Thinking about Thinking
By: Matthew Allen
Reasoning is something we already do: all of us have learnt, in one way or another, to think and to reason, to make connections and see relationships between various events and attitudes in our world. So, being a smart thinker is not about becoming a different sort of person, but about improving skills that you already have. The way to achieve this goal is to become explicitly aware of the analytical process involved in reasoning. If you do, then you will be able to analyze complex issues more deeply, understand and process information more effectively, and communicate your ideas convincingly.
Learn a way of talking and thinking about reasoning that allows us to understand and use reasoning better. Analytical structure of ideas, essentially, the clearest expression of reasoning. We usually encounter such structures ‘embedded’ in the words we read and hear, or in so-called ‘natural language’. We must learn to distinguish more effectively between the structures and the natural language through which it comes to us. We will also encounter the idea of ‘analytical questions’, which can guide the way we think about and develop the relationships that comprise our analytical structures.
By: Matthew Allen
Reasoning is something we already do: all of us have learnt, in one way or another, to think and to reason, to make connections and see relationships between various events and attitudes in our world. So, being a smart thinker is not about becoming a different sort of person, but about improving skills that you already have. The way to achieve this goal is to become explicitly aware of the analytical process involved in reasoning. If you do, then you will be able to analyze complex issues more deeply, understand and process information more effectively, and communicate your ideas convincingly.
Learn a way of talking and thinking about reasoning that allows us to understand and use reasoning better. Analytical structure of ideas, essentially, the clearest expression of reasoning. We usually encounter such structures ‘embedded’ in the words we read and hear, or in so-called ‘natural language’. We must learn to distinguish more effectively between the structures and the natural language through which it comes to us. We will also encounter the idea of ‘analytical questions’, which can guide the way we think about and develop the relationships that comprise our analytical structures.
