Developing Critical Thinking

I think there are many aspects of critical thinking. The only point of the process of thinking
cannot be understood. Each according to its own point of view reaches a conclusion.
Critical thinking, in general, reveals more than a solution but each solution has its strengths and
weaknesses.
Critical thinking needs for reviews and assessments. Answers would not be in the form of black
or white but in the form of more blur.
Critical thinking needs to be taken into consideration many criteria conflicting with certain
conditions.
Critical thinking involves the elements of insecurity. It is not satisfied with visible aspects of the
problem.
Critical thinking needs independence and objectivity.
Critical thinking requires a lot of effort.
Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis
Organization theory, as a discipline of the social sciences has been experiencing the
process of development. Studies in the field seek for definition and explanation of organizations
from different standpoints. The discipline has its object. Nevertheless, there is no consensus on
the definition of the object. This leads the coexistence of different paradigms in organization
theory. Each paradigm has barrowed metaphors from different disciplines based on their
existence. However, not all metaphors have created theoretical horizons by themselves.
The authors has claimed that four paradigms - structuralist paradigm, Interpretivist
paradigm, radical humanist paradigm, radical structuralist paradigm- based on mutually
exclusive views of the social world. Theoretical approaches to the study of organizations are
produced within a paradigm of each other paradigms fundamentally contradictory. This situation
highlights the importance of social research scientists frame of reference. Otherwise, in order to
understand the perspectives, theorists need to be aware of the assumptions on which they base
their own perspective. This situation needs to be aware of other paradigms than theirs.
A.J.AYER Language, Truth and Logic
The propositions of philosophy are concerned with relations of ideas, but the
propositions of science are concerned with matters of fact.
According to Ayer, the mission of philosophy is to explain the logical relationships of
experiential propositions. If the meaning of propositions is defined by their verifiability, then
philosophy cannot establish the truth or falsehood of these statements, Ayer holds that they are
metaphysical and have no literal meaning.

Ayer criticizes the metaphysical thesis that philosophy may provide us with knowledge
of truths that transcend analytic or empirical analysis. According to Ayer, if metaphysical
arguments about objects are not verified with experiences they are not meaningful. These
statements are nonsense, because they are not analytically or empirically verifiable.
The criterion for testing the significance of putative statements of fact is adoption of
verifiability.
Linguistic misunderstandings are the main sources of metaphysics.
According to Ayer, the main function of philosophy is to construct a deductive system of
meaningful propositions. Philosophers should not suggest first principles of knowledge by
offering the consequences of these first principles as a complete picture of reality.
The function of philosophy is completely critical. But it doesnt give an a priori
justification of scientific or common sense assumptions.
Great philosophers were philosophers rather than metaphysicians. According to Ayer,
philosophy is entirely independent of metaphysics.
Philosophy provides definitions in use but not explicit definitions such as are found in a
dictionary.
One should avoid saying that philosophy is concerned with the meaning of symbols,
because the uncertainty of their 'meaning' on different groups of people.
Ayer denies that any general proposition regarding a matter of fact can be known
unquestionably to be valid.
He rejects the Mills views because they are inductive generalizations and independent
of experience but they are necessarily true because they are analytic.
Analytic propositions are tautological; they say nothing about any matter of fact.
However, they give us new knowledge inasmuch as they bring to light implications of our
linguistic usages.
All propositions may be divided into two kinds: those that concern "relations of ideas"
including the a priori propositions of logic and mathematics and those that concern "matters of
fact including empirical or a posteriori propositions.
According to Ayer, a priori propositions can never be shown to be certainly true, because
there is always a risk that they may be refuted by further empirical testing. Necessary truth can
only belong to propositions that are analytic and not empirical.
Ayer divides "the ordinary system of ethics" into four classes:

