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An Analysis of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow

An Analysis of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow

Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman offers a general audience access to over six decades of insight and expertise from a Nobel Laureate in an accessible and interesting way. Kahneman’s work focuses largely on the problem of how we think and warns of the dangers of trusting to intuition – which springs from “fast” but broad and emotional thinking – rather than engaging in the slower harder but surer thinking that stems from logical deliberate decision-making. Written in a lively style that engages readers in the experiments for which Kahneman won the Nobel Thinking Fast and Slow’s real triumph is to force us to think about our own thinking. | An Analysis of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow

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An Analysis of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France

An Analysis of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France

Edmund Burke’s 1791 Reflections on the Revolution in France is a strong example of how the thinking skills of analysis and reasoning can support even the most rhetorical of arguments. Often cited as the foundational work of modern conservative political thought Burke’s Reflections is a sustained argument against the French Revolution. Though Burke is in many ways not interested in rational close analysis of the arguments in favour of the revolution he points out a crucial flaw in revolutionary thought upon which he builds his argument. For Burke that flaw was the sheer threat that revolution poses to life property and society. Sceptical about the utopian urge to utterly reconstruct society in line with rational principles Burke argued strongly for conservative progress: a continual slow refinement of government and political theory which could move forward without completely overturning the old structures of state and society. Old state institutions he reasoned might not be perfect but they work well enough to keep things ticking along. Any change made to improve them therefore should be slow not revolutionary. While Burke’s arguments are deliberately not reasoned in the ‘rational’ style of those who supported the revolution they show persuasive reasoning at its very best. | An Analysis of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France

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An Analysis of Henry Kissinger's World Order Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

An Analysis of Henry Kissinger's World Order Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

Henry Kissinger’s 2014 book World Order: Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History not only offers a summary of thinking developed throughout a long and highly influential career–it is also an intervention in international relations theory by one of the most famous statesmen of the twentieth century. Kissinger initially trained as a university professor before becoming Secretary of State to President Richard Nixon in 1973 – a position in which he both won the Nobel Peace Prize and was accused of war crimes by protesters against American military actions in Vietnam. While a controversial figure Kissinger is widely agreed to have a unique level of practical and theoretical expertise in politics and international relations – and World Order is the culmination of a lifetime’s experience of work in those fields. The product of a master of the critical thinking skill of interpretation World Order takes on the challenge of defining the worldviews at play in global politics today. Clarifying precisely what is meant by the different notions of ‘order’ imagined by nations across the world as Kissinger does highlights the challenges of world politics and sharpens the focus on efforts to make surmounting these divisions possible. While Kissinger’s own reputation will likely remain equivocal there is no doubting the interpretative skills he displays in this engaging and illuminating text. | An Analysis of Henry Kissinger's World Order Reflections on the Character of Nations and the Course of History

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An Analysis of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman's Judgment under Uncertainty Heuristics and Biases

An Analysis of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman's Judgment under Uncertainty Heuristics and Biases

Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s 1974 paper ‘Judgement Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’ is a landmark in the history of psychology. Though a mere seven pages long it has helped reshape the study of human rationality and had a particular impact on economics – where Tversky and Kahneman’s work helped shape the entirely new sub discipline of ‘behavioral economics. ’ The paper investigates human decision-making specifically what human brains tend to do when we are forced to deal with uncertainty or complexity. Based on experiments carried out with volunteers Tversky and Kahneman discovered that humans make predictable errors of judgement when forced to deal with ambiguous evidence or make challenging decisions. These errors stem from ‘heuristics’ and ‘biases’ – mental shortcuts and assumptions that allow us to make swift automatic decisions often usefully and correctly but occasionally to our detriment. The paper’s huge influence is due in no small part to its masterful use of high-level interpretative and analytical skills – expressed in Tversky and Kahneman’s concise and clear definitions of the basic heuristics and biases they discovered. Still providing the foundations of new work in the field 40 years later the two psychologists’ definitions are a model of how good interpretation underpins incisive critical thinking. | An Analysis of Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman's Judgment under Uncertainty Heuristics and Biases

