How to Learn More About Critical Thinking

Thinking at Hell's gate

After writing about critical thinking recently, I received an outstanding question: how exactly might an adult who never had the opportunity for any sort of formal training in critical thinking during school learn about it now? It is never too late to learn, and few things are more important to learn than critical thinking.

Books

There are countless books on critical thinking available, and it is not always easy to find one that will be useful. Two good general ones that are often used as textbooks in introductory courses include:

• Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking (10th Edition)
• How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age

Others that would be good for those interested in science and religion include:

• The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
• Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
• Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks

Free Online Resources

Critical thinking is one of those topics on which one can find tons of great information for free online. What I am going to recommend is information available from universities. Universities are one of the primary places where education in critical thinking occurs, and the information they make available gives us at least some measure of quality control. Here are a few quick example of the sort of information one can find after a few seconds on your favorite Internet search engine:

• Thinking Critically (University of Kansas)
• Critical thinking toolkit (University of British Columbia)
• Critical Thinking Web (University of Hong Kong)

You can also find quite a bit of worthwhile information at The Critical Thinking Community. For example, here's a module called Critical Thinking in Everyday Life: 9 Strategies.

I hope this helps. If you find alternatives you like, let us know in the comments.