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USA Edition | Today Is Wednesday, June 19, 2013 |
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Socratic Warning
Newsroom Magazine
May Challenge
Or Demand
Critical Thinking
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The intellectual roots of critical thinking date back to the Greek philosophers.
Socrates discovered, by means of probing questions, that in the exchange of competing ideas, people sometimes make confident claims based on unreliable assumptions or failed logic.
Such arguments, he discovered, were either erroneous in fact, absent sufficient foundation, or failing in logic. Instead, most arguments were based on confused meanings, inadequate evidence, or contradictory beliefs.
Socrates' contributions to critical thinking were many -- for he established new ways to think about contentious issues in terms of the quality of assumptions, facts and logic.
Thus Socrates demonstrated that persons may have passion, or power or high position but yet be deeply confused and irrational.
Good journalism, like compelling debate, is based on a clear understanding of facts and the logical construction of one's argument. And that is what the Socratic Method and The Sophist Tradition is all about.
Evidentiary Approach
The Socratic Method is the preferred way to examine issues.In the Socratic mode of questioning, postulations, ideas or arguments are examined for their clarity and logical consistency by systematic analysis of facts, assumptions and logical methodology to support a conclusion.
Socratic analysis is accomplished by means of a series of probing questions that systematically examine the quality of an argument or conclusion.
Understanding the quality of information, argument or one's conclusions, is fundamental to critical thinking -- and the goal of critical editing.
Historical Foundation
Socrates’ practice was followed by the critical thinking of Plato (who recorded Socrates’ thought), Aristotle, and the Greek skeptics, all of whom emphasized that things are often very different from what they appear to be.Only the trained mind is prepared to see through the way things look to us on the surface (delusive appearances) to the way they really are beneath the surface (the deeper realities of life.)
From this ancient Greek tradition emerged the need, for anyone who aspired to understand the deeper realities, to think systematically, to trace implications broadly and deeply; for only thinking that is comprehensive, well-reasoned, and responsive to objections can take us beyond the surface.
Means Of Analysis
The common denominators of Critical Thinking requires, for example, the systematic monitoring of thought; that thinking, to be critical, must not be accepted at face value, but must be analyzed and assessed for its clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and logical validity. All reasoning occurs within points of view and frames of reference.All reasoning proceeds from some goals, objectives, and has an informational base. All data, when used in reasoning, must be interpreted. That interpretation involves concepts, that concepts entail assumptions, and that all basic inferences in thought have implications, and each of these dimensions of thinking need to be monitored where problems of thinking can occur.
Questioning Chain
The result of the collective contribution of the history of critical thought is that the basic questions of Socrates can now be much more powerfully and focally framed.In every domain of human thought, and within every use of reasoning within any domain, it is now possible to question:
• ends and objectives
• the status and wording of questions
• the sources of information and fact
• the method and quality of information collection
• the mode of judgment and reasoning used
• the concepts that make that reasoning possible
• the assumptions that underlie concepts in use
• the implications that follow from their use
• the point of view or frame of reference within which reasoning takes place
Jeffrey Slee
Logician
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The press of the United States is not covering the most significant issue of national importance and that’s the laying of lives down in the nation for the service of our country. It’s despicable, the national press corps right now.
Rep. Patrick Kennedy
Washington
Lighting A Candle In The Darkness Of Ignorance
Q: Why is Newsroom Magazine writing about governance, banking and international stories for which you have neither the resources or qualifications to cover?
A: You’re right about the dearth of resources.
Newsroom Magazine’s mission is to honor the House Of The Fourth Estate, to speak to the malfeasance of our nation’s politicized, entertainment-values big media, to recognize the best amongst us, and to report and comment on the issues that matter most to a nation increasingly at risk for its manifest ignorance.
We are not alone in speaking to the failures of big-media journalism, or the plight of legitimate journalists driven out of their profession by irresponsible men and women behaving badly. America’s media is operated on the same single-stakeholder values as the banks that put millions of American families at risk of economic collapse.
Where the big banks stole our money and our pensions and our jobs, big media has stolen our freedom to know what matters most so that we be entertained by what’s more scintillating, outrageous or prurient.
We are not alone in speaking to the issues — for our voice is only one in a growing cacophony of indignation as I found in this report:
“The Washington Post’s March 9 article about a congressional debate over the legality of the Afghan War began: ‘Liberals in the House, who have spent much of the past year complaining that other congressional Democrats and the White House are insufficiently progressive, will get a chance this week to vent about one of their biggest concerns: the war in Afghanistan.’
“With the Beltway’s leading news outlet declaring that the debate would be a pointless emotional outburst by whiny lefties, the Washington press corps ignored the proceedings almost entirely, leading to this declaration from the House floor by Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D.- Mass.):
‘There’s two press people in this gallery … We’re talking about war and peace, 3 billion dollars, 1,000 lives and no press? No press.’ He added: ‘The press of the United States is not covering the most significant issue of national importance and that’s the laying of lives down in the nation for the service of our country. It’s despicable, the national press corps right now.’”
From The Media Review, Extra!:
