what I want to talk about is what
critical thinking means we talk at
Denison about critical thinking a lot
actually that’s this video we just saw
said that was part of what went on at
the TED talks you know it’s part of our
mission statement and we it seems like a
significant thing for students to learn
in a in a university critical thinking
but we don’t actually talk that much
about what critical thinking actually is
and what it involves start by just
saying what I think it is my own view of
it and it’s it’s well stated in a in a
button that people used to wear back in
the old days when people wore lots a
button so thing I used to wear the
button myself and that’s what it said
question authority I had trouble at one
point cuz the students said to me does
that mean you’re a question authority
like you’re an expert on questions no
that’s not what it means
it means we’re supposed to raise the
question authority me the the lesson of
critical thinking is never believed
anybody especially people who are in
authority people who tell you that they
know the truth it’s I think the most
important thing to learn in college
actually is not to believe them not to
believe your parents not to believe your
teachers not to believe your textbooks
not to believe the president of the
university and not to believe the
president it’s not to believe any
authority when they not that everything
they say is false but whatever they say
you have to take the attitude is this
right do you have reasons for it what’s
your what’s your explanation of it if
there’s some counter arguments I could
offer what are those counters you have
to take that critical attitude towards
whatever people tell you towards
whatever authorities don’t you I think
that’s the most important kind of lesson
that one would get from learning how to
do critical thinking but but there’s
something particularly important that
that has to do with with the foremost
authority that you have to learn how to
question and the foremost authority you
have to learn how to question is
yourself you walk in to any situation
already believing all sorts of things
and the the most important thing to
learn I think is as a matter of critical
thinking is to learn that I might not be
right that my views might be incorrect
and to and to take that really seriously
that’s a really hard lesson to learn um
so I’m gonna talk tonight actually about
a particular philosopher Karl Popper who
has written about this issue and who
made a great deal influence on me
just that’s that’s why I’m talking about
it I’m gonna talk about some of his
ideas he lived in he was born in Vienna
in 1902 he lived in Austria until the
1930s when he had to leave when the
Nazis came in he was Jewish and then he
ended up living the rest of his life in
Great Britain he was knighted actually
he was Sir Karl Popper um and he wrote
it he wrote a book or conjectures and
refutations which I’ve got to talk about
an essay from that book and any and he
talks about science he’s interested in
the question of what science is and what
and what makes a theory of scientific
theory and the first thing I want to say
and this is this doesn’t even come in at
popper early he says it too is science
doesn’t ever prove anything this is a
really important fact students sometimes
will come in and say we know science has
proven that the earth is round or
science has proven that that the law of
gravity is true or something like that
science doesn’t ever prove anything and
this is not just a sort of a big thing
to say this is in principle true about
scientific claims scientific claims have
the form everything has some particular
characteristic for instance William
Harvey in the 17th century 16th century
figuring out that that blood circulates
in human beings um now when he says
blood circulates in human beings he
doesn’t just mean that the particular
human beings he looked at had blood
circulating in them he means all human
beings have blood circulating them this
is very important it wouldn’t be very
interesting claim it was just about the
ones he looked at because any doctor
when the patient walks into the room has
to be able to never having checked the
patient before has to be able to know
that this that this human being has a
circulatory system so when you make a
scientific claim like all human beings
have circulatory systems you are
inevitably making a claim that goes
beyond the particular cases you’ve
looked at right but if you’re going
beyond the particular cases you’ve
looked at then you can’t really be sure
that the claim is right you might assert
that a certain thing is true of all
cases but unless the number of cases is
really small I’m an example I was
thinking it was all members of the US
Supreme Court have Ivy League
so they’re only eight of them you could
check this by licking all eight of them
but but with any larger with any
reasonably large number you never can
check every one right you can never be
certain that every single human being
has a circulatory system absolutely
certain of it
you can never be certain think of think
of Newton’s law of gravity which says
the two opt any two objects in the
universe attract each other with a force
that’s you know directly proportional to
the product of their masses an
indirectly proportional to the square of
the distance between them this is a
claim but every two objects in the
entire universe
how many did a Newton look at right some
around here at a particular moment in
time but we assume that this is true for
