The Foundations of Critical Thinking

Have you ever felt that you could comprehend the world better after learning, for example, thermodynamics, even in totally unrelated topics such as philosophy?

Have you ever noticed that patterns “of factual relationships” and the structures “of ideas/thought” seem to repeat themselves, at some fundamental level in science, philosophy, and even literature?

Have you encountered books or lectures that were substantial enough to affect your life by making “reality” more accessible, especially after thinking and applying its ideas? I’m talking about such an effect that it inserts “context” and “purpose” into your worldview, grounding yourself where one was formerly lost and inspiring yourself to investigate further with this new-found understanding.

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I think there’s something underlying, unifying factor in all of these observations, and I think it would be an interesting project for Veeky Forums to tackle, for the sake of developing our own wisdom.

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I hold the belief that there are certain fundamental “relationships”, for the lack of a better word, that unites concepts within disciplines and across all disciplines. This refers to both 1) the self-evident facts and the raison d’etre that grounds a discipline; and 2) the understanding that certain fundamental patterns—of logic, syntax, information, philosophy, mathematics, or whatever you want to call it—repeat themselves across all disciplines.

All investigations are a form of problem-solving, which means that unrelated disciplines such as psychology and literary theory share the same endgame of wresting some understanding from the world, with perhaps the possibility of some analogous relationships, though the building blocks may be of different qualities. I think that it’s plausible that there exists some basic, atomistic “units of understanding”, though I find it hard to define beyond intuitions.

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Now, what if there were a curriculum, or even a list of books, that could help somebody become acquainted with the various units of understanding, the fundamental ways that these units can form relationships to build concepts, and the relationships between different fields of study that can aid us in developing a deeper appreciation of the world?

After exploring the nature of the intuitions that I've laid out previously, I'm hoping to create a list of 15-30 books, in a variety of subjects for the purpose of expanding understanding. There is much to be said about the usefulness of books if one isn't capable of digesting them appropriately, but I'm not interesting that discussion. If it's necessary to tackle several books rigorously and thoroughly in order to acquire their value, then so be it.

This curriculum needs to be a solid survey of the basic units of understanding, the tools required to understand complex relationships, and for bonus points, the underlying purpose for investigating and the questions that inspired investigation in the first place.

Sure, somebody could be born with this kind of "know-how", and most of us learn a great deal of this understanding through education and problem-solving in our own lives, but why put ourselves at the mercy of fate when we can take matters into our own hands?

I want this curriculum to be a crash course on increasing clarity and depth of thought, leaving autodidacts with the mental faculties necessary to tackle future challenges, making the most out of somebody's native intelligence. After tackling this list, one should be equipped to explore the world with comfort in their abilities to make observations, understand relationships, and contribute to the conversation of wisdom.

If this is even possible, I would also like to have this list of books be sufficient to achieve a cursory education for people looking to improve their knowledge beyond the dregs of their high school or college education. However, I need to keep the scope limited to the fundamentals. There are far more than 20 worthwhile books, and this isn't a definitive guide to "the best books ever". Some fields like "economics" may already require proficiency in basic fields like history, mathematics, and philosophy, so it would be redundant to cover include them. Only the bare necessities should be maintained for brevity.

I'll probably have to kick off this thread with my own list. I'm trying to keep it practical while maintaining a healthy balance of breadth of subjects and depth of material.

I also aimed to minimize "ideology". That comes AFTER you attempt to interpret the world, whenever possible.

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>Learning Basics
How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler

>Self-Regulation Basics
The Discourses - Epictetus
A Primer in Positive Psychology - Christopher Peterson
Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

>Thinking Basics
The Trivium - Sister Miriam Joseph
The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing - Thomas S. Kane
Creative and Critical Thinking: W. Edgar Moore

>Mathematics Basics
How to Solve It - G. Polya
Geometry I & II - A. P. Kiselev
Pre-Calculus - C. Stitz & J. Zeager

>Liberal Arts Basics
The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
The Bible (KJV/NKJV)
Socratic Dialogues, The Republic, & The Symposium - Plato
Music In Theory And Practice - Bruce Benward

>Social Science Basics
The Interpretation of Cultures - Clifford Geertz
Atlas of World History - Patrick O’Brien
Origins of Consciousness - Julian Jaynes

>Science Basics
The Character of Physical Law - Richard Feynman
The Machinery of Life - David Goodsell

>Social Skills
No More Mr. Nice Guy - Robert A. Glover
Improve Your Social Skills - Daniel Wendler

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This list is NOT the end-all, be-all list. There could be many other lists out there that are as effective or more effective. But I figured that I'd have to put my own skin in the game to get this thread off the ground.

I suppose this thread will die again. Keep talking about Sam Harris, Slavoj Zizek, and Donald Trump again for the 20th time. I'm sure you'll be better off for it.

This thread is interesting. I got the same impressions after reading Martin Heidegger. Coming to understand the ontical-ontological difference within Being and Time, and then applying the question of Being lens to other great works of philosophy (starting with Descartes), was utterly mind-bending for me. Made me wonder, if Heidegger was right, why philosophers kept making the same mistakes, and whether epistemology was truly "founded-in being", aka a subset of ontology. Hell, if you read enough Heidegger, you'll start to find it difficult to determine whether Descartes, Kant, etc., were trying to solve primarily epistemological questions or ontological questions, and whether a useful distinction could be made.

I think I butchered my attempt to relate my own thoughts to your proposal, but I totally get where you're going with this. Things seem to have a tendency to connect in many of the same basic ways across academic fields.

"Reality", "context", "purpose".
You talk like a pseud because you unknowingly consider yourself as one. You're not prepared to make this question, and deep down you know it.
See you in 2/3 years.

Im

Im Out of the thread. Have fun, friends. What else could you reasonably wigh to accomplish.

Scare quotes were used because I wanted to avoid making claims about the nature of facts that I couldn't defend. Don't flatter yourself with pretense, and say what you mean to say: something utterly useless and masturbatory.

Instead, why don't you supply one book with a single method applicable to each individual interested? The books you choose are relative to your own understanding constructed prior to this lists conception.

Because none exist, as far as I know. I never even claimed to have a definitive list. Why do you think I made a thread about it? The best I have is an attempt to "grow" into the method by tackling an efficient repertoire of subjects. And I'm fully aware that it's by no means complete.

Now it's time for my question. Why did you bother to respond with a pointless criticism that was already answered? Stop pretending to be doing anything else but shitposting.

any good books on how to get my dick sucked this weekend

apparently this

>>Learning Basics
>How to Read a Book - Mortimer J. Adler

>>Self-Regulation Basics
>The Discourses - Epictetus
>A Primer in Positive Psychology - Christopher Peterson
>Thinking, Fast and Slow - Daniel Kahneman

>>Thinking Basics
>The Trivium - Sister Miriam Joseph
>The Oxford Essential Guide to Writing - Thomas S. Kane
>Creative and Critical Thinking: W. Edgar Moore

>>Mathematics Basics
>How to Solve It - G. Polya
>Geometry I & II - A. P. Kiselev
>Pre-Calculus - C. Stitz & J. Zeager

>>Liberal Arts Basics
>The Art of Fiction - David Lodge
>The Bible (KJV/NKJV)
>Socratic Dialogues, The Republic, & The Symposium - Plato
>Music In Theory And Practice - Bruce Benward

>>Social Science Basics
>The Interpretation of Cultures - Clifford Geertz
>Atlas of World History - Patrick O’Brien
>Origins of Consciousness - Julian Jaynes

>>Science Basics
>The Character of Physical Law - Richard Feynman
>The Machinery of Life - David Goodsell

>>Social Skills
>No More Mr. Nice Guy - Robert A. Glover
>Improve Your Social Skills - Daniel Wendler

you could probably skip to the bottom tho

This is... correct.
You're so superior than me that I just can't even start to express it with words.
Please allow me to suck your duck.

What was the point of that? If you don't like OP, then don't bump his thread. I legitimately don't understand why people are getting emotional. It's just a fuckin' thread.

>thinking that reading popsci will give you some insight into how science describes the world, or the regularities of the world it employs to do so

Theoretical physicist here. I understand what you're talking about, but to really grasp said patterns of factual relationships to the best of our (humans') understanding, and not merely sprout some sciencey technobabble as most people who read an article about quantum mechanics like to, you'd need a higher-school level education in physics with solid offshoots of math, biology, philosophy and humanities. Which will take maybe 10 years if you're dedicated enough.

My second point is, even if you do complete this program, what you master would be a certain metaphysical worldview imposed by modern natural science, primarily physics, and a whole bunch of related heuristics. While being the most sane (from my point of view), this "physical metaphysics" is by no means the only one possible. Nor there are any good reasons to expect that it's somehow final.

Read Spengler, you will find he discusses at length.

>Theoretical physicist here. I understand what you're talking about, but to really grasp said patterns of factual relationships to the best of our (humans') understanding, and not merely sprout some sciencey technobabble as most people who read an article about quantum mechanics like to, you'd need a higher-school level education in physics with solid offshoots of math, biology, philosophy and humanities. Which will take maybe 10 years if you're dedicated enough.

The books that I've provided is not meant to be the end-all, be-all to scientific knowledge. Nor is it meant to be a replacement to extensive self-study.

>My second point is, even if you do complete this program, what you master would be a certain metaphysical worldview imposed by modern natural science, primarily physics, and a whole bunch of related heuristics. While being the most sane (from my point of view), this "physical metaphysics" is by no means the only one possible. Nor there are any good reasons to expect that it's somehow final.

Why would you assume that? I even included the complete works of Plato.

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I don't think you understand what I'm trying to do here. I'm making a list of quick, foundational works that are meant to meaningfully expose you to the most basic possible structures of thought encountered in the world and to provide you with the training necessary to branch off and continue your own grounded investigations.

I've included a work on the Trivium, which is grammar, logic, and rhetoric for a reason. This task that I mentioned used to be accomplished successfully by a rigorous liberal arts education from hundreds of years ago, but now that has been eroded into sophisticated stamp-collecting and beelined problem-solving.

If I HAD to choose one book, it would be Trivium by Sister Miriam Joseph that embodied the principles most, but I think there's far more to the idea than just what can be found in that book. I'm trying to recreate a "modern" curriculum for the autodidact to recapture that search for a grounded baseline understanding... which I will reiterate may continue to change into the future.

lol if you're interpreted my post as shitposting you've missed the point entirely.
I was alluding to the fact that within every subject exists, already, introductory texts, and their subsequent teachings; within many a philosophy text you will find methods of learning and directing formula towards which fluent understanding derives.
This thing you're doing is but mere procrastination.
Read the texts, develop your interpretations, link whatever with which ever and move on.
If a theory exists after your dedicated study then by all means post it. But don't expect the mere conception of a yet accomplished feat to be respected by anyone with even a single ounce of skepticism.

True, man
I just cant seem to be able to acknowledge such an apparently simple fact.
I must be a complete pseud.

>I was alluding to the fact that within every subject exists, already, introductory texts, and their subsequent teachings; within many a philosophy text you will find methods of learning and directing formula towards which fluent understanding derives.

Some foundations are constant throughout disciplines. Some foundations are purely mythological, see your average intro. economics textbook's history of money as barter > currency > debt. Whether there's an introduction or not makes no difference, because you can get involved in a field without understanding the big picture, and that's something that seems to plague most disciplines in stagnation.

Understanding shouldn't be more than partially related to a particular context of one field or another. That's how you get academic inbreeding and ideological hackery.

>This thing you're doing is but mere procrastination.

I'm studying chemistry at a top-tier university right now, and I'm taking plenty of electives in social sciences, humanities, etc. Not evading work by any means.

>If a theory exists after your dedicated study then by all means post it.

Of course it exists. I've never heard of somebody who didn't think that learning one subject helped their understanding of another subject. I've never heard somebody deny that analogies exist. But rarely have I heard somebody try to build upon that idea into something more substantial. Hence this thread.

>But don't expect the mere conception of a yet accomplished feat to be respected by anyone with even a single ounce of skepticism.

God forbid somebody talks about something they've noticed while reading that doesn't seem to get a lot of attention. What did I think Veeky Forums was about? Talking about books?

>lol if you're interpreted my post as shitposting

You're doing nothing but posting contrarian drivel. I even provided an example of a book that would MOST fit what I seek to accomplish, and that was a Trivium, and yet you've done nothing to build off of that. That's basically pretentious shitposting. Fuck off if you're not going to make even the slightest attempt to engage with the material.

To understand the underlying pattern of the systems humans have employed to comprehend the wolrd i.e. math, physics, language etc. you would have to immerse youself in some subject, whatever it might be, and understand it as comprehensively as you can. Be it a sport, a science, a craft... From that base of deep understanding you then recognize similarities and patterns in other subjects. What you've described in the first two paragraphs. The grounding.

The books that i've read that spoke on this were
>The art of Learning - Joshua Waitzkin
>The war on Art - Steven Pressfield

These, I know, won't help you, OP, find the certain fundamental patterns that repeat themselves across all disciplines. But they told me something self-evident. That they do.

Thanks for your input. I agree with your approach to thoroughly investigate multiple subjects. But I don't think those books, certainly not the first book which I've read before, would provide insight into the possible structures that systems of understanding may take.

Oswald Spengler? In what book?

>some foundations are constant throughout disciplines
Yes, obviously. No one doubts this, and my post included this in its connotation. this seems to be your most celebrated point thus far in the thread and for this I've been rendered unable to conceive of what you wish to accomplish. Do you wish to merely talk about it? Are you honestly suspecting us able to draw upon this and expand it to something substantial with no shared text or availability of meeting and discussion?
I realize the book list tries to amend the former but again it seems a matter far too relative to be consolidated anonymously.
Again, if you have evidence of this rather simple interpretation of academia (or philosophy) and all it's subordinate subjects please unveil it!
The possibility of some universal, or common, law between subjects is something we both understand and I feel as though our discussion could simply be reduced to the dissonance between our own customs in regards to proper execution.

>Yes, obviously. No one doubts this, and my post included this in its connotation

You've focused too much on shared histories and not enough on shared structures of those histories, or how those histories, when outlined correctly, provide context, provide understanding, solve problems, and inspire further investigation.

>Are you honestly suspecting us able to draw upon this and expand it to something substantial with no shared text or availability of meeting and discussion?

No. Which is why I made observations, and asked whether other people have shared them in the beginning.

You asked for a book that would best mirror what I was trying to accomplish. I provided one on the trivium, which I felt is the best and most robust way to learn to grapple with these shared structures, even if it does not explicitly name them or cover all of them. Grammar, logic, rhetoric. That's a large arsenal to convey ideas clearly, with the subject remaining interchangeable.

You also keep referring to the problem of relative weight, but I don't know what specific qualms that you have. I don't even have any special attachment to the books that I've picked, only the functions that they serve.

>Again, if you have evidence of this rather simple interpretation of academia (or philosophy) and all it's subordinate subjects please unveil it!

If you think this is an attempt to "simplify" knowledge, then you are mistaken. Complex structures exist, you know. But the building blocks of concepts and schemas, interestingly enough, don't change.

I think the evidence is everywhere that ideas tend to be structured in certain fundamental ways, regardless of the focus. This includes the fact that analogies are such effective ways of comparison, that subjects can be thematized into certain patterns of thought by method, that the correspondence theory of truth is intuitive and robust, that skills in one subject transfer to another, etc.

Are you telling me that calculus didn't improve your ability to understand dynamic systems, or that philosophy didn't improve the rigor of your scientific writing?

>The possibility of some universal, or common, law between subjects is something we both understand and I feel as though our discussion could simply be reduced to the dissonance between our own customs in regards to proper execution.

You've made an unwarranted assumption. Who's to say that presenting your own side wouldn't result in an even more robust system? What does "relativism" truly entail? I don't even care if this is a "relativistic" project if we can get to "good enough" for practical purposes.

I've presented my side of the argument. Now, I'm waiting for an honest critique from you, and not just another empty post. What is your position? Do you think there's an infinite amount of discrete ways to organize knowledge, besides scaling the combinations of any sort of "fundamental", atomistic unit?

None of my posts have been empty...
You're interpreting them as empty, which iterates more on yourself than on my refutations.
>You've focused too much on shared histories and not enough on shared structures of those histories, or how those histories, when outlined correctly, provide context, provide understanding, solve problems, and inspire further investigation.
No, I suspected this exactly and believe my statement encompasses it within its understanding. The structures are what I've been referencing.
>I don't even have any special attachment to the books that I've picked, only the functions that they serve.
This is exactly my point. The functions in relation to the structures we're discussing have no position in the discussion thus far. A sporadic, unorganized, and anonymous thread doesn't allow for the establishment of a rigorous accuracy that would allow for the idea of these structures to exist truthfully.
>If you think this is an attempt to "simplify" knowledge, then you are mistaken.
I do not, and this is also my point. The complex nature that would be this structure's nature is far too varying and at this point, relative to have a comprehensible discussion.
>But the building blocks of concepts and schemas, interestingly enough, don't change.
an entire threads worth of discussion could be directed towards this, and it would be a mistake to take it as fact.
>This includes the fact that analogies are such effective ways of comparison, that subjects can be thematized into certain patterns of thought by method, that the correspondence theory of truth is intuitive and robust, that skills in one subject transfer to another, etc.
truth exists in this passage but not in bulk.
>Are you telling me that calculus didn't improve your ability to understand dynamic systems, or that philosophy didn't improve the rigor of your scientific writing?
This is not what Im saying. The truth of this doesn't establish the necessary truth of something else, obviously, and again, due to the points made earlier, I don't believe the countenance of this thread is suffienct in dissecting this or that claim.
> Do you think there's an infinite amount of discrete ways to organize knowledge, besides scaling the combinations of any sort of "fundamental", atomistic unit?
I don't know.
I think there's more to it than combinations of fundamentals; than some universal; than anything in which we've discussed thus far.
Possibly, the establishment of some commonality in understanding by reference to structures will uncover knowledge on the nature of the structures themselves, and by doing so allow us to apply it or analyze it with its relative structures or natures prior to structures; that is if we aren't obstructed by something of the same nature.
The main point of my post has been ignored by you for whatever reason. That the setting is not correct for an accurate assessment. Not only this, but you connect far too many things based on the workings of others.

>None of my posts have been empty...

A more polite way of calling them "empty" is calling them empty-handed. You've been griping about procedural issues for a while now.

>This is exactly my point. The functions in relation to the structures we're discussing have no position in the discussion thus far. A sporadic, unorganized, and anonymous thread doesn't allow for the establishment of a rigorous accuracy that would allow for the idea of these structures to exist truthfully.

Great discussions happen on Veeky Forums all the time. It could start with a confirmation of observations. Then with a discussion about its usefulness. Then maybe further reading suggestions, or even posit a rough formulation of the underlying principles.

Why are you getting your panties tied up for? It seems like an overly autistic way of approaching this board in general.

>an entire threads worth of discussion could be directed towards this, and it would be a mistake to take it as fact.

Why would it be a mistake to point out the relationships? The only mistake would be to take it as proof that one thread can result in complete examination of all that there is to say. But that's what we have more threads, more reading suggestions, etc., for. And maybe, just maybe,

>The main point of my post has been ignored by you for whatever reason. That the setting is not correct for an accurate assessment.

Because I'm not an autistic retard who thinks that nothing insight can happen on this board. Is this project so important and sacred that it can't merit some kind of discussion?

Jesus Christ, you've stunk up this thread badly.

Mmm

This made me reevaluate a lot of things

Mmm