Argument Ninja: Critical Thinking As A Martial Art

A bit of a departure for episode 018. I hope you enjoy this interview I did with Jason Vidaurri over at the StoryHinge podcast. He was kind enough to let me repurpose the audio of our interview for the Argument Ninja podcast. On this episode I answer questions about my story, my approach to philosophy and critical thinking, why critical thinking is valuable and important, how our media environment is making it increasingly difficult to think critically for ourselves, what I think is the most glaring omission in standard approaches to critical thinking education, and why the martial arts model of critical thinking that I’m developing at the Argument Ninja Academy is such a useful model. In This Episode: - A quick overview of my background (5:35) - When I realized I wasn't a career academic (7:10) - Why I wanted to do "philosophy journalism" (8:20) - Philosophy and critical thinking have never been a part of the public school curriculum (in North America) (9:10) - Why is this so? (10:30) - Why the...

In episode 017 I give an update on what's new at the Argument Ninja website (argumentninja.com), and I complete the overview of the white belt curriculum for the Argument Ninja Academy program. The third and fourth learning modules in the white belt curriculum are titled "Socratic Knowledge" and "Socratic Persuasion". I also develop a persuasion case study in this episode: Do Christians and Muslims worship the same God? In This Episode: - Preparing for an upcoming talk on cognitive biases and causal reasoning (2:47) - The Feynman Technique (5:10) - Why the Argument Ninja podcast is like a novel, and the Argument Ninja Academy is like the movie based on the novel (7:00) - I wrote 14 new articles for the Argument Ninja website (10:10) - A working draft of the Argument Ninja Academy curriculum (10:45) - All my recurring supporters on the Wall of Thanks (11:29) - My steering committee (12:10) - Relationship of the Argument Ninja program to themes often discussed in other podcasts -- martial arts...

The Argument Ninja training program that I'm developing is inspired by martial arts training principles. The curriculum is spread over nine belt ranks (white belt, yellow belt, orange belt, etc. ) In this episode I give an overview of the learning modules that make up the white belt curriculum, and dive deep into the second module, an introduction to Argument Analysis. In This Episode: Overview of the White Belt Modules (2:20) Module 1: What is an Argument Ninja? (4:20) The Goals of Critical Thinking (4:56) We Have a Problem (5:41) Solution: The Argument Ninja Academy (6:47) Module 2: Argument Analysis (I) (8:35) Worry: No One Talks Like This (9:00) It's About Learning the Principles (10:22) Wax-on, Wax-off (11:38) Definition of an Argument (14:35) Demanding Clarity (20:30) Vagueness and Ambiguity (22:00) Example: Is Trump a Conservative? (23:55) Argument Analysis Skills (26:30) Comment: Argumentation vs Persuasion (28:00) Example: "Make America Great Again" (29:13) Wrapping Up (31:11)

In this episode I explore learning and teaching techniques used in the martial arts, from the perspective of the beginning student and from the perspective of the experienced instructor. I extract a number of important training principles from this exercise that I hope to incorporate in the Argument Ninja training program. In This Episode: Review: What is "Rational Persuasion"? (2:30) Reminder: Our Children Are Watching (7:20) The White Belt Experience (10:00) Training for Skill Development: Analysis, Synthesis, Repetition, and Internalization (13:00) Training for Combat: Objectives, Strategy and Tactics (17:30) Training Through Time: Cumulative, Incremental Progress (25:15) Training with Inspiration: "Beginner's Mind" (30:30) Summing Up (37:45) The Instructional Design Challenge (39:00) How Classroom Teachers Solve It (42:10) The Value of a Belt Level System (44:00) How You Can Support the Podcast and the Argument Ninja Program (46:25) Book Me For a Speaking Gig (48:30)

On this episode I talk about the various ways that curiosity is an undervalued resource for critical thinking. I explain how curiosity plays an important role in generating the kind of background knowledge that supports critical thinking, and why it has important and underrated debiasing properties, meaning that it can reduce many of the harmful effects of cognitive biases on our thinking. I’m also going to talk about my personal relationship to curiosity, and how it has influenced many of the decisions I’ve made in my career. In This Episode: Knowledge is not compartmentalized (3:40) Curiosity is a resource for generating relevant and lasting background knowledge that supports critical thinking (5:30) “Situational” curiosity vs “trait” curiosity (9:30) Some people are naturally more curious than others, but curiosity can be cultivated (11:25) “Partisan interest” vs genuine curiosity (14:50) Genuine curiosity is a debiasing agent (16:40) High partisan interest, low curiosity (18:15) My personal...

