophy, though this is not yet generally recognized in the literature on critical thinking. For Russell, the ideal is embedded in the fabric of philosophy, science, liberalism and rationality, and this paper reconstructs Russell's account, which is scattered throughout numerous papers and books. It appears that he has developed a rich conception, involving a complex set of skills, dispositions and attitudes, which together delineate a virtue which has both intellectual and moral aspects. It is a view which is rooted in Russell's epistemological conviction that knowledge is difficult but not impossible to attain, and in his ethical conviction that freedom and independence in inquiry are vital. Russell's account anticipates many of the insights to be found in the recent critical thinking literature, and his views on critical thinking are of enormous importance in understanding the nature of educational aims. Moreover, it is argued that Russell manages to avoid many of the objections which have been raised against recent accounts. With respect to impartiality, thinking for oneself, the importance of feelings and relational skills, the connection with action, and the problem of generalizability, Russell shows a deep understanding of problems and issues which have been at the forefront of recent debate.” 20th WCP: Bertrand Russell on Critical Thinking

[Ioes]

Critical Thinking is...

why thank you for that lecture.

allow me to retort.

A red herring is an idiom referring to a device which intends to divert the audience from the truth or an item of significance. For example, in mystery fiction, an innocent party may be purposefully cast as highly suspect through emphasis or descriptive techniques; attention is drawn away from the true guilty party.

In a literal sense, there is no such fish species as a "red herring"; rather it refers to a particularly strong kipper, meaning a fish—typically a herring but not always—that has been strongly cured in brine and/or heavily smoked. This process makes the fish particularly pungent smelling and turns its flesh red (and makes it very noticeable, notably for the idiom). This term, in its literal sense as a type of kipper, can be dated to the late Middle Ages, as quoted here c1400 Femina (Trin-C B.14.40) 27: "He eteþ no ffyssh But heryng red." Samuel Pepys used it in his diary entry of 28 February 1660 "Up in the morning, and had some red herrings to our breakfast, while my boot-heel was a-mending, by the same token the boy left the hole as big as it was before."

The idiomatic sense of "red herring" has, until very recently, been thought to originate from a supposed technique of training young scent hounds. There are variations of the story, but according to one version, the pungent red herring would be dragged along a trail until a puppy learned to follow the scent. Later, when the dog was being trained to follow the faint odour of a fox or a badger, the trainer would drag a red herring (whose strong scent confuses the animal) perpendicular to the animal's trail to confuse the dog. The dog would eventually learn to follow the original scent rather than the stronger scent. An alternate etymology points to escaping convicts who would use the pungent fish to throw off hounds in pursuit.

In reality, the technique was probably never used to train hounds or help desperate criminals. The idiom probably originates from an article published 14 February, 1807 by journalist William Cobbett in the polemical Weekly Political Register. In a critique of the English press, which had mistakenly reported Napoleon's defeat, Cobbett recounted that he had once used a red herring to deflect hounds in pursuit of a hare, adding "It was a mere transitory effect of the political red-herring; for, on the Saturday, the scent became as cold as a stone." As British etymologist Michael Quinion says, "This story, and [Cobbett's] extended repetition of it in 1833, was enough to get the figurative sense of red herring into the minds of his readers, unfortunately also with the false idea that it came from some real practice of huntsmen."

 

if you had presented an argument, I would have pasted this article instead:

Ignoratio elenchi (also known as irrelevant conclusion or irrelevant thesis) is the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question. "Ignoratio elenchi" can be roughly translated by ignorance of refutation, that is, ignorance of what a refutation could logically be; "elenchi" (genitive singular of the Latin elenchus) is from the Greek ἔλεγχος, meaning an argument of disproof or refutation.

 

if you fail to understand how this relates to the discussion at hand, please do respond to this post and not my original one.

[Kriminal99]

I agree with coberst, but I think that the ideas that would be useful towards getting people to think rationally can be refined into a very small, clear cut subset of their current state. A sort of theory of humanity that is as precise as our current understanding of mathematics.

 

The problem now with rational thinking is the same one that all philosophy has always faced, which is there is no objective means to say "This is the right answer, lets find better ways to explain it" and instead there is only a huge blobby mess of conflicting ideas that are not very refined or agreed upon. I feel that the best ideas in philosophy are paved over by later generations using inferior arguments that are no longer recognized to be so under the guise of "modern philosophy".

 

With all these mixed and confusing signals, I feel that people just refrain from thinking about it unless they have a natural inclination to do so.

 

I already know of a few such relatively small arguments that could have a large impact on people's thinking skills if they were properly understood.