the entire universe for all of the time
we explained the Big Bang in terms of
the in terms of this this law we don’t
have any kind of absolute proof of it we
simply we simply think that it’s true
based on it based on actually our faith
in something like well it’s true around
here and when things are true around
here they’re probably true and the rest
of the universe too but the question of
how we know that is is a hard one to
answer so science doesn’t prove anything
but I want to say something else about
it which is that if you’ve got it if
you’ve got a theory about the world in
order to prove it like like this fact
about about gravity or about about human
beings having circulatory systems you
have to look at all those different
cases basically infinitely many cases in
order to prove the theory but to
disprove a theory it’s very easy right
as soon as you have one case that this
that goes against the theory then you
know the theory is false so if you want
to say something like all presidents of
the United States have been born in the
continent the continent of North America
you could look at lots of lots of cases
you look at the first one you could look
at the second where you get a third one
but only by the time you got to the what
was he the 44th one would you discover
actually did the theory is false it’s
false because it was the single case the
single character example of Obama who
was not born in Kenya but who was born
in Hawaii
so it takes it takes one case to
disprove a generalization
whereas proving it is very hard that’s
an important kind of logical fact it’s
in the background of what popper wants
to say but popper asks the question what
makes a theory of scientific theory and
the first thing he points out is that to
call a theory a scientific theory is not
the same as calling it true there are
plenty of scientific theories that are
false the most famous one is Newton’s
physics which was discovered in the 20th
century after the nine Stein’s theories
that it’s not actually true I don’t know
if those of you who are like in first
year physics say I’m sorry for the
spoiler but like at the end after they
teach you all this stuff they say oh by
the way that’s not right I mean
literally that’s what goes on so so a
scientific theory can be false and
furthermore a non-scientific an
unscientific a pseudo scientific theory
can make all sorts of true predictions I
can take the example of astrology
astrology is not a scientific theory
it’s not because the things it says
don’t turn out to be true it’s sort of
because the things it says turn out to
be true too easily so if I once was
checking what’s mine what’s my horoscope
and it says something like you will
receive news from afar and that you know
like I went to the office that day I
like to open up my email right and I got
you know my friend in Portland Oregon
sent me something and I’m with them on
some listserv that gets I get
information from Europe about
conferences and so so it turned out to
be true
all right so true theories that make
true predictions cannot become you
non-scientific that’s an important point
as well um
popper talks about about two different
theories that were that were very much
in the air in the 1920s and in Vienna
where he was living
and one was Marx’s ‘m and he says he
says he was struck his friends who were
Marxists were able to explain everything
that happened and it was a period of a
lot of political ferment in Austria and
Germany in other places in the earth
everything that happened politically
they found they found ways to explain it
they could explain it in terms of their
their Marxist theory of the world it was
it was fabulous how easily they could
explain everything he said a Marxist
could not open the newspaper in the
morning without finding confirmations of
his theory on every
aged both in terms of what it was what
was written in the newspaper also what
was not written there’s paper because
because of the class interest of a
newspaper editors um and and then popper
said what they thought this was a great
strength of their theory but in fact it
was a weakness it’s a really actually
interesting remark um they’re the
ability to explain everything might be a
weakness of a theory he compares this to
Einstein’s theory which had been
recently developed and which is still
very much in debate and discussion and
and he talks about a famous experiment
I’ll just describe it very quickly um
this guy named Arthur Eddington in 1919
it was a consequence of Einstein’s
theory that that light traveling from
from a star or something that passes by
a very massive object like the Sun would
Bend and and actually Newton’s theory
there was also a little bending but
there’s a lot of bending in the
Newtonian anything Einstein he in theory
so this guy the trouble is you can’t see
stars and you’re the Sun for kind of
obvious reason it’s kind of the same
reason I can’t see anything right now
and and but but if the Sun isn’t
eclipsed then you’d be able to do it so
it this guy Eddington in 1919 went and
did have an expedition to I think West
Africa and observed an eclipse of the
Sun and discovered that the bending of
the star’s light was exactly the way
that I’m Stan had predicted this was a
enormous this is a big deal there was
front-page news all over the world you
know Einstein’s theory has been proven
by this by this test now before I get to
that so the point is that that actually
Einstein’s theory wasn’t proven in terms
