Discover your ignorance This is the day to… Discover your ignorance

To discover your ignorance… Be on the lookout for intellectual arrogance Practice intellectual humility Discover limitations and biases of your sources of information, and question those who speak with authority; question the information they ignore or distort; question the truth of your own confident assertions

Practice intellectual humility “Most of us assume that what we believe must be right; even though we were taught much of what we believe before we could critically analyze our beliefs, we nevertheless defend our beliefs as the truth.” (Drs. Elder and Paul)

Good thinkers know that this is absurd… “When you actively focus on uncovering your ignorance, you realize that you are often wrong. You recognize that much of what people believe is based on prejudice, bias, half-truths, and sometimes even superstition.” (Ibid)

Intellectual humility is “The disposition to distinguish, at any given moment, in any given situation, between what you know and what you don’t.” (Elder and Paul, ibid.) Be aware of the natural tendency of the mind to think it knows more than it does, to see itself as right when evidence proves otherwise.

People with intellectual humility… (And these people are rare.) Routinely think within alternative viewpoints Enter other viewpoints in order to understand them

An example…Socrates “Socrates philosophized by joining in a discussion with another person who thought he knew what justice, courage, or the like was. Under Socrates’ questioning, it became clear that neither [of the two] knew, and they cooperated in a new effort, Socrates making interrogatory suggestions that were accepted or rejected by his friend. They failed to solve the problem, but, now conscious of their lack of knowledge, agreed to continue the search whenever possible.” (Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1972, cited in 25 Days to Better Thinking & …, Ibid)

People with intellectual humility …understand that there is far more that they will never know than they will ever know. (Elder and Paul, Center for Critical Thinking)

Strategies: begin by saying… “I may be wrong, but what I think is…” “Up to this point, I have believed…” “Based on my limited knowledge in this area, I would say…”

Other strategies from our authors… Notice when you argue for beliefs without evidence, and recognize why you are doing this Actively question beliefs that seem obviously true to you Find alternative sources of information that represent viewpoints you have never considered

Question, question… Don’t be afraid to explore new beliefs, and hence to be open to new insights What do I really know? To what extent do my biases influence my thinking? Do I ever think outside the box (of my culture, my nation…?)

…and furthermore, How do the beliefs I have accepted uncritically keep me from seeing things as they are? How have my beliefs been shaped by the time period in which I was born, by the place in which I was raised, by other’s beliefs, and so on? (Drs. Elder & Paul, Ibid)

Discover your ignorance This is the day to… Discover your ignorance

All materials are from 25 Days to Better Thinking & Better Living, by Drs. Linda Elder & Richard Paul, Center and Foundation for Critical Thinking, CA.

Daily Reflection Notes Print the following slide, one copy for each day of this week, (remember to use “print current slide”). Reflecting and making some notes on your thoughts and experiences of the day help to internalize this “challenge”, as you know.

DAILY REFLECTION NOTES Today I was successful in using the following ideas/strategies: The key insights that emerged for me today were: One problem in my thinking that I now realize is: I plan to continue working on this problem using the following strategy: