We've outsourced too much of our thinking. How do we get it back? Have you ever followed your GPS device to a deserted parking lot? Or unquestioningly followed the advice of an expert—perhaps a doctor or financial adviser—only to learn later that your own thoughts and doubts were correct? And what about the stories we've all heard over the years about sick patients—whether infected with Ebola or COVID-19—who were sent home or allowed to travel because busy staff people were following a protocol to the letter rather than using common sense? Why and how do these kinds of things happen? As Harvard lecturer and global trend watcher Vikram Mansharamani shows in this eye-opening and perspective-shifting book, our complex, data-flooded world has made us ever more reliant on experts, protocols, and technology. Too often, we've stopped thinking for ourselves. With stark and compelling examples drawn from business, sports, and everyday life, Mansharamani illustrates how in a very real sense we have outsourced our thinking to a troubling degree, relinquishing our autonomy. Of course, experts, protocols, and computer-based systems are essential to helping us make informed decisions. What we need is a new approach for integrating these information sources more effectively, harnessing the value they provide without undermining our ability to think for ourselves. The author provides principles and techniques for doing just that, empowering readers with a more critical and nuanced approach to making decisions. Think for Yourself is an indispensable guide for those looking to restore self-reliant thinking in a data-driven and technology-dependent yet overwhelmingly uncertain world.

Middle school is a time of change, when things begin to look different and assumptions start to be questioned, and today more than ever it’s tough to know what to believe. This unique and timely book won’t tell you what to think—that’s up to you!—but it will show you how to think more deeply about your own life and current events. Covering a wide range of subjects affecting the world today, including human and animal rights, social media, cyber bullying, the refugee crisis, and more, THINK FOR YOURSELF will help you to learn how to ask questions, analyze evidence, and use logic to draw conclusions, so you can solve problems and make smart decisions. Each chapter of the book covers one key step in the critical thinking process, and includes a real-world example to help convey the importance and relevance of every step: Ask Questions: If you want to be a critical thinker, it helps to be curious. It’s normal to wonder about the world around us. Some questions are big, and some are small. Sometimes questions can spark debate and argument. All critical thinking starts with at least one question. Gather Evidence: First, find information—from making observations to interviewing experts to researching a topic online or in books. Then make connections and draw conclusions. Evaluating Evidence: Smart thinkers evaluate the importance, accuracy and relevancy of the information they gather. Getting Curious: Consider other points of view, examine your own point of view, understand the power of emotion, and practice empathy. Draw Conclusions: The final step in the critical thinking process, this is based on reason and evidence. Revisit your original question, review the evidence and what you’ve learned, and consider your values. And remember: critical thinking doesn’t stop when you’ve reached a decision. Learn how to discuss and debate other points of view. Then keep growing. Sometimes you might change your mind—that’s OK, too! Featuring profiles of real-life inspiring young critical thinkers from around the world, checklists, quizzes, and activities, THINK FOR YOURSELF is a clever and fun illustrated guide that teaches middle schoolers that even young people can make a difference in the world just by thinking smart and understanding. INCLUDES: Your Turn: activities to help connect ideas to readers’ lives Quizzes Profiles of inspiring young critical thinkers A Reading List for Young Thinkers Teacher's guides Plus a table of contents, index, and glossary for easy searching

How do we judge whether we should be willing to follow the views of experts or whether we ought to try to come to our own, independent views? This book seeks the answer in medieval philosophical thought. In this engaging study into the history of philosophy and epistemology, Peter Adamson provides an answer to a question as relevant today as it was in the medieval period: how and when should we turn to the authoritative expertise of other people in forming our own beliefs? He challenges us to reconsider our approach to this question through a constructive recovery of the intellectual and cultural traditions of the Islamic world, the Byzantine Empire, and Latin Christendom. Adamson begins by foregrounding the distinction in Islamic philosophy between taqlīd, or the uncritical acceptance of authority, and ijtihād, or judgment based on independent effort, the latter of which was particularly prized in Islamic law, theology, and philosophy during the medieval period. He then demonstrates how the Islamic tradition paves the way for the development of what he calls a “justified taqlīd,” according to which one develops the skills necessary to critically and selectively follow an authority based on their reliability. The book proceeds to reconfigure our understanding of the relation between authority and independent thought in the medieval world by illuminating how women found spaces to assert their own intellectual authority, how medieval writers evaluated the authoritative status of Plato and Aristotle, and how independent reasoning was deployed to defend one Abrahamic faith against the other. This clear and eloquently written book will interest scholars in and enthusiasts of medieval philosophy, Islamic studies, Byzantine studies, and the history of thought.

