What Significant Information Is Omitted?

Summary

To judge the quality of reasoning, we must realize that some significant information may be omitted and that deserves our consideration. The failure to look for omitted information would have resulted in our making a premature and potentially erroneous judgment.

Significant omitted information is information that shapes the?reasoning. The truth is that incomplete reasoning is inevitable. The limitation?imposed by time and space, the span of readers’ limited attention and the?inevitability of missing information are all the reasons leading to incomplete argument.

Critical thinkers value curiosity and reasonableness, but communicators often do their best to extinguish that curiosity and try to shape their readers or audiences choice by encouraging them to rely on unreasonable emotional responses.

We can ask questions to identify omitted information but also need to know the range and proportions of possible values.Remember?to ask, “What are the potential long-term negative effects of the action?” when?considering omitted information, and pay attention to the negative views.?

What Reasonable?Conclusions Are Possible?

Having discussed for such a long period of doubt and questions, let’s see how to ensure that the conclusion we eventually adopt is the most reasonable and the most consistent with our value preferences. When people think in black or white, yes or no, right or wrong, or correct or incorrect terms, they engage in dichotomous thinking, in which there are only two possible answers to a question that actually has multiple potential answers. That’s an impediment to considering multiple conclusions because few questions are answered simply by yes or no. Try to read assisted by logical and critical thinking, open our mind and embrace any possibilities in the future.

Among all the alternative conclusions, each optional conclusion is possible on the bases of different information, definitions, assumptions, frame or individual. That indicates using if-clauses is a good idea.

Thought

這一章是本書的最后一章。簡略而又詳盡地讀了一遍這本書，感覺備受啟發(fā)卻也感覺收獲不大。文章的中心思想就是質(zhì)疑，全文如題——“Asking the Right Questions”。 這里的Asking我認為應該理解成現(xiàn)在分詞，閱讀不息，質(zhì)疑不止。讀什么都要質(zhì)疑，讀每一段都要思疑，每一句都要考慮，那我們到底在讀什么？我們還應該相信什么？

我們應該相信自己。首先，相信自己思考能力。思考是人類相比于動物的優(yōu)勢，每個人都應充分利用，不應放棄思考。其次，相信他人犯錯的可能。人無完人，孰能無過。帶著作者或演講者可能犯錯的觀念去讀、去聽、去尋問題，收效會大得多。最后，相信萬物皆有可能。永遠帶著開放的心態(tài)去接受觀點，消化新訊息和知識，人類無法牢牢抓住真理，卻可以不斷縮短和真理的距離。

閱讀不是錄入，而是輸出。帶著問題去讀書，聽著書本的建議，走自己的路。