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An Analysis of Mahmood Mamdani's Citizen and Subject Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism

An Analysis of Mahmood Mamdani's Citizen and Subject Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism

Mahmood Mamdani’s 1996 Citizen and Subject is a powerful work of analysis that lays bare the sources of the problems that plagued and often still plague African governments. Analysis is one of the broadest and most fundamental critical thinking skills and involves understanding the structure and features of arguments. Mamdani’s strong analytical skills form the basis of an original investigation of the problems faced by the independent African governments in the wake of the collapse of the colonial regimes imposed by European powers such has Great Britain and France. It had long been clear that these newly-independent governments faced many problems – corruption the imposition of anti-democratic rule and many basic failures of day-to-day governance. They also tended to replicate many of the racially and ethnically prejudiced structures that were part of colonial rule. Mamdani analyses the many arguments about the sources of these problems drawing out their hidden implications and assumptions in order to clear the way for his own creative new vision of the way to overcome the obstacles to democratization in Africa. A dense and brilliant analysis of the true nature of colonialism’s legacy in Africa Mamdani’s book remains influential to this day. | An Analysis of Mahmood Mamdani's Citizen and Subject Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism

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An Analysis of Michael E. Porter's Competitive Strategy Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors

An Analysis of Michael E. Porter's Competitive Strategy Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors

Michael E. Porter’s 1980 book Competitive Strategy is a fine example of critical thinking skills in action. Porter used his strong evaluative skills to overturn much of the accepted wisdom in the world of business. By exploring the strengths and weaknesses of the accepted argument that the best policy for firms to become more successful was to focus on expanding their market share he was able to establish that the credibility of the argument was flawed. Porter did not believe such growth was the only way for a company to be successful and provided compelling arguments as to why this was not the case. His book shows how industries can be fragmented with different firms serving different parts of the market (the low-price mass market and the expensive high-end market in clothing for example) and examines strategies that businesses can follow in emerging mature and declining markets. If printing is in decline for example there may still be a market in this industry for high-end goods and services such as luxury craft bookbinding. Porter also made excellent use of the critical thinking skill of analysis in writing Competitive Strategy. His advice that executives should analyze the five forces that mold the environment in which they compete – new entrants substitute products buyers suppliers and industry rivals – focused heavily on defining the relationships between these disparate factors and urged readers to check the assumptions of their arguments. Porter avoided technical jargon and wrote in a straightforward way to help readers see that his evaluation of the problem was strong. Competitive Strategy went on to be a highly influential work in the world of business strategy. | An Analysis of Michael E. Porter's Competitive Strategy Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors

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An Analysis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

An Analysis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements is one of the most widely read works of social psychology written in the 20th-century. It exemplifies the powers of creative thinking and critical analysis at their best providing an insight into two crucial elements of critical thinking. Hoffer is likely to go down in history as one of America’s great creative thinkers – a writer not bound by standard frameworks of thinking or academic conventions willing to beat his own path in framing the best possible answers to the questions he investigated. An impoverished largely unschooled manual laborer who had survived the worst effects of the Great Depression in the United States Hoffer was a passionate autodidact whose philosophical and psychological education came from omnivorous reading. Working without the help of any mentors he forged the fearsomely creative and individual approach to problems demonstrated in The True Believer. The book which earned him his reputation examines the different phenomena of fanaticism – religious or political – and applies Hoffer’s analytical skills to reveal that deep down all ‘true believers’ display the same needs and tendencies whatever their final choice of belief. Incisive and persuasive it remains a classic. | An Analysis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements

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An Analysis of Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

