
Books on Critical Thinking - raleighm
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/critical-thinking-nigel-warburton/
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bananamerica
I find it more productive to study logic instead. I have a hard time seeing
the difference between logic and critical thinking. If you think I'm wrong,
just take a look at a bunch of kinds of logic[1] and tell me if critical
thinking is not subsumed into at least one of them.

I put my money on inductive logic[2].

For beginners, I recommend the wonderful _Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments_
[3].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_logic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_logic)

[2] [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-
inductive/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-inductive/)

[3] [https://bookofbadarguments.com/](https://bookofbadarguments.com/)

~~~
astine
'Logic' as a topic generally centers around processes of formal reasoning
whereas critical thinking usually also discusses human cognitive biases which
is not something usually covered in discussions of formal reasoning. This is
important because nobody engages is formal logic all (or even most) of the
time. That would be very inefficient and probably impossible. Developing the
_habit_ (which is what discussions of critical thinking often center around)
of thinking critically, rather than simply understanding the process of formal
reasoning is essential.

~~~
bananamerica
When I say people should study logic, I don't mean necessarily its formal
presentation. If you're not a mathematician, a philosopher or a computer
scientist, informal logic is more than enough (and a bit of rhetoric certainly
won't hurt). Besides, you can understand a lot even if you skip the formal
bits, and there are good non-formal texts on many logic topics. The Internet
Encyclopedia of Philosophy[1] is definitely more approachable than the
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy[2] in that regard.

I'd also like to point out that the book[3] I recommended for beginners in the
comment above is entirely informal.

[1] [https://www.iep.utm.edu/](https://www.iep.utm.edu/)

[2] [https://plato.stanford.edu/](https://plato.stanford.edu/)

[3] [https://bookofbadarguments.com/](https://bookofbadarguments.com/)

~~~
astine
"When I say people should study logic, I don't mean necessarily its formal
presentation."

If that's the case, you probably shouldn't have linked to that Wikipedia
article because it's mostly about formal logic systems. Regardless, I'd
usually classify studying informal fallacies more under critical thinking than
logic strictly speaking. There's an entirely different set of formal logical
fallacies that apply to formal logic.

~~~
bananamerica
I did link to a book on informal fallacies. And I do not agree with your
classification. It's narrow and doesn't reflect the history of the field.
Logic is a tool for mathematicians, philosophers, and computer scientists.
Like any versatile tool, it can be adapted for different — but related —
tasks.

On the topic: [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-
informal/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-informal/)

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misiti3780
Unfortunately "The Art of Critical Thinking" is completely plagiarized:

[https://fooledbyrandomness.com/dobelli.htm](https://fooledbyrandomness.com/dobelli.htm)

~~~
oarabbus_
Pretty damning.

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troughway
It is unfortunate that Thinking Fast and Slow has received some negative
feedback over the years, mostly due to questionable sources and conclusions.

[https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-
und...](https://retractionwatch.com/2017/02/20/placed-much-faith-underpowered-
studies-nobel-prize-winner-admits-mistakes/)

~~~
hgibbs
Why is it unfortunate?

~~~
OnlineGladiator
I am guessing he means it is unfortunate because it was considered a good book
for critical thinking but over time people have come to realize a lot of its
studies, reasoning, and arguments are flawed - but many people have already
read the book without knowing that.

I've never read the book, so I don't have an opinion on it.

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cosinetau
A week or two ago, in a post about books on leadership, someone posted about
the US Army's ADRP 6-22 Army Leadership handbook, which I started reading.
[https://www.benning.army.mil/mssp/PDF/adrp6_22_new.pdf](https://www.benning.army.mil/mssp/PDF/adrp6_22_new.pdf)

Apparently, they keep track of terminology they deprecate in former revisions
of the handbook. "Critical Thinking" being one of them as it is "No longer a
formally defined term." (Page vi)

So, what does "Critical Thinking" mean to you?

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jgwil2
For those coming here interested in learning about formal/mathematical logic,
see "Teach Yourself Logic: A Study Guide" (previous discussion:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18757972](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18757972))

------
ultra_nick
Skeptics Guide to the Universe [https://www.amazon.com/Skeptics-Guide-
Universe-Really-Increa...](https://www.amazon.com/Skeptics-Guide-Universe-
Really-Increasingly/dp/1538760533)

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mistermann
Does anyone know of any particular critical thinking genre books, that somehow
focus more on the particulars of _language usage_? Something that gets into
things like the shortcomings of language in properly describing the complexity
of reality, as well as detecting usage (both intentional and unintentional)
that would indicate potential underlying rhetorical manipulation
(intentional), or fallacious thinking (unintentional)?

~~~
bananamerica
This may be an example of the equivocation fallacy[1].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation)

~~~
mistermann
That would be one example of a fallacy.....I guess maybe what I'm trying to
get at is more so something that addresses the more common (frequency of
occurrence) examples of ~"imperfect communication" (fallacies &/or rhetorical
techniques, intentional or not), that can be most commonly observed in modern
day media, both traditional (news) and social (forums, facebook/twitter, etc).

~~~
bananamerica
I think you're describing a very broad scope of phenomenons. Maybe this will
become clearer if you either narrow it a bit or divide them into different,
more precise, cases.

~~~
mistermann
Oh, very much so, the entire spectrum, but sorted by most commonly
used/abused. How might one accomplish such a feat would be tough, but even
something reasonable accurate with examples of usage would be interesting to
read.

~~~
bananamerica
These might help:

[https://www.iep.utm.edu/lang-phi/](https://www.iep.utm.edu/lang-phi/)
[https://www.iep.utm.edu/austin/#SH2b](https://www.iep.utm.edu/austin/#SH2b)
[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-
acts/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/speech-acts/)

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input_sh
What's with fivebooks? This is the 4th link from that domain in the last 24h.

~~~
DrScump
It's all spam. The book links are local but redirect to Amazon Affiliate links
(and lack the required disclosure).

~~~
Breza
I'm not affiliated with that website, but it's worth noting that the footer of
every page has this disclosure notice: "Five Books participates in the Amazon
Associate program and earns money from qualifying purchases."

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sidcool
I have read the art of thinking clearly, but was quite unimpressed.

