If there is a treasure house of knowledge, good learning skills are the keys to that house. Kathryn Schulz, in “Evidence”, discloses that people make mistakes, because past evidence occupies the areas of thought. Another author named Walker Percy, whose essay is “The Loss of the Creature”, voices his opinion that this prior experience severely impacts people’s ability to see and learn. People are able to learn from these mistakes and get to know the necessity of improving learning skills to judge critically, think creatively, and communicate effectively.
First of all, the skill of thinking critically is of significance for people to learn. When it comes to critical thinking, the first step to make a judicious judgment is to analyze the evidence
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Aimed at an argument, people should be active and bold, which means that no matter received resources are definitive, people are courageous to point out their suspicions on the premise that they find something wrong. Schulz reveals that people don’t only have “the tendency to give more weight to evidence that confirms our beliefs than to evidence that challenges them”(372) but also failed to see the counter-evidence(374). Accordingly, what a person should do is to be a problem-seeker to find out something he or she will disagree with, and then argue with himself or herself. Another similar situation is that a problem comes from others rather than oneself. It is necessary for people to challenge evidence, even though it is an expert’s statement. In his article, Percy divides people into two categories, experts and laymen, and wants to emphasize the authority of an expert and the inferiority of a layman(309). From my perspective, a layman is not an ignorant so he or she have the capacity to show his or her doubt and argue it. Moreover, an argument can only occur when everyone is equal and that is what most people have nowadays. Then a layman just needs to be confident and comfortable to talk with an …show more content…
A person who always stays alone could be obsessed with his or her own opinion and have trouble making a breakthrough. In order to learn from each other, a good communicating skill is required. This sort of learning process should be an interaction between people, regardless of whether there is an expert among them. I am going to illustrate Percy’s example of an expert and a layman again. Now, not only is not daring to discuss with the expert a problem, but also a lack of a communicating skill is another problem. A person should explain thoughts clearly to another person who also need to give feedback in time. An instance from Schulz’s essay implies the importance communication. “Elizabeth got into an argument with a friend about whether Orion is a winter constellation” and the result was that Elizabeth was wrong because she insisted Orion is a summer constellation(371). This lesson tells us that argument can make a person realize personal problems by exchanging ideas and get a chance to enhance
In earlier eras, philosophers have strove to think of efficient, faster ways to approach every day matters. In Schulz’s essay she brings up the point that our mind “despite of its aptitude for error-it works better than anything else” (365). Our brains have evolved over time to a way of ease and correctness even though the risk is still run of being predisposed to error. She brought up the philosopher Descartes and how he wanted to be an “ideal thinker.” This involves approaching every manner with a neutral mind and be active in finding evidence that both supports and counters a claim. It also means accepting and even altering a conclusion that was previously made. Foer on the other hand, makes the claim that our society’s ability to remember has slowly dwindled by means of outsourcing of ourselves. “Today, when we live in a deluge of printed words” we have no need to remember everything when we have tools that do it for us (164). We have phones that remember people’s names, addresses, and phone numbers. We have GPS systems that make remembering routes a thing of the
When discussing the impact of memory on daily life, Foer explains that “the average person squanders about forty days a year compensating for things he or she has forgotten… everyday there seems to be more to remember…with a memory like Ben Pridmore’s I imagined life would be more qualitatively different--and better”(MWE page 7). This point highlights how important memory truly is. With a poor memory, we struggle with recalling even the simplest of observations and events. In addition, Foer uses confirmation to persuade the reader that having a good memory has positive effects on intelligence, noting that it would make him “…more persuasive, more confident, and in some fundamental sense smarter…” as well as a “better journalist, friend, and boyfriend”(MWE page 7). Finally, through Foer’s use of confirmation, we are brought to the realization that without memory, “our world would immediately crumble”(MWE page 19), especially in a situation where “all the world’s ink [becomes] invisible and all our bytes [disappear]”( MWE pade 19). Foer successfully defends his argument that without textual aids and external means of remembering information, we as a society would lose a vast amount of knowledge solely due to our inability to successfully retain memories. These three pieces of evidence effectively confirm Joshua Foers primary claim that memory is
The thesis, or the main idea of the book, is that by using specific communication techniques, we can turn difficult discussions into productive learning conversations.
I will show that Kelly's response to the question of epistemic significance of peer disagreement is not compelling. In my explanation of Kelly's argument, I will show that it is contradictory of him to assert the first persons perspective and the right reasons view. I will then examine the third person perspective, and show that this is more compatible with the right reasons view. Nevertheless I will propose an objection in the form of a question. Specifically, why should the difference between first person and third person change my thinking skeptically? Would this view only be attractive from the third person view? The third person perspective, the right reasons view as Kelly explains it, plus what I will call external Validation of a belief makes a more compelling argument.
…the character [ethos] of the speaker is a cause of persuasion when the speech is so uttered as to make him worthy of belief, for as a rule we trust men of probity more, and more quickly, about things in general, while on points outside the realm of exact knowledge, where opinion is divided, we trust them absolutely (qtd. in Haskins 44).
