books related to critical thinking

The 17 Best Books on Critical Thinking (to Read in 2024)

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The aim of improving your skill of critical thinking isn’t just to be able to reason and give logical arguments about a subject skillfully; your goal is to get to the right answer, to make the right decisions and choices for yourself and others.

Critical thinking helps you:

First , improve the quality of your decisions and judgments, and reevaluate your beliefs objectively.

The human mind is rarely objective. However, mastering the skill of critical thinking keeps your mind objective, at least about those things based on facts.

Take for example the beliefs you have about yourself; Some are based on facts, some on subjective (negative) opinions of others.

Second , become an independent thinker (learn to think for yourself); take ownership of your values, beliefs, judgments, and decisions.

Mastering critical thinking is essential , especially in our modern times, because you must:

• Make a tone of decisions every day;
• Think and come to the right conclusion fast;
• Solve (mostly alone) your problems and issues;
• Weigh carefully facts and information you receive from the dozens of sources you have at your disposal;
• Reevaluate your strategies, beliefs, and habits periodically.

Critical thinking is a skill that you must learn; you’re not born with it. To make your journey a little easier, we’ve gathered the best critical thinking books so you can learn from the masters. Get inspired to become a critical thinker in no time!

The best books on critical thinking:

Table of Contents

1. Critical Thinking: A Beginner’s Guide to Critical Thinking, Better Decision Making, and Problem Solving – Jennifer Wilson

2. wait, what: and life’s other essential questions- james e. ryan, 3. think smarter: critical thinking to improve problem-solving and decision-making skills – michael kallet, 4. brain power: learn to improve your thinking skills – karl albrecht, 5. the art of thinking clearly – rolf dobelli, 6. being logical: a guide to good thinking – d.q. mcinerny, 7. predictably irrational, revised and expanded edition: the hidden forces that shape our decisions – dr. dan ariely, 8. a more beautiful question: the power of inquiry to spark breakthrough ideas – warren berger, 9. a rulebook for arguments – anthony weston, 10. thinking, fast and slow – daniel kahneman, 11. the organized mind: thinking straight in the age of information overload – daniel j. levitin, 12. don’t believe everything you think: the 6 basic mistakes we make in thinking – thomas e. kida, 13. the decision book: 50 models for strategic thinking – mikael krogerus, roman tschäppeler, philip earnhart, jenny piening, 14. weaponized lies: how to think critically in the post-truth era – daniel j. levitin, 15. the demon-haunted world: science as a candle in the dark paperback – carl sagan, ann druyan, 16. how to think about weird things: critical thinking for a new age – theodore schick, lewis vaughn, 17. the 5 elements of effective thinking – edward b. burger, michael starbird.

As the title says, this book introduces you to the art of critical thinking. You’ll discover in it:

• What is critical thinking in practice,
• The different thought processes of critical thinking,
• How will your life be better mastering critical thinking,
• The things your brain needs to enjoy exercising critical thinking,
• Techniques you can use for solving problems,
• How to become a better decision maker, Strategies to use in your critical thinking processes,
• Ways to make good decisions when more people (not just you) are involved,
• Tips to frame your questions in order to maximize the efficiency of your critical thinking.

Wisdom comes from observation, learning, practice, and asking the right questions.

Using examples from history, politics, and his own personal life, James e Ryan shows you the importance of knowing how to:

• Ask questions and gain a better understanding,
• Get to be more curious,
• Push yourself to take action,
• Make your relationship stronger,
• And stay focused on the important things in life.

Related:  Critical Thinking Examples

The book starts with the five fundamental questions:

• Couldn’t we at least…?
• How can I help…?
• What truly matters….?

Knowing how to formulate, address, and deliver the right questions doesn’t leave room for misunderstandings, misinterpretations; asking the wrong questions will most probably give you a wrong answer.

This book (Wait, What?: And Life’s Other Essential Questions) will make you feel (more) courageous; after all, asking questions thanks courage. Asking yourself and others the right questions helps you make informed decisions and decisive action.

This book is a guide on how to train your brain to work even more for you. The author (Michael Kallet) is a critical thinking trainer and coach and gives you a practical set of tools and techniques for critical thinking in your day-to-day life and business.

If you want a clear, actionable step by step program to:

• Improve your critical thinking skills,
• A better understanding of complex problems and concepts,
• And how to put them in practice, then this book is for you.

Learn how to discover the real issues that need a solution, so you don’t waste your time in trying to solve imaginary problems. Increase your mental toughness, useful and productive thought.

In this book, Karl Albrecht shows you how to:

• Build your mental strength,
• Think more clearly logically and creative,
• Improve your memory,
• Solve problems,
• Make decisions more effectively.

Karl Albrecht talks in this book about the six functional abilities you need to have and become more adaptable and an innovative thinker.

The book is packed with practical exercises, fascinating illustrations, games, and puzzles to improve your mental capabilities.

The art of thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli is a window into human psychology and reasoning; how we:

• Make decisions;
• Evaluate choices and options;
• Develop cognitive biases.

This book helps you notice and recognize erroneous thinking and make better choices and decisions, change unwanted behaviors and habits.

It will change the way you think about yourself and life in general because you have in this book 99 short chapters with examples of the most common errors of judgment and how to rectify them.

If you wish to think more clearly, make better decisions and choices, reevaluate your biases, and feel better about yourself, this book is for you.

When you decide you want to study the field of logic more closely and improve your critical thinking, this book might be exactly what you need. It’s written clearly and concisely laying out for you the basic building blocks of logic and critical thinking.

The ancient civilizations understood better than us how important is to study logic and rhetoric. With the help of this book, you’ll bring back into your life these essential things that our modern society forgot and missed to teach you as a child.

Having increased logical thinking doesn’t mean to ignore your emotions. It means to start from your emotions and together, (emotions and logic) to take better decisions and see more clearly your choices to move forward in life.

“Predictably Irrational, The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” is a book packed with examples of how:

• Irrational are our choices;
• We make decisions on impulse;
• We fool ourselves with optimism- “that must work for me.”

The author presents you, in this book, a large number of mental traps and flawed tendencies which can make your life harder.

After reading this book, you’ll be better informed about a variety of human flaws and how to avoid being trapped by irrational thinking. You’ll be better prepared to make decisions and choices based more on facts rather than subjective personal opinions.

Knowing how to ask the right questions is determining your success about many things in your life:

• Influencing others,
• Getting out of tricky situations,
• Reevaluating your beliefs,
• Offering yourself and others compassion,
• Overcoming mistakes and fears.

Warren Berger shows you in this book examples of people who are successful (partially) because they are experts in asking questions and don’t have preconceived ideas about what the answers should be.

This book helps you avoid wasting your innovative and brilliant ideas by presenting them in the same way over and over and getting nowhere over and over.

Asking yourself (and others) the right questions gives you the opportunity to display your ideas in a way that those around you feel compelled to listen.

This book is impressive because, Anthony Weston gives you a lot of excellent and practical advice, ordered in a logical and clear manner.

The examples in this book are realistic and useful, ranging from deductive to oral arguments, from argumentative essays to arguments by analogy.

Once you read this book you’ll want to have it on hand to sort out all sorts of situations you’ll encounter in your day-to-day life.

Daniel Kahneman, the author of this book, is a renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in economics.