of what we were just saying before but
the the impossibility of science proving
things it wasn’t proven there might’ve
been other reasons whether light was
bent Newton’s theory was disproven
that’s what happened with that expert
with that with that experiment but of
course there’s also at that point some
reason to start to think that Einstein’s
theory might be a better one and the
reason is that this prediction about the
about the bending of the light was a
risky prediction it was something that
no one would have expected would happen
and Einstein’s theory involves saying
something that you’d expect would happen
to non-bending with their not much
bending of the light that’s not gonna
happen
um Einstein’s theory could have failed
if the experiment had ended up
differently if the observations were
different it would have failed um and
and popper decided that that this is
what’s important in terms of making a
theory scientific um it’s easy to find
confirmations for your theory if you
look for if you like the way astrology
does if you look for him it’s easy to
find them you can always make the theory
as vague as possible and kind of
interpret whatever happens to make the
to make the theory work um
confirmations are only important if
you’ve made a risky prediction and then
it turned out that turned out to work
every good theory forbid something
happened says as in the Einsteinian case
that this this small bending of the
light of the light won’t occur a theory
which is not refutable by any
conceivable event is non-scientific and
that’s really what was the case with the
Marxist right whatever happened they
were going to be able to explain it a
genuine test of a theory is an attempt
to falsify it
um what’s really what what you want to
do with your theory and I’m not just
talking about science I’m talking about
you and me and just the world when
you’ve got a view about the world you
should be trying to falsify it trying to
refute it um because if you can refute
it then you’ve learned something you
learn that it was wrong and you can
replace it by a better theory if all
you’re trying to do is to confirm it
it’s always gonna work and and and
you’re not gonna get anywhere with it
this is the criterion of the scientific
status of a theory is its falsifiability
there has to be something that you can
specify ahead of time that would cause
you to say I give up this theory you
have to be willing to give up the theory
and look for ways to refute it it
distinguishes between recalls of
dogmatic attitude and a critical
attitude dogmatic attitude is familiar
we all have it we love our theories we
want them to be true we look for
confirmations of them we whenever
something that goes a little wrong with
them we try to reinterpret things in
order to make it know actually that
didn’t refute my theory I really want to
my theory the better attitude is the
critical one that recognizes that
theories are often wrong probably wrong
and looks for reputations of them looks
for their weakest point and tries to
test them and if you if you’ve looked
for their weakest for the weakest point
of your theory and tried to test it and
it succeeded it survived the test then
you’ve got a reason to say to yourself
not that my theory has been proven but
that I tried as hard as I could to
refute it and I couldn’t and for the
time being I’m gonna tentatively hold it
although I know I’m not positive and
can’t be positive that it’s true but now
I want to talk about Donald Trump and
and but I’m not gonna say what I think
you think I’m gonna say um I’m not gonna
say that his that he’s an example of a
dogmatic attitude that he doesn’t take
he and his supporters don’t take a kind
of critical attitude towards their ideas
that they’re always looking to confirm
their theories and so forth although I
believe all those things I just said
about him and his supporters what I want
to talk about is us and by us I don’t
know I can’t even see who’s in the room
right now but and but I suspect that
most of the people in this room have the
same view about Trump that I do which is
that he’s a bad guy and a dangerous guy
and a bad president and we’re pretty
unhappy about him being president and
we’re concerned about the bad things
he’s doing I suspect most people this
room feel that way um and and actually
what I is what I have to say is gonna
work in both direct whichever way you
for you but I’m just talking about that
myself there’s this phenomenon that’s
that’s been talking about it’s sort of
the bubble I mean it’s it is the case
that I don’t think I know anyone
certainly not no one well who I’m sure
voted for Trump almost everyone I know
you know didn’t and has the same ideas
about Trump that I do um and in the
conversations I have it’s later and in
the dinner parties I go to and the
conversations I had with my friends and
in the philosophy department and even
with most of my students we all agree
and in my facebook page all the time I’m
it’s filled with confirmations of my
view about Trump that’s what we give to
each other all the time we cannot open
the newspaper every morning without
finding confirmation
the barbule about Trump about the
meaning of his election and we might
think that’s the strength of our view
but I actually think it’s a weakness I
think what we ought to be doing and I
sort of tried this as an experiment in
the in the days after the election or
weeks after the election after got
myself off the floor but um is to think
what would falsify our views about Trump