An Analysis of Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

In The Night Battles Carlo Ginzburg does more than introduce his readers to a novel group of supposed witches – the Benandanti from the northern Italian province of Friulia. He also invents and deploys new and creative ways of tackling his source material that allow him to move beyond their limitations. Witchcraft documents are notoriously tricky sources – produced by elites with fixed views they are products of questioning designed to prove or disprove guilt rather than understand the subtleties of belief and are very often the products of torture. Ginzburg placed great stress on variations in the evidence of the Benandanti over time to reveal changing patterns of belief and also focused on the concept of ‘reading against the text’ – essentially looking as much at what is absent from the record as at what is present in it and attempting to understand what the absences mean. His work not only pioneered the creation of a new school of historical study – ‘microhistory’ – it is also a great example of the creative thinking skills of connecting things together in an original way producing novel explanations for existing evidence and redefining an issue so as to see it in a new light. | An Analysis of Carlo Ginzburg's The Night Battles Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries

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An Analysis of Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

An Analysis of Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

Few historians can claim to have undertaken historical analysis on as grand a scale as Geoffrey Parker in his 2013 work Global Crisis: War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century. It is a doorstop of a book that surveys the ‘general crisis of the 17th century ’ shows that it was experienced practically throughout the world and was not merely a European phenomenon and links it to the impact of climate change in the form of the advent of a cold period known as the ‘Little Ice Age. ’ Parker’s triumph is made possible by the deployment of formidable critical thinking skills – reasoning to construct an engaging overall argument from very disparate material and analysis to re-examine and understand the plethora of complex secondary sources on which his book is built. In critical thinking analysis is all about understanding the features and structures of argument: how given reasons lead to conclusions and what kinds of implicit reasons and assumptions are being used. Historical analysis applies the same skills to the fabric of history asking how given chains of events occur how different reasons and factors interact and so on. Parker though takes things further than most in his quest to understand the meaning of a century’s-worth of turbulence spread across the whole globe. Beginning by breaking down the evidence for significant climatic cooling in the 17th-century (due to decreased solar activity) he moves on to detailed study of the effects the cooling had on societies and regimes across the world. From this detailed spadework he constructs a persuasive argument that accounts for the different ways in which the effects of climate change played out across the century – an argument with profound implications for a future likely to see serious climate change of its own. | An Analysis of Geoffrey Parker's Global Crisis War Climate Change and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth Century

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An Analysis of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

An Analysis of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

Daniel Goldhagen's study of the Holocaust offers conclusions that run directly counter to those reached by Christopher Browning whose book Ordinary Men is also the subject of a Macat analysis. As such the two analyses make possible some interesting critical thinking exercises focused on evaluation of the evidence used by the two historians. For Goldhagen a chief reason for German actions was not the mundane good comradeship stressed by Browning but a longstanding hatred of Jews and Judaism specific to Germany that dated back well into the previous century. Debating which historian is right which has made better use of the available evidence which has most successfully written objectively – and which advances the most secure interpretation of contested documents – forces students to think critically about one of the most important and (on the surface at least) incomprehensible events of the past century. | An Analysis of Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust

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An Analysis of Franz Boas's Race Language and Culture

An Analysis of Franz Boas's Race Language and Culture

Franz Boas’s 1940 Race Language and Culture is a monumentally important text in the history of its discipline collecting the articles and essays that helped make Boas known as the ‘father of American anthropology. ’ An encapsulation of a career dedicated to fighting against the false theories of so-called ‘scientific racism’ that abounded in the first half of the 20th-century Race Language and Culture is one of the most historically significant texts in its field – and central to its arguments and impact are Boas’s formidable interpretative skills. It could be said indeed that Race Language and Culture is all about the centrality of interpretation in questioning our assumptions about the world. In critical thinking interpretation is the ability to clarify and posit definitions for the terms and ideas that make up an argument. Boas’s work demonstrates the importance of another vital element: context. For Boas who argued passionately for ‘cultural relativism ’ it was vital to interpret individual cultures by their own standards and context – not by ours. Only through comparing and contrasting the two can we reach he suggested a better understanding of humankind. Though our own questions might be smaller it is always worth considering the crucial element Boas brought to interpretation: how does context change definition? | An Analysis of Franz Boas's Race Language and Culture

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An Analysis of Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

An Analysis of Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

A flagbearer for the increasingly fashionable genre of transnational history Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands is first and foremost a stunning example of the critical thinking skill of evaluation. Snyder's linguistic precocity allows him to cite evidence in 10 languages putting fresh twists on the familiar story of World War II fighting on the Eastern Front from 1941-45. In doing so he works to humanize the estimated 14 million people who lost their lives as their lands were fought over repeatedly by the Nazis and their Soviet opponents. Snyder also works to link more closely the atrocities committed by Hitler and Stalin which he insists are far too often viewed in isolation. He focuses heavily on the adequacy and relevance of his evidence but he also uses the materials he has culled from so many different archives as fuel for an exemplary work of reasoning forcing readers to confront the grim realities that lie behind terms such as ‘cannibalism’ and ‘liquidation. ’ In consequence Bloodlands has emerged only a few years after its publication as one of the seminal works of its era one that is key to Holocaust studies genocide studies and area studies and to sociology as well as to history. A masterly work of literature as well as of history Bloodlands will continue to be read for decades. | An Analysis of Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands Europe Between Hitler and Stalin

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An Analysis of Elizabeth F. Loftus's Eyewitness Testimony

An Analysis of Elizabeth F. Loftus's Eyewitness Testimony

Understanding evidence is critical in a court of law – and it is just as important for critical thinking. Elizabeth Loftus a pioneering psychologist made a landmark contribution to both these areas in Eyewitness Testimony a trail-blazing work that undermines much of the decision-making made by judges and juries by pointing out how flawed eyewitness testimony actually is. Reporting the results of an eye-opening series of experiments and trials Loftus explores the ways in which – unbeknownst to the witnesses themselves – memory can be distorted and become highly unreliable. Much of Loftus’s work is based on expert use of the critical thinking skill of interpretation. Her work not only highlights multiple problems of definition with regard to courtroom testimony but also focuses throughout on how best we can understand the meaning of the available evidence. Eyewitness Testimony is arguably the best place in the Macat library to begin any investigation of how to use and understand interpretation. | An Analysis of Elizabeth F. Loftus's Eyewitness Testimony

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An Analysis of Alfred W. Crosby's The Columbian Exchange Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

An Analysis of Alfred W. Crosby's The Columbian Exchange Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

One criticism of history is that historians all too often study it in isolation failing to take advantage of models and evidence from scholars in other disciplines. This is not a charge that can be laid at the door of Alfred Crosby. His book The Columbian Exchange not only incorporates the results of wide reading in the hard sciences anthropology and geography but also stands as one of the foundation stones of the study of environmental history. In this sense Crosby's defining work is undoubtedly a fine example of the critical thinking skill of creativity; it comes up with new connections that explain the European success in colonizing the New World more as the product of biological catastrophe (in the shape of the introduction of new diseases) than of the actions of men and posits that the most important consequences were not political – the establishment of new empires – but cultural and culinary; the population of China tripled for example as the result of the introduction of new world crops. Few new hypotheses have proved as stimulating or influential. | An Analysis of Alfred W. Crosby's The Columbian Exchange Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492

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An Analysis of E.E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft Oracles and Magic Among the Azande

An Analysis of E.E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft Oracles and Magic Among the Azande

The history of anthropology is to a large extent the history of differing modes of interpretation. As anthropologists have long known examining analyzing and recording cultures in the quest to understand humankind as a whole is a vastly complex task in which nothing can be achieved without careful and incisive interpretative work. Edward Evans-Pritchard’s seminal 1937 Witchcraft Oracles and Magic Among the Azande is a model contribution to anthropology’s grand interpretative project and one whose success is based largely on its author’s thinking skills. A major issue in anthropology at the time was the common assumption that the faiths and customs of other cultures appeared irrational or illogical when compared to the “civilized” and scientific beliefs of the western world. Evans-Pritchard sought to challenge such definitions by embedding himself within a tribal culture in Africa – that of the Azande – and attempting to understand their beliefs in their proper contexts. By doing so Evans-Pritchard proved just how vital context is to interpretation. Seen within their context he was able to show the beliefs of the Azande were far from irrational – and magic actually formed a coherent system that helped mould a functional community and society for the tribe. Evans-Pritchard’s efforts to clarify meaning in this way have proved hugely influential and have played a major part in guiding later generations of anthropologists from his day to ours. | An Analysis of E. E. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft Oracles and Magic Among the Azande