In this book, you will discover where you can and cannot trust your intuition; how to use the two systems that drive the way you think.

The first system is fast, intuitive, and emotional; the second system is slower, based on facts, and more logical.

The author argues that knowing how to use these two systems can make a huge difference in how you:

• Design your strategies,
• Predict consequences,
• Avoid cognitive biases,
• (and even simple things like) choosing the colors for your home office.

If you want to improve your critical thinking, know when you should use logic (instead of using emotions), and become mentally stronger this book is definitely for you.

Critical thinking can’t be created in a cluttered mind. It’s like trying to prepare a gourmet meal for your loved ones in a cramped and dysfunctional kitchen.

As if is not enough all the information you store in your mind from what you personally experience every day, our modern times forcefully adds to that information a lot of junk.

The book “The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload” by Daniel J. Levitin will help you sort out and organized your thoughts with the help of the four components in the human attentional system:

• Mind wandering mode;
• Central executive mode;
• Attentional filter;
• Attentional switch.

The book is showing you how you can improve your critical thinking and make better decisions concerning many areas of your life.

This book can (really) change your life if you’re dealing with procrastination, multitasking, the inability to switch off and block the outside world.

All in all, you’ll be better prepared to think straight in the age of information overload.

Thomas E. Kida talks in this book very elegantly about the six basic mistakes your thinking can make.

• The first mistake is being mesmerized by stories and ignoring the facts or statistics.
• The second mistake is searching to confirm what we already know or believe.
• The third mistake is to discount the role that chance and coincidence play in our life.
• The fourth mistake is believing that what you see it’s always the reality.
• The fifth mistake is to oversimplify things.
• The sixth mistake is to believe (trust) faulty memories.

This book can be for you an eye-opener into critical thinking, accepting who you are as you are, and improving the way you choose and make decisions.

Did you know you have a strategy for everything you do? From brushing your teeth to making new friends? From choosing a career to dealing with difficult people?

Considering you have a strategy for everything you do, it’s only logical the try to improve every day the way you develop your strategies and don’t leave it to chance, habit, or convenience.

“The Decision Book: 50 Models for Strategic Thinking” can improve your critical thinking and help you make your life easier and more enjoyable.

This book is interactive and provokes you to think about some of the strategies that don’t bring you the results you want.

It contains 58 illustrations offering summaries for known strategies such as the Rubber Band Model, the Personal Performance Model, and the Black Swan Model.

This book is for you if you want to improve the flexibility of your thinking, accept challenges more comfortable, feel more in control of your decisions and choices.

From this book, by Daniel Levitin, you’ll learn how to think critically and avoid being manipulated by things like misleading statistics and graphics, extreme view, or fake news.

The book contains three main sections:

• Evaluating numbers – how to read statistics and data to find out what lurks underneath and make a more objective analysis
• Evaluating words – how to assess the information you receive from experts, understanding the difference between incidence and prevalence, risk perceptions, and probabilistic thinking
• Evaluating the world – how to interpret scientific methods for different types of reasoning (induction, deduction, abduction)

This book will help you improve your critical thinking providing you with a lot of food for thought.

You know how in a criminal trial they call two experts that have divergent opinions on the same facts? Depending on whose side they are? This book teaches you to see the truth.

Although written in the 1990s, this bestseller book is still relevant in today’s society.

With both intelligence and compassion, Carl Sagan lays out the importance of education, logic, and science. This book will show you a ton of practical skills for assessing arguments, recognizing logical fallacies, and applying the scientific method.

Sagan felt that reason and logic could make the world a better place.

This book contains invaluable instructions on logic and reason using critical thinking, without being dull or difficult to understand.

Schick and Vaughn effectively laid out the key elements on how to assess evidence, sort through reasons, and recognize when a claim is likely to be accurate, making this book an absolute must-read for all students.

If you want to be better at decision-making based on sound evidence and argument, then this book is for you.

If you ever found yourself stuck on a problem, or having trouble in forming new ideas, this book will guide you in finding creative solutions to life’s difficult challenges.

This book emphasizes the value of effective thinking, how it can be mastered, and how to integrate it into everyday life.

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20 Influential Books on Critical Thinking You Must Read for Intellectual Growth

Critical thinking is an essential skill that allows individuals to analyze information, challenge assumptions, and solve problems effectively. Reading books on this subject can help enhance these skills by providing different perspectives, techniques, and frameworks.

For those seeking to sharpen their critical thinking abilities, reading influential books on this topic can be immensely beneficial. This article introduces some of the most impactful books that offer valuable insights and practical advice on developing critical thinking skills.

1) Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Daniel Kahneman, a Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, authored Thinking, Fast and Slow . The book delves into two distinct systems of thought.

System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional. It operates automatically and quickly, with minimal effort. For example, recognizing faces or solving simple math problems falls under System 1.

System 2 is slower, deliberate, and logical. It requires more mental energy and concentration. Tasks like solving complex equations or making big decisions involve System 2.

Kahneman explores how these systems shape our judgments and decisions. He reveals that while System 1 is efficient, it can also lead to mistakes and biases.

For instance, people might rely too much on their gut feelings, which can be misleading. System 2 helps to catch these errors but demands more effort.

The book offers numerous real-world examples and research findings. It explains phenomena such as cognitive biases and heuristics. These insights are crucial for anyone looking to improve their decision-making skills.

For a deeper look into these concepts, visit the Goodreads page for Thinking, Fast and Slow . This book is a must-read for those interested in psychology and critical thinking .

2) The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan

“The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark” is a 1995 book by Carl Sagan. Sagan explains the scientific method in a clear and engaging way. He aims to help readers develop critical and skeptical thinking skills.

In this book, Sagan discusses the difference between valid science and misleading claims. He emphasizes the importance of evidence and reason. The book encourages readers to question the world around them.

Sagan co-wrote parts of the book with Ann Druyan. Together, they address topics like astrology, UFOs, and other pseudosciences. This makes the book relevant even today, as misinformation remains a significant issue.

The book received praise for its powerful defense of rationality. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. “The Demon-Haunted World” remains a valuable resource for anyone interested in science and critical thinking. For more information, visit The Demon-Haunted World – Wikipedia or Penguin Random House .

3) Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking , explores the rapid decisions made by the human brain. It dives into the concept of the “adaptive unconscious,” which allows people to make quick judgments based on limited information.

In Blink, Gladwell presents various examples and research from psychology and behavioral economics. The book demonstrates how these snap decisions can be both powerful and flawed.

Through stories and studies, readers learn when to trust their instincts and how to improve their decision-making skills. The book offers insights into the strengths and weaknesses of quick thinking.

Gladwell’s engaging writing style makes complex topics accessible. The book is praised for changing how people view decision-making processes. Readers are encouraged to question their first impressions and understand the underlying mechanisms that drive them.

For those interested in psychology, Blink provides valuable knowledge on how the mind works. It highlights the importance of understanding and refining intuitive thinking for better outcomes in everyday situations.

4) How to Think by Alan Jacobs

Alan Jacobs’ “How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds” addresses the challenges of thinking clearly in a divided society. Jacobs explores how social and emotional influences shape our thinking patterns. He aims to help readers recognize these influences and encourages them to develop more independent and reflective thought processes.

