Suggestions for Socially Responsible Thinking Techniques
Paths to Intellectual Maturity
by Edwin L. Young, PhD
May 24, 2009

1. Learning to adopt mental postures of questioning and doubting even toward seemingly trustworthy sources
2. Learning to take perspectives of others
3. Learning to take cross discipline perspectives
4. Learning to take perspectives on different levels of breadth and depth
5. Learning to integrate and organize items from disparate sources to see and form patterns and decipher systems
6. Learning to make the effort disintegrate and reorganize such items in different configurations
7. Learning to accept an increase in the level of complexity of one’s project if and when the subject matter demands it
8. Learning to expand or narrow the boundaries of the thought project
9. Learning to adapt the way one learns or thinks to the requirements of a different foci
10. Learning to recall consonant and dissonant instances to check assumptions
11. Learning to set aside positive or negative feeling reactions and take a more dispassionate posture
12. Learning to retain reservations about consonant and dissonant information until it can be researched or tested more thoroughly
13. Learning to persist in a line of thought or observation
14. Learning to shift temporarily to another, related goal for or direction of thinking while holding the former in readiness
15. Learning when to disengage from thinking and reflect on the processes you have used to get to this point and perhaps devise alternative processes and approaches to try
16. Next, learning to reengage and put the thoughts in writing to clarify them and then to repeatedly review and revise what you have written, set it aside and then go through the whole reviewing and revising process again
17. Learning to identify and resist social or ego pressures to forsake one’s sense of truth and forsake one’s integrity
18. Learning to forswear niggling, pedantic, academic questions and objections
19. Learning to resist the temptation to use or be drawn into the use of debate tactics as they are intended to win and are antithetical to the pursuit of truth
20. Without surrendering the goal, learning to increase the intensity or effort invested when difficulty requires it or to back off and retreat into reverie in order to allow one’s imagination free reign
21. Learning to adopt and adhere to a time schedule for work on an intellectual project and coordinate it with others demands on one’s time
22. Learning to avoid loss of focus or discontinuing a pursuit with failure to resume due distractions or temporary, long or short, interruptions