Book Review

Critical thinking is coming soon to a workplace near you. Written by a consulting psychologist, who also provides training in leadership, emotional intelligence and coaching, this book seeks to provide ‘step-by-step guidance for strengthening the thinking skills necessary to grapple with the deluge of information we face daily, particularly at work’ (p. v).

So how does it seek to do this? The book is divided into three parts, understanding critical vs. non-critical thinking, recognising and evaluating arguments, and developing and evaluating explanations. Each section is a combination of ‘lite’ theory, practical exercises and case studies, orientated towards dealing with problems encountered in the workplace. The author provides an appendix of ‘suggested responses’ to these problems.

In the first section, understanding critical vs. non-critical thinking, Feldman lists a series of the ‘usual suspect’ fallacies such as using irrelevant facts, avoiding uncomfortable facts, arguing from ignorance, attacking the person, emotional manipulation and so on, provides a definition of the fallacy, illustrates its occurrence, and suggests how to handle the fallacy. For example, this is the analysis of arguing from ignorance (p. 8):

Definition: Taking a position based on the fact it has never been disproved.

Example: ‘I’ve never seen a more efficient way to go about it, so I guess this workflow process is the best there is.’

How to handle the argument from ignorance: Explain the limitations this has for proving the point. ‘I understand you haven’t seen a better way. But if we ever want to improve something, it takes research and looking at new ideas.’

This section also asks the reader to assess whether they have a non-critical thinking or critical thinking style. Are you a ‘grinch’ who is closed-minded, suspicious, overly stubborn and rigid, a ‘snob’ who is self-deluded, arrogant, excessively confident in his own conclusion and egotistical, or a ‘warrior’ who accepts challenges, preserves and faces difficulties or perhaps a ‘student’ who is diligent, researches alternatives, does homework and corrects errors? Throw away pop psychology? Undoubtedly, but these thinking styles are also convenient pegs on which to hang important critical thinking dispositions.

How can you move from being a grinch to a warrior, a snob to a student? You need to follow the Socratic injunction, know yourself, by being willing to look at yourself, solicit feedback from others, and approach them with a respectful, open mind. And, oh yes, you also need to develop some technical thinking skills.

These skills are the subject of sections two and three and are based largely on Ennis’ analysis (see Critical Thinking, Prentice Hall, 1996). In the section ‘Recognising and Evaluating Arguments’, the author outlines some key steps, such as pinpointing issues, seeking clarity, identifying and judging arguments, and understanding the context, provides some suggestions about how to achieve these, and illustrates them with work place examples. Here is one that is focused on pinpointing the issue (p. 41).

The following is a discussion between two employees at an office supply company. Jess is a salesman and Doris is his manager.

Jeff: Doris, I’m fed up with George in the production department. He’s failed to stick to his production commitments and I’m left holding the bag. I don’t want to work with him anymore.

Doris: Have you discussed the problem with him?

Jeff: Why should I coddle him? He knows he’s blown it.

Doris: Maybe you can find out where the hold-up is over there and help solve the problem.

Jess: I’ve got my job to do. I can’t do his as well.

Doris: I think it would be good if you met with George to discuss these difficulties.

Jeff: Why are you siding with him rather than me?

This is conversation going downhill rapidly. Feldman’s analysis is that this tension is caused by different perspectives on what the issue at stake is. For Jeff the question is ‘Should I continue to work with George?’ but for Doris it is ‘What can be done to solve the problem?’. If they had sought to clarify the issue, instead of talking at cross-purposes to answer different issues, unnecessary tension could have been avoided.

Section three distinguishes explanations from arguments on the basis that explanations seek to answer a question, while arguments support a conclusion. This is not a very happy criterion (and ignores the fact that arguments are used within explanations), but fortunately the author suggests that good judgement is needed to discern the difference and provides an illustration of such good judgement in action: seeking to answer why a marketing effort has failed is an explanation, seeking to determine whether a marketing effort has failed is an argument. Generating explanations is a matter of developing and testing hypotheses by finding relevant information, and Feldman again provides suggestions for achieving this, with workplace illustrations.

I’m puzzled by the fact that the title of the book emphasises decision-making. Not much in here is specifically to do with this unless you take decision-making to be so broad a category that everything becomes a decision (should I decide to believe this argument? Should I decide to believe this explanation?).

Overall assessment: If you are looking for a rigorous introduction to critical thinking, or development of its underlying ideas this book is certainly not for you. If you want suggestions for how to translate ideas from the critical thinking literature into practical ideas for consulting in the workplace Feldman has performed a useful service.

PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY

THE JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY FOR PHILOSOPHY IN PRACTICE

www.practical-philosophy.org.uk www.society-for-philosophy-in-practice.org