Jacobs uses the terms from psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, to discuss two types of thinking: intuitive (fast) and deliberate (slow). He argues that much of our thinking is instinctive and influenced by social and linguistic factors. His goal is to inspire readers to question these automatic responses.

The author highlights that real thinking often involves engaging with others, even those we disagree with. He points out that it is impossible to think entirely independently. By thinking with a diverse group of people, Jacobs believes we can develop more nuanced viewpoints.

In addition, Jacobs emphasizes the importance of patience in thinking. He criticizes the fast pace of modern information consumption, particularly through social media. According to Jacobs, this rush prevents deep, analytical thought, leading to shallow understanding and quick judgments.

To learn more about this insightful book, visit the Amazon listing .

5) The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

Rolf Dobelli’s The Art of Thinking Clearly is a vital book for anyone looking to improve their decision-making skills. He explores the cognitive biases that affect everyday choices.

Dobelli uses simple language to describe complex concepts from psychology and behavioral economics. Readers learn to recognize thinking errors and reduce their impact on daily decisions.

The book is divided into short chapters, each focusing on a specific cognitive bias. This makes it easy to read a little at a time and absorb the valuable information.

Dobelli’s insights come from extensive research and observation. He provides practical advice on how to avoid common mental traps and think more logically.

The ideas in this book can be applied to various aspects of life, from personal decisions to professional strategies. This makes it a comprehensive guide for critical thinking.

For more about The Art of Thinking Clearly , you can visit its Amazon page .

6) Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences by John Allen Paulos

John Allen Paulos, a professor of mathematics at Temple University, authored Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences . This book highlights the issues arising from the lack of mathematical understanding among the general public.

Innumeracy covers various topics, addressing how people struggle with basic mathematical concepts. Paulos uses real-world examples to illustrate the impact of mathematical illiteracy on everyday life.

The book is known for its clear and engaging writing style, making complex ideas accessible. Paulos aims to promote a better grasp of mathematics to improve decision-making and critical thinking skills .

Readers will find the book thought-provoking, as it challenges common misconceptions. Paulos discusses probability, statistics, and the misuse of numbers in media and politics.

Innumeracy encourages readers to develop a more quantitative perspective on the world. The book’s insights can help people avoid common pitfalls and errors related to numerical information.

Overall, Innumeracy is a valuable read for anyone looking to enhance their critical thinking through a better understanding of mathematics. The book is available for purchase here .

7) Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke

“Thinking in Bets” by Annie Duke teaches readers how to make smarter decisions by embracing the concept of thinking like a poker player. Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion, uses her experience to explain how thinking in terms of bets can improve decision-making.

The book highlights the importance of making decisions based on probabilities rather than certainties. Duke explains that even the best decisions can lead to poor outcomes due to luck.

She provides strategies for dealing with uncertainty and hidden information, which are crucial for better decision-making. Her insights from poker offer a practical approach to dealing with real-life situations where outcomes are uncertain.

Annie Duke emphasizes that good decisions can sometimes lead to bad results and vice versa. This perspective helps readers understand that the quality of a decision should not be judged solely by its outcome.

Duke’s writing is engaging and often humorous, making complex ideas accessible. Her book encourages readers to adopt a mindset where every decision is a bet, calculated with available information and probabilities.

For those interested in enhancing their decision-making skills, “Thinking in Bets” offers valuable lessons from the world of poker applied to everyday life. Learn more about the book at Amazon or Goodreads .

8) The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn

Thomas S. Kuhn’s book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions , published in 1962, has had a lasting impact on how people view scientific progress. Here, Kuhn introduced the concept of “paradigm shifts,” indicating that scientific fields undergo fundamental changes in how they understand the world.

Kuhn argued that science does not progress linearly but rather through a series of revolutions. These revolutions occur when accumulating anomalies challenge the existing framework, leading to a new paradigm.

The terms “normal science” and “revolutionary science” were coined by Kuhn. Normal science involves everyday problem-solving within an accepted paradigm. Revolutionary science, however, replaces the old paradigm with a new one, changing the scientific community’s perspective.

Kuhn emphasized the role of social and psychological factors in scientific change. He explained that community acceptance and individual doubt play significant roles in moving from one paradigm to another.

This work has been pivotal in fields far beyond science, influencing philosophy, sociology, and even political theory. Kuhn’s ideas continue to be discussed and debated today, showing their enduring relevance.

To explore more about this book, you can visit its Amazon listing .

9) Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan M. Gardner

“Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction” by Philip E. Tetlock and Dan M. Gardner explores the abilities of people known as superforecasters. These individuals excel at making accurate predictions about future events. The book is based on the results of the Good Judgment Project, a large forecasting study involving everyday people.

Philip E. Tetlock is a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, holding appointments in the psychology and political science departments. He and his wife, Barbara Mellers, co-lead the Good Judgment Project, which looks into improving the quality of predictions by using statistical methods and cognitive science.

Dan Gardner, who co-authored the book, is also the author of several other bestsellers. He was formerly an investigative journalist. In “Superforecasting,” Tetlock and Gardner reveal how certain traits, such as open-mindedness and the willingness to learn from mistakes, enable superforecasters to outperform even experts with access to classified information.

The book provides practical insights into how anyone can improve their own forecasting skills. By breaking down complex problems and continuously updating their predictions, superforecasters achieve higher accuracy. This has implications for various fields, from politics to business and beyond.

Read more about Tetlock and Gardner’s findings in their masterwork on prediction .

10) The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, The Black Swan , explores the impact of highly improbable events. These events, termed “Black Swans,” are rare but have massive consequences. Taleb argues that our world is profoundly shaped by these occurrences.

A key idea in the book is how humans tend to retroactively explain these events, failing to predict them. Taleb emphasizes that experts are often blind to true randomness and uncertainty.

The book bridges different fields such as economics, history, and psychology. Taleb’s theory challenges the traditional methods of risk assessment and forecasting. He suggests that instead of trying to predict Black Swan events, societies should focus on building resilience.

One of the most engaging aspects of the book is its application to everyday life. Taleb uses examples from history, finance, and personal experiences to illustrate his points. This makes the complex concepts accessible to the general reader.

The Black Swan encourages a different way of thinking about uncertainty and risk. It covers why certain events surprise us and how they shape our perception of the world.

11) Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

“Nudge” explores how small changes in the way choices are presented can significantly alter people’s decisions. Richard H. Thaler, a Nobel laureate, and Cass R. Sunstein, co-author, discuss the concept of “nudging” to influence behavior in a positive direction.

The book covers areas like health, finance, and personal welfare. Thaler and Sunstein argue that people often make poor decisions due to biases and lack of information. Their approach aims to guide choices without restricting freedom.

One of the key ideas is “choice architecture,” which involves designing environments to nudge people toward beneficial decisions. For example, arranging healthier food options at eye level can promote better eating habits.

“Nudge” also touches on important life decisions such as mortgages, education, and environmental responsibility. By understanding how people make choices, policymakers can create strategies that help individuals and society thrive.

With practical examples and a clear writing style, the book shows how subtle prompts can lead to better decision-making. The authors emphasize the importance of respecting autonomy while encouraging smarter choices.

For more details on how this influential book can impact your life, visit Nudge on Amazon .

12) Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil

Cathy O’Neil’s book, Weapons of Math Destruction , examines the dark side of data and algorithms. She explains how algorithms, while appearing neutral, can reinforce inequality and exploit vulnerable populations.

