English 145 Midterm

• Critical thinking


  (simplest definition) ensuring you are using the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances
• One of Cal Poly's learning objectives is to think critically and effectively
• Research indicates that critical thinking is not a priority in college
• Our ability to think rationally


  • Develops over time, usually not until our late teens
  • Influenced by modeling, indoctrination, confirmation bias and selective memory
• We tend to listen to pundits rather than being critical thinkers who use our own beliefs
• Our attention span is down to 10 seconds due to mental laziness
• Eunoia


  Beautiful thinking; a well mind
• How to become a critical thinker


  1. Avoid using "opinion"

  2. Slow down: breathe, stay calm, be present, don't think of an answer or reply, stay focused, turn off devices

  3. Critical thinking is not natural, it is a purposeful mental activity
• Empathy


  The highest form of knowledge, putting yourself in someone else's shoes to understand where they are coming from
• Standards of critical thinking


  • Accuracy
  • Clarity
  • Completeness
  • Currency
  • Fairness
  • Precision
  • Relevance
  • Reliability
  • Transparency
• Benefits of critical thinking


  • Provides protection against manipulation and propaganda
  • Helps exercise more awareness and self-control
  • Lessens the likelihood of making serious mistakes
  • Helps reason and argue better and more persuasively
• Cognitive dissonance is when you can sit with multiple feelings about something and not know what to do
• Algorithms are feeding us what we want
• "Bad words"


  We, us, them, its, society, americans, you - use "I" instead
• The point of the fish story is that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about
• It isn't really about the capacity to think, but rather about the choice of what to think about
• The exact same experience could mean different things for different people
• Blind certainty

  A close-mindedness that amounts to an imprisonment so total that the prisoner doesn't even know he's locked up
• Choosing to do the work of altering or getting free of your natural, hard-wired default setting which is to be deeply and literally self-centered
• It is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head
• Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think
• The work of choosing how to think comes in when dealing with petty, frustrating situations
• If you really learn how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know there are other options and it will be within your power to experience a crowded, hot, slow, consumer-hell type situation as not only meaningful, but sacred
• The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways everyday
• The capital-T Truth is about life BEFORE death, the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness
• If the world were 100 people, would we all fight harder for equality?
• Tim Minchin's 9 points


  • You don't have to have a dream
  • Don't seek happiness
  • It is all luck
  • Exercise
  • Be hard on your opinions
  • Be a teacher
  • Define yourself by what you love
  • Respect people with less power than you
  • Don't rush
• Athens in the 5th century BCE saw the beginning and flourishing of democracy, as well as court reform that allowed people to defend themselves
• The Sophists


  First speech teachers, believed in probable knowledge, relativists, believed human nature is shaped by social circumstances, were expensive, focused on audience
• Plato


  Hated the Sophists, was an absolutist, developed the dialectic method, believed in timeless truths, the world (theory) of forms, influenced neoplatonism in the 19th century
• Aristotle


  Plato's student, disgruntled with the Sophists and a bit with Plato, believed in probable knowledge, his work On Rhetoric is still the core knowledge today, defined rhetoric as the art of finding the available persuasion, wrote about virtues of style, seven dimensions of source credibility, arrangement, and delivery, gave us ethos, pathos, logos
• Ethos


  The character of the speaker, their credibility, what affects an audience's perception of the speaker
• Logos


  Aristotle believed it had to do with the speech itself: organization, length, complexity, evidence, rationale
• Yourself in a case


  There wasn't lawyers back then
• The Sophists


  • First speech teachers
  • Believed in probable knowledge
  • Relativists
  • Human nature is shaped by social circumstances
  • Expensive!
• Plato


  • Hated the Sophists
  • He was an absolutist
  • His dialectic method
  • Timeless truths
  • World (theory) of forms
  • Neoplatonism (19th century)
• Aristotle


  • Plato's student
  • Disgruntled with the Sophists and a bit with Plato
  • Believed in probable knowledge
  • His work On Rhetoric is still the core knowledge today
• Rhetoric


  The art of finding the available persuasion. It is necessary because people disagree.
• Aristotle's work


  • Wrote about the virtues of style, the seven dimensions of source credibility, arrangement, and delivery
• Ethos


  The character of the speaker, credibility, what affects an audience's perception of the speaker