7.

4 Conclusions

Hello! Welcome to this last unit of the entire course. I hope you have enjoyed our journey through
Critical Thinking. In this last unit I will just draw a few conclusions.

Critical Thinking helps people be more rational and implies keeping your eyes open and your mind alert.
It doesn’t mean not to trust the others. Being trustful is one of the most important human
attributes. It makes you a better person, but it also makes the ones around you better persons.
The Pygmalion effect, studied in Social Psychology, states that if you treat people according not to
how they are, but to how you want them to become helps them get there faster. If you’re a
teacher or a parent and you treat the children like responsible persons they will become
responsible. If you treat them like little criminals, they won’t.

There is nobility and greatness in searching for the truth, even if the truth is not on your side. That’s why
it’s important to always argue for the truth, not for the win.

The tools we have discussed in the first chapters can prove beneficial only if you use them. Analyze
arguments, put them in standard form! Including your arguments.

Empathy is another crucial attribute of good human beings. But it can also prove helpful when you try to
persuade. Put yourself in the other’s shoes.

Now, after finishing this course, you are more informed than some of the people you talk to. It is
important to keep that in mind and, instead of being superior, be kind and explain.

Finally, I consider myself lucky to live in an era when so many secrets of irrationality are uncovered. Now
we have the ability to understand the pervasiveness of irrationality and some of its mechanisms.
Get to know them and observe them, first in yourself!

That’s it. Almost.

Students sometimes ask me about further reading. Please find below a list of books that I’ve used while
preparing this MOOC, books that I fully recommend.

In the end I would like to thank each of you for accompanying me on this journey. It has been an
incredible one for me; I hope you’ve enjoyed it as well.

Let me now thank a few other people. You just saw ME on the screen, but this Massive Online Open
Course is a group effort of many people. Some of them spent nights and days working on it. So I
thank them all!

Thank you: Adrian Stanciu, Alex Teodorescu, Bogdan Gheorghiu, Boghi Olărescu, Cătălin Matei, Dora
Surugiu-Kocsolade, Emil Olteanu, Fabian Schumann, Istvan Kocsolade, Iulian Danciu, Lara
Ruppertz, Petre Aliman, Sara Atanasiu, Sebastian Stan, Tatiana Drăguţan and Tiberiu Lupu!
Good Bye!