A former Wall Street analyst, O’Neil provides a detailed look at how Big Data is used in areas like finance, healthcare, and education. Her experience gives her a unique perspective on the ethical and moral risks involved in relying too heavily on mathematical models.

O’Neil argues that many algorithms are not transparent and can cause harm without being noticed. For instance, she discusses predictive policing and its potential to reinforce bias in law enforcement.

Her book, a New York Times bestseller, highlights the urgent need for accountability and regulation in the use of algorithms. O’Neil’s insights make this book a valuable read for anyone interested in the impact of technology on society.

This work has received praise for its relevance and has even been longlisted for the National Book Award. It is a powerful critique of the ways data can be misused, making it crucial for critical thinkers to understand.

13) Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely

“Predictably Irrational” by Dan Ariely questions the assumption that humans act rationally. Instead, it reveals that our decisions are influenced by unseen forces.

Dan Ariely uses clever experiments to show how our behavior is often irrational. For instance, we might overpay for coffee or make poor choices in different areas of life.

The book combines psychology and behavioral economics. It explores why people make decisions that seem illogical, like spending more when using credit cards. Ariely’s insights help readers understand these patterns.

Ariely’s writing style is engaging and accessible. He explains complex ideas in a way that’s easy to grasp. This approach makes the book suitable for a wide audience interested in critical thinking .

For more information, check out Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions and PREDICTABLY IRRATIONAL – Dan Ariely .

“Predictably Irrational” is a valuable read for anyone looking to better understand the human decision-making process. It’s a must-read for those interested in the quirks of human behavior and critical thinking.

14) Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter

Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter is a unique exploration of the links between logic, art, and music. The book is often referred to as GEB. It was first published in 1979 and has since become a classic in understanding human thought and creativity.

Hofstadter examines the works of logician Kurt Gödel, artist M.C. Escher, and composer Johann Sebastian Bach. He demonstrates how their creations share common themes of symmetry, structure, and self-reference.

Through a mix of short stories, illustrations, and analyses, the book delves into complex ideas about mathematics and intelligence. Hofstadter’s approach makes these intricate concepts accessible to a wide audience.

The book has received widespread acclaim, even winning the 1980 Pulitzer Prize. It continues to be praised for its innovative and thought-provoking content. Readers interested in the intersections of different fields and the nature of thought will find it a compelling read.

To learn more about this intriguing work, visit Godel, Escher, Bach on Wikipedia and its listing on Amazon .

15) Factfulness by Hans Rosling

Factfulness, written by Hans Rosling, is a significant book on critical thinking. It challenges common misconceptions about the world with data-driven insights.

Rosling presents ten instincts that distort our perspective. These instincts include the fear instinct, the gap instinct, and the negativity instinct. Each one is explained with real-world examples and statistics.

Key figures like Bill Gates and Barack Obama have praised the book. Gates describes it as an indispensable guide to thinking clearly about the world. Obama calls it a hopeful book about how human progress can be achieved by focusing on facts.

The book encourages readers to base their views on facts rather than biases. Rosling shows that many perceptions of issues like global poverty, population growth, and education are often wrong.

Readers are taught to see the world accurately through charts, graphs, and personal stories. These tools break down complex subjects into understandable insights.

In addition to being informative, the book is also engaging. Rosling uses lively anecdotes to make the material accessible and interesting. This approach makes Factfulness both educational and enjoyable to read.

Factfulness is available on multiple platforms, including Amazon and Google Books . This accessibility ensures that the vital lessons it offers reach a wide audience.

Overall, Factfulness by Hans Rosling is an essential read for anyone interested in understanding the world through a critical and factual lens.

16) Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

Ben Goldacre’s “Bad Science” targets the misuse of science by quacks, journalists, and big pharmaceutical companies. The book sheds light on how misinformation spreads through media and affects public understanding.

Goldacre explains how some physicians and media figures lack critical thinking when interpreting scientific evidence and statistics. This lack of scrutiny leads to widespread myths and misconceptions about health and science.

“Bad Science” also includes a primer on basic scientific principles. It emphasizes the importance of robust research methods, experimental design, and statistical analysis. Readers learn how to spot faulty science and understand the value of reliable data.

The book is not just a critique but also a toolkit for critical thinking. It encourages readers to question information and seek out trustworthy sources. This makes it an educational read for anyone interested in science and public policy.

For more information on this book, visit Bad Science – Bad Science or Bad Science on Amazon .

Goldacre’s engaging writing style combines humor and clarity, making complex scientific topics accessible to a wide audience. This book is a recommended read for those who want an insightful look at the intersection of science and media.

17) Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

“Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)” is an essential read for anyone interested in critical thinking. Written by social psychologists Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, the book dives into the concept of self-justification.

The authors explain how cognitive biases, like confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance, influence our decisions and behaviors. They use research and real-life examples to illustrate these concepts clearly.

The book discusses how people justify wrongdoing to protect their self-image. It highlights the psychological mechanisms that allow individuals to rationalize mistakes. This knowledge is crucial for developing critical thinking skills .

For those wanting to understand how the mind works to protect its beliefs, “Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)” is a must-read. It offers insights into why we defend our actions, even when they are wrong. Read more about the book on Goodreads .

18) The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef

“The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t” by Julia Galef focuses on how adopting a scout mindset can help individuals see the world more accurately. The book was published in 2021.

Galef explains that a scout mindset prioritizes curiosity and truth-seeking over comfort and self-deception. She contrasts this with a soldier mindset, which defends and justifies one’s beliefs.

By using a scout mindset, people can better navigate complex and uncertain environments. This approach emphasizes facing reality directly, even when it is uncomfortable or challenging.

The book digs into various psychological tricks the mind uses to distort reality. Galef provides practical advice on how to overcome these biases.

The aim is to develop a mindset that embraces truth and evidence, without falling into defensive thinking. It encourages readers to ask questions, embrace uncertainty, and remain open to change.

Galef’s book is ideal for anyone looking to improve their decision-making skills and better understand the world around them. It is a vital read for those interested in critical thinking and rationality.

19) The Fifth Discipline by Peter M. Senge

“The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization” is a book by Peter M. Senge, a senior lecturer at MIT, that focuses on group problem-solving using systems thinking. This method helps companies become learning organizations, which improve their ability to create desired results as a group.

Systems thinking is one of the five disciplines highlighted in the book. It encourages organizations to see the bigger picture and understand how their actions are interconnected.

The other four disciplines include personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning. These concepts help individuals within the organization improve their skills and teamwork.

Peter Senge is also the founding chairperson of the Society for Organizational Learning. His work emphasizes nurturing new and expansive patterns of thinking within organizations.

Learning organizations prioritize continuous improvement and collective aspiration. Senge’s book provides a blueprint for creating environments where people can grow and innovate.

For those interested in deeper insights, the book’s available PDF can be found on Archive.org . Additionally, more details about Peter Senge’s work can be found on Wikipedia and Amazon .

20) You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney

David McRaney’s You Are Not So Smart explores the ways in which people deceive themselves. The book, based on his popular blog, examines the stories we tell ourselves to justify our decisions, thoughts, and emotions.

McRaney covers topics such as Learned Helplessness, Selling Out, and the Illusion of Transparency. Each chapter acts like a brief psychology lesson, helping readers understand their own mental shortcuts and biases.

Through engaging and accessible language, McRaney reveals that many of the stories we create are not true. He provides insights into self-delusion and highlights how human brains often mislead us.

One of the compelling aspects of this book is its ability to blend scientific research with relatable anecdotes. This makes complex psychological concepts easier to grasp for a general audience.

Anyone interested in understanding self-deception and improving their critical thinking skills will find You Are Not So Smart valuable. It offers a fascinating look into the quirks of human psychology and helps readers become more aware of their own cognitive biases.

Importance of Critical Thinking in Modern Society

Critical thinking is a vital skill in today’s world, enhancing decision-making, problem-solving, and understanding of complex issues. It enables individuals to evaluate information critically and make well-informed decisions.

Defining Critical Thinking

Critical thinking involves analyzing facts, questioning assumptions, and evaluating evidence. It is the ability to think clearly and rationally, understanding the logical connections between ideas. According to Nigel Warburton, critical thinking includes skills such as interpreting, verifying, and reasoning. This skill is essential in differentiating between valid arguments and fallacies, helping individuals navigate through vast amounts of information. In essence, critical thinking fosters an evidence-based approach to understanding problems and developing solutions.

Benefits of Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinking skills offer numerous advantages. They enhance problem-solving abilities by allowing individuals to approach issues methodically and consider various solutions. These skills also improve decision-making, making it easier to evaluate options and choose the best course of action. In educational settings, critical thinking promotes deeper learning and comprehension. In the workplace, it leads to better strategies and innovations. For example, 93% of CEOs value critical thinking as a crucial skill for success. Additionally, critical thinking plays a significant role in fostering effective communication, as it enables individuals to articulate their thoughts and arguments clearly.

How to Develop Critical Thinking Through Reading

Developing critical thinking through reading involves selecting appropriate books and engaging deeply with the material. These strategies enhance analytical skills and foster better decision-making.

Choosing the Right Books

Selecting the appropriate books is vital for nurturing critical thinking. Books like “Critical Thinking: A Beginner’s Guide to Critical Thinking, Better Decision Making, and Problem Solving” by Jennifer Wilson offer a solid foundation. Additionally, “Noise” by Daniel Kahneman provides insights into understanding biases and decision-making processes.

Look for books that challenge existing beliefs and present multiple viewpoints. Titles such as “Bad Science” by Ben Goldacre help readers differentiate between credible and misleading information. Opting for widely recommended titles from curated lists such as the 36 Best Books on Critical Thinking ensures that the chosen books are beneficial and influential.

Active Reading Strategies

Active reading involves more than just skimming through text. It requires engaging with the material by asking questions, making notes, and summarizing key points. Highlight important sections and reflect on how the information fits with known facts and perspectives.

Practice questioning the author’s arguments and evidence. Engage in discussions with others who have read the same book to gain different viewpoints. Using tools like mind maps can help organize thoughts and improve understanding, leading to deeper insights and better critical thinking skills .

Analyzing Themes in Critical Thinking Literature

Critical thinking literature often explores a variety of themes, with philosophical perspectives and practical applications in daily life standing out as particularly significant.

Philosophical Perspectives

Books on critical thinking frequently explore philosophical foundations. These texts delve into the nature of reasoning, the essence of truth, and the structures of sound arguments. Authors like Robert Ennis emphasize logical relationships, arguing that clear, rational thinking is vital for discerning truth from falsehoods—critical in fields like law and ethics.

A book such as “Critical Thinking in Education: A Review” by Pithers and Soden with its extensive citations offers a comprehensive view of how philosophical views shape educational practices. Similarly, older works by Ennis point to an evolving understanding of critical thinking from rigorous logical structures to more applied, belief-oriented frameworks.

Practical Applications in Daily Life

Critical thinking also extends to everyday decision-making and problem-solving. Books emphasize the importance of this skill for personal growth, professional success, and effective participation in society. For example, “Writing and Critical Thinking Through Literature” focuses on building these skills through the study of literary works, which helps in honing close reading and analytical skills.

Another perspective is provided by titles that link critical thinking with problem-solving in various disciplines . This connection underscores how essential critical thinking is in fields such as science and math, where students must apply core concepts to unsolved problems, fostering a deeper understanding and innovation.

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The best books on critical thinking, recommended by nigel warburton.

Thinking from A to Z by Nigel Warburton

Do you know your straw man arguments from your weasel words? Nigel Warburton , Five Books philosophy editor and author of Thinking from A to Z,  selects some of the best books on critical thinking—and explains how they will help us make better-informed decisions and construct more valid arguments.

Interview by Cal Flyn , Deputy Editor

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About The World — And Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling

Black Box Thinking: The Surprising Truth About Success by Matthew Syed

The Art of Thinking Clearly by Rolf Dobelli

Critical Thinking: Your Guide to Effective Argument, Successful Analysis and Independent Study by Tom Chatfield

1 Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

2 factfulness: ten reasons we're wrong about the world — and why things are better than you think by hans rosling, 3 black box thinking: the surprising truth about success by matthew syed, 4 the art of thinking clearly by rolf dobelli, 5 critical thinking: your guide to effective argument, successful analysis and independent study by tom chatfield.

W e’re here to talk about critical thinking. Before we discuss your book recommendations, I wonder if you would first explain: What exactly is critical thinking, and when should we be using it?

But that’s just one element of critical thinking. Critical thinking is broader, though it encompasses that. In recent years, it’s been very common to include discussion of cognitive biases—the psychological mistakes we make in reasoning and the tendencies we have to think in certain patterns which don’t give us reliably good results. That’s another aspect: focussing on the cognitive biases is a part of what’s sometimes called ‘informal logic’, the sorts of reasoning errors that people make, which can be described as fallacious. They’re not, strictly speaking, logical fallacies, always. Some of them are simply psychological tendencies that give us unreliable results.

The gambler’s fallacy is a famous one: somebody throwing a die that isn’t loaded has thrown it three times without getting a six, and then imagines that, by some kind of law of averages, the fourth time they’re more likely to get a six, because they haven’t yet got one yet. That’s just a bad kind of reasoning, because each time that you roll the dice, the odds are the same: there’s a one in six chance of throwing a six. There’s no cumulative effect and a dice doesn’t have a memory. But we have this tendency, or certainly gamblers often do, to think that somehow the world will even things out and give you a win if you’ve had a series of losses. That’s a kind of informal reasoning error that many of us make, and there are lots of examples like that.

I wrote a little book called Thinking from A to Z which was meant to name and explain a whole series of moves and mistakes in thinking. I included logic, some cognitive biases, some rhetorical moves, and also (for instance) the topic of pseudo-profundity, whereby people make seemingly deep statements that are in fact shallow. The classical example is to give a seeming paradox—to say, for example ‘knowledge is just a kind of ignorance,’ or ‘virtue is only achieved through vice.’ Actually, that’s just a rhetorical trick, and once you see it, you can generate any number of such ‘profundities’. I suppose that would fall under rhetoric, the art of persuasion: persuading people that you are a deeper thinker than you are. Good reasoning isn’t necessarily the best way to persuade somebody of something, and there are many devious tricks that people use within discussion to persuade people of a particular position. The critical thinker is someone who recognises the moves, can anatomise the arguments, and call them to attention.

