SMART THINKING | MATTHEW ALLEN | FULL BOOK | PDF DOWNLOAD ||
Contents
Preface to First Edition viii
Preface to Second Edition ix
How to Use this Book xi
1 Smart Thinking 1
What is smart thinking? 1
How do we study smart thinking? 5
Why do we need to 'think smart'? 7
2 Claims: The Key Elements of Reasoning 9
Understanding language 10
More about claims 14
Claims and reasoning 18
Review 22
3 Linking: The Key Process in Reasoning 25
Links between claims 26
The analytical structure of reasoning 28
Learning more about the analytical structure 3 1
Review 37
4 Understanding the Links between Claims 39
Dependent premises 39
Vi CONTENTS
Special functions of premises 44
The link from premises to conclusion 47
Review 53
5 More Effective Reasoning I: Better Claims 55
Well-formed claims 56
Well-founded claims 60
Review 67
6 More Effective Reasoning II: Better Links 69
Effective use of dependent premises 70
Relevance 74
Strength of support 80
Review 86
7 What Kinds of Reasoning are There? 89
Deductive and inductive reasoning 89
Categorical and propositional logic 92
Five types of reasoning 93
Review 100
8 Research, Reasoning, and Analysis 102
Reasoning and analysis 103
Information understood by where we find it 106
Information as it relates to other information 108
Information classified by the topic under investigation 109
Information as it relates to how we are using it 11 1
Direct and indirect sources 11 3
Review 11 7
9 Planning and Creating Your Reasoning 120
The key analytical questions 12 1
Using the analytical structure for planning 127
Review 132
10 Bringing It All Together: Narrative and Structure
Example text
Casting and notes on each paragraph
Capturing the essence of the text
Overall narrative flow of the text
Summary
Answers, Discussion, and Further Advice
Glossary of Key Terms and Concepts
Further Reading
Guide to Important Skills
CONTENTS vii
Preface to First Edition
The study and teaching of critical thinking (also known as informal logic) is
relatively rare in Australia. There is little to guide the keen student or teacher in the
development of skills for analysis and reasoning in everyday work and study. The
orientation of most of the available books on this subject is more traditionally
logical, and this orientation further complicates the process of teaching and
learning applied critical thinking skills, since it tends to remove the use of reasoning
and logical analysis from even its most basic social contexts.
Smart Thinking'is designed to provide a simple, but not simplistic, guide for the
development of critical thinking and analytical skills. It combines the undoubted
strengths of the informal logical approach with a newer—but often-overlooked—
insight: that reasoning and analysis are always communicative acts. I would not
pretend that one can easily resolve the epistemological tensions between, on the one
hand, the commonly held commitments to objective judgment and truth that
underpin 'logic' as a mode of analysis and, on the other, the social relativism and
intersubjectivity that a communicative-theory approach demands. However, from
a pragmatic point of view, there is considerable profit to be gained from letting
these two distinct approaches jostle alongside one another. Moreover, for all my
attempts to keep competing epistemological ideas to a minimum in Smart
Thinking, the book cannot remain purely 'practical'. Simple advice on 'better
thinking' rubs up against deep and important matters of philosophy in a way that,
I hope, creates a constructive interaction between the ease with which one can
begin to improve one's thinking and the complexity of thinking about smart
thinking.
While I myself work theoretically within post-structuralist frameworks, Smart
Thinkings bias towards communicative issues stems primarily from the very
practical experiences I had in developing and teaching a critical thinking unit
(Applied Reasoning 200) at Curtin University of Technology in Perth. On the basis
of my experiences with many hundreds of students, I am confident in asserting that
it is wrong to divorce analytical thinking from its communicative context. Outside
the narrow confines of some academic disciplines, communication takes place on a
vast scale, with far too little critical analysis to support it. It is precisely at the
junction between 'knowledge as something one knows' and 'knowledge as a
function of communication' that most of us need assistance in sharpening up our
thinking skills.
My work in Applied Reasoning 200 has not only helped my own development
as a critical thinker but has given me the opportunity to test ideas and approaches
on a captive audience. So, my first debt of gratitude is to all the students who have,
in so many ways, contributed to the writing of this book. Applied Reasoning 200
also became the focal point for a series of collegia! relationships from which I have
benefited enormously. For their assistance, insights (and perseverance with often
impractical ideas), my thanks are extended to Patrick Bertola, Gina Koczberski,
Des Thornton, and especially, Eamon Murphy, all of Curtin University. Thanks
also to Will Christensen, Dennis Taylor, and Roy Jones for their positive
encouragement as heads of academic departments. I also owe a debt of gratitude to
Richard Bosworth, who some years ago, when I began to study at university, first
taught me that critical enquiry involves asking about the 'who', 'when', 'why', and
'how', as well as the 'what' that was the staple of high school study. Michelle Forster
and Emma Rooksby provided invaluable research assistance and general help; both
are fine young philosophers. Thanks, as well, to my publisher, Jill Lane, and editor,
Lucy Davison, of Oxford University Press. Finally, I could not have written this
book without the unstinting support and reassurance of my wife Jane and step-
daughter Verity; most of all, they remind me that a person cannot live on logic
alone and confirm in my mind that life must be lived, not just with analytical
reserve, but also with passion and commitment.
Matthew Allen
Perth
September 1996
Preface to Second Edition
I have been fortunate enough to find that I was right to assume that a practical
book on critical thinking skills set in the context of communication would be both
popular and necessary. I continue to be involved in teaching critical thinking in the
unit Applied Reasoning, which is now a part of some courses of study through
Open Learning Australia (REAl 1—visit http://www.ola.edu.au), and is being
revived on campus at Curtin University. I have also realised that, in writing Smart
Thinking, I myself learnt as much as I would hope for its readers and so, in the end,
it was an easy decision to produce a new edition.
This second edition reflects the experiences of teaching with Smart Thinking
over the years since it was first published. In revising it, I have found that much of
what I had originally written remains valuable, and that students have learnt from x PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
it. But I have also made some significant changes, including greater assistance in
the earlier chapters to help readers with the more complicated skills and concepts,
as well as expanding later chapters on reasoning and on research. The final chapter
is now a fully worked example of the skills that underpin the whole book, providing
a model for readers of the power and value of the approach I am outlining. I would
hope that readers will now find the sometimes-confusing journey towards greater
ability in critical thinking and reasoning just that little bit easier, and with a clearer
goal ahead.
In writing the second edition, I have been aided greatly by Jane Mummery and
Robyn Mayes, both fine teachers of critical thinking, who have struggled with the
problems of the first edition in teaching Applied Reasoning and have generously
provided advice on how I might improve it. To them both, I owe a great deal. I also
wish to thank Christine Richardson with whom I taught elements of critical
thinking and who gave me the opportunity to develop further my ideas about
reasoning and research. To my long-suffering publishers at Oxford University Press,
especially my editors Lucy McLoughlin, Anne Mulvaney, and Chris Wyness, great
thanks and apologies for all the delays. Perhaps they could ask the government
about its neglect of higher education and the consequent doubling of workloads
since I wrote the first edition. And to Jane and Verity, this book is still and always
for you both.
Matthew Allen
m.allen@curtln.edu.au
Perth
February 2003
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