Books recommendations on developing critical thinking?
hoping get your recommedation on critical thinking, decision under uncertainity - other than khaneman's book.
I'd recommend reading the classics - Plato, Shakespeare, Dostoyevsky, Homer, etc. Reading enough classics will challenge your mind in many ways and give you broad historical and cultural understanding that will help you improve your thought processes, regardless of the field.
Usually critical thinking means two things simultaneously:
1. Degree of willingness to defy group dynamics. Group can refer to an immediate group such as family or employment team yet also more broadly as culture or identity. This defiance is not spontaneous, as in an adolescent behavior for increased independence, but cognitive and intentional.
2. Degree of willingness to act. Under stress people typically defer to a fight or flight dichotomy of decisions. When either the fight or flight conditions are unclear they do nothing. A willingness to act suggests that in the face of uncertainty a willingness to commit to a decision, even if wrong, and execute as opposed to doing nothing as a posture for uncertainty avoidance.
The most helpful approach for me has been to write up my own thinking and have it reviewed by others. Having ideas about how to think is nowhere near as useful as practice and feedback.
Writing up our thought process is also very helpful for getting buy-in from others—turning personal success/failure into group success/failure.
It's kind of a pop self-help book but I really enjoyed Annie Duke's Thinking in Bets, particularly in terms of managing risk and making decisions in uncertainty.
"An Introduction to General Systems Thinking" by Gerald M. Weinberg [0] was highly influential to me. I still often use his "systems triumvirate" when I have to sort out bigger-picture problems:
1. Why do I see what I see?
2. Why do things stay the same?
3. Why do things change?
0: https://geraldmweinberg.com/Site/General_Systems.html
If you like Khaneman, there's a lot more to be found at edge.org (e.g. Tetlock's Superforecasters is discussed at length with a panel including Kahneman IIRC. I liked that book but I think I liked the discussion even more.)
Max Bazerman and Rich Zeckhauser (e.g. "Investing in the Unknown...") have written some very interesting stuff and "The Best of Charlie Munger" is worth reading.
Also, spending a lot of time playing poker (or bridge) can be very helpful. The fact that Zeckhauser is a champion bridge player may be worth thinking on.
i am working on more around critical thinking...
I think specifically his rec for this book would be interesting in developing critical thinking:
The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth By Jonathan Rauch
Here's a few. Taleb's collection, Walter Isaacson bios, Farnam Street mental model books, and a recent favorite "Decoding Greatness".
I highly recommend The Skeptics Guide To The Universe:
How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake
https://www.theskepticsguide.org/our-book
Its somewhat of a reference book and very accessible
See the chapter on teaching critical thinking in:
Kosslyn et al, "Building the Intentional University: Minerva and the Future of Higher Education (The MIT Press)"
For decision making:
Heath et al, "Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work"
I found "Rational Choice in an Uncertain World: The Psychology of Judgement and Decision Making" by Reid Hastie and Robyn M. Dawes very good on this topic. I read the first edition, but I believe there is a 2nd one now.
Any book will do. Every book expose you to a different point of view that will challenge your beliefs. Once your time on Earth is limited, avoid blockbusters and prefer classics.
Intuition Pumps and Other Tools for Thinking, by Daniel Dennett
See the CIA's "Thinking About Thinking".