This book is very
much down the philosophy end of the psychology-philosophy spectrum although it
is littered with psychological insights. International Baccalaureate teachers
would instantly recognise this book as being about part of the Theory of
Knowledge course. For others, to describe it as being about critical thinking
is the most useful way of explaining its contents.

The author has led
an interesting life having been a social caseworker, an industrial engineer and
a humanities professor. The main thrust of his published work has been about
our need to use our faculty of reason rather than unthinkingly adopt the
opinions and beliefs of others. He is very concerned that so many of us can be
so easily persuaded by advertising, television in particular but also the media
in general and how we literally thoughtlessly absorb ideas and values from
other people. This book is the latest in a series on that general theme, the
earliest being his 1971 Elements of
Rhetoric.

The book is made
up of an introduction, seven chapters, an appendix, a set of scholarly endnotes
and a good bibliography. The book is clearly intended for an audience of people
who are prepared to be self-critical. The introduction starts with an attack on
the American education system. He argues that the system has failed its
students for the past hundred years or so by insisting that students ingest
‘facts’ from their teachers and then regurgitate them in the form of answers to
multiple choice questions or, at best, in essay form although even here it is
desirable for students to merely parrot what their teachers have given them.
The author argues that students have not been encouraged to use their brains to
solve problems or to resolve issues. He goes on to give the background to this
undesirable situation. He makes a good case for blaming the movement he labels
‘Positivism’ and its offshoots Social Darwinism and Hereditarianism. He argues
that these have created an atmosphere in which education has treated children
as containers to be filled with facts and in which their intelligence has been
viewed as a fixed and quantifiable entity rather than as something to be developed.
He links this attack on Positivism with an equally strong assault on
Romanticism which he blames for what he regards as an excessive reliance on
feelings and an obsession with subjectivity. He cogently argues that these
polar opposite views have together made the American educational system into an
unhealthy amalgam of rote memorisation and a baseless feel-good factor. His
seven chapters then go about demolishing this amalgam and suggesting an
alternative model.

The first chapter,
‘Understanding Thinking’, tries to clear the undergrowth by clarifying what it
really means to think. He reveals the axioms underlying his argument: truth is
objective rather than subjective and discovered rather than created; if two
statements are mutually contradictory, one must be false; the human mind is
fallible; ideas have consequences. He then proceeds to look at the reflective,
creative and critical dimensions of thinking. The second chapter, ‘Overcoming
Obstacles’, deals with those factors which hinder true thinking: egocentrism,
the mine-is-better perspective, self-serving bias, inflated self-esteem, face
saving, mental sloth, gullibility/conformity, bias for the majority or
minority, bias for or against change, preconceptions, reliance on feelings and
first impressions, etc. The third chapter, ‘Resisting Manipulation’, first
looks at the how the media dupe us for much of the time and then goes on to
look in detail at how we are manipulated: repetition, the bandwagon technique,
slogans, stacking the deck, etc.  The
fourth chapter, ‘Testing Ideas’, is all about distinguishing fact from opinion
and how to weigh up evidence. The fifth chapter, ‘Recognizing Errors in
Reasoning’, is a list of some of the major fallacies in reasoning:
oversimplification, false analogy, the straw man, etc. The sixth chapter,
‘Analyzing Arguments’, is about deductive reasoning i.e. the use of syllogisms,
although the author does not use that technical term, to produce a conclusion
which, so long as the premises are true and the conclusion logically follows
from those premises, is also true. Chapter seven, ‘Making Ethical Judgments’,
sees the author wading into the extremely difficult territory of moral
judgments and trying, with some success, to come up with a set of guidelines.
Finally, the appendix, ‘Making Discussion Meaningful’, is a list of practical
do’s and don’ts: leave egotism and personal agendas at the door, contribute but
don’t dominate, etc.

The author
obviously deliberately sets out to avoid technical jargon although this is
sometimes rather irritating. If he is happy to call parts one and two of a
deductive argument ‘premises’ and the third part the ‘conclusion’, why does he
not tell us that this type of argument is called a syllogism? However, that is
a very small complaint because the author is clearly aiming at the general
public and he does not want to overwhelm them with jargon. Likewise, he avoids
any mention of Kant’s categorical imperative although that clearly lies behind
the chapter on making ethical judgments. The author has tried to steer a course
between the Scylla of producing a trite and superficial book on the one hand
and, on the other hand, the Charybdis of bringing out another technical
philosophical treatise on logic. He has to a large extent, in the opinion of
the reviewer, succeeded in that attempt. Teachers of the International
Baccalaureate course Theory of Knowledge will find this book an invaluable
source of material for the logic section precisely because it covers all the
major aspects while eschewing the technical jargon. The book would also form an
excellent companion to an American High School elective on good thinking
habits. The general reader who is looking for a non-technical book to help
her/him refine her/his thinking skills would do well to put this book on the
shopping list.

When the book goes
into its second edition, it could do with some careful proof reading as some
typos have crept in. For example, on page 13, line 6 it should read ‘same’
rather than ‘shame’ and on the same page line 20 it should read ‘than’ rather
than ‘that’. Hopefully the book will get its second edition so that these minor
blemishes can be removed. It deserves a wide readership.

Kevin M. Purday is Head of the Cambridge International High School in Jordan and recently completed the Philosophy & Ethics of Mental Health course in the Philosophy Dept. at the University of Warwick.

Categories: General, SelfHelp