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An Analysis of W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne's Blue Ocean Strategy How to Create Uncontested Market Space

An Analysis of W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne's Blue Ocean Strategy How to Create Uncontested Market Space

In Blue Ocean Strategy W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne tackle the central problem facing all businesses: how to perform better than your competitors? Their solution involves taking a creative approach to the normal view of competition. In the normal framework competition is a zero-sum game: if there are two companies competing for the same market as one does better the other has to do worse. The authors’ creative leap is to suggest one can beat the competition by not competing. Companies should avoid confronting competitors in crowded marketplaces what they call “red oceans ” and instead seek out new markets or “blue oceans. ” Once the blue oceans have been identified companies can get down to the task of creating unique products which exploit that market. Chan and Mauborgne argue for example that a wine company might decide to start appealing to a group previously uninterested in wine. This would be a “blue ocean” market giving the winemaker a huge advantage which they could exploit by creating a wine that appealed to the tastes of a beer-drinking demographic. A classic of business writing Blue Ocean Strategy is creative thinking and problem solving at its best. | An Analysis of W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne's Blue Ocean Strategy How to Create Uncontested Market Space

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An Analysis of William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis Chicago and the Great West

An Analysis of William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis Chicago and the Great West

What caused the rise of Chicago and how did the city's expansion fuel the westward movement of the American frontier – and influence the type of society that evolved as a result? Nature's Metropolis emerged as a result of William Cronon asking and answering those questions and the work can usefully be seen as an extended example of the critical thinking skill of problem-solving in action. Cronon navigates a path between the followers of Frederick Jackson Turner author of the thesis that American character was shaped by the experience of the frontier and revisionists who sought to suggest that the rugged individualism Turner depicted as a creation of life in the West was little but a fiction. For Cronon the most productive question to ask was not whether or not men forged in the liberty-loving furnace of the Wild West had the sort of impact on America that Turner posited but the quite different one of how capitalism and political economy had combined to drive the westward expansion of the US. For Cronon individualism was scarcely even possible in a capitalist machine in which humans were little more than cogs and the needs and demands of capital not capitalists prevailed. Nature's Metropolis then is a work in which the rise of Chicago is explained by generating alternative possibilities and one that uses a rigorous study of the evidence to decide between competing solutions to the problem. It is also a fine work of interpretation for a large part of Cronon's argument revolves around his attempt to define exactly what is rural and what is urban and how the two interact to create a novel economic force. | An Analysis of William Cronon's Nature's Metropolis Chicago and the Great West

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An Analysis of G.W.F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

An Analysis of G.W.F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

Hegel’s 1807 Phenomenology of Spirit is renowned for being one of the most challenging and important books in Western philosophy. Above all it is famous for laying out a new approach to reasoning and philosophical argument an approach that has been credited with influencing Karl Marx Jean-Paul Sartre and many other key modern philosophers. That approach is the so-called “Hegelian dialectic” – an open-ended sequence of reasoning and argument in which contradictory concepts generate and are incorporated into a third more sophisticated concept. While the Phenomenology does not always clearly use this dialectical method – and it is famously one of the most difficult works of philosophy ever written – the Hegelian dialectic provides a perfect template for critical thinking reasoning skills. A hallmark of good reasoning in the construction of an argument and the searching out of answers must necessarily consider contradictory viewpoints or evidence. For Hegel contradiction is key: it is precisely what allows reasoning to progress. Only by incorporating and overcoming contradictions according to his method is it possible for thought to progress at all. While writing like Hegel might not be advisable thinking like him can help take your reasoning to the next level. | An Analysis of G. W. F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit

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An Analysis of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

An Analysis of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason is one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy – not to mention one of the most challenging. Its topic is the nature of human knowledge and the question of whether or not it is possible to have knowledge of the world at all. Over two centuries later Kant’s treatise remains a subject of fierce debate among philosophers who continue to offer new interpretations of his meaning. What is not in doubt is the work’s originality and brilliance – nor its mastery of creative thinking. Creative thinkers are able to bring a new perspective to questions and problems look at things from a different angle and show them in a fresh light. Kant achieved this by mediating between the two major schools of philosophical thought concerning knowledge – empiricism and rationalism – to create a complex third way. Where empiricists believed all knowledge is founded on experience and rationalists believed true knowledge is founded on reason alone Kant evaluated their arguments and proposed a third position – one incorporating elements of both but within specific limits. As infamously dense as it is profound Kant’s Critique shows creative thinking operating at a level few can aspire to reach. | An Analysis of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason

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An Analysis of Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition

An Analysis of Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition

Hannah Arendt’s 1958 The Human Condition was an impassioned philosophical reconsideration of the goals of being human. In its arguments about the kind of lives we should lead and the political engagement we should strive for Arendt’s interpretative skills come to the fore in a brilliant display of what high-level interpretation can achieve for critical thinking. Good interpretative thinkers are characterised by their ability to clarify meanings question accepted definitions and posit good clear definitions that allow their other critical thinking skills to take arguments deeper and further than most. In many ways The Human Condition is all about definitions. Arendt’s aim is to lay out an argument for political engagement and active participation in society as the highest goals of human life; and to this end she sets about defining a hierarchy of ways of living a “vita activa ” or active life. The book sets about distinguishing between our different activities under the categories of “labor” “work” and “action” – each of which Arendt carefully redefines as a different level of active engagement with the world. Following her clear and careful laying out of each word’s meaning it becomes hard to deny her argument for the life of “action” as the highest human goal. | An Analysis of Hannah Arendt's The Human Condition

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An Analysis of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

An Analysis of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions can be seen without exaggeration as a landmark text in intellectual history. In his analysis of shifts in scientific thinking Kuhn questioned the prevailing view that science was an unbroken progression towards the truth. Progress was actually made he argued via paradigm shifts meaning that evidence that existing scientific models are flawed slowly accumulates – in the face at first of opposition and doubt – until it finally results in a crisis that forces the development of a new model. This development in turn produces a period of rapid change – extraordinary science Kuhn terms it – before an eventual return to normal science begins the process whereby the whole cycle eventually repeats itself. This portrayal of science as the product of successive revolutions was the product of rigorous but imaginative critical thinking. It was at odds with science’s self-image as a set of disciplines that constantly evolve and progress via the process of building on existing knowledge. Kuhn’s highly creative re-imagining of that image has proved enduringly influential – and is the direct product of the author’s ability to produce a novel explanation for existing evidence and to redefine issues so as to see them in new ways. | An Analysis of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

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An Analysis of G.E.M. Anscombe's Modern Moral Philosophy

An Analysis of G.E.M. Anscombe's Modern Moral Philosophy

Elizabeth Anscombe’s 1958 essay “Modern Moral Philosophy” is a cutting intervention in modern philosophy that shows the full power of good evaluative and analytical critical thinking skills. Though only 16 pages long Anscombe’s paper set out to do nothing less than reform the entire field of modern moral philosophy – something that could only be done by carefully examining the existing arguments of the giants of the field. To do this she deployed the central skills of evaluation and analysis. In critical thinking analysis helps understand the sequence and features of arguments: it asks what reasons these arguments produce what implicit reasons and assumptions they rely on what conclusions they arrive at. Evaluation involves judging whether or not the arguments are strong enough to sustain their conclusions: it asks how acceptable adequate and relevant the reasons given are and whether or not the conclusions drawn from them are really valid. In “Modern Moral Philosophy ” Anscombe dispassionately turns these skills on figures that have dominated moral philosophy since the 18th-century revealing the underlying assumptions of their work their weaknesses and strengths and showing that in many ways the supposed differences between their arguments are actually negligible. A brilliantly incisive piece “Modern Moral Philosophy” radically affected its field remaining required – and controversial – reading today. | An Analysis of G. E. M. Anscombe's Modern Moral Philosophy

