The study of philosophy – whether as an academic discipline, or the individually engaged pursuit of wisdom – has often been called “thinking about thinking.” This is a fairly vacuous description, not because it is wrong, but because it is so egregiously vague as to provide nothing beyond a comfortingly information-free verbalization that does not require us to attend to even a fourth word. 2500 years of written (which is to say, disregarding the purely oral traditions) speculative inquiry merits rather less of a trivialization in my book. Nevertheless, I did think it might be nice to spend a few posts thinking about good thinking from several useful perspectives, focusing, as it were, on the “logic” part of my mantra (Logic, Principles, Evidence, Facts.) This time out the gate, I want to talk a bit about “informal logic,” or that subject which is frequently found under the title of Critical Thinking.
The “critical” in “critical thinking” sometimes throws people off. This is not about being judgmental, or “you’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny” sorts of schoolyard pettiness. No, this is the criticism of the scientist and the art critic, the careful (but merciless!) evaluation of reason, BY reason. No cheap shots, but no free passes, either.
THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION 