Thinking Critically

by John Chaffee

Overview

Thinking Critically teaches the fundamental thinking, reasoning, reading, and writing abilities that students need for academic success. The text begins with basic skills related to personal experience and then carefully progresses to the more sophisticated reasoning skills required for abstract, academic contexts. Thinking Critically is designed to introduce students to the cognitive process while teaching them to develop their higher order thinking and language abilities. The book has a number of distinctive characteristics that make it an effective tool for both instructors and students. Exercises, discussion topics, and writing assignments encourage active participation, stimulating students to critically examine their own and others' thinking. Thinking Critically is a proven, classroom-tested vehicle for introducing students to the thinking process and helping them develop sophisticated critical-thinking and critical-literacy abilities.

• New! Every aspect of the text has been revisited to bring critical thinking to bear on recent world events, including September 11 and response to terrorist activities.
• New! Readings and activities explore topics such as the meaning of patriotism and how journalists balance national security concerns with reporting on breaking events.
• New! More perspective-taking activities provide a global view on events in the U.S. and elsewhere.
• New! Enhanced exploration of how critical thinking can improve one's personal relationships features readings from Judith Wallerstein's The Good Marriage and Robert Wright's The Moral Animal.
• New! Updated technology material featuresincreased coverage of the Internet and evaluating electronic sources and web sites.
• New! Text-specific web site features additional exercises from the Instructor's Resource Manual, a Glossary with links to relevant web sites (including www.thinkingworld.com), and additional support material for both students and faculty.
• New! Tom Randall's Halloween Party (the Test of Critical Thinking Abilities found previously in the Instructor's Resource Manual) is now in interactive form on the student web site. It asks students to gather and weigh evidence, ask relevant questions, construct informed beliefs, evaluate expert testimony and summation arguments, reach a reasoned verdict, and view the entire case from a problem-solving perspective.
• New! Expanded treatment of arguments and fallacies features more examples.
• New! A Glossary of terms for writing and critical thinking has been added.
• High-interest readings illustrate key concepts and stimulate students to develop their thinking abilities through critical reading and written analysis.
• Practical, transferable skills focus on the major thinking and language abilities needed in all disciplines: problem solving, perceiving, forming concepts, mapping relationships, composing, reporting, inferring, judging, constructing arguments, and reasoning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781337558501
Publisher:	Cengage Learning
Publication date:	01/01/2018
Series:	MindTap Course List
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	570
Product dimensions:	7.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

John Chaffee, Ph.D., is professor emeritus of philosophy at The City University of New York, where he has developed a Philosophy and Critical Thinking program that annually involves 25 faculty and 3,000 students. He is a nationally recognized figure in the area of critical thinking, having authored leading textbooks and many professional articles. He has also conducted numerous conference presentations and workshops throughout the country. In developing programs to teach people to think more effectively in all academic subjects and areas of life, Dr. Chaffee has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ford Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. He was selected as New York Educator of the Year and received the Distinguished Faculty Award for Diversity in Teaching in Higher Education.

Cheri Carr, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy at CUNY’s LaGuardia Community College, where she is the director of LaGuardia’s Philosophy for Children Internship, a program designed to educate college students in philosophical and creative thinking through engaging young children in the life of the mind. She is known for her research integrating feminist ethics with Deleuzo-Guattarian frameworks of thought, and has presented her work at conferences and workshops worldwide. She is the author of "Deleuze’s Kantian Ethos: Critique as a Way of Life" (2014) and the co-author of "Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Feminism" (2019).

Shannon Proctor, Ph.D., is an associate professor of philosophy in the Humanities Department as well as the Liberal Arts Coordinator at LaGuardia Community College. Her research explores the interconnections among habituality, substance use and freedom with a particular focus on the ways in which substance misuse disorders temporal experience. She is the author of “The Temporal Structure of Habits and the Possibility of Transformation” (2016). Her pedagogical work focuses on the importance of argumentation and interdisciplinary research skills for improving student outcomes. Between 2019-20 she was a co-PI on an National Endowment for the Humanities grant on Mass Incarceration and the Humanities, which culminated in a community-wide showcase that highlighted students’ research and creative projects.

Table of Contents

1. Thinking. 2. Thinking Critically. 3. Reasoning Critically. 4. Solving Problems. 5. Perceiving and Believing. 6. Constructing Knowledge. 7. Language and Thought. 8. Forming and Applying Concepts. 9. Relating and Organizing. 10. Thinking Critically About Your Moral Compass. 11. Reasoning Creatively. 12. Thinking Critically, Living Freely.

Editorial Reviews

"What I like most about the book is its many Thinking Activities. It really does live up to the promise that learning comes through doing."

"John Chaffee knows how to put together a fine book, one that easily engages instructor and student."

"I love the way the book is laid out; it's very 'user-friendly' with its colorful pictures, charts, etc. The categories are interesting and engaging. I think any student would be interested in learning from this text. Your book is a winner!"

From the Publisher