Considerate Thinking Concisely Stated

Become a Good Thinker
A Concise Presentation


If you want to become a good thinker, do three things: 1) consider other perspectives, 2) consider foreseeable results, and 3) remember who you are and what you are about. Make these three steps a habitual part of your character and you are on your way. Let them become your most valued intellectual virtues. When these three traits characterize your normal response to life you will be a good thinker.

Any one of these steps will help but all three are necessary if you are to think at your best. Nothing will improve your thinking ability so quickly as the practice of considering other perspectives, what others think or might think. Try to identify any elements of your idea that you might have overlooked or failed to regard. Realize the possibility that another viewpoint might reveal some error in your thought. Considering other perspectives is important no matter what you are thinking about, but it is not enough to produce your best thought.

The second step in good thinking, consideration of foreseeable results, leads to the study of how logic operates. Historically, logic has been defined as the study of argument, the study of reasoning, the study of proof, the study of inference, and perhaps others that don’t come to mind immediately. Review those definitions, looking for links between them.

Before I continue, let me acquaint you with Occam’s (Ockham’s) Razor, or as it is sometimes called, The Principle of Parsimony. So far as we know it originated with William of Occam. He said something like this: “That which can be explained with fewer principles is not well served by explaining it in more.” Shave off everything superfluous, remove repetitions. In the words of Einstein, “Make things as simple as possible, but no simpler.” One of my habits of thought is to shave most everything with Ockham’s Razor. I try to get to the core of things as quickly as possible.

Now, to continue. After teaching logic and using the above definitions for years, I came to a more comprehensive definition: Logic is the study of “what follows.” Logic helps us to know what can follow, what can’t, what might follow, what probably won’t, and sometimes reveals that, based on our present, limited knowledge, we can have no idea at all of what might follow.

The second step of good thinking is logical analysis. This enables us to have a better idea of the foreseeable results of our ideas. This, in turn, helps us prepare ahead of time, thus coping with life more effectively.

The first step makes us good critical and creative thinkers. The second makes us good critical thinkers (and it is popular in recent decades to identify “critical thinking” with good thinking, but that is not so). We need to be critical and constructive thinkers, analytical and synthetic, conservative and creative, using both the right and left brain.

These first two steps will train us in thinking skills, just as a good knowledge of arithmetic gives us good mathematical skills. But arithmetic has no idea or interest in what we are counting; we may be bank auditor, or the banker who is embezzling. Arithmetic works just as well with one as the other. So it is with skill as a critical or creative thinker. We may be a terrorist creatively constructing a bomb or a musician bringing joy to generations.

Ideally, the third step in becoming a good thinker is to be a good person. Whatever our values, character, beliefs, commitments, good thinking must always be consistent with those personal traits, whether they are individual traits, or traits of the group. We cannot be good thinkers until we know who we are and why, not until we can clearly and concisely state our starting position. If we don’t realize where we’re coming from, there is no telling what will follow.

Realize that no human statement is ever complete; remember there is always more to be said; reckon that it is always possible you could be wrong