The Elusive Truth – Critical Thinking – Underlying Assumptions and Point of View
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS AND POINT OF VIEW
Is the first cat large, or is the second cat small?
Is the zebra a white animal with black stripes or a black animal with white stripes?
What color is a flesh-colored bandage?
Is the glass half full or half empty?
Your answer to some of these questions depend on your underlying assumptions. If you assume that human flesh is pinkish, you’ll answer differently than if you think that the color of human flesh is varied.
Your answer to some of the other questions depends on your point of view. The answers to the questions about the cats, the zebra, and the glass of water depend on the observer’s outlook. An extremely thirsty person might regard the glass as nearly empty. A child being forced to drink half a glass of distasteful medicine might see it as nearly full.
Identifying underlying assumptions and point of view will help you evaluate people’s opinions, including your own.
UNDERLYING ASSUMPTIONS
- the “truths” that the arguer takes for granted.
- the foundation on which an argument is built
- a weak foundation often equals a weak argument that will collapse under rigorous examination
- sometimes an arguer is aware of their assumptions and will point them out to an audience
- more often, we don’t recognize our underlying assumptions
- sometimes believing in them so deeply that, for us, they are self-evident truths
POINT OF VIEW
How you look at a problem influences your thoughts and how you look at a problem can be affected by a variety of influences.
- TIME
- we tend to see things in terms of the time when we are living
- what seems unusual today may have seemed normal in the past
- PLACE
- where you look from can affect your point of view
- if you are looking from suburban Florida, healthcare or unemployment problems in urban Chicago may seem terrible
- if you are looking from urban slums of Bombay, India, conditions in Chicago may look very good.
- ROLE
- role can change your point of view
- to a person in the role of taxpayer, high taxes are bad
- to a person in the role of one who benefits from good public schools, the taxes may seem reasonable
- EXPECTATIONS
- For most rock stars, being met at the backstage entrance by two hundred people would be a sign of real popularity
- But if thousands of fans were expected, then two hundred doesn’t look like much
- VALUES
- an act may be seen as good if it’s done by people whose cause you approve of
- the same act may be seen as bad if you dislike the group or cause
The character of an occurrence depends as much upon the viewer as it does upon the occurrence itself. We look at something, and we decide if it is bad or good, large or small, acceptable or unacceptable.
- SELF-IMAGE AND POINT OF VIEW
- all of us have self-images
- opinions about our talents and personalities
- sometimes positive
- sometimes negative
- determined by who you are at one point in time
- determined by what you have done/experienced up to that point in time
- determined by whom or what you compare yourself to
Author’s Note: I will be posting a few excerpts from my lectures on critical thinking. Portions are based on the out-of-print book by Philip Roden: The Elusive Truth. I feel that current events make exploration of these tools–used to analyze and think about messages and identify tools of manipulation and propaganda–more important than ever.
Kip Koelsch Author 