1. Propositions that express definitions of ethical terms, or judgements about the legitimacy
or possibility of certain definitions.
2. Propositions describing the phenomena of moral experience, and their causes.
3. Exhortations to moral virtue.
4. Actual ethical judgments.
Ayer says Moralists claim that they 'know' their moral judgements are correct. This is of
purely psychological interest, is not verifiable and has not the slightest tendency to prove the
validity of any moral judgement. Ethical terms are deemed unverifiable and
insignificant because they do not have factual implications, and their only function
is to awaken feelings on humans. Positivism ignores values totally.
According to Ayer existence of God cannot be proved and the saying of God is
real is tautology which nothing further can be found. He asserted that the existence
of regularity in nature does not prove "God exists". But I think the opposite. Namely,
if we see a beautiful picture we say Who is the painter of this picture? ; and if we
see a calligraphy we say Who is the calligrapher of this writing?; and if see a
beautiful sculpture we say Who is the creator of this monument?. We are observing
lots of miracle creature in the universe. We cannot even create a wing of fly? I think
we have to see a tree which was just a seed we need to think Who is the creator of
these habitat?. Is the theory of evolution enough to clarify the universe? All these
evidences have brought us a creator, a God.

The Logic of Scientific Discovery

1. According to Karl Popper, in fact, "there is no method peculiar to philosophy". According to
Popper, there are many ways to understand the world, but that does not mean that there is no way
Popper given value than other methods. Popper, of these methods varying according to the
current problem, indicates that there is one method worth mentioning and this is the underlying
philosophy of his own critical method.
2. No doubt God talks mainly to himself because he has no one worth talking to. However, a
philosopher should know that he is no more godlike than any other man is. At this point, Popper
reveals that people should debate because they are not godlike and that is one of the main
features of human beings.
3. Inductive passes from singular statements (sometimes also called particular statements), such
as accounts of the results of observations or experiments, to universal statements, such as
hypotheses or theories.How can we justify the conclusion that all swans are white? This is
impossible because we cannot see all swans.

4. Popper was aware of misconception of positivism. He opposed the solution of verifiability

grounded in logic and fact.
5. According to Popper, feature of science should not be verifiable but be falsifiable. Scientific
theories are in conformity with facts; they must also be validated by facts. However, in order to
acquire the nature of being a scientific theory, this theory should be open to falsification by a
fact, and must be potentially falsifiable. In this regard, a measure of being scientific should be
falsifiability other than verifiability of events.
6. One of the objectionable side of getting verifiability as a criterion of scientific theories is that:
all the instances of a generalization mentioned by a theory are generally not possible to be tested
by experience. Popper argues that scientific logic is deductive logic. Scientific theories are tested
by trying to falsify them. In order to do this, scientists deduce predictions from theories and if the
predictions prove to be false, then deductive logic dictates that the theory is false. If the
predictions prove to be true, then the theory is not proven true but is instead corroborated.
7. According to Popper, the criterion of demarcation is the feature of scientific theories. Because
not only does every scientific theory explain a number of facts but also they excludes a number
of facts outside the scope. Namely, in some facts, be taken within the framework of a theory,
however, are prohibited by the same theory. A powerful scientific theory excludes a number of
facts outside the scope. Unlike scientific theories, pseudo-scientific theories try to explain,
without any limitation, wide and varied phenomenon. However, it is possible to detect the facts
that fall outside the scope of the theory.
8. On Poppers account, Kant made this problem of demarcation the central problem of the
theory of knowledge. Popper saw the problems of demarcation and induction as the source of
nearly all the other problems of the theory of knowledge. Moreover he saw the problem of
demarcation as the more fundamental because empiricists in general and the positivists in
particular think that the method of induction is the criterion.
9. In the same way that the conventions for scientific investigation are to be evaluated by their
practical value, scientific theories are to evaluated by their capacity to stand up to the test of
practice. This means comparing the deductive consequences of theories with observations.
10. The positivists wanted a criterion of demarcation that would conclusively decide whether a
statement was verified or falsified (otherwise, the statement is meaningless). In contrast, Popper
stated the criterion of scientific status in negative: an empirical scientific system must be possible
for to be refuted by experience.
11. We cannot avoid methodological decisions because we are always faced with problems that
cannot be solved by logical analysis alone.