In this episode I talk about how the program I'm developing for the Argument Ninja Academy will differ from the Critical Thinker Academy, and outline my instructional design goals for the new program. I also describe the kinds of personality types, or "avatars", that are most strongly attracted to this kind of material. I've named these avatars the Scientist, the Philosopher, the Persuader, the Analyst, and the Butterfly. In This Episode: - The difference between what I'm currently offering at the Critical Thinker Academy and what I plan to offer at the Argument Ninja Academy - Brainstorming the design of an online teaching and learning experience - My objectives for the Argument Ninja program: -- solving the central problem that plagues critical thinking education today -- providing a resource for critical thinking educators support for professional training as well as independent consumer training -- adaptive learning -- gamification and progression features modeled on martial arts...

This is the first episode since Donald Trump won the election, so you know I've got to talk about Trump! In this episode I take up the question that Scott Adams has framed for us: is Donald Trump some kind of "master persuader" who uses persuasion techniques familiar to anyone trained in hypnosis? And is this the reason why he won the election? In This Episode: - Help me build the Argument Ninja Academy - Scott Adams on Donald Trump: Master Persuader - "Pacing and leading", Milton Erickson and hypnosis - Confusion and hypnotic suggestibility - Confusion and self-defense - Confusion and the "Chewbacca Defense" - Derren Brown: how to steal with hypnosis - Hypnosis stage acts and the spectrum of hypnotizability - Why Scott Adams was confident that Trump would win - Is Trump a master persuader? - Thinking critically about persuasion schools and persuasion science http://argumentninja.com/support

This is a big episode. I give a big-picture overview of where I'm going with the Argument Ninja podcast, brainstorm a new Argument Ninja training program, and give readers an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of this project. In This Episode: - How my views on critical thinking have changed sinced I produced the Critical Thinker podcast in 2010, and where the Argument Matrix podcast is going. - Why I'm jealous of martial arts studios, and I brainstorm what a walk-in critical thinking studio might look like. - I describe an online critical thinking studio, a structured Argument Ninja training program. - I give a detailed breakdown of how my online business is doing, where I'm making my money, and how much time I have left before the cash runs out - I describe how you can help make the Argument Ninja training program a reality. - I make you an offer that you won't want to miss.

Last episode I introduced an important concept for critical thinking, what I call an Argument Matrix. In this episode I talk about the mindset, the tools and the literacy skills that are required to successfully build an Argument Matrix. In This Episode: - Recap: What is an Argument Matrix? - How should we go about building an Argument Matrix? - Three parts to my answer (1) Mindset issues: confirmation bias, psychological barriers, fear (2) Technology issues: capturing and organizing the right kind of information (3) Literacy issues: media and information literacy, argument literacy, reading and writing literacy - Why public education doesn't teach critical thinking

In this episode I introduce an important concept, the Argument Matrix, and two related concepts associated with the Argument Matrix, “argumentative depth” and “argumentative breadth”. These concepts are central to my views on the important role of background knowledge in critical thinking. Or to put it more plainly, they’re central to my understanding of what it means to really know what you’re talking about. In This Episode: - How do we know that we know what we're talking about? - Critical thinking education's Dirty Little Secret (critical thinking can't be taught) - The definition of an argument - Basic principles of argument analysis - The challenge of evaluating the truth of premises - The definition of an Argument Matrix - Objections and replies - Argumentative depth vs argumentative breadth - Example: the fossil record and common ancestry - Example: the ethics of abortion - the Argument Matrix and the goals of critical thinking - Expertise is relative - Pro tip: assume we know less than we think

