July 12, 2011

Critical Thinking Philosophy First Test: Open Book: Chapter 1 & 2

I. WHAT IS THINKING?

Thinking should be a constructive force and attitude, for examining all ideas and arguments, including your own dearly held ones, and for separating the ideas from their vehicles, to divide true from false, accurate from distorted, complete from incomplete, and so on. In fact, far from being an expert at fault finding, a critical thinker will be even more open to opposing arguments and ideas, carefully considering the merit and weight of each one, recognizing that he or she, the critical thinker, can always learn something from others, and might even be wrong in a current position.

II. LIST SOME POWERFUL THINKERS

Corax of Syracuse, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, President Barak Obama, Bill Gates, Hilary Clinton, Pope Benedict XIV, Osama bin Laden, Oprah Winfrey

III. WHY THINK

Is anything more important than thinking? Is anything important that is not connected with thinking? STOP! Did you think about the rst question before you read the second one? My guess is that you kept reading; consequently, you may have missed a chance to think IV. Toward a definition: Thinking as Communicating: Explain from a logical and critical dimension. If we do not understand the workings of the brain, if we cannot enter its inner sanctum and unfold its mystery, then how can we dene thinking? One way to reach a denition is by observing the results of thinking as expressed inhuman communication. But what if some people claim that they do think-ing that is totally internal and can never be externally communicated? We will not argue with them, but if they cannot talk about it or share it with us, their thinking cannot be useful to us. Therefore we can define thinking as the activity of the brain that can potentially be communicated. The media of communication are multiple: language (speaking, writing, signing, paralanguage, miming), images (blueprints, charts, and symbols), art (drawing, painting, sculpting, modeling, architecture, music, and dance), scientic formulas, and mathematics. All of these forms of communication have their special subtleties and strengths, but far and away the primary form of human communication is language; therefore, this book focuses on

thinking as the activity of the brain that can potentially be expressed in speaking or writing. The potential to express our thoughts includes, of course, the unexpressed thinking that is almost always in our heads: we plan the day and imagine scenarios; we worry through problems and search for solutions; we day dream; we discover, invent, and create systems; we enjoy reecting on our ventures, and sometimes we redesign our failures. Unexpressed thinking is valuable, and we use it often before speaking or acting. V. WHAT DOES IT MEAN BY COMMUNICATING: THE MIRROR OF THOUGHT? Trying to know our mind with our mind is analogous to trying to see our eyes with our eyes. The eyes need a reector such as a mirror or a still pond to see them. Similarly, to understand our thinking we need a mirror for our mind. Writing or talking can provide just such a mirror. Expressing our thoughts allows us to look at them more objectively; others, then, can share their ideas about our thinking, and so, ultimately, we can think better. ACTIVITY 1.2 VI. ON PAGE 11 PROVIDE A CRITICAL THINKING PERSPECTIVE ON THE SUMMARY OF CHAPTER ONE.

We have thought about the enormous importance of our thinking and how it can greatly impact our future. We have even had the audacity to rate thinking as more important than money. Although much of thinking remains a mystery in the vast, unexplored realm of our brain, writing and speaking can provide an entry into our unknown selves. Writing can be a mirror of our thoughts, a mirror that can give us clarity, exactness, awareness, and richness. The opposite, cloudy thinking, can miss its mark and cost us dearly.

We have just begun to probe the mystery of thinking. In coming chapters we will look more deeply into our thinking patterns and the way our language, beliefs, and values inuence those patterns. We will then look at some of our major thinking bases: sensing, feeling, creating, organizing, reasoning, scientic thinking, persuading, and problem solving; nally, we will look at evaluation, decision, and action.

CHAPTER 2:

VII.

EXPLAIN FROM A CRITICAL THINKING RAMIFICATIONS FOR PERSONAL BARRIERS:

A. ENCURTURATION - Imagine for a moment that you have the genetic constitution you have now but were raised by parents in another country. Imagine how you would be different. If you were raised in India, you would probably be of Hindu faith, worshipping Vishnu and Shiva. Or perhaps you would be of the Jain religion revering animal life so much that you would never eat meat and would even sweep insects out of your house instead of killing them. If you were raised by parents in Iran, you would probably despise American capitalism. If you were a man in the Sambian tribe of New Guinea, you would likely engage in homosexual behavior until you were married. And if you were a woman in the Mbuti tribe in Africa, you would feel comfortable roaming your com-munity in nothing but a loincloth.

B. SOURCES OF ENCULTURATION- Enculturation has many different sources or influences. One of the major inuences is the family in which we grow up. There we learn our religious beliefs, ethical standards, prejudices and stereotypes, eating habits, and world-view. The two great depth psychologists of the twentieth century, for example, Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, both accused each other of being negatively inuenced by their family background. Jung accused Freud of establishing a negative psychology because he was a Jew, while Freud accused Jung of being blinded by his strong religious background, which prevented him from accepting sexual maladjustment as the root cause of neurosis (Puner, 1947).

VIII.

PROVIDE YOUR CRITICAL THINKING DIMENSION ON SOME COMMON AMERICAN BELIES.

IX.

PROVIDE A CRITICAL THINKING AND PHILOSOPHICAL SYNOPIS OF: RELIGION AND ENCUTURATION.

X.

ACTIVITY 2.6