Elements of Critical Thinking: A Fundamental Guide to Effective Decision Making, Deep Analysis, Intelligent Reasoning, and Independent Thinking (The Critical Thinker Book 1) Kindle Edition

As a leader in a commercial business I read for entertainment and to help me understand how to be more efficient in our organization. This book has taken principles of other books, some which I found slow and too theoretical, and provided anecdotes that allow the reader to understand situations and also convey the same in an easily digested way. Is it a scholarly work? No. Is it practical? Yes. In the end, your level of satisfaction will be driven by either of those 2 expectations. Easy read and practical.Now, it isn’t much of a stretch to connect today’s political leadership with the propaganda of the Nazi days... is it the writer’s bias or is it the way it is outlined? Others have made that connection, and the work he laid out does make the case that the current style of leadership does favor personal attacks over substance, which could lead people to make decisions based on emotions, rather than logical facts. I am open to being wrong, and also understand my political bias might be in play, but I favor the latter, and that sounds too close to reality, and scary. Consider the Muller evidence, and the fact that for most of Trump’s supporter, a recent survey claimed 0% of the people felt the facts will not weight in their decision to re-elect. Winston Churchill said something to the effect that “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter. “In business, all of the facts get trumped by brand affiliations and personal preferences, hence so much money goes into marketing. When the needs arises, the student appears, and so I found this book timely and enjoyable.

This book is an excellent adumbration of critical thinking techniques in general. However, in chapter 8 the author uses an argument against gun control as an example of formal (Aristotelian) logic. How ironic would it be if the author of this book on critical thinking voted for Donald Trump?! I mean, anything is possible at this point.I should also mention that the author, ironically, does not seem to understand formal logic. For example, he doesn't seem to understand what Affirming The Consequent and Denying The Antecedent are. Affirming The Consequent takes the form: if A, then B; B, therefore A. This assumes that only cause A leads to effect B. That is, it assumes that the converse is also true. But what if cause C also leads to effect B? Therefore, if B, then either A or C. This formal fallacy occurs because a person fails to consider that more than one "if" can result in a "then".Denying The Antecedent is basically the negative version of Affirming The Consequent. It would take the form: If A, then B; not A, therefore, not B. The problem with this form, again, is that is assumes that there is only one cause for B. What if there were more than one cause for B? Then even if not A, then there could still be B. For example, if C, then B. In this case, we would say if either A or C, then B. Not A, then, would not be enough information. We would need to know the status of C, as well. This is the formal fallacy of Denying The Antecedent.To recapA proper form would be the following:If A, then B; B, therefore A.OrIf A, then B; not B, therefore, not A.This must be true, because an A always results in a B, so if there's no B, there's no A.For instance: If the sun is out, it is day. It is not day, therefore, the sun is not out. This is a proper syllogism.Affirming The Consequent and Denying The Antecedent result from attempting to take any form other than the two proper forms.Improper forms:If A, then B; not A, therefore not B. (Denying The Antecedent)If A, then B; B, therefore A. (Affirming The Consequent)Both of the latter are fallacious. They assume that A is the only cause of B.

I bought this book to have a book study with my coworker in order to increase critical thinking in our classrooms and we have had some great discussions as we read each chapter. The author has a lot of great ideas, and some stuff that is common knowledge. My only critique that is negative is I cannot find ANYTHING at all about the author's education, background and his qualifications for writing this book. There is nothing out there about him, which I find strange. I do highly recommend the book though.

It is really all about logic, and finding the true value of each part of a process, to determine cost, labor, service, and ROI, it can all be broken down. People assume an average $600 PC is a good deal, but it's actually about $70 in parts, and $30 in service. I assumed a LOT of things working in the support industry, before picking up some basic, and then deeper financial and operations acumen, that really changed how I think about my own departments!The HIDDEN assumptions, we don't even consider until we start thinking differently, with a process! I have even been in lots of process meetings where we use a lot of the same logic exercises used here too, in strange business situations we'd hope to never come across in real life, but find ways to solve, and try NOT to assume anything that's not written down. It's all just fun bits of the cognitive process in the beginning.I just wish I had read it earlier. Now I'm older and wiser, but still assume things too often when starting a new project. This's another great help.

This book is about teaching people skills that can prove valuable in their personal and professional lives so they are not just accepting things thrown in front of them and are engaged in challenging material and questioning conclusions and assumptions. It has logic exercises that are intense and offer a challenge to your mind so you can hone your critical thinking. Most people's brains are hardwired to look for quick and easy solutions and this book helps you break out of that so you're not falling back into old habits and staying in your comfort zone. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to wake up and break the monotony.