Thinking

1     What Is Thinking?

 

OUR CULTURAL LEGACY

 

WHY THINK?

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 1.1: Things More Important Than Thinking

 

Thoughts Richer Than Gold

Thinking as Possibility

Thoughts Accumulate

Life Without Thinking

 

WHAT IS THINKING?

 

The Mystery

Toward a Definition: Thinking as Communicating

BOX: The Centrality of Thinking

COMMUNICATING: THE MIRROR OF THOUGHT

Thinking as Writing: Clarity, Exactness, Awareness, Richness

THINKING ACTIVITY 1.2: Thinking, Sensing, Writing

Thinking as Dialogue: Validation and Insight

 

MISTHINKING

 

SUMMARY

 

THINKING CHALLENGES

 

2     Personal Barriers

 

ENCULTURATION

 

Sources of Enculturation

BOX: Some Common American Beliefs

Religion and Enculturation

BOX: Spinoza: A Man of Reason

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 2.1: Our Own Enculturation

 

SELF-CONCEPT

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 2.2: The Idea of Self

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 2.3: Letting Go

 

EGO DEFENSES

 

Denial

Projection

Rationalization

 

SELF-SERVING BIASES

 

BOX: Other Attribution Errors

BOX: Self-Serving Biases?

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 2.4: Owning Up to Our Dark Side

 

THE ROLE OF EXPECTATIONS AND SCHEMATA

 

EMOTIONAL INFLUENCES

 

Anger

Passion

Depression

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 2.5: Five Thinking Errors

 

STRIVING FOR COGNITIVE CONSISTENCY

 

STRESS

 

BOX: Signs and Symptoms of Stress

Stress Management

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 2.6: Five Ways to Prevent Stress

 

SUMMARY

 

BARRIER CHALLENGES

 

3     Sensing

 

SENSUAL BEGINNINGS

 

THE POWER OF OUR SENSES

 

THE DECEPTION OF OUR SENSES

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 3.1: Ideas: Innate or Learned?

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 3.2: Our Personal Sense Deceptions

 

SHARPENING OUR SENSES

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 3.3: Seeing Anew

 

POWERFUL LISTENING

 

The Paradox of Powerful Listening

How to Listen

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 3.4: Developing an Action Plan

 

SUMMARY

 

SENSING AND THINKING CHALLENGES

 

4     Brain and Memory

 

THE MYSTERY

 

THINKING AND OUR BRAIN

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 4.1: An Exercise in Mental Discipline

 

Food and Drugs

Sleep

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 4.2: Critical Reading Before We Sleep

 

Our Thinking Potential

BOX: Brain and Mind

 

THINKING AND MEMORY

 

The Changing Nature of Memory

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 4.3: Memories of Childhood

 

Forgetting

BOX: Recall versus Recognition

Why We Forget

How to Improve Memory

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 4.4: Using Mnemonics

 

BOX: Memory Pills

 

SUMMARY

 

BRAIN AND MEMORY CHALLENGES

 

5     Language: Our Thinking Medium

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 5.1: Language and Thinking

 

LANGUAGE AND OUR MIND

 

The Universalizing Power of Language

The Structuring Power of Language

LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 5.2: A Brief Mind Sketch

 

THE METAPHORICAL POWER OF LANGUAGE

 

What Is a Metaphor?

Metaphorical Models Control Thinking

BOX: Language, Lawyers, and Lawmakers

 

THE LIMITATIONS OF LANGUAGE

 

THE POWER OF ENGLISH

 

Word Meanings

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 5.3: The Language in Our Mind

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 5.4: Identifying Our Flame Words

 

Word Order Creates Meaning

The Power Parts: Noun and Verb

Thinking and the Context

Clarity

BOX: Clearly Embarrassing

 

THE PITFALLS OF ENGLISH

 

Generalizations and Abstractions

BOX: High Specificity

Wordiness

Redundancies

Illogicalities

Clichés

 

SUMMARY

 

LANGUAGE CHALLENGES

 

6     Feeling

 

FEELINGS AND THINKING

 

CULTURAL CONTEXT

 

Business

Church

Family

 

THE FORCE BEHIND OUR THOUGHTS

 

Beneath the Rational Surface

The Importance of Tone

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 6.1: Feelings Beneath Our Thoughts

 

CONTROLLING EMOTIONS

 

GENERATING SPEECH

 

GENERATING WRITING

 

The Inspiration Method

The Recollection Method

The Conscious Selection Method

 

FEELINGS TOWARD TOPIC AND AUDIENCE

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 6.2: Evoking Emotions

 

OBSERVING FEELINGS

 

SUMMARY

 

THINKING AND FEELING CHALLENGES

 

7     Creative Thinking

 

WHAT IS CREATIVITY?

