Daniel Kahneman wrote Thinking, Fast and Slow, which is about the psychological research concerning cognitive bias. Kahneman could very well be the leading expert concerning cognitive bias at this point in time. His research concerns how people reason and why people often reason poorly, and it has some important implications for critical thinking. I will describe three cognitive biases that he discussed in his book, and explain how they relate to logical fallacies. (more…)
May 2, 2013
September 29, 2011
No, We Don’t Have To Agree With You!
Do you think everyone has to agree with you about something? Do they have to agree that God exists, Christianity is true, atheism is true, Islam is evil, libertarianism is true, socialism is true, Obama is the antichrist, or Harry Potter is satanist propaganda? Many people seem so confident that they’re right and they know that you need to agree with them. The other person might think that you’re an idiot for not agreeing. This attitude of certainty and confidence often leads to intolerance and insults. Of course, few people are perfect and almost everyone suffers from over-confidence and immodesty at one point or another. (more…)
Ethical Realism