Customer Reviews

Critical Thinking: An Introduction

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Alec Fisher goes beyond the dry deductive logic and standard fallacy-spotting usually found in these critical-thinking textbooks. He gets into the WHY of poor reasoning and offers interesting and original exercises designed to make students understand the reasons for their failure to think rigorously, fairly, and creatively.

Fisher's book is much better than 90% of the critical-thinking texts on the market. And at only a quarter the price of most such textbooks, it's a great bargain, too.

I find this book one of the best introductory books addressing the essentials of critical thinking. The author discussed the elements of critical thinking in a very easy and comprehensive manner that broad range of readers can absorb easily. The chapters that discuss the assumptions and the credibility are really so valuable. Above all, the charts that summarize each chapter are so valuable to revise the whole story in a few statements. I do recommend this book for the readers searching for the easiest way to teach themselves the basics of critical thinking.

I've been educating myself with a number of books on Critical Thinking in order to improve my overall thinking, and by applying the techniques and principles to other areas of study - to utimately become a more effective learner. I enjoyed this book for several reasons - the book is very well written, it follows the curriculum of the AS level Critical thinking. The examples and exercises in the book where engaging, well chosen and modern. The skills are highly transferable to other areas, and are taught explicitly. I'm using this book in conjunction with Thinking Skills by J Butterworth and the Art of Reasoning by David Kelly. I'm still absorbing the skills of Critical thinking, since it is a highly practical skill- and hopefully I'll reap the benefits in due course. The journey to becoming a more effective critical thinker is most enjoyable when you encounter a book like this.

look at the positive review on the left? Can you read any content in it? That's analogues to my opinion on the book. This is the first book I got on critical thinking, since then I've a few more and my opinion didn't improve to say the least.
I expected a clear book, with many examples explaining how to think critically. Instead this is written like a book for (grade school) teachers who already have a background in the subject and want to give only a taste of the subject to there pupils (I could happily gamble on the option this book was written for young age UK education system). I just did not find this book useful for critical thinking. The 'thinking maps' were somewhat good, the rest was bottom grade, long on words, short on substance - simply feels like fillers, minimal and shallow.
There are not many 'full on' Questions which train you, nearly nothing on logic (critical thinking without logic?), psychology of belief, theories of truth or meaning - all missing. Simply too many topics are lacking in order to justify even only the 256 pages. It seems the only topic at hand is analyzing parts of arguments (conclusion and propositions).
I would like to see more rigorous, analytical work, less time spent on long definitions of critical thinking itself.

There is a second edition coming out (2011), "extensively revised". Instead, I've read some other books on critical thinking I can happily recommend: "Critical Thinking: An Appeal to Reason" by Peg Tittle, containing a noteworthy introduction. It's more expensive (5 times or 10 times more expensive then this book), in this case you get what you pay for. Good luck with this important subject.

Raise your intelligence with this book; the first few chapters will enable the reader to approach information absorbtion likely in a way they perhaps never considered. For others it will confirm their approach to open and thoughtful listening, and go forward with the assurance that they were doing things right. The book is an easy and engaging read, and, my hunch is that it is a classic in this area.

Fisher's treatment is very much what I would have expected from a Cambridge textbook on critical thinking: a rather academic and fairly thorough exploration of the topic. Fisher works systematically through a definition of CT (a good start), reasons and reasoning, interpretation, credibility, causes, and inferences. His book has a helpful selection of authentic readings at the back, most of which are quite small and suitable for in-class use.

While it has some very good points that, it is on the whole not as strong of a work as Asking the Right Questions, the first CT textbook I read. Its approach is less accessible, particularly for lower-level students who are most likely to benefit from it, and to my disappointment, the fair-handed approach that I admire the authors of Asking for is notably missing here. The selection of materials, readings, and examples all lean heavily in the direction of a 21st-century British liberal worldview: atheist/agnostic, governmentally leftist, and environmentalist. Certainly any CT textbook ought to encourage students and teachers to challenge, not confirm, their own existing biases and viewpoints. Fisher's book is a notable failure in this respect, and even contains some embarrassing errors in fact (note p. 118's suggestion that people thought the earth was flat until `quite recently'). The book also has quite a few typological errors. I would have expected Cambridge University Press to be more careful about that sort of thing. Even with these criticisms, however, Fisher's textbook is worth reading and using, and it provides some very valuable expansion on the material in Asking.

To be more magnetic, engaging and introspective, requires an inquisitive mind. Alec Fisher's, Critical Thinking, teaches you how to think about thinking. It's not a passive exercise and neither is the read. Fisher actually takes you through exercises within the book to get you accustomed to thinking better. A must read for anyone interested in out-thinking competitors, fine tuning your thoughts or merely learning how to become more persuasive in your presentations.

Edward Brown
Core Edge Image & Charisma Institute

Easy to understand with fun exercises. It's even more enjoyable if read aloud with a friend. The format is a little awkward (turning to the back of the book for certain examples and passages, and yet another section for suggested answers to exercises.) Worth a read.

The author takes the reader -- very methodically -- through all the problems and trip-ups of thinking which cause ordinarily smart people to come to pretty stupid conclusions. He also provides "Thinking Maps" so that, once aware of how we can go afoul, we can choose to think in a more disciplined and scientific way. For these reasons, every person, starting at an early age, should have this decidedly academic book as part of their curriculum. In that setting, the exercises to spot sloppy thinking and instead use critical thinking would be wonderful. As an adult, however, reading this book on a treadmill, all the exercises interwoven through the text, slowed me down. It is for this reason that I gave it 4 rather than 5 stars.

This book is a real eye-opener, and delves into practical matters regarding how to "reason." It leaves out, technicalities and reduces the ideas to the level an everyday person can comprehend.
(Nwankama Nwankama, Intelligence Analyst)