We can't always be there to protect our kids from peer pressure, but we can arm them with ability to think for themselves! A child that can think for themselves has power! Power to keep their imagination running strong, power to stand up for themselves, and power against bullies. Let your kids know it's okay to be different! Just be yourself, no matter what others around you are doing! Own it! Kale sets a great example for making your own decisions in this straight-forward kids book. He likes animals and super capes and it doesn't matter that his friends are more into construction trucks and freight trains. He knows what he likes and is great at making his own decisions. Making the little decisions for yourself as a kid leads to being able to make the big decisions for yourself as adult. Perhaps if we never lose who we are as kids we won't have to spend so much time trying to find ourselves as adults. Kids are under so much pressure at school to fit in that they often put their own likes and dislikes on the back burner in order to be like everyone else. Read this book to your little ones before they head off to school and they will see how it's okay to be different! The Think For Myself Series will encourage your kids to know who they are and be confident in themselves. Send your kids the message that it's cool to be unique and always give them thefreedom to think for themselves!

This is a book about thinking. Engaging and down-to-earth, it captures the habits and practices that are fundamental to clear thinking and effective study. In his warm and friendly style, Tom Chatfield shows you how to: Identify and examine your biases Engage in lively, curious skepticism See the value in emotion and use rhetoric persuasively Know when to say ′I don′t know′ Construct reasoned arguments and explanations Think critically about how you engage with technology. Short and punchy, the book views critical thinking as a skill to be continually practiced and developed. It equips you with a toolkit for clearer thinking, describing ten key concepts that help you to apply what you have learned. Including regular reflective exercises, key concepts, further readings, each chapter also offers recommendations for how to put the ideas it discusses into practice. This book is for undergraduate students and anyone looking to understand the core ideas behind critical thinking. Celebrating both self-reflection and collaboration, this book empowers you to pause, think twice and, above all, think well.

Science is beginning to understand that our thinking has a deep and complicated relationship with our eating. Our thoughts before, during, and after eating profoundly impact our food choices, our digestive health, our brain health, and more. Yet most of us give very little thought to our food beyond taste and basic nutritional content. In this revolutionary book, Dr. Caroline Leaf packs an incredible amount of information that will change readers' eating and thinking habits for the better. Rather than getting caught up in whether we should go raw or vegan, gluten-free or paleo, Leaf shows readers that every individual is unique, has unique nutritional needs, and has the power to impact their own health through the right thinking. There's no one perfect solution. Rather, she shows us how to change the way we think about food and put ourselves on the path towards health. Anyone who is tired of traditional diet plans that don't work, who struggles with emotional eating, or who simply isn't satisfied with their level of health will find in this book the key to discovering how they can begin developing a healthier body, brain, and spirit.

A short manual to help you start the road to self discovery and independent thinking.

Learn how to reverse the effects of negative self-talk and embrace a more positive, optimistic outlook on life

We have freedom of speech but we’re afraid to speak. Our lives have become subjected to PC tyranny—a constant fear of “offending” someone. We think that we are independent and that it is the other guy who is influenced, brainwashed, duped, persuaded. We feel like we think for ourselves. How can we “feel” otherwise? There’s no way to know because countless influences and interactions have molded us. We’re members of various groups—circles of friends, family, professional groups, hobby group, and workplace groups. Groups have a way of developing a view that it imposes with a kind of group-think. We want to belong, to be liked and included so go along and get along. We don’t make waves by questioning. If we have a different view, we keep it to ourselves. Why rock the boat? Thinking for yourself is not so easy. When encountering an argument to a long held opinion or a wild idea, we use critical thinking to evaluate it, as we were taught to do in school. The problem is that critical thinking is critical. It focuses our thinking on the negative—what doesn’t work, what’s wrong with the idea—and encourages my-side thinking where we evaluate evidence in a way that favors our beliefs and entraps us into closed-mindedness. Thinking for yourself requires open-mindedness. Open-mindedness is being receptive and, when the issue is important, calls for actively searching for evidence against your beliefs. Thinking is not driven by answers but by questions. Every intellectual field is born out of a cluster of questions to which answers are needed. Had no questions been asked by those who laid the foundation for a field — for example, Physics or Biology — the field would never have been developed. We define tasks, express problems and delineate issues with questions. Answers signal an end point and stop thought, except when an answer generates a further question. Timothy Leary said, ”to think for yourself you must question authority”. To think, you must question. To think through or rethink anything, one must ask questions that stimulate thought. The quality of your questions determines the quality of your thinking. Thinking begins within some content when questions are generated. No questions equals no understanding. To engage in thinking through your content you must stimulate your thinking with questions that lead to further questions. Our own opinions is one authority we should frequently question. Times change. We change. Perspectives and values change. Book explores how opinions and values we held in the past need periodic evaluation and challenge. Independent thinkers evolve and need to shed the shackles of old views and opinions. Ridicule is the strongest weapon for pressing us to conform. It is a kind of bait that if you go for it will entrap you in an argument you can’t win and leave you looking ridiculous and deflated. Question Authority; Think for Yourself offers techniques, with examples, of how to deflect attacks, side-tracks, and put-downs. If you’ve bitten your tongue and later wished you’d spoken up and not been cowed into silence by a mocking co-worker when you revealed a “politically incorrect” viewpoint, you’ll find much of interest in Question Authority; Think for Yourself .