So, in answer to your question: critical thinking is not just pure logic . It’s a cluster of things. But its aim is to be clear about what is being argued, what follows from the given evidence and arguments, and to detect any cognitive biases or rhetorical moves that may lead us astray.

Many of the terms you define and illustrate in Thinking from A to Z— things like ‘straw man’ arguments and ‘weasel words’—have been creeping into general usage. I see them thrown around on Twitter. Do you think that our increased familiarity with debate, thanks to platforms like Twitter, has improved people’s critical thinking or made it worse?

I think that improving your critical thinking can be quite difficult. But one of the ways of doing it is to have memorable labels, which can describe the kind of move that somebody’s making, or the kind of reasoning error, or the kind of persuasive technique they’re using.

For example, you can step back from a particular case and see that somebody’s using a ‘weak analogy’. Once you’re familiar with the notion of a weak analogy, it’s a term that you can use to draw attention to a comparison between two things which aren’t actually alike in the respects that somebody is implying they are. Then the next move of a critical thinker would be to point out the respects in which this analogy doesn’t hold, and so demonstrate how poor it is at supporting the conclusion provided. Or, to use the example of weasel words—once you know that concept, it’s easier to spot them and to speak about them.

Social media, particularly Twitter, is quite combative. People are often looking for critical angles on things that people have said, and you’re limited in words. I suspect that labels are probably in use there as a form of shorthand. As long as they’re used in a precise way, this can be a good thing. But remember that responding to someone’s argument with ‘that’s a fallacy’, without actually spelling out what sort of fallacy it is supposed to be, is a form of dismissive rhetoric itself.

There are also a huge number of resources online now which allow people to discover definitions of critical thinking terms. When I first wrote Thinking from A to Z , there weren’t the same number of resources available. I wrote it in ‘A to Z’ form, partly just as a fun device that allows for lots of cross references, but partly because I wanted to draw attention to the names of things. Naming the moves is important.

“People seem to get a kick out of the idea of sharing irrelevant features—it might be a birthday or it might be a hometown—with somebody famous. But so what?”

The process of writing the book improved my critical thinking quite a lot, because I had to think more precisely about what particular terms meant and find examples of them that were unambiguous. That was the hardest thing, to find clear-cut examples of the various moves, to illustrate them. I coined some of the names myself: there’s one in there which is called the ‘Van Gogh fallacy,’ which is the pattern of thought when people say: ‘Well, Van Gogh had red hair, was a bit crazy, was left-handed, was born on the 30th of March, and, what do you know, I share all those things’—which I do happen to do—‘and therefore I must be a great genius too.’

I love that. Well, another title that deals with psychological biases is the first critical thinking book that you want to discuss, Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow . Why did you choose this one?

This is an international bestseller by the Nobel Prize-winning behavioural economist—although he’s principally a psychologist—Daniel Kahneman. He developed research with Amos Tversky, who unfortunately died young. I think it would have been a co-written book otherwise. It’s a brilliant book that summarizes their psychological research on cognitive biases (or its patterns of thinking) which all of us are prone to, which aren’t reliable.

There is a huge amount of detail in the book. It summarizes a lifetime of research—two lifetimes, really. But Kahneman is very clear about the way he describes patterns of thought: as using either ‘System One’ or ‘System Two.’ System One is the fast, intuitive, emotional response to situations where we jump to a conclusion very quickly. You know: 2 + 2 is 4. You don’t think about it.

System Two is more analytical, conscious, slower, methodical, deliberative. A more logical process, which is much more energy consuming. We stop and think. How would you answer 27 × 17? You’d have to think really hard, and do a calculation using the System Two kind of thinking. The problem is that we rely on this System One—this almost instinctive response to situations—and often come out with bad answers as a result. That’s a framework within which a lot of his analysis is set.

I chose this book because it’s a good read, and it’s a book you can keep coming back to—but also because it’s written by a very important researcher in the area. So it’s got the authority of the person who did the actual psychological research. But it’s got some great descriptions of the phenomena he researches, I think. Anchoring, for instance. Do you know about anchoring?

I think so. Is that when you provide an initial example that shapes future responses? Perhaps you’d better explain it.

That’s more or less it. If you present somebody with an arbitrary number, psychologically, most people seem prone when you ask them a question to move in the direction of that number. For instance, there’s an experiment with judges. They were being asked off the cuff: What would be a good sentence for a particular crime, say shoplifting? Maybe they’d say it would be a six-month sentence for a persistent shoplifter.

But if you prime a judge by giving an anchoring number—if you ask, ‘Should the sentence for shoplifting be more than nine months?’ They’re more like to say on average that the sentence should be eight months than they would have been otherwise. And if you say, ‘Should it be punished by a sentence of longer than three months?’ they’re more likely to come down in the area of five , than they would otherwise.

So the way you phrase a question, by introducing these numbers, you give an anchoring effect. It sways people’s thinking towards that number. If you ask people if Gandhi was older than 114 years old when he died, people give a higher answer than if you just asked them: ‘How old was Gandhi when he died?’

I’ve heard this discussed in the context of charity donations. Asking if people will donate, say, £20 a month returns a higher average pledge than asking for £1 a month.

People use this anchoring technique often with selling wine on a list too. If there’s a higher-priced wine for £75, then somehow people are more drawn to one that costs £40 than they would otherwise have been. If  that was the most expensive one on the menu, they wouldn’t have been drawn to the £40 bottle, but just having seen the higher price, they seem to be drawn to a higher number. This phenomenon occurs in many areas.

And there are so many things that Kahneman covers. There’s the sunk cost fallacy, this tendency that we have when we give our energy, or money, or time to a project—we’re very reluctant to stop, even when it’s irrational to carry on. You see this a lot in descriptions of withdrawal from war situations. We say: ‘We’ve given all those people’s lives, all that money, surely we’re not going to stop this campaign now.’ But it might be the rational thing to do. All that money being thrown there, doesn’t mean that throwing more in that direction will get a good result. It seems that we have a fear of future regret that outweighs everything else. This dominates our thinking.

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What Kahneman emphasizes is that System One thinking produces overconfidence based on what’s often an erroneous assessment of a situation. All of us are subject to these cognitive biases, and that they’re extremely difficult to remove. Kahneman’s a deeply pessimistic thinker in some respects; he recognizes that even after years of studying these phenomena he can’t eliminate them from his own thinking. I interviewed him for a podcast once , and said to him: ‘Surely, if you teach people critical thinking, they can get better at eliminating some of these biases.’ He was not optimistic about that. I’m much more optimistic than him. I don’t know whether he had empirical evidence to back that up, about whether studying critical thinking can increase your thinking abilities. But I was surprised how pessimistic he was.

Interesting.

Unlike some of the other authors that we’re going to discuss . . .

Staying on Kahneman for a moment, you mentioned that he’d won a Nobel Prize, not for his research in psychology per se but for his influence on the field of economics . His and Tversky’s ground-breaking work on the irrationality of human behaviour and thinking forms the spine of a new field.

Let’s look at Hans Rosling’s book next, this is Factfulness . What does it tell us about critical thinking?

Rosling was a Swedish statistician and physician, who, amongst other things, gave some very popular TED talks . His book Factfulness , which was published posthumously—his son and daughter-in-law completed the book—is very optimistic, so completely different in tone from Kahneman’s. But he focuses in a similar way on the ways that people make mistakes.

