Critical thinking

Many of us probably know at least one manipulative person — or perhaps we’ve even caught ourselves falling into that category. But do we really know when this tendency to control or influence others becomes harmful? And more importantly, how can we deal with manipulative people?

The biased sample is a kind of unrepresentative sample, either for quantitative reasons (as is the case with the too-small sample), or for qualitative ones, when its structure does not represent the structure of the real population that is the object of the research.

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.

Every religious movement and "camp" is built around a desirable ideal. However, when this core value becomes an end in itself and love—the hallmark of the Christian faith—is pushed into the background, tensions turn into open conflicts.

Fundamentalist movements, extremist and sectarian religious beliefs, manipulations of the mass of believers, conspiracy theories within religious sects, and other such threats, emphasise the need for critical thinking.

We live in a polarised world where conspiracy theories proliferate, but some people are more inclined than others to consume and propagate these theories rather than ignore or demystify them.

We live surrounded by words—spoken with confidence, written with authority, and shared at astonishing speed. Yet behind many of them lie confusion, prejudice, and unexamined assumptions. From everyday conversations to public decisions, gaps in reasoning and expression reveal something deeper than mere slips of the tongue: they expose deficiencies in education. In such a climate, critical thinking is no luxury; it is a...

The appeal to ignorance (argumentum ad ignorantiam) is an error in thinking which argues that a conclusion is true because there is no evidence against it, or that a conclusion is false because there is no evidence in its favour.

Even if we have not been to Eden, the longing for innocence draws us back to a time when we had not yet tasted the forbidden fruit.

No one has ever seen a thought, not even a neurosurgeon. However, today we know more about the way we think than what we were able to visualise, yet still less than we would like to know.

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

"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)

In everyday life, whether we like it or not, we rely on the information provided by experts or specialists. However, no authority deserves blind trust. When we take someone's word for granted simply because that person is an authority, we make the logical mistake called "appeal to authority."

A circular argument is an argument forming part of a thesis which has not been established, but still needs to be argued for.

The ability to imagine alternatives to events that have already occurred distinguishes humans from other creatures and machines—artificial intelligence has not yet succeeded in creating a device that can devise counterfactual scenarios. The fact that we can travel in an imaginary time and rewrite our actions and their outcomes can prove to be an advantage or can lead to dysfunctional emotional and cognitive...