Q&A: Anonymous
Anonymous
Question
I purchased the Rabbi's course, "Critical Thinking," and it had a very strong impact on me and helped me a great deal. I want to keep practicing it and improve my skill, so I wanted to ask the Rabbi what kinds of things I should apply it to in practice. Maybe thinking about philosophy? I’d be happy if the Rabbi could point me to specific books.
Answer
I don’t know of a systematic method to suggest to you. Just apply these things to everything you read. There is a whole body of literature on critical thinking and rhetoric, but I don’t know it very well, and the little I do know I wouldn’t especially recommend.
Discussion on Answer
I heard a few courses when I was at university, and then it became finally clear to me that it was unnecessary. It’s a field that you can also study on your own. When people ask me, I suggest studying at university something you can’t learn by yourself. In particular, I recommend taking courses in which you’ll have the experience of not managing to understand—not because of the quality of the lecturer, but because of the difficulty of the material. You can find that mainly in mathematics and physics. But of course, each person according to his abilities and fields of interest.
Just out of curiosity, why doesn’t the Rabbi study philosophy in an academic framework? (As far as I know, the Rabbi doesn’t have degrees in philosophy.) And does the Rabbi recommend studying it at university in order to broaden one’s knowledge?