Clifford’s arguments for this conclusion is that if we are gullible enough to believe something without evidence then we are not only harming our individual credibility and intellect but also polluting the rest of society...
Critical thinking provides an opportunity to explore the positive and negative sides of an argument for and against an idea, theory or notion. Reasoning and perception is attuned to personal impression and provides outcome to belief and opinion.
...ools and skills for skeptical thinking that are essential to survive in society today, many of which rely on critical thinking and common sense. In order for someone to be able to discern between true and false, right and wrong, they must be able to discuss the hypothesis, ignore any position of power, cast aside personal attachment to the subject or hypothesis, create a sound argument, have an understanding of Occam’s Razor, and have the ability to test the subject or hypothesis for falsities. These skills all prove necessary and important when comparing and contrasting anything, whether it’s from a scientific perspective or something that affects one’s daily life.
Critical thinking is when an individual identifies and evaluates outside sources before making a decision. This is a very important still to learn to become an effective thinker and making educated choices. Critical thinking is fundamental when making choices, from selecting the right answer on multiple choice exams to choosing the right place and time to buy a house. An individual that has learned critical thinking is less expected to make poor choices that could potentially harm him or affect others. In theory this individual could calculate the consequences of his actions. A good critical thinker doesn’t need to memorize huge amounts of information. Instead, he asks questions, is open to alternative solutions, formulates theories,
In “The Death of Expertise” the author, Tom Nichols, expresses his concerns and fears about the ignorant public and their views on experts and the things they are experts in. Nichols states that, in today’s society, a backlash of hate and anger will ensue when the public is faced with an “assertion of expertise.” Nichols argues that people resent the thought of being wrong or different opinions “altering their own thoughts and changing the way they live.” Nichols states that even though everyone has equal rights, not everyone is an equal expert, which the public does not receive well. Nichols voices his worries about the “death of the expert” the bridge that separated the experts from the general public has collapsed and with it the idea that the experts know what they are talking about. The idea Nichols is trying to convey is not the “death of actual expertise,” instead what he fears had died is “any acknowledgement of expertise as anything that should alter our thoughts or change the way we live.” (Nichols, 1) There will always be experts in various fields; however people have stopped listening to them in order to protect their own opinions.
Once again, the author defines critical thinking as “...evaluation. Critical thinking, therefore, may be defined as the process by which we test claims and arguments and determine which have merit and which do not. In other words, critical thinking is a search for answers, a quest. (19)”. The author defines critical thinking as proposing questions and seeking answers, also inspecting arguments and claims that are tied to the issue. Applied to the school curriculum, the course would entail critical thinking and evaluation of judgements and perceptions of acceptable values and conduct towards others. Employing critical thinking and analysis into the class curriculum, students then also grow to become more mature in their decisions as critical thinkers. Various traits of critical thinkers are listed by Ruggiero, where he states that experienced thinkers are honest with themselves and their own limited knowledge, see problems and issues as intellectual challenges, remain patient yet curious, draw conclusions from logic rather than personal emotion, open-minded, and think before acting (21-22). These listed traits are all extremely beneficial to the development of the student’s personalized conscience and would only broaden their internal horizons for understanding their moral
Our knowledge is a key to our success and happiness in our life to give us personal satisfaction. Knowledge is power but not always. Sometimes our self-awareness and growth as an individual gives us negative thoughts that make us want to go back to undo it. Everyone wants to unlearn a part in our life that brought us pain and problems. Good or bad experiences brought by true wisdom can be used for our self-acceptance, self-fulfillment and these experiences would make us stronger as we walk to the road of our so called “life”, but Douglas’s and my experience about knowledge confirmed his belief that “Knowledge is a curse”. Both of us felt frustrated and sad from learning knowledge.
Critical thinking is an important aspect of an individual’s daily life, regardless of an ethnicity, gender, or age. The individual, who has a strong sense of critical thinking skills, has a sense of inquisitiveness, finding an inventive solution to a problem or issue that he or she may be faced with. Critical thinking is used on an individual’s personal life he or she as well will use his or her critical thinking skills on a professional level. In the following paper the discussion of what critical thinking is as well as discusses the “University of Phoenix’s” decision making model, and how critical thinking skills can help us make a crucial decision. The subsequent paragraphs will also discuss the significance of as well as the benefits of critical thinking.
Critical thinking is the careful scrutiny of what is stated as true or what appears to be true and the resulting expression of an opinion or conclusion based on that scrutiny, and (2) the creative formulation of an opinion or conclusion when presented with a question, problem or issue, (Kist-Ashman, 2011, p. 33).
Critical thinking is a process of applying various skills to analyze information. Critical thinking uses rationality to distinguish between emotion and fact. This paper will discuss the definition of critical thinking, and the skills it takes to think critically. It will also provide an example of critical thinking applied to my current working environment. Finally this paper will discuss the importance and benefits of critical thinking in the decision-making processes.