 

METAPHORICAL THINKING

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 7.1: Making Metaphors

 

KINDS OF CREATIVE THINKING

 

WHO CAN THINK CREATIVELY?

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 7.2: Poetic Impressions

 

CONDITIONS AND LIMITATIONS OF CREATIVITY

 

BEGINNING TO CREATE

 

Brainstorming

Starbursting

 

COAXING CREATIVITY

 

Step 1: Desire

Step 2: Knowledge and Skills

Step 3: Edisonian Effort

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 7.3: Prepcreation

 

Step 4: Fermentation and Insight

Step 5: Evaluation

 

SUMMARY

 

BOX: Leonardo da Vinci

 

CREATING CHALLENGES

 

8     Organizing

 

ORIGINS OF ORDER

 

NATURAL/MENTAL ORDERS

 

Topical Order

Analogical Order

Chronological Order

Causal Order

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 8.1: Other Natural Orders?

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 8.2: The Order of the Elements

 

MENTAL ORDERS

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 8.3: Other Mental Orders

 

Clarity and Memory

 

STEPS IN ORGANIZING

 

1. Clustering

2. Analyzing

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 8.4: Analyzing the Clusters

 

3. Prioritizing

4. Organizing Your Space

5. Organizing Electronic Data

 

USING THE ORDERS

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 8.5: Creating a Seminal Structural Analogy

 

Curtain Call

 

SUMMARY

 

ORGANIZING CHALLENGES

 

9     Logical Thinking

 

DEDUCTIVE THINKING: THE SYLLOGISM

CATEGORICAL SYLLOGISMS

 

Three Kinds of Propositions

Four Figures

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.1: Drawing the Conclusion

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.2: Finding Terms and Figures

 

Validity of Categorical Syllogisms

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.3: Identifying Valid Categorical Syllogisms

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.4: Using Venn Diagrams

 

ENTHYMEMES AND SYLLOGISMS IN EVERYDAY LIFE

 

 Sorites

           

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.5: Finding Multiple Syllogisms and False Premises

 

REASONING ERRORS IN CATEGORICAL SYLLOGISMS

 

Undistributed Middle

Illicit Process

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.6: Finding Undistributed Terms

 

The Four-Terms Fallacy

Equivocation

Existential Fallacy

BOX: The Importance of Agreed Meaning

 

RULES FOR THE CATEGORICAL SYLLOGISM

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.7: Identifying Invalid Syllogisms

 

HYPOTHETICAL SYLLOGISMS

 

Reasoning Errors in Hypothetical Syllogisms

 

DISJUNCTIVE SYLLOGISMS

 

Reasoning Error in the Disjunctive Syllogism

 

VALID CONVERSIONS

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.8: Writing Valid Conversions

 

INFORMAL DEDUCTIVE FALLACIES

 

The Fallacy of Division

Circular Reasoning

The Either/Or Fallacy

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.9: Identifying the Either/Or Fallacy

 

BOX: Reductio ad Absurdum

INDUCTIVE THINKING

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.10: Distinguishing Between Inductive
and Deductive Arguments

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.11: Considering Past Errors

 

ANALOGICAL ARGUMENT

 

BOX: Chuang Tzu’s Analogies

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.12: Using Analogies

 

CAUSATION

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 9.13: Thinking About Causation

 

INFORMAL INDUCTIVE FALLACIES

 

Hasty Generalization

The Fallacy of Composition

Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Extravagant Hypothesis

           BOX: Conspiracy Theories

False Analogy

Slippery Slope

 

OTHER REASONING FALLACIES

 

The Genetic Fallacy

Appeal to Authority

Appeal to Tradition

The Is/Ought Fallacy

BOX: More Thoughts About Oughts

Bandwagon Appeal

Appeal to Ignorance

 

SUMMARY

 

LOGIC CHALLENGES

 

10    Scientific Thinking

 

THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

 

Observation

Hypothesis

Experimentation

Verification

Science and Other Ways of Knowing

BOX: Copernicus and Galileo

 