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An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

In The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat neurologist Oliver Sacks looked at the cutting-edge work taking place in his field and decided that much of it was not fit for purpose. Sacks found it hard to understand why most doctors adopted a mechanical and impersonal approach to their patients and opened his mind to new ways to treat people with neurological disorders. He explored the question of deciding what such new ways might be by deploying his formidable creative thinking skills. Sacks felt the issues at the heart of patient care needed redefining because the way they were being dealt with hurt not only patients but practitioners too. They limited a physician’s capacity to understand and then treat a patient’s condition. To highlight the issue Sacks wrote the stories of 24 patients and their neurological clinical conditions. In the process he rebelled against traditional methodology by focusing on his patients’ subjective experiences. Sacks did not only write about his patients in original ways – he attempt to come up with creative ways of treating them as well. At root his method was to try to help each person individually with the core aim of finding meaning and a sense of identity despite or even thanks to the patients’ condition. Sacks thus redefined the issue of neurological work in a new way and his ideas were so influential that they heralded the arrival of a broader movement – narrative medicine – that placed stronger emphasis on listening to and incorporating patients’ experiences and insights into their care. | An Analysis of Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales

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An Analysis of Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority An Experimental View

An Analysis of Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority An Experimental View

Stanley Milgram is one of the most influential and widely-cited social psychologists of the twentieth century. Recognized as perhaps the most creative figure in his field he is famous for crafting social-psychological experiments with an almost artistic sense of creative imagination – casting new light on social phenomena in the process. His 1974 study Obedience to Authority exemplifies creative thinking at its most potent and controversial. Interested in the degree to which an “authority figure” could encourage people to commit acts against their sense of right and wrong Milgram tricked volunteers for a “learning experiment” into believing that they were inflicting painful electric shocks on a person in another room. Able to hear convincing sounds of pain and pleas to stop the volunteers were told by an authority figure – the “scientist” – that they should continue regardless. Contrary to his own predictions Milgram discovered that depending on the exact set up as many as 65% of people would continue right up to the point of “killing” the victim. The experiment showed he believed that ordinary people can and will do terrible things under the right circumstances simply through obedience. As infamous and controversial as it was creatively inspired the “Milgram experiment” shows just how radically creative thinking can shake our most fundamental assumptions. | An Analysis of Stanley Milgram's Obedience to Authority An Experimental View

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An Analysis of Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind

An Analysis of Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind

Gilbert Ryle’s 1949 The Concept of Mind is now famous above all as the origin of the phrase “the ghost in the machine” – a phrase Ryle used to attack the popular idea that our bodies and minds are separate. His own position was that mental acts are not at all distinct from bodily actions. Indeed they are the same thing merely described in different ways – and if one cuts through the confusing language of the old philosophical debates he suggests that becomes clear. While in many ways modern philosophers of mind have moved on from or discarded Ryle’s actual arguments The Concept of Mind remains a classic example of two central critical thinking skills: interpretation and reasoning. Ryle was what is known as an “ordinary language” philosopher – a school who considered many philosophical problems to exist purely because of philosophical language. He therefore considered his task as a philosopher to be one of cutting through confusing language and clarifying matters – exemplifying the critical thinking skill of interpretation at its best. Rather than adding to philosophical knowledge as such moreover he saw his role as one of mapping it – giving it what he called a “logical geography. ” As such The Concept of Mind is also all about reasoning: laying out organizing and systematizing clear arguments. | An Analysis of Gilbert Ryle's The Concept of Mind

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