Critical Thinking
Jonathan Haber’s Critical Thinking is a well‑known entry in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, published in 2020. It provides a compact but rigorous overview of what critical thinking is, where the concept comes from, and how it can be taught and assessed.
What the book is about
Section titled “What the book is about”- Origins of critical thinking — Haber traces the idea from Greek philosophers like Aristotle and Plato through Enlightenment thinkers and modern educational theory.
- Core components — structured reasoning, language skills, background knowledge, information literacy, intellectual humility, empathy, and open‑mindedness.
- Teaching and assessing critical thinking — how educators can integrate argument mapping, logic fundamentals, and deliberate practice into curricula.
- Why it matters today — Haber argues that the biggest problem is simply that not enough people are doing enough critical thinking, especially in an era of misinformation.