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Summary
The information explosion in current society occasionally leads us to a dilemma where it is difficult to pursue truth. As a thoughtful person, one ought to make choices independently rather than just accept whatever one encounter. Such 'automatical' reaction results in receivers' making someone else's opinion instead of their own.
Critical Thinking to the Rescue
A system of questions is more consistent with the spirit of curiosity, wonder and intellectual adventure which is essential to critical thinking. Thinking carefully remains an unfinished project, waiting for an ending that may never arrive. Critical questions provide a stimulus and direction for critical thinking; they move us forward toward a continual, ongoing search for better opinions, decisions or judgments. Consequently, critical thinking refers to the following:
1. awareness of a set of interrelated critical questions;
2. ability to ask and answer critical questions at appropriate times;
3. desire to actively use the critical questions.
The benefits of critical questions include assisting its master in one area or another, from criticizing literature to forming an argument for an essay, exercising one's critical thinking capability, improving one's self-confidence by increasing their sense of intellectual independence and so on.
The Sponge and Panning for Gold: Alternative Thinking Styles
Basically, there exist two approaches of thinking: the sponge and planning for gold. The first one is to absorb knowledge like a sponge reacts to water. Its advantages lie in the mass of information and high efficiency. The mass information enable us to be more capable of understanding the complexities of the knowledge, providing a foundation for more complicated thinking later. High efficiency indicates that the enormous knowledge we passively acquire is quick and easy to get. The primary mental effort just involves our concentration and memory.
On the other hand, the sponge approach has a serious disadvantage: It provides no method for deciding which information and opinions to believe and which to reject. A reader who relies on the sponge approach all the time would believe whatever he read last. That is rather dangerous for both reader himself and the community he belongs to. Decisions become accidents of association, instead of reflective judgments.
To overcome such a disadvantage, we need to hold a question-asking attitude, that is, an attitude of active participation, like the process of panning for gold. To distinguish the gold from the gravel in a conversation requires you to ask frequent questions and to reflect on the answers. This panning-for-gold style of thinking is more challenging and even tedious than the former style of thinking, but is also more rewarding.
The two approaches complement each other with sponge approach emphasizing knowledge acquisition and the panning-for-gold approach stressing active interaction.
Sponge approach
• Reads sentences carefully
• Trying to remember as much as possible
• Underline or highlight key words and sentences
• Take notes summarizing the major topics and major points
• Check the underlining or notes to be sure of not forgetting anything important
Panning-for-gold approach
• Read with the hope to acquire new knowledge
• Ask a number of questions designed to uncover the best available decisions or beliefs
• Evaluate the reasoning
• Interact with the material continually
Some Tips for Asking Critical Questions
1. Mostly, critical questions are asked when readers have access to discover uncertainties or missing elements in the reading material. Readers need critical reading and listening skills to help them determine what makes sense and distinguish this clear thinking from the sloppy thinking that characterizes much of what they will encounter.
2. Some questions have right answers and some don't. The complex and different causes of human behavior leaves space for various or unclear answers.
3. A conclusion made by an individual is more or less related to his personal experience or some certain things, to support particular interests or to discount claims of a particular type, which we may regard as personal emotional commitments. Remember to recognize those feelings and put them aside. Open our minds to other arguments that threaten or violate your current beliefs. That's essential if we want to grow.
4. Spend more time and energy thinking critically about important controversies. Our time is valuable. Before taking the time to critically evaluate an issue, value the necessity.
5. By forcing ourselves to look critically at our initial beliefs, we help protect against self-deception and conformity. But strong-sense critical thinking does not necessarily force us to give up our initial beliefs. It can provide a basis for strengthening them because critical examination of those beliefs will sometimes reinforce our original commitment to them.
The significance of critical thinking is obvious. We can spontaneously gain a sense of satisfaction and harvest new ideas and new answers. The skill is also an aid to improved communication. To achieve effective communication, one must take frequent practice exercises and give critical responses.
The Right Questions
The book lists some critical questions as follows. By the end of the book, we should know when and how to ask these questions productively:
1. What are the issues and the conclusions?
2. What are the reasons?
3. Which words or phrases are ambiguous?
4. What are the value conflicts and assumptions?
5. What are the descriptive assumptions?
6. Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?
7. How good is the evidence?
8. Are there rival causes?
9. Are the statistics deceptive?
10. What significant information is omitted?
11. What reasonable conclusions are possible?
Thoughts
文章第一章主要介绍了辩证思考的重要性以及两种不同的思维方式，一种“海绵式”，一种“淘金式”。其实内容不多，说白了就是量变和质变的问题。海绵式是以量变为目的的知识的被动摄入，淘金式是以质变为目的的主动互动（淘金式思维方式其实就是“找问题，挑毛病”，可以理解为是批判性思考。GRE考试中Issue写作其实就是考察这项能力，因此不可小觑）。前一种是后一种的基础，后一种是前一种的补充。两者各有所长，并不冲突，相互补充。
虽说如此，淘金式思维还是值得推崇的，这也是本书着重探讨的观点。淘金式思维优点很明显，能锻炼我们的思维，优化我们的观点，让我们思考更深入恰当，也能便于讨论与沟通。