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I’ve also always had trouble meeting very uncritical students of history or philosophy. I think both sort of have a tendency to remove illusions from your mind,
by sprafa 7y ago
I’ve also always had trouble meeting very uncritical students of history or philosophy. I think both sort of have a tendency to remove illusions from your mind, although philosophy in particular is not too useful I think beyond the fundamentals.
Learning Socratic dialogue seems useful though.
Probably the least critical thought-inclined people I’ve met are students of economics who take the theories at face value though. Interestingly they are very often quite sheltered and privileged people, which goes into my point about oppression.
- wutbrodo 7y agoI don't know what direction the causal arrow flows here though: it's just as plausible to me that those inclined towards or capable of critical thinking gravitate towards those degrees. Like I said, I have no idea what the reality is, but I don't think anyone does, and what I'm pushing back against is the notion held by so many that throwing arbitrary education at people magically grows critical thinking skills
- sprafa 7y agoI don’t think arbitrary education works. In fact I’d like to add that I said above - probably the best education for critical thinking I can imagine is teaching people about cognitive biases and heuristics.
- wutbrodo 7y agoRight, I didn't mean to suggest that _you_ were falling into this trap in your comment. My second sentence isn't too tied to my first, it's just a clarification that I'm not completely fatalist about the issue (yet).