Top 4 Resources to Improve Your Critical Thinking

Some of Plato's more famous quotes include:

• "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle."
• "Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance."
• "Books give a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything."

Plato is considered by many as the father of Western philosophy (as opposed to Eastern philosophies such as Confucianism or Buddhism). We could keep feeding you meaningful quotes, as some of the more famous philosophical quotes can really inspire discussion. But, let's turn our attention to another topic: critical thinking.

Critical thinking is a subset of philosophy, and one of the subsets that students and lifelong learners tend to focus on, likely because it's very easy to relate to real life situations, including our own lives and experiences.

There are many topics (and subtopics) contained in the theories of critical thinking, and to start, you'll need to cover the following topics:

• formal reasoning
• informal reasoning
• logical fallacies

Formal and informal reasoning are primarily used to form arguments (although, you can use them to break apart arguments). But, breaking apart arguments is primarily done using logical fallacies to detect faulty lines of reasoning, and is generally considered one of the more interesting parts of learning philosophy. Here's an example of the straw man fallacy:

• Person A: "We should reassess police spending and determine how to reallocate more resources to mental health"
• Person B: "Why do you hate police so much? Are you saying they don't care about the mentally ill?"

The straw man fallacy occurs when one person presents an argument, and the other person distorts it in some way, then argues with the distorted argument. Essentially, they are arguing with a straw man that they created, rather than Person A's argument.

Now, let's be clear about something. Learning fallacies is fun, but once you start learning them you'll see fallacies everywhere! Don't be that guy that only responds to bad arguments with "that's a straw man, your argument is invalid", or "you're a walking slippery slope fallacy, i'm done talking with idiots". Don't let your friends (maybe ex-friends) refer to you as "the annoying guy/girl that points out fallacies in every sentence". Critical thinking is supposed to encourage discussion, not start more arguments!

Now, let's talk about where you can learn more about critical thinking, completely free, online.

1. Critical Thinking: Fundamentals - Youtube

This Youtube series by Geoff Pynn, lecturer at Northern Illinois University, is a great introduction to critical thinking. He presents topics in easy-to-digest formats, and provides plenty of examples.

• Price: Free
• Paid Option : No
• Difficulty Level: Beginner
• Flexible schedule: Yes

Who should take this course? This is a great option for complete beginners. It covers the topic you'd expect to see in university-level courses, and the information is conveyed very clearly.

Link to the course - Critical Thinking: Fundamentals

2. Philosophy and Critical Thinking - EdX

Similar to the series above, this course covers the fundamentals of critical thinking.

Why link to two courses that cover the same things? Simply, critical thinking isn't something that takes years to master. Instead, the principles are straightforward, and we think that learning by example is the best way to learn.

We highly recommend you watch either this series, or the series on Youtube from the previous section, or both! Watching both series is sure to cement the principles of critical thinking into your mind, and help you understand the topic better with more examples.

• Price: Free
• Paid Option : Yes
• What the paid option offers: Verified certificate, graded assignments and exams
• Difficulty Level: Beginner
• Flexible schedule: Yes

Who should take this course? This is another great course for beginners, and also serves as a great starting point. Whether you want to dive into introductory critical thinking, or if you'd like a refresher, this courses contains great explanations on the core of critical thinking.

Link to the course - Philosophy and Critical Thinking

3. Critical Thinking: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

This resource is for those who prefer text-based resources over video courses. This article provides an excellent overview of critical thinking, and once you've read it, don't forget to check out the rest of the website. There are so many great resources that will teach you various philosophies, philosophers, core ideas of philosophy, etc.

If your goal is to master Philosophy in addition to learning the fundamentals of critical thinking, this resource will likely be one of your top reference materials. If you've ever gone down a "Wikipedia rabbit hole", the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is another website perfect for going down the rabbit hole and spending your day learning about fascinating people and ideas.

• Price: Free
• Paid Option : No
• Difficulty Level: Beginner (and if you want to dive deeper, Intermediate)
• Flexible schedule: Yes

Who should take this course? This resource is one of the best text-based Philosophy resources on the internet. After you read this article, don't forget to check out the rest of the online Encyclopedia.

Link to the resource - Critical Thinking: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

4. History of Ancient Philosophy - Youtube

Learning history may not be your favourite thing.. and we understand. Many of us had dull history teachers, so we associate history will dullness.

But, this isn't true at all. History explains why things are they way they are, and how they got there. History also brings new perspectives to modern issues. Famous philosopher George Santayana said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". This aphorism is catchy, and you'll see many variations of it.

Learning the history of Philosophy is crucial if you want to improve your philosophical thinking. It:

• helps sharpen your analytical skills by seeing connections between ideas
• allows you to "watch" great minds at work, and see how ideas evolved over time
• helps you see how philosophy influenced society and major historical decisions

Adam Rosenfeld is a lecturer at University of North Carolina Greensboro, and while watching video recordings of university lectures isn't the most modern learning method, it gives you the "university experience" from your home, completely for free.

• Price: Free
• Paid Option : No
• Difficulty Level: Beginner
• Flexible schedule: Yes

Who should take this course? This course teaches different areas of philosophy over time, and brings several perspectives to the main ideas behind critical thinking. Learning history may not be everyone's cup of tea, but to truly understand philosophy, you should understand how it evolved in different regions of the world over time.

Link to the course - History of Ancienct Philosophy

What's Next?

It's important to note that, if your goal is to learn Philosophy, you don't have to follow any course/resource in any particular order. The resources we discussed are excellent for supplementing university courses, and also serve as a great introduction to critical thinking.

What's next is up to you! Depending on your interests, you have many paths to choose.

• Who are your favourite philosophers?
• What philosophical systems are you most interested in?
• How do you want to apply philosophy to your life?

Final Thoughts

Philosophy is an interesting area that has so many applications in daily life, as well as every academic area. The greatest philosophers of history understood the world around them, and could break apart complex problems into belief systems, persuasive techniques, and excellent analysis of complex problems.

Critical thinking is a subset of Philosophy that aims to create valid arguments and statements, and analyze what others say. For example, how can we trust what we read in the news? Well, we can fact check. What about opinion articles? How do we know if what they are saying is valid or not? Critical thinking provides us with a concrete, objective way to analyze statements and arguments. As the amount of information around us increases exponentially, critical thinking is more important now than ever.