We make mistakes, classically, in being overly pessimistic about things that are changing in the world. In one of Rosling’s examples he asks what percentage of the world population is living on less than $2 a day. People almost always overestimate that number, and also the direction in which things are moving, and the speed in which they’re moving. Actually, in 1966, half of the world’s population was in extreme poverty by that measure, but by 2017 it was only 9%, so there’s been a dramatic reduction in global poverty. But most people don’t realise this because they don’t focus on the facts, and are possibly influenced by what they may have known about the situation in the 1960s.

If people are asked what percentage of children are vaccinated against common diseases, they almost always underestimate it. The correct answer is a very high proportion, something like 80%. Ask people what the life expectancy for every child born today is, the global average, and again they get it wrong. It’s over 70 now, another surprisingly high figure. What Rosling’s done as a statistician is he’s looked carefully at the way the world is.

“Pessimists tend not to notice changes for the better”

People assume that the present is like the past, so when they’ve learnt something about the state of world poverty or they’ve learnt about health, they often neglect to take a second reading and see the direction in which things are moving, and the speed with which things are changing. That’s the message of this book.

It’s an interesting book; it’s very challenging. It may be over-optimistic. But it does have this startling effect on the readers of challenging widely held assumptions, much as Steven Pinker ‘s The Better Angels of Our Nature has done. It’s a plea to look at the empirical data, and not just assume that you know how things are now. But pessimists tend not to notice changes for the better. In many ways, though clearly not in relation to global warming and climate catastrophe, the statistics are actually very good for humanity.

That’s reassuring.

So this is critical thinking of a numerical, statistical kind. It’s a bit different from the more verbally-based critical thinking that I’ve been involved with. I’m really interested to have my my assumptions challenged, and Factfulness is a very readable book. It’s lively and thought-provoking.

Coming back to what you said about formal logic earlier, statistics is another dense subject which needs specialist training. But it’s one that has a lot in common with critical thinking and a lot of people find very difficult—by which I mean, it’s often counter-intuitive.

One of the big problems for an ordinary reader looking at this kind of book is that we are not equipped to judge the reliability of his sources, and so the reliability of the conclusions that he draws. I think we have to take it on trust and authority and hope that, given the division of intellectual labour, there are other statisticians looking at his work and seeing whether he was actually justified in drawing the conclusions that he drew. He made these sorts of public pronouncements for a long time and responded to critics.

But you’re right that there is a problem here. I believe that most people can equip themselves with tools for critical thinking that work in everyday life. They can learn something about cognitive biases; they can learn about reasoning and rhetoric, and I believe that we can put ourselves as members of a democracy in a position where we think critically about the evidence and arguments that are being presented to us, politically and in the press. That should be open to all intelligent people, I think. It is not a particularly onerous task to equip yourself with a basic tools of thinking clearly.

Absolutely. Next you wanted to talk about Five Books alumnus Matthew Syed ‘s Black Box Thinking .

Yes, quite a different book. Matthew Syed is famous as a former international table tennis player, but—most people probably don’t know this—he has a first-class degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) from Oxford as well.

This book is really interesting. It’s an invitation to think differently about failure. The title, Black Box Thinking, comes from the black boxes which are standardly included in every passenger aircraft, so that if an accident occurs there’s a recording of the flight data and a recording of the audio communications as the plane goes down. When there’s a crash, rescuers always aim to recover these two black boxes. The data is then analysed, the causes of the crash, dissected and scrutinized, and the information shared across the aeronautic industry and beyond.

Obviously, everybody wants to avoid aviation disasters because they’re so costly in terms of loss of human life. They undermine trust in the whole industry. There’s almost always some kind of technical or human error that can be identified, and everybody can learn from particular crashes. This is a model of an industry where, when there is a failure, it’s treated as a very significant learning experience, with the result that airline travel has become a very safe form of transport.

This contrasts with some other areas of human endeavour, such as, sadly, much of healthcare, where the information about failures often isn’t widely shared. This can be for a number of reasons: there may be a fear of litigation—so if a surgeon does something unorthodox, or makes a mistake, and somebody as a result doesn’t survive an operation, the details of exactly what happened on the operating table will not be widely shared, typically, because there is this great fear of legal comeback.

The hierarchical aspects of the medical profession may have a part to play here, too. People higher up in the profession are able to keep a closed book, and not share their mistakes with others, because it might be damaging to their careers for people to know about their errors. There has been, historically anyway, a tendency for medical negligence and medical error, to be kept very quiet, kept hidden, hard to investigate.

“You can never fully confirm an empirical hypothesis, but you can refute one by finding a single piece of evidence against it”

What Matthew Syed is arguing is that we need to take a different attitude to failure and see it as the aviation industry does. He’s particularly interested in this being done within the healthcare field, but more broadly too. It’s an idea that’s come partly from his reading of the philosopher Karl Popper, who described how science progresses not by proving theories true, but by trying to disprove them. You can never fully confirm an empirical hypothesis, but you can refute one by finding a single piece of evidence against it. So, in a sense, the failure of the hypothesis is the way by which science progresses: conjecture followed by refutation, not hypothesis followed by confirmation.

As Syed argues, we progress in all kinds of areas is by making mistakes. He was a superb table-tennis player, and he knows that every mistake that he made was a learning experience, at least potentially, a chance to improve. I think you’d find the same attitude among musicians, or in areas where practitioners are very attentive to the mistakes that they make, and how those failures can teach them in a way that allows them to make a leap forward. The book has a whole range of examples, many from industry, about how different ways of thinking about failure can improve the process and the output of particular practices.

When we think of bringing up kids to succeed, and put emphasis on avoiding failure, we may not be helping them develop. Syed’s argument is that we should make failure a more positive experience, rather than treat it as something that’s terrifying, and always to be shied away from. If you’re trying to achieve success, and you think, ‘I have to achieve that by accumulating other successes,’ perhaps that’s the wrong mindset to achieve success at the higher levels. Perhaps you need to think, ‘Okay, I’m going to make some mistakes, how can I learn from this, how can I share these mistakes, and how can other people learn from them too?’

That’s interesting. In fact, just yesterday I was discussing a book by Atul Gawande, the surgeon and New Yorker writer, called The Checklist Manifesto . In that, Gawande also argues that we should draw from the success of aviation, in that case, the checklists that they run through before take-off and so on, and apply it to other fields like medicine. A system like this is aiming to get rid of human error, and I suppose that’s what critical thinking tries to do, too: rid us of the gremlins in machine.

Well, it’s also acknowledging that when you make an error, it can have disastrous consequence. But you don’t eliminate errors just by pretending they didn’t occur. With the Chernobyl disaster , for instance, there was an initial unwillingness to accept the evidence in front of people’s eyes that a disaster had occurred, combined with a fear of being seen to have messed up. There’s that tendency to think that everything’s going well, a kind of cognitive bias towards optimism and a fear of being responsible for error, but it’s also this unwillingness to see that in certain areas, admission of failure and sharing of the knowledge that mistakes have occurred is the best way to minimize failure in the future.

Very Beckettian . “Fail again. Fail better.”

Absolutely. Well, shall we move onto to Rolf Dobelli’s 2013 book, The Art of Thinking Clearly ?

