E-Prime as a Tool for Critical Thinking

Ambrose Bierce, in his famous Devil’s Dictionary, defined logic as “The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.” As we become conscious of our misunderstandings we improve the quality of our thinking, and most particularly our thinking about thinking, which Richard Paul defines as critical thinking.” In this article I will describe an offshoot of Korzybski’s system (18, 19) known as E-Prime: English without any form of the verb “to be.”

The Phases of Discussion for Navigating Conversations

Please standby as I attempt to somewhat systematize the phases of discussions below. For the purposes of our work today, we will not include speeches, monologs, ranting, judging, or other various forms of one-sided communication.