Beyond Feelings - Chapter 5

Summary

In the context of critical thinking, the term opinion refers to expressions of judgment rather than to expressions of taste. Opinion can be a view or belief. Even opinions from experts can not be trust in all respects. It can be mistaken easily, even when people have made special efforts to make objective judgements.

There are four kinds of errors

1. Errors or tendencies to error common among all people by virtue of their being human.

2. Errors or tendencies to error associated with one’s individual habits of mind or personal attitudes, beliefs, or theories.

3. Errors that come from human communication and the limitations of language.

4. Errors in the general fashion of an age.

Here are some tips that can help you improve the quality of your opinions

1.Understand how opinions are formed.

2.Resist the temptation to treat your opinions as facts.

3.Monitor your thoughts to prevent the uncritical default mode from taking charge.

Thought

今天这一章重启了我之前一直在思考一个问题：人到底有没有完全创新的观点？我认为答案是否定的，一个拥有社交的人类难免会收到他人观点的影响，这些观点可能来自于父母、教育、朋友、阅历和人生经验等，一些机缘巧合也会影响人们的观点。一个人观点的形成很大程度上基于他背景知识的积累，在我看来，没有一个观点可以称得上是完全创新。

并非完全创新的观点有什么意义呢？意义深远。这些观点扩大了人类知识的宽度和深度，人类文明发展到现在就是无数观点的深入、扩展和叠加而成，所以无论观点正确与否，只要提出就会带来不同程度的影响。人类的思维也就因此得到了扩展，走向了无限。

对于我们来说 ，有两件事情至关重要。其一，无论观点内容如何，一定要提出自己的观点而不是被动接受。其二，无论他人观点如何，都要带着开明的态度听听看。这两件事能提高我们的思辨能力，扩充我们的背景知识，为我们增强我们知识体系的宽度和深度做铺垫，也有利于我们去提出相对创新或相对准确的看法和观点。