Lessons From A Sophomore Philosophy Class

 Lessons From A Sophomore Philosophy Class

M. Bakri Musa

 

Excerpt #12 from my book, Qur’an, Hadith, And Hikayat:  Exercises In Critical Thinking

 

I took a sophomore philosophy course in formal logic from a professor who was an enthusiastic admirer of Socrates, as all are. He did not give many formal lectures. We could read the assigned texts just as well and at a time or place of our choosing, was his excuse. As such his class was lively with discussions and rebuttals, as well as questions and answers.

 

         One of his early exercises was to pretend that we were facing a real-life decision. Should I buy a new car or fix the present one? Or not buy one at all and depend on public transit. Another was should I go on to graduate school or find a job; marry now or wait. He would then have us record our decision immediately, for or against, impulsively as it were.

 

         Decades later Daniel Kahneman would call that “fast thinking” in his book, Thinking, Fast And Slow.

 

         Following that, our professor would begin the discussion and then make us list the pros and cons for each point. We would then give a numerical weightage to each statement for its importance to us. At the end we would total the positives and negatives, and then compare whether our “fast thinking” decision made earlier pre-analysis matched that of our deliberate post-analysis “slow thinking.”

 

         That was his class exercise in rational decision-making, and also the one lesson I found useful and relevant throughout my life.

 

         As my dilemma was novel for the class (should I remain in Canada for graduate work or return to Malaysia), it was discussed extensively as an example of serious decision-making. For added measure, it morphed into a discussion on community obligations versus personal aspirations, where the two would parallel and when they would be at odds, with our professor guiding and prodding us, Socrates-like.

 

         We (including or especially me) were surprised at how different our decisions were before and after that careful methodical analysis. That was also the first time I had entertained the thought of not returning home immediately but to stay back and continue my studies and gain valuable experience before returning. I wanted to return as a seasoned surgeon, not a half-baked one.

 

         Looking back at that class exercise and after using that technique many times since, it is not so much the decisions that I have made over the years, rather the process that I have forced myself to engage in, that is, deliberate downstream analysis instead of a rushed decision swayed by impulses and emotions of the moment. Kahneman elaborated that in his Thinking, Fast And Slow. He remains the rare non-economist to have won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his insights on decision-making.

 

         Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in the discipline, humans are not the rational Homo economicus we are made out to be, obsessed only with seeking “maximal utility.” Emotions and other extraneous factors do come into play, often major roles, with our decisions.

 

         Socrates echoed something similar two millennia ago:  know thyself! Or more famously quoted, an unexamined life is not worth living, reflecting the importance of critical self-reflection. As a physician and a Muslim, I disagree. All lives, being Allah’s precious gift, are worth living, examined or not.

 

         My late father used a comparable technique to make us “think slow.” Before leaving the house for a trip, he would pause and ask, “Are we all ready?” If we were to answer with a quick perfunctory “Yes,” he would be more specific as to whether the back door of the house had been locked and had we left enough water for the cat. The very act of pausing, or slowing our thinking through asking those questions, forces us to mentally recheck things. It is amazing how often we had forgotten to lock the door or switch off a light.

 

         Pausing and thinking, otherwise known as deliberating, would trigger many questions:  the hows, whys, whats, whens, and most important, the “what ifs” and the “are you sure?” queries. Just by posing those simple questions we are already well on the way of exercising critical thinking and arriving at a more satisfactory as well as a successful solution to our problem, if not a more informed decision.

 

         That is also how a child learns, by asking endless “whys.” That can be exasperating to parents but in the end that sharpens and enhances the child’s learning.

 

         The lessons I learned from my old philosophy class decades ago are still relevant to me now that I am entering my eight decades of life. That is, be a child again, and often. Be curious. Keep asking why!