what would falsify the fear that say I
felt about his election under what
conditions would I decide I was wrong
and if you supported Trump that under
what conditions would you decide that
you were wrong that what we have to say
about Trump is right for instance I
think it’s a really interesting exercise
I posed it for people on my Facebook
page and also in some listservs I’m on
people found it incredibly difficult to
do this to specify what would cause them
at least one person said nothing could
possibly happen that would cause me to
change my mind about Trump it’s like and
it’s like that’s bad that nothing could
possibly happen you’ve got to admit the
possibility that you’re wrong so I
actually invite you to think about the
question action if you’d like to email
me Vogel at Denison uh ddu because I’m
trying to keep a list of this I’m quite
serious with this what would lead you to
change your views about Trump no matter
what those views are at the moment I
think it’s a really important exercise
to think about um these are some answers
I got there they’re good answers I have
my own list I think some of those are on
my list but but I want to point out one
more thing just before I end about that
um our views and again I’m talking to
those of us who think he’s a bad guy
have already been falsified alright we
thought he was impossible we thought he
was never get the Republican nomination
we thought he would lose the election
our views have been falsified have we
modified them after the election I don’t
know um here are some other things
that’s and it’s missing um some of the
some of the suggestions I got were
things like if the Affordable Care Act
is not repealed well it hasn’t been
repeal if Social Security and Medicare
are
are not gutted well he’s proposed a
budget that says that there should be no
changes in them if Hillary if Hillary
Clinton is not a foot in jail
locked up that’s not happening so so
some of our expectations about about
Trump have already been falsified and I
think it’s worth noticing that and
paying attention to it um so what’s
critical thinking it’s knowing that you
might be wrong and remembering that all
the time
it’s always considering the possibility
you’re wrong it’s looking for refutation
of your views and not just looking for
confirmations of them and being prepared
to change your views if things happen to
refute them it’s holding on to your
unrefuted which just means not yet
refuted views um
tentatively and fellow ballistically and
and and therefore it’s it involves
always not being sure and living with
the uncertainty of not being sure and
and wrecking and recognizing that you
don’t know the truth for sure and no one
else does either that’s what I have to
say thank you
[Applause]
critical thinking means we talk at
Denison about critical thinking a lot
actually that’s this video we just saw
said that was part of what went on at
the TED talks you know it’s part of our
mission statement and we it seems like a
significant thing for students to learn
in a in a university critical thinking
but we don’t actually talk that much
about what critical thinking actually is
and what it involves start by just
saying what I think it is my own view of
it and it’s it’s well stated in a in a
button that people used to wear back in
the old days when people wore lots a
button so thing I used to wear the
button myself and that’s what it said
question authority I had trouble at one
point cuz the students said to me does
that mean you’re a question authority
like you’re an expert on questions no
that’s not what it means
it means we’re supposed to raise the
question authority me the the lesson of
critical thinking is never believed
anybody especially people who are in
authority people who tell you that they
know the truth it’s I think the most
important thing to learn in college
actually is not to believe them not to
believe your parents not to believe your
teachers not to believe your textbooks
not to believe the president of the
university and not to believe the
president it’s not to believe any
authority when they not that everything
they say is false but whatever they say
you have to take the attitude is this
right do you have reasons for it what’s
your what’s your explanation of it if
there’s some counter arguments I could
offer what are those counters you have
to take that critical attitude towards
whatever people tell you towards
whatever authorities don’t you I think
that’s the most important kind of lesson
that one would get from learning how to
do critical thinking but but there’s
something particularly important that
that has to do with with the foremost
authority that you have to learn how to
question and the foremost authority you
have to learn how to question is
yourself you walk in to any situation
already believing all sorts of things
and the the most important thing to
learn I think is as a matter of critical
thinking is to learn that I might not be
right that my views might be incorrect
and to and to take that really seriously
that’s a really hard lesson to learn um
so I’m gonna talk tonight actually about
a particular philosopher Karl Popper who
has written about this issue and who
made a great deal influence on me
just that’s that’s why I’m talking about
it I’m gonna talk about some of his
ideas he lived in he was born in Vienna
in 1902 he lived in Austria until the
1930s when he had to leave when the
Nazis came in he was Jewish and then he
ended up living the rest of his life in