Yes. This is quite a light book in comparison with the others. It’s really a summary of 99 moves in thinking, some of them psychological, some of them logical, some of them social. What I like about it is that he uses lots of examples. Each of the 99 entries is pretty short, and it’s the kind of book you can dip into. I would think it would be very indigestible to read it from cover to cover, but it’s a book to keep going back to.

I included it because it suggests you can you improve your critical thinking by having labels for things, recognising the moves, but also by having examples which are memorable, through which you can learn. This is an unpretentious book. Dobelli doesn’t claim to be an original thinker himself; he’s a summariser of other people’s thoughts. What he’s done is brought lots of different things together in one place.

Just to give a flavour of the book: he’s got a chapter on the paradox of choice that’s three pages long called ‘Less is More,’ and it’s the very simple idea that if you present somebody with too many choices, rather than freeing them and improving their life and making them happier, it wastes a lot of their time, even destroys the quality of their life.

“If you present somebody with too many choices, it wastes a lot of their time”

I saw an example of this the other day in the supermarket. I bumped into a friend who was standing in front of about 20 different types of coffee. The type that he usually buys wasn’t available, and he was just frozen in this inability to make a decision between all the other brands that were in front of him. If there’d only been one or two, he’d have just gone for one of those quickly.

Dobelli here is summarising the work of psychologist Barry Schwartz who concluded that generally, a broader selection leads people to make poorer decisions for themselves. We think going into the world that what we need is more choice, because that’ll allow us to do the thing we want to do, acquire just the right consumable, or whatever. But perhaps just raising that possibility, the increased number of choices will lead us to make poorer choices than if we had fewer to choose between.

Now, that’s the descriptive bit, but at the end of this short summary, he asks ‘So what can you do about this practically?’ His answer is that you should think carefully about what you want before you look at what’s on offer. Write down the things you think you want and stick to them. Don’t let yourself be swayed by further choices. And don’t get caught up in a kind of irrational perfectionism. This is not profound advice, but it’s stimulating. And that’s typical of the book.

You can flip through these entries and you can take them or leave them. It’s a kind of self-help manual.

Oh, I love that. A critical thinking self-help book .

It really is in that self-help genre, and it’s nicely done. He gets in and out in a couple of pages for each of these. I wouldn’t expect this to be on a philosophy reading list or anything like that, but it’s been an international bestseller. It’s a clever book, and I think it’s definitely worth dipping into and coming back to. The author is not claiming that it is the greatest or most original book in the world; rather, it’s just a book that’s going to help you think clearly. That’s the point.

Absolutely. Let’s move to the final title, Tom Chatfield’s Critical Thinking: Your Guide to Effective Argument, Successful Analysis and Independent Study . We had Tom on Five Books many moons ago to discuss books about computer games . This is rather different. What makes it so good?

Well, this is a different kind of book. I was trying to think about somebody reading this interview who wants to improve their thinking. Of the books I’ve discussed, the ones that are most obviously aimed at that are Black Box Thinking , the Dobelli book, and Tom Chatfield’s Critical Thinking . The others are more descriptive or academic. But this book is quite a contrast with the Dobelli’s. The Art of Thinking Clearly is a very short and punchy book, while Tom’s is longer, and more of a textbook. It includes exercises, with summaries in the margins, it’s printed in textbook format. But that shouldn’t put a general reader off, because I think it’s the kind of thing you can work through yourself and dip into.

It’s clearly written and accessible, but it is designed to be used on courses as well. Chatfield teaches a point, then asks you to test yourself to see whether you’ve learnt the moves that he’s described. It’s very wide-ranging: it includes material on cognitive biases as well as more logical moves and arguments. His aim is not simply to help you think better, and to structure arguments better, but also to write better. It’s the kind of book that you might expect a good university to present to the whole first year intake, across a whole array of courses. But I’m including it here more as a recommendation for the autodidact. If you want to learn to think better: here is a course in the form of a book. You can work through this on your own.

It’s a contrast with the other books as well, so that’s part of my reason for putting it in there, so there’s a range of books on this list.

Definitely. I think Five Books readers, almost by definition, tend towards autodidacticism, so this is a perfect book recommendation. And, finally, to close: do you think that critical thinking is something that more people should make an effort to learn? I suppose the lack of it might help to explain the rise of post-truth politics.

It’s actually quite difficult to teach critical thinking in isolation. In the Open University’s philosophy department, when I worked there writing and designing course materials, we decided in the end to teach critical thinking as it arose in teaching other content: by stepping back from time to time to look at the critical thinking moves being made by philosophers, and the critical thinking moves a good student might make in response to them. Pedagogically, that often works much better than attempting to teach critical thinking as a separate subject in isolation.

This approach can work in scientific areas too. A friend of mine has run a successful university course for zoologists on critical thinking, looking at correlation and cause, particular types of rhetoric that are used in write ups and experiments, and so on, but all the time driven by real examples from zoology. If you’ve got some subject matter, and you’ve got examples of people reasoning, and you can step back from it, I think this approach can work very well.

But in answer to your question, I think that having some basic critical thinking skills is a prerequisite of being a good citizen in a democracy . If you are too easily swayed by rhetoric, weak at analysing arguments and the ways that people use evidence, and prone to all kinds of biases that you are unaware of, how can you engage politically? So yes, all of us can improve our critical thinking skills, and I do believe that that is an aspect of living the examined life that Socrates was so keen we all should do. [ end of the original interview. Update below ]

———————————-

It’s been just over two years since you explained to us what critical thinking is all about. Could you update us on any books that have come out since we first spoke?

In How To Make the World Add Up , Tim Harford gives us ten rules for thinking better about numbers, together with a Golden Rule (‘Be curious’). Anyone who has listened to his long-running radio series More or Less will know how brilliant Tim is at explaining number-based claims – as I read it, I hallucinated Tim’s reassuring, sceptical, reasonable, amused, and  patient voice. He draws on a rich and fascinating range of examples to teach us (gently) how not to be taken in by statistics and poorly supported claims. There is some overlap with Calling Bullshit , but they complement each other. Together they provide an excellent training in how not to be bamboozled by data-based claims.

December 4, 2020

Also recommended on Five Books :

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Nigel Warburton

Nigel Warburton is a freelance philosopher, writer and host of the podcast Philosophy Bites . Featuring short interviews with the world's best philosophers on bite-size topics, the podcast has been downloaded more than 40 million times. He is also our philosophy editor here at Five Books , where he has been interviewing other philosophers about the best books on a range of philosophy topics since 2013 (you can read all the interviews he's done here: not all are about philosophy). In addition, he's recommended books for us on the best introductions to philosophy , the best critical thinking books, as well as some of the key texts to read in the Western canon . His annual recommendations of the best philosophy books of the year are among our most popular interviews on Five Books . As an author, he is best known for his introductory philosophy books, listed below:

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The 4 Pillars of Critical Thinking: 103 Techniques & Hacks to Improve Your Work and Personal Life by Mastering Mental Skills. Analyze Situations Better and Reason Well by Detecting Logical Fallacies Paperback – December 9, 2023

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• Print length 151 pages
• Language English
• Publication date December 9, 2023
• Dimensions 6 x 0.35 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 1961398133
• ISBN-13 978-1961398139
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mind Mentor (December 9, 2023)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 151 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1961398133
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1961398139
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 7.4 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.35 x 9 inches
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