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Radical Thinking - Peter Lamont *****

It's not often you start reading a book and within a few pages are thinking 'this is something special.' Peter Lamont writes with a distinctive style, in places verging on poetry or liturgy in the way he uses repeated sentences for emphasis. There's also something of the dance of the seven veils about the whole thing - he glides around a subject, letting the reader catch a glimpse of something interesting, but taking his time to coyly reveal things. That can be a touch irritating at times, but it certainly catches the attention.

What this book isn't despite the subtitle, is a 'how to' guide, except at the most basic level. And it probably isn't about radical thinking per se either - it's more about the nature of thinking in general, and critical thinking in particular. Lamont uses various walks around bits of Edinburgh (where he lives and works), using historical connections to expose us to the nature of what we think about things and what to make of our thinking. And it's brilliant - I was captivated. It helps, I think that as well as being a professor of the history and theory of psychology, the author has also been a professional magician, understanding not only how we communicate things but how we conceal them.

Lamont stresses that we can only truly think critically if we consider ideas rather than people - playing down the modern tendency to discount an idea because the thinker did something we don't like. He's also quite down on the psychologists' collection of biases - not in the sense that they don't exist, but rather that they are unavoidable - and sometimes necessary to function. We need to be aware of them, but we can't 'fix' them - just act in a more considered way thanks to our awareness.

The closest we get to 'how to' is that when presented with information we ought to consider what the claim is (this can take some digging - it's not always at all clear in how it's put across), what the basis is for that claim, and what the purpose is of making the claim. But this is a tiny part of the way in which Lamont encourages us to think about how we think about things - what we see, what we feel, what we hear, the pros and cons of the scientific method, and the importance of considering viewpoints beyond our own. As he notes, we see the world through a narrow window and need to look beyond that.

Don't expect magic answers on how to become a super-thinker, or a radical. And I think it's fair to say that some people will find the way that Lamont dances around the subject in a teasing fashion, rarely taking it straight on, frustrating. But I found the book hugely readable - I kept wanting to come back to it when I had to put it down - and at risk of coming up with a cliché it genuinely makes you think, which can't be a bad thing. Highly recommended.

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Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here

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