How to Think Critically

Jeff McLaughlin's How to Think Critically begins with the premise that we are all, every day, engaged in critical thinking. But as we may develop bad habits in daily life if we don't scrutinize our practices, so we are apt to develop bad habits in critical thinking if we are careless in our reasoning. This book exists to instill good thinking habits: attentiveness to word choice, avoidance of fallacies, and effective construction and assessment of arguments. With relatable and often amusing examples included throughout, the book adopts a degree of technical sophistication that is rigorous and yet still easily applied to ordinary situations. Venn diagrams, truth tables, and McLaughlin's 'S-Test'—a step-by-step method for argument analysis—are presented to the reader not as concepts for academic study but as tools for better thinking and living.