Dr. Patrick Grim TTC Audio – The Philosopher’s Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room
Thinking is crucial to our daily lives, yet it may go wrong in a variety of ways. Bad arguments, faulty thinking, deceptive language, and built-in cognitive biases are all traps that impede us from making reasonable decisions—not to mention advertising and politicians who try to persuade us with half-truths and hollow rhetoric.
What can we do to avoid these pitfalls and think more clearly? Is it feasible to think more quickly, efficiently, and methodically?
The Philosopher’s Toolkit: How to Be the Most Rational Person in Any Room teaches you how.
This applied philosophy course, taught by award-winning Professor Patrick Grim of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, arms you against the dangers of bad thinking and provides you with an arsenal of strategies to help you be more creative, logical, inventive, realistic, and rational in all aspects of your daily life, from the office to the voting booth.
This course is normative, as opposed to descriptive courses in other subjects.
That is, rather than just detailing how we think, the emphasis of this course is on how we should think. You’ll encounter some of history’s greatest minds along the road, from Plato and Aristotle to Einstein and John von Neumann. You’ll look at how they thought as well as what they thought. What tactics did they use to come up with their brilliant ideas? What tools can we use to become better thinkers?
These 24 exciting lectures, which combine theoretical and hands-on learning, will strengthen your critical thinking abilities and get your creative juices flowing with themes such as:
the symbiotic relationship between reason and emotion;
conceptual visualization and model-based thinking
The logic of Aristotle and the flow of arguments;
Psychological biases and heuristics
polarization and bargaining strategies
statistics and advertising
Game theory and decision theory
Investigate What You Didn’t Learn in School
Philosophy serves as the foundation for many other intellectual disciplines. According to Professor Grim, philosophy—”the love of wisdom”—has traditionally been the most important discipline of all. Over the ages, other fields have developed from it. While we study about other subjects in school, such as mathematics, physics, economics, psychology, and sociology, the information in The Philosopher’s Toolkit is seldom taught, and has never been taught in nearly this fashion.
However, the topic should be taught since it has incredible, practical value. Whether you’re deciding which wine to bring to a dinner party or considering the pros and cons of a political discussion, these lectures will help you think more rationally so you can always make the best decision. This course will teach you:
improve problem-solving abilities for increased workplace efficiency
become a more savvy customer by being aware of frequent advertising ploys
Learn heuristics that help you make smarter judgments in a hurry;
can gain self-awareness through becoming conscious of one’s own cognitive biases
This course, in addition to highlighting rational thinking, throws new light on all of the subjects you studied in school. Professor Grim believes that philosophy is best performed with an eye toward other disciplines, which he refers to as philosophy’s “children and grandkids.” When Pythagoras developed his famous theorem about right triangles, he didn’t have a geometry textbook full of equations at his disposal. Instead, he used visualization to determine areas by looking at actual squares.
To provide another example, special relativity, one of the most fundamental discoveries in the history of physics, is a fairly simple notion to envision, but it required a visual thinker like Einstein to find it. The Philosopher’s Toolkit gives the clarity and insight required for success in any discipline.
Systematic, hands-on lectures
The content is given systematically, as one would expect from a course on reason, with basic notions progressing step by step toward sophisticated applications. Many of the topics are academically demanding, such as Aristotle’s square of oppositions or the rigors of scientific testing, but Professor Grim’s thorough, straightforward presentation makes the subject easy to grasp. During these lectures, you will learn:
Consider how words refer to concepts that include assertions that comprise arguments.
transition from visualization to thought experiments to model-based thinking
Analyze Aristotle’s airtight logic, next investigate the flow of syllogisms and the diversity of syllogisms.
of logical errors;
investigate the causes of polarization and how to compromise between extremes
and positions
learn the distinction between science and pseudoscience and how to apply it
Through empirical experimentation, concepts are put to the test.
While the emphasis of this course is on thinking more logically, one of the most fascinating themes is the interaction of reason and emotion—”cool rationality” and “hot thought.” While reason is key for making excellent decisions, it turns out that emotion is just as significant.
Emotions, gut reactions, and rules of thumb are the way to go, especially when there is no time for critical deliberation—just ask any fireman or pilot who has been forced to land a plane in an emergency. But, whether you need a heuristic for quick action or clear eyes for careful rumination, The Philosopher’s Toolkit has the solutions.
Thinking from a Different Angle
Unlike other logic and reasoning courses, the interactive nature of this course hones your critical thinking through a series of mental calisthenics. This is not a passive course, and you’ll appreciate Professor Grim’s many hands-on examples throughout. In fact, one lecture is presented as a “workshop” in creative, sideways thinking. According to him, creative thinking cannot be taught but can be cultivated through practice.
In nearly every lecture, he encourages you to press “pause” to consider issues such as:
the Tower of Hanoi video game
In game theory, this is known as the Prisoner’s Dilemma.
in behavioral economics, the ultimatum game;
the bicycle problem, which even mathematician John von Neumann couldn’t solve; and
Hobbesian state model in three stages
Professor Grim is the ideal guide for a normative course on rational thinking, with a sardonic wit and a healthy distrust of authority. He takes you on a tour of great minds throughout history, bringing them down from their lofty vantage points and demonstrating how they used The Philosopher’s Toolkit tactics to generate their wonderful ideas. When you finish this course, you will be able to apply these principles to practically every part of your everyday life, allowing you to simplify difficulties, think more creatively, and make better decisions.
LECTURES
1 How We Think and How to Think Better
2 Cool Rationality and Hot Thought
3 Visualization Strategy
4 Visualizing Concepts and Propositions
5 Experiments on the Power of Thought
6 Aristotelian Thinking
7 Ironclad, Watertight Validity
8 Thinking Outside the Box
9 Argument Flow
10 Simple Heuristics That Make Us Smart
11 Reasons We Make Misteaks
12 Rational Debate in a Polarized Context
13 Rhetoric vs. Rationality
14 False Arguments and How to Counter Them
15 The Great Debate
16 Outwitting the Advertiser
17 Putting a New Spin on Statistics
18 Poker, Probability, and Everyday Life
Decisions, Decisions
20 Scientific Reasoning
21 Beautiful Experiments—Put It to the Test
22 Game Theory and Beyond
23 Modeling Your Thoughts
24 Great Thinkers’ Lessons
MEET YOUR PROFESSOR
Dr. Patrick Grim is a Distinguished Teaching Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
He received highest honors in anthropology and philosophy from the University of California, Santa Cruz. He was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, where he got his B.Phil. He received his Ph.D. from Boston University.
Professor Grim has received a number of distinctions and awards. Dr. Grim has received the President and Chancellor’s honors for teaching excellence, as well as election to the Academy of Teachers and Scholars, in addition to being designated SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor. Professor Grim was named the Weinberg Distinguished Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan in 2006. He has previously held visiting fellowships at the Center for Complex Systems at Michigan and the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh.
Professor Grim is the author of The Incomplete Universe: Totality, Knowledge, and Truth, coauthor of The Philosophical Computer: Exploratory Essays in Philosophical Computer Modeling, and editor of the upcoming Mind and Consciousness: 5 Questions. He is the originator and coeditor of The Philosopher’s Annual, a 25-volume compilation of the greatest writings published in philosophy each year.
