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USA Edition | Today Is Thursday, May 23, 2013 |
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Socratic Warning
Newsroom Magazine
May Challenge
Or Demand
Critical Thinking
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The intellectual roots of critical thinking date back to the Greek philosophers.
Socrates discovered, by means of probing questions, that in the exchange of competing ideas, people sometimes make confident claims based on unreliable assumptions or failed logic.
Such arguments, he discovered, were either erroneous in fact, absent sufficient foundation, or failing in logic. Instead, most arguments were based on confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or contradictory beliefs.
Socrates' contributions to critical thinking were many -- for he established new ways to think about contentious issues in terms of the quality of assumptions, facts and logic.
Thus Socrates demonstrated that persons may have passion, or power or high position but yet be deeply confused and irrational.
Good journalism, like compelling debate, is based on a clear understanding of facts and the logical construction of one's argument. And that is what the Socratic Method and The Sophist Tradition is all about.
Evidentiary Approach
The Socratic Method is the preferred way to examine issues.In the Socratic mode of questioning, postulations, ideas or arguments are examined for their clarity and logical consistency by systematic analysis of facts, assumptions and logical methodology to support a conclusion.
Socratic analysis is accomplished by means of a series of probing questions that systematically examine the quality of an argument or conclusion.
Understanding the quality of information, argument or one's conclusions, is fundamental to critical thinking -- and the goal of critical editing.
Historical Foundation
Socrates’ practice was followed by the critical thinking of Plato (who recorded Socrates’ thought), Aristotle, and the Greek skeptics, all of whom emphasized that things are often very different from what they appear to be.Only the trained mind is prepared to see through the way things look to us on the surface (delusive appearances) to the way they really are beneath the surface (the deeper realities of life.)
From this ancient Greek tradition emerged the need, for anyone who aspired to understand the deeper realities, to think systematically, to trace implications broadly and deeply; for only thinking that is comprehensive, well-reasoned, and responsive to objections can take us beyond the surface.
Means Of Analysis
The common denominators of Critical Thinking requires, for example, the systematic monitoring of thought; that thinking, to be critical, must not be accepted at face value, but must be analyzed and assessed for its clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and logical validity. All reasoning occurs within points of view and frames of reference.All reasoning proceeds from some goals, objectives, and has an informational base. All data, when used in reasoning, must be interpreted. That interpretation involves concepts, that concepts entail assumptions, and that all basic inferences in thought have implications, and each of these dimensions of thinking need to be monitored where problems of thinking can occur.
Questioning Chain
The result of the collective contribution of the history of critical thought is that the basic questions of Socrates can now be much more powerfully and focally framed.In every domain of human thought, and within every use of reasoning within any domain, it is now possible to question:
• ends and objectives
• the status and wording of questions
• the sources of information and fact
• the method and quality of information collection
• the mode of judgment and reasoning used
• the concepts that make that reasoning possible
• the assumptions that underlie concepts in use
• the implications that follow from their use
• the point of view or frame of reference within which reasoning takes place
Jeffrey Slee
Logician
Amidst widespread condemnation and calls for their withdrawal, they pulled out from the city of one million after 11 days in accordance with requirements laid out in an ICGLR communiqué, and monitored by some of the 1,500 peacekeepers from the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) who are deployed in Goma.
New York
Dr Congo: UN Peacekeeping Chief Presents Security Council With Options After M23 Withdrawal From Goma
New York, Dec 7 2012
The United Nations peacekeeping chief said today that the Security Council reacted with “considerable interest” to proposed responses to the recent violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – including one that would see a new peacekeeping force deployed there in addition to UN peacekeepers.
“We have to reflect on the concept for the international neutral force,” said the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Hervé Ladsous, as he addressed journalists after emerging from the closed-door meeting of the 15-nation Council at UN Headquarters in New York. He used a shorthand term for the force, which the regional intergovernmental group known as the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) proposed recently.
According to media reports, ICGLR hopes such a force would help return normalcy to eastern DRC after years of hostilities. The reports also say that, while the African Union has pledged to contribute troops to the force, a contingent of the 23 March Movement (M23) armed group would be included in a deployment at the airport in Goma, capital of DRC’s North Kivu province.
The armed group – made up of former national army troops who mutinied in April and named after a 23 March 2009 peace agreement that they reportedly say has not been implemented – occupied Goma on 19 November, after an advance that included clashes with the DRC armed forces, known by the French acronym FARDC.
Amidst widespread condemnation and calls for their withdrawal, they pulled out from the city of one million after 11 days in accordance with requirements laid out in an ICGLR communiqué, and monitored by some of the 1,500 peacekeepers from the UN Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) who are deployed in Goma.
The Security Council will ponder the ICGLR proposal in terms of how it can help advance the MONUSCO peacekeeper mandate, Mr. Ladsous told reporters.
It will do the same for two other proposals Mr. Ladsous presented. He said there could be “additional force enablers,” which referred to adding equipment that MONUSCO could use to boost its efficiency.
He also said the Council could choose to support an “expanded version” of the ICGLR’s Joint Verification Mechanism, which monitors the border between DRC and Rwanda. According to media reports, Rwanda has allegedly played a role in the multi-faceted conflict in the eastern DRC over the years.
Mr. Ladsous described the proposals as “very preliminary thoughts” on the part of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), which he heads.
“Security (Council) members reacted with considerable interest to those ideas,” Mr. Ladsous said. “Of course, they will want to consider options, and this is what we are working upon,” he added, saying that an “important dimension” would be to consult countries contributing troops to MONUSCO.
The peacekeeping chief noted that the UN had responded to a Ugandan request to provide some technical help for peace talks the East African country is to host in its capital, Kampala, between the DRC Government and the M23.
He said the UN was developing “contingency plans” in the event the M23 seeks to return to Goma, adding that despite the armed group’s withdrawal, some elements of it remained north of the city.
For now, MONUSCO “continues to patrol actively in the city,” said Mr. Ladsous, adding it was doing so alongside 2,400 DRC police, who had returned in the wake of the M23’s withdrawal.
Mr. Ladsous said the UN was also investigating a number of reports of human rights abuses allegedly committed by M23 members and other armed groups – and also by “some elements” of FARDC troops in the town of Minova, close to Goma.
Health centres recorded some 70 rapes in the area of Minova, according to an inter-UN agency assessment mission this week, while media reports said FARDC troops reportedly withdrew from Minova after losing Goma to the M23.
“We have taken measures to patrol regularly around the various displaced persons camps to prevent further attacks,” Mr. Ladsous said.
Separately today, a UN spokesperson, Eduardo del Buey, told a news briefing at UN Headquarters that preliminary investigations by MONUSCO indicate that some FARDC troops committed violations “including rape and looting.”
“MONUSCO cannot confirm the reported figure of 72 rapes, but it is on the ground conducting further investigations,” he said at a briefing for journalists, citing an updated statistic for the number of rape victims.
Mr. del Buey also said MONUSCO was investigating allegations of violations including killings, wounding of civilians, rape, looting, as well as the forced recruitment of children by M23 elements in Goma and neighbouring areas.
Reacting to the reports, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura, expressed her alarm at the increasing incidents of attacks in eastern DRC.
“I strongly condemn these acts of sexual violence and other human rights abuses,” she said in a statement.