 

Preparedness/Enjoyment of life: It may be true that there is no purpose to life other than life itself, but dealing with physical problems so that we can continue enjoying our life requires objectivity. Thus it is better to suffer minimally to become comfortable with objectivity so that we can enjoy life while observing it than it is to suffer greatly at the hands of physical problems because objectivity was forsaken.

 

Truth/What is knowledge: The only objective truth is when we cannot disprove something we believe, despite being completely open to any way to do so or any opposing arguments. You cannot be sure what you think is true if you are afraid to look at contradictory evidence or arguments.

 

What of Coherent belief sets: Large coherent belief sets are not unique in their ability to represent the physical world, and may be incomplete and contain contradictions with additional aspects of the physical world. Thus we should be ready to shift them into something else (and understand how to do this) in order to accommodate additional information.

 

Logical thinking: The use of metaphors and imagery may be useful in creating reactions in other people, but they are not useful in constructing a practical understanding of the world around us. We should spend more time creating concepts by observing and comparing various situations than we do relating concepts through metaphor.

[SamSpeedo]

Negativity is no, I'm positive.

[coberst]

A person can walk the corridors of any big city hospital and observe the effectiveness of human rationality in action. One can also visit the UN building in NYC or read the morning papers and observe just how ineffective, frustrating and disappointing human rationality can be. Why does human reason perform so well in some matters and so poorly in others?

 

We live in two very different worlds; a world of technical and technological order and clarity, and a world of personal and social disorder and confusion. We are increasingly able to solve problems in one domain and increasingly endangered by our inability to solve problems in the other.

 

Normal science is successful primarily because it is a domain of knowledge controlled by paradigms. The paradigm defines the standards, principles and methods of the discipline. It is not apparent to the laity but science moves forward in small incremental steps. Science seldom seeks and almost never produces major novelties.

 

Science solves puzzles. The logic of the paradigm insulates the professional group from problems that are unsolvable by that paradigm. One reason that science progresses so rapidly and with such assurance is because the logic of that paradigm allows the practitioners to work on problems that only their lack of ingenuity will keep them from solving.

 

Science uses instrumental rationality to solve puzzles. Instrumental rationality is a systematic process for reflecting upon the best action to take to reach an established end. The obvious question becomes ‘what mode of rationality is available for determining ends?’ Instrumental rationality appears to be of little use in determining such matters as “good” and “right”.

 

There is a striking difference between the logic of technical problems and that of dialectical problems. The principles, methods and standards for dealing with technical problems and problems of “real life” are as different as night and day. Real life problems cannot be solved only using deductive and inductive reasoning.

 

Dialectical reasoning methods require the ability to slip quickly between contradictory lines of reasoning. One needs skill to develop a synthesis of one point of view with another. Where technical matters are generally confined to only one well understood frame of reference real life problems become multi-dimensional totalities.

 

When we think dialectically we are guided by principles not by procedures. Real life problems span multiple categories and academic disciplines. We need point-counter-point argumentation; we need emancipatory reasoning to resolve dialectical problems. We need critical thinking skills and attitudes to resolve real life problems.

[HydrogenBond]

Negativity is analogous to deconstructionism. We can take something apart, piece by piece or use a bulldozer and knock it down. The first can be useful, since it can show how things are built and connected, as well as expose deeper layers that are hidden beneath the facade. The bulldozer or sledge hammer approach is different, since it doesn't preserve or recycle and is not useful for rebuilding, using the same components.

 

The second type of deconstructionism is so easy even a child can do it. One can spend days building a puzzle and a two year old can break it apart in seconds. But this is not a controlled break apart. It is done without any logical order; impulsive.

 

The first type of deconstructionism, by removing piece by piece or even larger sections of the puzzle, is more thoughtful, and offers the possibility of reassembly. The small child can't rebuild but can only break.

 

If we compare the two, being able to take apart the puzzle in a controlled way implies one needs to understand how it is assembled. The deeper one can go, the more they can learn about the foundation of the structure. The impulsive deconstruction of a child does not require this same level of understanding. He only has to use enough impulsive force for to do the job.

[coberst]

Sounds about right to me. On one hand we have negativity and on the other we have Critical Thinking.

[clapstyx]

The difficulty with...no "A" difficulty with philosophy is that while from time to time new concepts are released which advance the mind (say socrates for example) once thinking goes to that level and then advances the concept becomes virtually useless because its had its day. In response to "Is negativity critical,cool and courageous?" I doubt its either of them. In my humble experience it is easier to be negative than positive because it just seems to take less mental effort, less imagination. Maybe its just a modern glitch Im not sure. The other thing is that if one proposes a change to the status quo mostly the response is based on the downside rather than the upside. I dont personally see anything cool or courageous in that because its just a damn nuisance to advancing a conversation past whats already been thought about and into a realm of thinking in the moment.