Critical Thinking and The Good Life | Wisdom for Daily Life
How does critical thinking connect with the good life? Why did Marcus Aurelius write to himself, “Reason and the art of thinking are complete in themselves...” In my recent conversation with William B. Irvine (author of A Guide to a Good Life), we discussed Stoicism, critical thinking, and the good life.
Critical Thinking
Everything hangs on one’s thinking… — Seneca
In my interview with Irvine, he explained an interesting tension. “Suppose you want to have a mind full of genuine and valuable beliefs to the full extent possible. Then you need to do two things you need to seek new accurate and useful things to believe that you have to be open-minded. And at the same time, you have to be very skeptical; you have to play the role of doorman deciding which beliefs get in and which don’t.”
When asked, How does this idea connect with Stoicism? Irvine responded,
The Stoics were logicians themselves. So back in the day, this would have been ancient Greece and then ancient Rome. Most philosophical schools did not do one thing; they did multiple things. They said we are going to sharpen up your critical thinking skills. And, at the same time, we will tell you how to have a good life. The Stoics were the early investigators and developers of what has become known as propositional logic.
The Stoics were intensely interested in logic; they were also well aware of the intrinsic irrationality of human beings. Irvine suggested that humans have an irrational component buried within us, and it will not leave.
The Good Life
According to Irvine, Your heart is where your emotions lie, your gut is where fear lies, and your fight or flight responses.
Throughout life, you have to live with those three components. The insight of the Stoics was to realize that the head, instead of reasoning, which it is capable of doing, spends its days rationalizing and coming up with reasons why the heart and gut should have whatever it is they want.
A Life-Changing Experiment
Irvine recommended listeners do the following experiment. “It will take them about five minutes, and it can be a life-changing experiment… Here is the thing, even if you do not want to be a meditator, you owe it to yourself to do a one-time five-minute-long; it’s called a zazen meditation.”
Find someplace quiet and sit; it can be in a comfortable chair. You don’t have to sit on the ground. You don’t have to sit in any particular situation. You just have to be in a calm environment. And now, close your eyes. And then, for the next five minutes, just let your mind go empty.
Thinking is hard, so stopping thought ought to be easy, explained Irvine. You will quickly find that a still mind is virtually impossible. At first, your mind will seem to be without thoughts, and then they will start sneaking back in, and you will find most of them are about the future and the past.
Similarly, Seneca advised,
Two elements must be rooted out once and for all, — the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering; since the latter no longer concerns me, and the former concerns me not yet.”
Final Thoughts
Life requires us to navigate many tensions. We must focus on critical thinking and finding the good life. Be open to new ideas and information while at the same time being skeptical. As Marcus Aurelius put it, “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.”
Image: The Thinking Woman by Alexej von Jawlesnsky (1912)
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