Critical thinking

When we think we are immune to disinformation, we become easy prey for those who manipulate us.

It is crucial to realise that while words can be seductive and magnetic, they can also put us in great danger if we let ourselves be carried away by their charms, driven by emotional impulses without reason.

Critical thinking is not a cure-all, but it proves very useful in dealing with, clarifying, and solving some decision-making problems, as well as the thought and belief disputes which occupy our minds.

"Logic suffers from a great logical fallacy: it believes that reality itself is of a logical nature. If it encounters something that cannot be understood logically, it will claim that this something doesn't exist, but only appears to exist..." (Lucian Blaga, Horizons and Stages)

Arguments must be convincing and, in order to convince, they must be valid—the minimum requirement of persuasion.

By their very complexity, situational moral decisions demonstrate that there is an absolute good that we seek. Moral principles work together for the absolute good.

"Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort." (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, US President)

Almost a century ago, writer Virginia Woolf noticed people’s tendency to approach books “with clouded and divided minds, asking fiction to be true, poetry to be false, biographies to be flattering and history to chime with prejudices.”

A few years ago, the American Statistical Association carried out research on the history of statistics, tracing their use throughout the course of human society’s development. The results of the study are displayed in the form of a chart called the Timeline of statistics, available on the association's website.

What we call an “irrelevant conclusion” is an argument that gives the impression of having something to do with an idea it aims to support, but which actually shifts attention to something else.

When it comes to conspiracy theories, the public quickly becomes polarised. On one hand, you have the “experts” who reel off reliable information with credible arguments from confirmed cases. On the other hand, there are the “uninformed,” completely disinterested in the subject or outright rejecting it as a myth.

To make an argument by appealing to the novelty of an idea— to the innovation it brings to a certain area—is not necessarily wrong. The visionary thinker Alvin Toffler coined the wonderful phrase nostalgia for the future, referring to his appreciation of the adventure the future promises through the desire many of us have to merge with 'the new' that is still developing...

When one wants to justify the harm one has done by saying that others have done the same or that this evil was only a reaction to the harm done by someone else, they commit the logical error of appealing to hypocrisy.

“Yeah, I understand what you’re saying about Christianity. I’ve been there, a long time ago, but now that I’ve moved on, I have a different relationship with the universe and things are going much better for me on all levels.”

In an argumentative discussion each party involved must be able to express their point of view without constraints, discrimination or other interferences. This is, in fact, an important prerequisite for the effort to overcome differences of opinion. In practice however, often things are far from this ideal. Not only do interlocutors not respect each other’s right to free speech, but they also resort...