If we think of rational persuasion as a martial art, what kind of martial art should it be? In this episode I argue that a mixed martial arts approach is the only one that makes sense. But there’s a problem. Philosophical principles play an obvious and important role in traditional martial arts practices, like Taekwondo. They don’t seem to play an important role in mixed martial arts (or if they do, it’s not obvious.) An MMA program for Argument Ninjas needs a philosophy grounded in core critical thinking principles. In this episode I explore these issues. - The clash of martial arts styles and the emergence of mixed martial arts - Taekwondo as an example of a traditional martial art - Rules of Taekwondo sparring - Why would anyone choose to train in a single martial art style? - Lessons learned from sparring and competition - Examples of Taekwondo philosophy - What would a philosophy of mixed martial arts (MMA) look like? - Bruce Lee’s influence on MMA - Bruce Lee’s philosophy of martial arts -...

When is it worth your time to try to have a rational conversation with someone? When should you give up? What are the conditions that have to be satisfied for a rational conversation to even be possible? That's the topic of this episode. Overview: - the problem that Sam Harris is struggling with - a Q&A question from Essi on what to do when people “just don’t get it” - my original answer to the question “what conditions must be satisfied to have a rational conversation with someone?” - my first amendment: (1) what to do after you’ve recognized that there’s a problem - my second amendment: (2) what to do in light of the fact that our capacity to reason comes in degrees - my latest video course project (“Is Your Brain a Computer?”) and how you can get early access to those videos

In this episode we look at persuasion through the eyes of seduction experts and the pickup artist community. - why critical thinking educators need to talk about persuasion - why scientific rationality is a social achievement that takes effort and vigilance to maintain - preparing students for life outside the dojo - summarizing our list of persuasion topics - Ross Jeffries as pioneer of the seduction community - NLP, hypnosis and "speed seduction" - Tom Cruise, Frank T.J. Mackey, and "Seduce and Destroy" - the seduction community's approach to the science of persuasion - the difficulty of answering the question "does it work?"

If I was asked to teach a graduate seminar in the philosophy and methods of persuasion, how would I organize the content? What would my syllabus look like? In this episode I answer that question, and start working my way down the syllabus (we cover the first two items in this episode). Here are the topic categories on my syllabus: 1. people skills 2. selling and marketing skills 3. seduction skills (including "pickup artist" skills) 4. magic and mind reading skills 5. confidence games and the skills of the con artist 6. persuasion in advertising 7. persuasion in politics 8. persuasion in the internet age 9. power and propaganda Topics discussed in this episode: - Dumbledore gets it. Why Hogwarts needs a "Defense Against the Dark Arts" class. - the science and practice of persuasion is not a unified thing - Robert Cialdini's six principles of influence, and the nature of his research project - persuasion practices as guilds, and the guild mentality - "people skills": how to make people like you - Dale...

In this episode I explore reasons why standard critical thinking textbooks say almost nothing about the psychology of human reasoning and persuasion. Topics include: - argumentation as rhetoric vs argumentation as tool for philosophical reasoning - why Plato was so hard on the Sophists - what it was like being socialized into philosophy as a student - the martial arts training hall as a ritualized space - why the classroom is like a dojo for training in the martial art of rational argumentation - understanding the rules inside the dojo vs the rules outside the dojo - argumentation and the dream of universal reason - why critical thinking needs both approaches to argumentation

Is it ever okay to intentionally use unconscious persuasion techniques to get people to like you? We explore this case study in the ethics of persuasion as we follow Derek and Carla on a lunch date. We also discuss persuasion ninjas Dale Carnegie and Robert Cialdini's principles for getting someone to like you, and lessons from South Park on how to get bigger tips.

In this episode I talk about the relationship between critical thinking and rational persuasion, and why, even though I identify as a critical thinking educator, and I have a website called The Critical Thinker Academy, the focus of this podcast is rational persuasion, rather than critical thinking more broadly. In this episode I push the martial arts theme a little further, and give some reasons to think of rational persuasion as a martial art. And finally, I give an example that illustrates the distinction I want to draw between rational argumentation and rational persuasion.

Welcome and introduction to the show. What has drawn me out of podcast retirement to start a new show. Scott Adams on Donald Trump, and the sorry state of political discourse today. Why critical thinking education needs both a theory of how we ought to reason, and a theory of how we in fact reason. Reasons to think of rational persuasion as a martial art.