Provisional answers, decision-making and over-analysis Part I
When you push people to think critically, which I tend to do both my students and those in business, there are questions that tend to come up. By critical thinking, I mean everything being subject to evaluation and reevaluation a point made in a few posts already. There is no final answer in this way of thinking, there are only provisional answers. But students and businessmen, who aren’t used to thinking this way, come back with a question about over-analysis. Is it possible? Isn’t that a bad thing? Here’s my answer:
What about a tendency to overanalyze? Doesn't any push to think critically mean that people will be prone to overanalyze things? Won't people be more likely to overanalyze if they are pushed to think critically about the issues? And is this a good thing?
My position is that you can't really overanalyze a thing. If you use analysis, it is the strength of the evidence that is the issue and the strength of the conclusions based on that evidence and not anything else. When the term over-analysis is used, people are really saying something like "second guess." This is really a lack of confidence in the analysis that has been made, which can be a problem and is a bigger problem with the argument I make about the change in what are considered to be facts. If facts have a tendency to change, which they do, how then can I be confident that the conclusion I make will hold up?
The way around this is to say that it holds up now if it is based on the best possible evidence and analysis. That it might not hold up later is simply an invitation to look for information that falsifies the position that you have taken now. Companies should do that anyway and people like Tom Peters have been shouting at the top of their lungs for years for companies to do this. But what actually happens is that a position is taken that hardens into something close to a fundamental truth about the nature of the universe and is only revisited when there is a downturn in business (or a defeat on the battlefield.) Not a good way to manage.
A good thinker however will be looking for that information which will contradict the position already taken. When that information is found the conclusion can be drawn based on that new information and a course correction made. But isn't that new information subject to the same defect that it might later be contradicted by something else? Yes, but that simply means that the thinker must be thinking all the time and be constantly on the lookout for better information. That makes thinking critically one of endless effort. And that is one reason why people don't want to do it.
Part II
What about a tendency to overanalyze? Doesn't any push to think critically mean that people will be prone to overanalyze things? Won't people be more likely to overanalyze if they are pushed to think critically about the issues? And is this a good thing?
My position is that you can't really overanalyze a thing. If you use analysis, it is the strength of the evidence that is the issue and the strength of the conclusions based on that evidence and not anything else. When the term over-analysis is used, people are really saying something like "second guess." This is really a lack of confidence in the analysis that has been made, which can be a problem and is a bigger problem with the argument I make about the change in what are considered to be facts. If facts have a tendency to change, which they do, how then can I be confident that the conclusion I make will hold up?
The way around this is to say that it holds up now if it is based on the best possible evidence and analysis. That it might not hold up later is simply an invitation to look for information that falsifies the position that you have taken now. Companies should do that anyway and people like Tom Peters have been shouting at the top of their lungs for years for companies to do this. But what actually happens is that a position is taken that hardens into something close to a fundamental truth about the nature of the universe and is only revisited when there is a downturn in business (or a defeat on the battlefield.) Not a good way to manage.
A good thinker however will be looking for that information which will contradict the position already taken. When that information is found the conclusion can be drawn based on that new information and a course correction made. But isn't that new information subject to the same defect that it might later be contradicted by something else? Yes, but that simply means that the thinker must be thinking all the time and be constantly on the lookout for better information. That makes thinking critically one of endless effort. And that is one reason why people don't want to do it.
Part II
posted by Scott W. Clark at 2:29 AM
1 Comments:
I'm trying to find who said 'The cure for wrong thinking is usually more thinking'. I was under the impression that it was Hugh Nibley, but I've got his "Freedom of the Mind" speech here, and I don't see it.
We do have this nice bit: "Preserve, then, the freedom of your mind in education and in religion, and be unafraid to express your thoughts and to insist upon your right to examine every proposition. We are not so much concerned with whether your thoughts are orthodox or heterodox as we are that you shall have thoughts."
Post a Comment
<< Home