Great Britain he was knighted actually
he was Sir Karl Popper um and he wrote
it he wrote a book or conjectures and
refutations which I’ve got to talk about
an essay from that book and any and he
talks about science he’s interested in
the question of what science is and what
and what makes a theory of scientific
theory and the first thing I want to say
and this is this doesn’t even come in at
popper early he says it too is science
doesn’t ever prove anything this is a
really important fact students sometimes
will come in and say we know science has
proven that the earth is round or
science has proven that that the law of
gravity is true or something like that
science doesn’t ever prove anything and
this is not just a sort of a big thing
to say this is in principle true about
scientific claims scientific claims have
the form everything has some particular
characteristic for instance William
Harvey in the 17th century 16th century
figuring out that that blood circulates
in human beings um now when he says
blood circulates in human beings he
doesn’t just mean that the particular
human beings he looked at had blood
circulating in them he means all human
beings have blood circulating them this
is very important it wouldn’t be very
interesting claim it was just about the
ones he looked at because any doctor
when the patient walks into the room has
to be able to never having checked the
patient before has to be able to know
that this that this human being has a
circulatory system so when you make a
scientific claim like all human beings
have circulatory systems you are
inevitably making a claim that goes
beyond the particular cases you’ve
looked at right but if you’re going
beyond the particular cases you’ve
looked at then you can’t really be sure
that the claim is right you might assert
that a certain thing is true of all
cases but unless the number of cases is
really small I’m an example I was
thinking it was all members of the US
Supreme Court have Ivy League
so they’re only eight of them you could
check this by licking all eight of them
but but with any larger with any
reasonably large number you never can
check every one right you can never be
certain that every single human being
has a circulatory system absolutely
certain of it
you can never be certain think of think
of Newton’s law of gravity which says
the two opt any two objects in the
universe attract each other with a force
that’s you know directly proportional to
the product of their masses an
indirectly proportional to the square of
the distance between them this is a
claim but every two objects in the
entire universe
how many did a Newton look at right some
around here at a particular moment in
time but we assume that this is true for
the entire universe for all of the time
we explained the Big Bang in terms of
the in terms of this this law we don’t
have any kind of absolute proof of it we
simply we simply think that it’s true
based on it based on actually our faith
in something like well it’s true around
here and when things are true around
here they’re probably true and the rest
of the universe too but the question of
how we know that is is a hard one to
answer so science doesn’t prove anything
but I want to say something else about
it which is that if you’ve got it if
you’ve got a theory about the world in
order to prove it like like this fact
about about gravity or about about human
beings having circulatory systems you
have to look at all those different
cases basically infinitely many cases in
order to prove the theory but to
disprove a theory it’s very easy right
as soon as you have one case that this
that goes against the theory then you
know the theory is false so if you want
to say something like all presidents of
the United States have been born in the
continent the continent of North America
you could look at lots of lots of cases
you look at the first one you could look
at the second where you get a third one
but only by the time you got to the what
was he the 44th one would you discover
actually did the theory is false it’s
false because it was the single case the
single character example of Obama who
was not born in Kenya but who was born
in Hawaii
so it takes it takes one case to
disprove a generalization
whereas proving it is very hard that’s
an important kind of logical fact it’s
in the background of what popper wants
to say but popper asks the question what
makes a theory of scientific theory and
the first thing he points out is that to
call a theory a scientific theory is not
the same as calling it true there are
plenty of scientific theories that are
false the most famous one is Newton’s
physics which was discovered in the 20th
century after the nine Stein’s theories
that it’s not actually true I don’t know
if those of you who are like in first
year physics say I’m sorry for the
spoiler but like at the end after they
teach you all this stuff they say oh by
the way that’s not right I mean
literally that’s what goes on so so a
scientific theory can be false and
furthermore a non-scientific an
unscientific a pseudo scientific theory
can make all sorts of true predictions I
can take the example of astrology
astrology is not a scientific theory
it’s not because the things it says
don’t turn out to be true it’s sort of
because the things it says turn out to
be true too easily so if I once was
checking what’s mine what’s my horoscope
and it says something like you will
receive news from afar and that you know
like I went to the office that day I
