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Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life (2nd Edition) ReviewThis book is woefully inadequate as a text for a critical thinking course. What are we to make of a critical thinking text that says almost nothing about objective truth, the central role of argument in critical thinking, the distinction between inductive and deductive arguments, the distinction between truth and validity, or which does not even mention any of the standard deductive forms of argument?Furthermore, the authors do not seem to know how their "Standards for Thinking" apply to their own work. Just a few examples should suffice: (i) One of their standards is fairness. Yet in the chapter entitled "Develop as an Ethical Reasoner," the authors spend three pages laying out the arguments of PETA against the use of animals in medical experimentation, but barely a paragraph presenting the argument in favor of such experimentation. This hardly seems fair-minded to me. It would seem that, for them, being "fair-minded" involves closely arguing one's own position, but ignoring the arguments of your opponent. (One wonders if they themselves are members of PETA. But, if they are, shouldn't they admit this for the sake of honesty and complete disclosure? Or is it only bias when someone else does it?) (ii) Another of their standards is that of depth. The problem here is that they do not seem to have read the individuals whom they quote so approvingly with any depth. They repeatedly quote William Graham Sumner as an advocate of critical thinking, but seem oblivious to the fact that he is best known for his ethical relativism---a position that they themselves seem to repudiate in their chapter on ethical reasoning. Perhaps they would have discovered this for themselves had they read beyond the first 20 pages in Sumner's book, Folkways. (iii) The authors present contradictory positions in the space of a few pages, and do not seem to even notice. On the one hand, they embrace the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as morally binding because "every nation on earth has signed the declaration." However, four pages later they condemn such practices as slavery since they were justified solely in virtue of "social convention." What they do not seem to realize is that their justification of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is itself based solely on social convention. Simply because it was signed by every nation on the face of the earth (itself a questionable claim)does not make it morally right or morally binding.
As a critical thinking instructor, I would be loath to recommend this book to anyone as anything other than an instructive failure. As a useful alternative, I would suggest Moore and Parker's Critical Thinking. It is much more comprehensive and more in keeping with representative views in the field.Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life (2nd Edition) OverviewCritical Thinking is about becoming a better thinker in every aspect of your life: in your career, and as a consumer, citizen, friend, parent, and lover. Discover the core skills of effective thinking; then analyze your own thought processes, identify weaknesses, and overcome them. Learn how to translate more effective thinking into better decisions, less frustration, more wealth Ñ and above all, greater confidence to pursue and achieve your most important goals in life.
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