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USA Edition | Today Is Wednesday, June 19, 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
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Has Time Run Out On America?
First, a nation has to have a good operating system: laws, regulations and property rights.
David Brooks
Columnist, New York Times
Washington
A Nation In Need Of Responsible Adults
Greatest Generation
Renewal, Reflection, Restoration
In many ways the onset of a new decade is an event of renewal. A cause to reflect and to change. A moment to discard what’s wrong in our lives and pursue new avenues along which to search for what is right.
Former NBC Newsman Tom Brokaw dubbed that generation of Americans who fought in or lived through World War II ) the greatest generation because they overcame the great depression and gave of their wealth and blood to win World War II. They achieved the impossible — not by complaining, or avoiding their historic responsibility — they did so by being responsible adults and by making optimal decisions. In their era, the most productive and influential in American history, being optimal came naturally.
Being optimal, winning world war II, and rebuilding Europe all required a nation working together to be the very best it could be. Civility and shared burden were essential, as were political compromise and clear leadership.
To the degree that America is slipping, or is headed in the wrong direction, as many Americans now believe, our perceived failures can be attributed to having become sub-optimal in how we think, govern, legislate, organize and make decisions. If we are to reverse this trend, it will come about at the hands of responsible adults capable and willing to work together.
It’s not that we don’t know how to be optimal in what we do, for optimal thinking and decision making remains a uniquely American trait. Optimal thinking is what drives the American economy. Being optimal is what has made our nation so successful in technology, the arts, entertainment, farming and all the other things we do so well.
One of the more prescient conservative voices on today’s America, New York Times columnist David Brooks, opined recently, “First, a nation has to have a good operating system: laws, regulations and property rights.”
Laws, Regulations, Property Rights
But we are no longer optimal as a nation. Our national operating system ( system of governance ) is not only sub-optimal it is still slipping. This trend must be reversed if we are to restore the optimal nation we inherited from previous generations of Americans.
Heading In The Wrong Direction
Each of us, perhaps all of us, can see that the present trends, if left unchecked, are leading us away from tranquility and achievement and toward uncertainty and failure.
How is it possible for our national operating system to be failing? Is such a happening really possible? Most of us find such a question to be imponderable, if not outright foolish. But there is clear evidence.
For example: Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal era operating system was optimal. While there was considerable political wrangling, the outcome was a significant improvement in the national operating system — laws the benefited all Americans, regulations that protected everyone’s interests, while protecting the property rights of everyone.
Obama’s First Year
In contrast, Barack Obama’s first year has been clearly and embarrassingly sub-optimal. Is this his fault? Maybe. Maybe he took on too much, or failed to focus on issues the electorate thought most important. Or, maybe not.
The point is that America expected far more — for his countrymen also awarded our new president a super-majority in the congress. Now, a year after his inspiring inauguration, our new President has not met his own expectations, nor the aspirations of his countrymen.
How could Mr. Obama’s first year have failed? The Republicans, you say? No more so than the Democrats. Both parties are entrenched in open warfare with one another. Together they behave as children in a food fight when their nation needs them to come together to do the people’s business.
Filibuster As Evasion Of Responsibility
One reason is the U.S. Senate’s out of date cloture rule. Prior to today’s Congress, the last time the Democrats owned a filibuster-proof majority in the U.S. Senate was their 62 seat majority during the 95th Congress [1977 -1979].
Today, Senate rules [not the U.S. Constitution ] requires 60 to invoke cloture — a vote that forces a definitive end to debate — effectively ending a filibuster in which one party tries to kill pending legislation by endless talking. While there was a time when Senate rules required a two-thirds vote ( 67 votes ) for cloture, a filibuster could be ended with a simple majority vote until until Woodrow Wilson suggested the rules be changed to two-thirds — and that was in 1917.
Today, both parties use the filibuster, or the threat of one, to sabotage anything they don’t like, or think they might be able to stop. Any suggestion that one party is worse than the other is not supported by fact. Today it’s the Republicans, but when they next have a majority in the Senate, the Democrats will be as bad or worse.
And why all this discussion of the filibuster? Because the failure by both parties to use it sparingly has been a principal contributor to our failing national operating system. Achieving optimal legislation, like optimal governance, requires balance and shared responsibility. Today’s politicians are less about solving our national problems and keeping our operating system in top form than they are about promoting a single ideology as suitable for a very complex and active nation.
Ideology Makes Bad Policy Out Of Good Intentions
Their ideological wars are not new. No matter which party is in power, the architects and code-writers of our American operating system, the United States Congress, have turned away from dong what is optimal in favor of doing only what is ideological, or pork-laden, or, when all else fails, doing nothing at all.
Thus, as a nation, our operating system is failing.
And with it, the optimal America entrusted to us by generations of responsible Americans gone before.
This essay previously published January 22, 2010