THE EMPIRICAL NATURE OF SCIENCE

 

Erroneous Operational Definitions

Operational Debates

The Limits of Science

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 10.1: Creating Operational Definitions

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 10.2: The Domain of Science

 

SCIENCE AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF HUMAN NATURE

 

Determinism as Foundation

Human Beings and Determinism

BOX: Determinism and Probability

 

PROVING A THEORY

 

CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS

 

QUASI EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN

 

NONEXPERIMENTAL DESIGNS

 

Ex Post Facto

Correlational Design

THINKING ACTIVITY 10.3: Determining the Research Design

 

The Survey

BOX: Opinion versus Fact

Case Studies

The Rule of Chance

BOX: Sizeable Effects

BOX: Gambler’s Fallacy

EXPERIMENTER BIAS

BOX: The Placebo Effect

BOX: Cases of Fraud

Pseudoscience

 

SUMMARY

 

SCIENTIFIC THINKING CHALLENGES

 

11    Persuasive Thinking

 

WHAT IS PERSUASION?

 

THE ETHICS OF PERSUASION

 

THINKING ABOUT WHAT MOVES US

 

Knowledge

Objectivity and Honesty

BOX: Confucius, Christ, and Kant

Biases

Likability

Motivation and Purpose

The Rational Appeal

The Emotional Appeal: The Root Elements

 

THINKING ABOUT WHAT MOVES OUR AUDIENCE

 

Demographics

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 11.1: A Demographic Analysis

 

Values and Needs

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 11.2: Identifying Values and Needs

 

Adjusting Our Goals

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 11.3: Motivation Mountain

 

ORGANIZING FOR PERSUASION

 

Step 1: Establishing Credibility

Step 2: Acknowledging the Audience’s Position

Step 3: Constructing Our Rationale

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 11.4: Recognizing the Other Side

 

Step 4: Transplanting the Root Elements

Step 5: Asking for the Response

 

DEFENDING OURSELVES AGAINST DECEITFUL PERSUASION

 

Manipulative Tactics

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 11.5: Your Vulnerability to Fear Appeals

 

Erroneous Attacks

Abuse of Language

 

SUMMARY

 

PERSUASION CHALLENGES

 

12    Problem Solving

 

DEFINING THE PROBLEM

 

Thinking Activity 12.1: Forming More Precise Definitions

Discovering Causes

Problems Without a Cause

 

REMOVING BARRIERS

 

The Myth of Perfection

The Myth of Genius

 

GENERATING SOLUTIONS

 

Gathering Information

THINKING ACTIVITY 12.2: Identifying Problem Components

 

BOX: Creating a Healthy Communication Climate

             Creative Thinking

             Let it Rest

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 12.3: Functional Fixedness

 

SELECTING SOLUTIONS

 

Preliminary Evaluation

BOX: Chaotic Systems

Pros and Cons

BOX: Rejections on Minor Grounds

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 12.4: Weighing Pros and Cons

 

Subgoal Analysis

Trial and Error

Working Backwards

           BOX: Thinking Backwards

Problem-Solving Tips

 

EVALUATING SOLUTIONS

 

SUMMARY

 

PROBLEM-SOLVING CHALLENGES

 

13    Evaluating

 

THE NECESSITY TO TEST THINKING

 

The Crucible of Critical Dialogue

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 13.1: Using Dialogue

 

Critical Monologue

The Elegance of Simplicity

The Flattery of Imitation and Development

The Power of Predictability

Perspective, Balance, and Completeness

The Test of Time

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 13.2: Does Time Always Test True?

 

TESTING AGAINST OUR THINKING BASES

 

Personal Barriers

Perceptions and Memory

Language

Feelings

Creativity Check

Organization

Logic Check

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 13.3: Our Tone Toward Our Thinking

 

SUMMARY

 

VALIDATING CHALLENGES

 

14    Decision and Action

 

WHY ACT?

 

DECISION

 

Difficulties in Deciding

How to Decide

BOX: Changing Criteria: Putting on the Gloves

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 14.1: Feelings and Decisions

 

THINKING ACTIVITY 14.2: Role-Playing

 

When to Decide

The Deciding Moment

 

ACTION

 

AFTER ACTION

 

SUMMARY

 

DECISION AND ACTION CHALLENGES

 

15    The Challenge to Go on Thinking

      Appendix: Propositional Logic

      References

      Index