like to open up my email right and I got
you know my friend in Portland Oregon
sent me something and I’m with them on
some listserv that gets I get
information from Europe about
conferences and so so it turned out to
be true
all right so true theories that make
true predictions cannot become you
non-scientific that’s an important point
as well um
popper talks about about two different
theories that were that were very much
in the air in the 1920s and in Vienna
where he was living
and one was Marx’s ‘m and he says he
says he was struck his friends who were
Marxists were able to explain everything
that happened and it was a period of a
lot of political ferment in Austria and
Germany in other places in the earth
everything that happened politically
they found they found ways to explain it
they could explain it in terms of their
their Marxist theory of the world it was
it was fabulous how easily they could
explain everything he said a Marxist
could not open the newspaper in the
morning without finding confirmations of
his theory on every
aged both in terms of what it was what
was written in the newspaper also what
was not written there’s paper because
because of the class interest of a
newspaper editors um and and then popper
said what they thought this was a great
strength of their theory but in fact it
was a weakness it’s a really actually
interesting remark um they’re the
ability to explain everything might be a
weakness of a theory he compares this to
Einstein’s theory which had been
recently developed and which is still
very much in debate and discussion and
and he talks about a famous experiment
I’ll just describe it very quickly um
this guy named Arthur Eddington in 1919
it was a consequence of Einstein’s
theory that that light traveling from
from a star or something that passes by
a very massive object like the Sun would
Bend and and actually Newton’s theory
there was also a little bending but
there’s a lot of bending in the
Newtonian anything Einstein he in theory
so this guy the trouble is you can’t see
stars and you’re the Sun for kind of
obvious reason it’s kind of the same
reason I can’t see anything right now
and and but but if the Sun isn’t
eclipsed then you’d be able to do it so
it this guy Eddington in 1919 went and
did have an expedition to I think West
Africa and observed an eclipse of the
Sun and discovered that the bending of
the star’s light was exactly the way
that I’m Stan had predicted this was a
enormous this is a big deal there was
front-page news all over the world you
know Einstein’s theory has been proven
by this by this test now before I get to
that so the point is that that actually
Einstein’s theory wasn’t proven in terms
of what we were just saying before but
the the impossibility of science proving
things it wasn’t proven there might’ve
been other reasons whether light was
bent Newton’s theory was disproven
that’s what happened with that expert
with that with that experiment but of
course there’s also at that point some
reason to start to think that Einstein’s
theory might be a better one and the
reason is that this prediction about the
about the bending of the light was a
risky prediction it was something that
no one would have expected would happen
and Einstein’s theory involves saying
something that you’d expect would happen
to non-bending with their not much
bending of the light that’s not gonna
happen
um Einstein’s theory could have failed
if the experiment had ended up
differently if the observations were
different it would have failed um and
and popper decided that that this is
what’s important in terms of making a
theory scientific um it’s easy to find
confirmations for your theory if you
look for if you like the way astrology
does if you look for him it’s easy to
find them you can always make the theory
as vague as possible and kind of
interpret whatever happens to make the
to make the theory work um
confirmations are only important if
you’ve made a risky prediction and then
it turned out that turned out to work
every good theory forbid something
happened says as in the Einsteinian case
that this this small bending of the
light of the light won’t occur a theory
which is not refutable by any
conceivable event is non-scientific and
that’s really what was the case with the
Marxist right whatever happened they
were going to be able to explain it a
genuine test of a theory is an attempt
to falsify it
um what’s really what what you want to
do with your theory and I’m not just
talking about science I’m talking about
you and me and just the world when
you’ve got a view about the world you
should be trying to falsify it trying to
refute it um because if you can refute
it then you’ve learned something you
learn that it was wrong and you can
replace it by a better theory if all
you’re trying to do is to confirm it
it’s always gonna work and and and
you’re not gonna get anywhere with it
this is the criterion of the scientific
status of a theory is its falsifiability
there has to be something that you can
specify ahead of time that would cause
you to say I give up this theory you
have to be willing to give up the theory
and look for ways to refute it it
distinguishes between recalls of
dogmatic attitude and a critical
attitude dogmatic attitude is familiar
we all have it we love our theories we
want them to be true we look for
confirmations of them we whenever
something that goes a little wrong with
them we try to reinterpret things in
order to make it know actually that
