Vincent Ruggiero - Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking

BEYOND FEELINGS

A GUIDE TO CRITICAL THINKING

by VINCENT RYAN RUGGIERO

Roger Hu P1-C02-1

CONTENTS

i. Introduction

ii. Who are YOU

iii. What is CRITICAL THINKING

iv. What is TRUTH

v. What does it mean to KNOW

vi. How GOOD are your OPINIONs

vii. The Basic Problem-MINE IS BETTER

viii. RESISTANCE to change

ix. CONFORMITY

x. FACE-SAVING

xi. STEREOTYPING

xii. OVERSIMPLIFICATION

xiii. HASTY CONCLUSIONS

xiv. UNWARRANTED ASSUMPTIONS

xv. LOGICAL FALLACIES

xvi. The problems in COMBINATION

xvii. Knowing Yourself

xviii. Being Observant

xix. Clarifying Issues

xx. Conducting Inquiry

xxi. Interpreting Evidence

xxii. Analyzing Viewpoints

xxiii. Forming Judgments

xxiv. Some Contemporary Issues

Roger Hu P1-C02-2

INTRODUCTION

Beyond Feelings is designed to introduce you to the subject of critical thinking. The subject is undoubtedly

new to you because it is not taught in most

elementary and secondary schools. In fact, until fairly

recently it was not taught in most colleges. During the

1960s and much of the 1970s the emphasis was more

on subjectivity than on objectivity, more on feeling than on thought.

Over the past ten years, however, a number of studies

of America's schools have criticized the neglect of

critical think, and a growing number of educators and

leaders in business, industry, and the professions have

urged the development of new courses and teaching

materials to overcome that neglect.

It is no exaggeration to say that critical thinking is one of the most important subjects you will study in college regardless of your academic major. The quality of your schoolwork, your efforts in your career, your contributions to community life, and your conduct of personal affairs will all depend on your ability to solve problems and make decisions.

The book has four main sections. The first, "The Context," will help you to understand such important concepts as individuality, thinking, truth, knowledge, and opinion and to overcome attitudes and ideas that obstruct critical thinking. The second section, "The Problems," will teach you to recognize and avoid nine common errors that often occur, singly or in combination, during the thinking process. The third section, "A Strategy," will help you acquire the various skills used in addressing problems and issues. This section includes tips on identifying and overcoming you personal intellectual weaknesses, as well as techniques for becoming more observant, clarifying issues and conducting inquiry, interpreting evidence, analyzing other people's views, and making sound judgments. At the end of each chapter you will find a number of applications to challenge your critical thinking and provide exercise for your skills. These applications cover problems and issues both timely and timeless. The fourth section of the book,

"Some Contemporary Issues," presents additional important issues that continue to occupy the attention of the best thinkers of our time. In brief, Beyond Feelings is designed to help you acquire the intellectual skills necessary to solve the exciting problems of today and tomorrow.

Roger Hu P1-C02-3

WHO ARE YOU?

Suppose someone asked, "Who are you?" it would be simple enough to respond with your name. but if the person wanted to know the whole story about who you are, it would be more difficult to answer. You'd obviously have to give the details of your height and age and weight. You'd also have to include all your sentiments and preferences, even the secret ones you'd never shared with anyone your affection for you parents; your desire to please the crowd you associate with; your dislike of your older sister's husband; your allegiance to Budweiser beer, the Ford Motor Company, the Denver Broncos, Calvin Klein jeans, and Bruce Springsteen.

Your attitudes couldn't be overlooked either the impatience you have when an issue gets complex, your aversion to English courses, your rejection of communism, your fear of high places and dogs and speaking in public. The list would go on. To be complete, it would have to include all your characteristics

not only the physic cal but the emotional and intellectual as well. To provide all that information would be quite a chore. But suppose the questioner was still curious, and now asked, "How did you get the way you are?" if your patience were not yet exhausted, chances are you'd answer something like this: "I'm that way because I choose to be, because I've considered other sentiments and preferences and attitudes and made my selection. The ones I chose fit my style and personality best." That answer is a natural enough one, and in part it's true. But in a larger sense it's not true. The impact of the world on all of us is much greater than we usually realize.

INFLUENCES ON IDENTITY

You are not only a member of a particular species, Homo sapiens, but you exist at a particular moment in the history of the species. Being a young adult today is quite different from being a young adult thirty years ago, and very different from being a young adult in 1500 or 10,000 B.C. The world's state of progress differs, and likewise its knowledge and beliefs and values. The opportunities for learning and working and relaxing are not the same. So people's daily thoughts and actions vary.

Variations in place and circumstance also can make a difference. If you're from a large city, the odds are you look at many things differently from someone in the country. A person raised for eighteen years in New York City or Los Angeles who goes to college in a town of 3,000 will find the experience difficult. So will a person raised on an isolated farm. But probably for opposite reasons!

If you are an American sports enthusiast, you're probably interested in football, baseball, or basketball. But if you were Chinese, you'd be much more familiar with and excited about ping-pong, and if you were European, soccer. If your father is an automobile mechanic, you undoubtedly know more about cars than does the average person. If you mother is a teacher, you'll tend have a somewhat different perspective on school and teachers than do other students. In much the same way, all the details about your family very likely have some bearing on who you are. Their religion, race, national origin, political affiliation, economic level, attitudes towards one another, all have made some contribution to your identity.

Roger Hu P1-C02-4

Of course, people may reject what they are taught at home. People between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one often have sharp and apparently permanent differences with their parents in terms of beliefs and values on many issues. Still, whether you accept or reject what you are taught, your present position grows out of those teachings. It is a response to your upbringing. Given different parents with a different culture and different values growing up, say, in Istanbul rather than Dubuque your response would necessarily be different. You would, in that sense, not be the same person.

THE ROLE OF MASS CULTURE

In centuries past, the influence of family and teachers was the dominant, and sometimes the only, influence on children. Today, however, the influence exerted by mass culture (but broadcast media, newspapers, magazines and popular music) is often greater.