Books on Critical Thinking

• Here are a few important books on language, critical thinking and philosophy.
• We keep adding new ones.

Critical Thinking

• 🇩🇪 Otto Kruse (2017): Kritisches Denken und Argumentieren. Eine Einführung für Studierende. utb Verlag Konstanz.
• 🇩🇪 Rainer Bromme: Kritisches Denken lehren und lernen (Beltz, 2019)
• 🇩🇪 Georg Meggle (2005): Kritisches Denken: Von der Philosophie zur Praxis (Mentis, 2005)
• 🇬🇧 John Dewey (1910), How We Think
• 🇬🇧 M. Neil Browne & Stuart M. Keeley: Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking (Pearson)
  • A proven, frequently reissued standard work that shows step by step how to examine arguments.

• 🇫🇷 Elena Pasquinelli et Gérald Bronner: Eduquer à l'esprit critique
  • Theoretical foundations and practical guidance for teaching and training.
  • A work published by the French Ministry of National Education.

Cognitive Errors, Fallacies and Other Pitfalls

Here are a few very well-known books that illuminate sub-areas of critical thinking, but that don't really teach critical thinking.

• 🇩🇪 Daniel Kahnemann, Amos Tversky (2011): Schnelles Denken, langsames Denken. Siedler, München 2012
  • This masterpiece by Kahneman and Tversky gives us insights into psychological research on human thinking and our decision-making. Wonderfully written, but not a book for learning critical thinking.
• 🇩🇪 Rolf Dobelli (2011): Die Kunst des klaren Denkens
  • This is actually a collection of cognitive errors and biases with the author's notes, anecdotes and explanations.
• 🇫🇷 Albert Moukheiber (2019): Votre cerveau vous joue des tours (Allary Éditions)
  • The neuroscientist explains in accessible terms how our brain deceives us with cognitive biases.

Science and Skepticism

• 🇩🇪🇬🇧 Carl Sagan: Der Drache in meiner Garage. Oder die Kunst der Wissenschaft, Unsinn zu entlarven. (1997)
  • original: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1995)
• 🇩🇪 Thomas Kuhn: Die Struktur wissenschaftlicher Revolutionen.
• 🇫🇷 Georges Charpak & Henri Broch (2002): Devenez sorciers, devenez savants (Odile Jacob)
  • Nobel laureate Charpak and the founder of French zététique expose pseudosciences using the tools of the scientific method.

Philosophy of Language

• 🇩🇪 Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophische Untersuchungen (Suhrkamp, 2003)
• 🇩🇪 Jürgen Habermas: Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Suhrkamp, 1981)
• 🇩🇪 Gottlob Frege: Funktion, Begriff, Bedeutung (Reclam, 1997) — five logical studies, including Über Sinn und Bedeutung
• 🇩🇪 Hans-Georg Gadamer: Wahrheit und Methode (Mohr Siebeck, 1960)
• 🇬🇧 J. L. Austin: How to Do Things with Words (Oxford University Press, 1962)
• 🇫🇷 Émile Benveniste: Problèmes de linguistique générale (Gallimard, 1966/1974)

Language and Society

• 🇩🇪 Jürgen Trabant: Sprachpolitik (C.H. Beck, 2012)
• 🇩🇪 Elisabeth Leiss: Sprache und Gesellschaft (de Gruyter, 2012)
• 🇩🇪 Jürgen Habermas: Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit (Suhrkamp, 1962)
• 🇩🇪 Ruth Wodak: Sprache und Macht (Suhrkamp, 2018)
• 🇩🇪 Victor Klemperer: LTI — Notizbuch eines Philologen (1947)
• 🇩🇪 Dolf Sternberger, Wilhelm E. Süskind und Gerhard Storz (1957): Aus dem Wörterbuch des Unmenschen
• 🇬🇧 Deborah Cameron, Linda Thomas et al.: Language, Society and Power: An Introduction (Routledge)
• 🇫🇷 Pierre Bourdieu: Ce que parler veut dire / Langage et pouvoir symbolique (Fayard, 1982)
• Schlüsselwerke der Soziologie — soztheo.de