didn’t refute my theory I really want to
my theory the better attitude is the
critical one that recognizes that
theories are often wrong probably wrong
and looks for reputations of them looks
for their weakest point and tries to
test them and if you if you’ve looked
for their weakest for the weakest point
of your theory and tried to test it and
it succeeded it survived the test then
you’ve got a reason to say to yourself
not that my theory has been proven but
that I tried as hard as I could to
refute it and I couldn’t and for the
time being I’m gonna tentatively hold it
although I know I’m not positive and
can’t be positive that it’s true but now
I want to talk about Donald Trump and
and but I’m not gonna say what I think
you think I’m gonna say um I’m not gonna
say that his that he’s an example of a
dogmatic attitude that he doesn’t take
he and his supporters don’t take a kind
of critical attitude towards their ideas
that they’re always looking to confirm
their theories and so forth although I
believe all those things I just said
about him and his supporters what I want
to talk about is us and by us I don’t
know I can’t even see who’s in the room
right now but and but I suspect that
most of the people in this room have the
same view about Trump that I do which is
that he’s a bad guy and a dangerous guy
and a bad president and we’re pretty
unhappy about him being president and
we’re concerned about the bad things
he’s doing I suspect most people this
room feel that way um and and actually
what I is what I have to say is gonna
work in both direct whichever way you
for you but I’m just talking about that
myself there’s this phenomenon that’s
that’s been talking about it’s sort of
the bubble I mean it’s it is the case
that I don’t think I know anyone
certainly not no one well who I’m sure
voted for Trump almost everyone I know
you know didn’t and has the same ideas
about Trump that I do um and in the
conversations I have it’s later and in
the dinner parties I go to and the
conversations I had with my friends and
in the philosophy department and even
with most of my students we all agree
and in my facebook page all the time I’m
it’s filled with confirmations of my
view about Trump that’s what we give to
each other all the time we cannot open
the newspaper every morning without
finding confirmation
the barbule about Trump about the
meaning of his election and we might
think that’s the strength of our view
but I actually think it’s a weakness I
think what we ought to be doing and I
sort of tried this as an experiment in
the in the days after the election or
weeks after the election after got
myself off the floor but um is to think
what would falsify our views about Trump
what would falsify the fear that say I
felt about his election under what
conditions would I decide I was wrong
and if you supported Trump that under
what conditions would you decide that
you were wrong that what we have to say
about Trump is right for instance I
think it’s a really interesting exercise
I posed it for people on my Facebook
page and also in some listservs I’m on
people found it incredibly difficult to
do this to specify what would cause them
at least one person said nothing could
possibly happen that would cause me to
change my mind about Trump it’s like and
it’s like that’s bad that nothing could
possibly happen you’ve got to admit the
possibility that you’re wrong so I
actually invite you to think about the
question action if you’d like to email
me Vogel at Denison uh ddu because I’m
trying to keep a list of this I’m quite
serious with this what would lead you to
change your views about Trump no matter
what those views are at the moment I
think it’s a really important exercise
to think about um these are some answers
I got there they’re good answers I have
my own list I think some of those are on
my list but but I want to point out one
more thing just before I end about that
um our views and again I’m talking to
those of us who think he’s a bad guy
have already been falsified alright we
thought he was impossible we thought he
was never get the Republican nomination
we thought he would lose the election
our views have been falsified have we
modified them after the election I don’t
know um here are some other things
that’s and it’s missing um some of the
some of the suggestions I got were
things like if the Affordable Care Act
is not repealed well it hasn’t been
repeal if Social Security and Medicare
are
are not gutted well he’s proposed a
budget that says that there should be no
changes in them if Hillary if Hillary
Clinton is not a foot in jail
locked up that’s not happening so so
some of our expectations about about
Trump have already been falsified and I
think it’s worth noticing that and
paying attention to it um so what’s
critical thinking it’s knowing that you
might be wrong and remembering that all
the time
it’s always considering the possibility
you’re wrong it’s looking for refutation
of your views and not just looking for
confirmations of them and being prepared
to change your views if things happen to
refute them it’s holding on to your
unrefuted which just means not yet
refuted views um
tentatively and fellow ballistically and
and and therefore it’s it involves
always not being sure and living with
the uncertainty of not being sure and
and wrecking and recognizing that you
don’t know the truth for sure and no one
else does either that’s what I have to
say thank you
[Applause]
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