The Art of Thinking

The Art of Thinking

A wise man once reminded us that the evils of the world arose less from the hardness of peoples hearts than from the softness of people's heads. Certainly few of us would care to deny that soft-headed-muddled thinking-was the cause of at least half the evils of this world, and none of us would deny that a little more clear thinking would effect considerable improvement in our lives.

Why then do we not attempt it? The answer is complicated: it is, indeed, the main object of this section of the book, to show what the answer is, by revealing the barriers in the way of clear thinking. But of one thing we may be certain; it is not because clear thinking is impossible. Thinking may be hard, may involve real labour; thinking may be unpleasant- indeed one philosopher has gone so far as to say that people fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth; thinking maybe beset by all kinds of difficulties, but thinking is not impossible for any normal man or woman.

To be faced by any problem, whether it be the problem of what clothes to wear when you get up, or whether to buy a new house or take and expensive holiday, or whether to vote for one candidate or another in an election, is to be faced with the necessity of thinking. Everybody must think, if they weren’t able to do so, the human race would perish.

Fools are not, therefore, people who cannot think: they are simply people who will not think, people who cannot think clearly. Everyone must think about something- but as there is a right and wrong way of playing tennis, so too there is a right and wrong way of thinking.

If you go into your bedroom and discover a crumpled, soiled eiderdown and wet earth-marks on your pillow, you deduce that your dog, who has been out in the rain, has been clambering about on your bed.

Isaac Newton used exactly the same faculty of observation, exactly the same laws of reasoning when he deduced the theory of gravitation from watching the fall of an apple.

Ability then, to acquire powerful knowledge by process of reasoning or thinking about things is within everyone’s grasp. But this is not to say that everyone uses that power well or, indeed, that the majority of us even use it properly. It is all too clear that we do not. It is all to clear that our everyday affairs are muddled, that our desires and ambitions are thwarted, that our lives are made wretched time and time again for no other reason than that we think about our problems in a careless or muddled way.

All this is bad enough. Yet when we come to the larger field of man and his affairs in the field of social and political life, from crime to war, from politics to religion, this lack of clear thinking becomes a tragedy, a tragedy so vast as, at this period of man's evolution , to threaten the whole future of the entire human race. Should our muddled thinking lead us into another war, we may well destroy ourselves.

Now it is worth pausing for a moment to consider one very significant fact, which is also an immensely ironical fact. Muddled thinking is leading mankind into a war that may well destroy life as we know it., yet war is today so perilous simply because of the power of man's intellect.

Were man half as muddled in his thinking about science, his inventions, his engineering, as he is in his thinking about his relations with his fellows, war would still be fought with wooden clubs and flint-tipped arrows. It is simply because of man's immense ability to think clearly about scientific problems that his lack of clear thinking about social problems is so dangerous.

What Can Man Think About Clearly?

We may, I think, draw a useful lesson from these facts by asking in very general terms, the sort of things about which man can apparently think clearly, and about those which he cannot.

In the former class are all science and mathematics which we call abstract and remote; in the latter, everything to do with his family, his wallet, his pride, his emotional relationships. Now the former very seldom directly affects his interests. It matters nothing to you personaly that two atoms of hydrogen combined with one oxygen make one molecule of water. If it were the other way around you would be neither more nor less moved. Nor does it affect you that three interior angles of a triangle together equal two right angles. If they only equalled one or five right angles, you would not be upset. On the other hand it matters immensely to you if you were to discover your employer was under paying you, or that your wife had run away with another man.

It is clear that if we were asked to reason about the first class of things we could do so within the limits of our knowledge, calmly and dispassionately. If however, we were asked to reason about the second class of things, it would be far more difficult to be calm or dispassionate.

Now it is a well attested fact about human nature, that an excited man is rarely a good judge of what is true or of what is right. Why this must be so we must leave to the psychologists to answer, but that it is so, none of us can doubt. It follows that one of the chief stumbling blocks to clear thinking about the things which matter immediately and directly to ourselves, is the very fact that they matter so much.

Clear thinking you will see is not simply a matter of using certain rules, the rules of what is called logic. It depends first and foremost upon an attitude of mind. If knowledge of logic alone were important, then our wisest administrators would be university professors. In point of fact such professors are often, and justly, a byword for the lack of practical sense.

The Purpose of Reasoning

The purpose of thinking or reasoning, as we may more usefully call it, is to arrive at the truth. We start from certain assumptions- premises as they are called- reason from them and as the result of our reasoning reach what is called the conclusion. If we have taken certain precautions, have satisfied ourselves, for example, that our premises are themselves true, and have followed faithfully certain general principles in our reasoning we may be sure that our conclusion is also true.

I return to a detailed consideration of this matter in a later chapter. It is enough here to indicate what I mean by reasoning in it's narrowest sense: but as I have said, this is by no means all that is implied in clear thinking.

Let me say immediately that it is impossible to teach anyone how to think. All that can be done is to show you how not to think. In consequence, while throughout the next few chapters you will find plenty of examples of muddled thinking, you will find practically none of clear thinking. Nor is this odd, when you examine the problem closely, for examples of clear thinking require no explanation. There is nothing to say about them. I shall in consequence be concerned here principally with the barriers to clear thinking.

We have already noted-the fact that, wherever our interests are engaged, it is difficult to be dispassionate. I shall now point out a number of others, each of which I shall deal with at length in later chapters.

One of the greatest difficulties in the way of clear thinking is that afforded by the meanings of words. Now, in an earlier section I have discussed this problem in connection with how to write clearly. I pointed out that the same word often conveyed different shades of meaning in different contexts and seldom meant exactly the same thing to two different people. This alone can cause sufficient misunderstanding: but there is another side to the same problem, a side which is an even more fruitful source of misunderstanding and muddled thinking.

Words as we have seen, can conjure up not only ideas but emotions as well. Now emotions are admirable in their place; indeed, without them the world would be very dull affair.

But our proneness to emotions and our inability to control them , may be disastrous. It is true that generous emotions properly directed have been responsible for some of the finest achievements in human history, but it is equally true that generous emotions improperly directed have been responsible for some of the greatest crimes in human history.

The unscrupulous orator who is concerned, not to persuade people of the truth of his ideas, but only to win their emotional allegiance to the course of action he is advocating, understands this very well. His choice of words is, in consequence, designed not primarily to communicate ideas, but to arouse emotions and, if he is sufficiently successful, he may well become a dictator. Such oratory has been well described as the “harlot of the arts.”

It is almost impossible to read the daily newspapers on any day of the week without coming across a whole host of words, the purpose of which is solely to prejudice the mind of the reader in one direction or another. Thus conservative newspapers will describe a speech by a conservative statesman as being vigorous and realist- two words which arouse emotions of approval. On the other hand, labour newspapers may describe the same speech as petty and reactionary- two words which arouse emotions of disapproval.

Such words, of course, add nothing to the speech nor do they give us any genuine information about it. They merely prejudice us in advance. To the extent to which we are prejudiced, we shall be prevented from forming an impartial estimate of the speech's value. What is true of the written is equally true of the spoken word. Whenever we come across such words, therefore, we should be on our guard, since because of the emotions they arouse they are amongst the principal barriers to clear thinking.

Our Habits of Thought

Another serious barrier arises from our own habits of thought. We all have habits of thought which, though they often escape our own notice, we can recognize very easily in our neighbours of which we disapprove, we call them “prejudices”, “superstitions,” an so on.

Our own habits of thought are, on the other hand, what we call “profound convections,” “ennobling beliefs” or “reasoned arguments”.

Precisely how these habits of thought- automatic thinking as they have happily been called- interfere with the clarity of our reasoning will be shown in a later chapter. Here I need do no more than indicate their nature.

Conventions, particularly sexual conventions, are habits of thought, and we all know how very rapidly people become excited in a discussion of any assertion which appears to suggest a course of action running counter to established conventions.

If these habits of thought touch closely our emotions or our personal interest, then they become doubly dangerous because of the grater strength with which we cling to them.

So called scientific truths, however, are for most of us, largely habits of thought. We believe for example, that the earth is round and that it travels around the sun. But we have never verified these beliefs for ourselves: we have accepted the truth of them on trust. A few of us may have been on a voyage round the world and may, therefore, claim some experimental justification for the first of these beliefs, but the evidence of our senses assures us every day that the second is nonsense: the sun apparently goes round the earth.

Thus, while these habits of thought may be perfectly correct, we must remember that so far as we are concerned, their correctness is accepted on trust; it is not verified by personal inquiries on our part.

In exactly the same way the habits of thought we have established in regard to most of the things which directly concern us have been established by convention. They are like our consciences which the psychologists have described as being no more than “those thoughts which we imbibe with our mothers milk and lean at our nurse's knees.”

Habits of Thought Taught at School

Things we are taught at school, for example, the magnitude of the position of the British Empire in the world, the duty of obeying our parents, the existence of God, and so on, all tend to become habits of thought. But although all habits of thought are not necessarily wrong, they are not necessarily right because we believe them, and we must not close our minds to the possibility that at some future date our ideas about them may have to be revised.

I am not suggesting, of course, that we shall have to do this in the case of established scientific facts, but when we leave the world of science we enter a more controversial region.

Such habits of thought would be far less prevalent in the world, were it not for the human beings are immensely suggestible. This suggestibility derives partly from intellectual laziness, that is, a reluctance to think for ourselves and a preference for letting other people tell us what we should think. As I have pointed out, thinking involves labour. Thus it is possible for hoary old platitudes to command acceptance if they are only expressed in a form that captures attention and at the same time express a sentiment which appeals to the emotions of the audience. The widespread acceptance of two catch phrases: “Hang the Kasier,” and “Make Germany pay,” at the end of the War affords a good illustration of mass suggestibility.

