Critical thinking is a vital skill you must master to cope with life challenges. Unfortunately, no one is born a master problem solver. You develop your critical thinking based on the books and challenges you go through. The aim of improving your critical thinking skill is to get to the right answer.
It allows you to evaluate an argument’s validity and potential impact and make the right decision. Below are the best books you should read to develop your critical thinking.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
Written by Daniel Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow divides thinking into two systems. Daniel relates rational and non-rational motives for why people think that way. Rational is automatic thinking. On the other hand, non-rational is conscious thinking that’s based on known facts. This book will also help you learn about several biases that affect your ability to decide statically.
The book is quite dense in some parts. The language used for these parts is primarily for readers with relatively clear critical thinking skills. These skills from this book will be very helpful in class. They will help you write your academic essays and research papers. Sometimes, the topic of the essay may be challenging. In this case, seek help from a critical thinking writing service and then use the time saved to continue reading this book. It’s a great approach that will help you stay ahead of the other students.
Fooled by Randomness
This is a great book written by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It’s an easy-to-read book with a powerful illustration of how flaws in your thinking can affect your worldview. Fooled by Randomness focuses on the role of randomness in people’s lives. It explains how underestimating randomness can have potentially serious consequences on your life.
For most people, it’s easier to ascribe great results to luck. Many books, videos, and articles try to explain the genius behind the success of particular big companies. Unfortunately, when results are not satisfactory, most people point to poor decisions they should have avoided. Maybe it has happened to you. Nassim Nicholas clearly states that critical thinking can help you reduce the role of luck in decision-making.
Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking
Asking the Right Questions, written by Stuart Keeley and Neil Browne, is a great book for developing critical thinking. The book is clear, concise, and a great starting point for anyone unfamiliar with critical thinking. Reading it will help you learn how to process your thoughts logically. You will also learn how to apply logic in your decision-making. It primarily favors the ideas of openness, autonomy, and curiosity, all of which requires you to think critically.
Most of the updates for this book have just adjusted the examples to be more applicable to the target audience. The older editions provide the same important information. As a student, you will find it thrilling to read it as it’s designed for an academic setting. Some sections go deep into very specific details.
The Signal and the Noise
Written by Nate Silver, this book will help you sift through the numbers and find what’s more useful for the desired purpose. It’s easier to get lost in data or numbers. In most cases, you will find yourself forgetting what you were looking for in the first place. That’s why you find difficulty parsing important details from large data sets.
The Signal and the Noise applies the problem-solving process in its approach to predictions in this age of Big Data. It cautions against overconfidence in making predictions from politics to sports to the stock market. You will also learn the importance of assessing the levels of certainty in your findings. Nate Silver also points out the often-hidden assumptions in data.
The Art of Thinking Clearly: Better Thinking, Better Decision
The Art of Thinking Clearly is a famous critical thinking book by Rolf Dobelli. It describes the 99 common thinking errors. This book was originally published as newspaper columns. So, most of the chapters are short. You will understand most of the concepts effortlessly. That’s why it’s one of the best books for short reading bursts.
Rolf Dobelli clearly labels each error of judgment and states various ways to avoid it completely. To learn it better, you need to understand common judgment errors. That’s what makes most students fail in their decision-making.
Conclusion
Improving your critical thinking skills is critical to understanding how your decisions can work against you. These are skills that you will often use in your daily activities. Using a variety of books on this subject provide different skills and understanding of how to solve disparate problems. That said, don’t limit yourself to just one book.