Advertisement and Propaganda

But if we need further proof we can find iit in modern advertising. The fact that advertisements are successful in their objective (and they are successful, otherwise they would be discontinued) shows the extent to which people can be persuaded to believe the truth of a statement, if only the statement is repeated sufficiently often. This is not to be taken wrongly, that all advertising is misleading. On the contrary reputable advertisers perform a valuable service. I am pointing out the power of suggestion, the fact that constant repetition of a simple statement eventually, and for no other reason than that it is constantly repeated, leads to the wide acceptance of that statement as true. Advertisement is only a particular form of propaganda, and the success of political propaganda when skilfully organized, as for example in Nazi Germany, scarcely needs pointing out.

All these points which must be considered and traps which must be guarded against if we wish to think clearly, before we can begin to tackle the problems arising from bad reasoning.

If I say to you: “ All poets are fools, therefore all fools are poets,” you cab at once detect the fallacy and correct me. But few errors in reasoning are as simply expressed as that. They are almost always wrapped up in numerous and elaborate phrases and, in consequence, are frequently accepted as sound.

Let me summarize the points we shall have to consider in learning how to think clearly. There is, first, the difficulty of conquering our reluctance to think clearly, because thinking is hard work. There is, secondly, the difficulty that certain subjects about which we are asked to reason, touch us very closely and arouse our emotions to such a point that we cannot be honest with ourselves or anybody else.

There is thirdly, the difficultly surrounding language. This difficulty is twofold: (a) The exact meaning of a word is seldom precise, and one word may mean different things to different people, and indeed, when used in different contexts, different things to the same person; this is a fruitful source of misunderstanding and muddled thinking. (b) Words not only communicate ideas but arouse emotions in respect of ideas. Whenever our emotions are aroused we forget the need for calm. To adapt an old phrase: “When emotions come in the door, truth flies out the window.”

There is, fourthly, the difficulty arising from the fact that we all have ingrained habits of thought which produce automatic thinking. Whenever we meet opinions, therefore, which conflict with our habits of thought, we tend to dismiss those opinions as nonsense without troubling to examine them.

There is, fifthly, the difficulty that we are most of us very suggestible and that propaganda of one form or another may easily sweep us off our feet. We must try , therefore, to bear in mind that if a statement is not true when it is said once, it is no more true if it is said twenty or twenty thousand times.

There is, lastly, the difficulty that arises from the misuse of logic. I shall try later to show that logical fallacies are largely the result of muddled expression, since whenever the logical fallacies we may commit are reduced to clear terms they become obvious.

Each one of these difficulties and their consequences will be exaimed in later chapters. The most important of these consequences is the exploitation by clever persons who wish to persuade those who are less clever into accepting as true a proposition which is untrue.

Unfortunately, it is not only unscrupulous people who exploit these unfair tricks of argument. We all of us use them ourselves time and time again, largely because we do not ourselves realize that they are unfair. In consequence, we are not only a prey to the unscrupulous, but also to the honourable, and we may be misled, indeed we are perpetually misled, by both.

Danger of Action Based on False Reasoning

Another consequence of accepting propositions as true is that we act in one way rather than another. Indeed, the whole purpose of argument is to establish a conclusion in terms of which we can adopt a particular course of action. Arguments and propositions are in themselves quite harmless. It is the action of which they form the basis that matter.

If I, a manufacturer of a dubious medicines, prove to you by every sort of ingenious and unscrupulous device that you are suffering from several unpleasant diseases, you are not content to accept the fact. At once you rush off (probably on my advice) to buy bottle after bottle of useless liquids which you consume with detriment to your health and profit to my pocket.

This is merely an example of the way in which our beliefs determine our actions. Indeed, for the most part we act in certain ways only because we believe certain things. Change our beliefs, and you may well change our actions.

Now misdirected actions are the cause of most of the world's evil. I am not speaking here of actions undertaken from the disinterested motives. It is probable that most of the soldiers who fought in the last War, to whichever country they belonged, were actuated only by the finest and most disinterested motives. These motives need not be examined here in detail: they are familiar to all of us and ranged from simple patriotism to a passionate desire to rid the world for ever of the menace of war. Now both sides could not be right in their beliefs; yet unless the soldiers who actually did the fighting had believed that they were acting from good motives, the War would never have been fought.

This reflection should be enough to convince us of the necessity for clear thinking. Only clear thinking will enable us to arrive at truth, and unless we arrive at truth, the actions which result from our beliefs will almost always be disastrous not only for ourselves but also for our fellow-citizens in the world at large.