1. Adventures in Marxism 
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1999
   Marshall Berman explores and rejoices in the emancipatory potential of Marxism.
   
2. Bad Marxism
   Capitalism and Cultural Studies
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 2004
   Cultural Studies commonly claims to be a radical discipline. This book thinks that's a bad assessment. After an introduction critiquing the 'Marxism' of the academy, Hutnyk provides detailed critical analyses of the approaches and theorists of cultural studies.
3. Breaking the Spell of Stupid Opinions
   Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
   First Published: 2006
   When someone is outside the hold of a stupid opinion, its inanity is so apparent that one wonders how it could ever be held by anyone. But when people are caught believing something that isn't reality-based, most believe it far more rigidly than they believe facts.
   
4. Bureau of Public Secrets 
   Resource Type: Internet WWW site
   Articles from a Situationist perspective.
5. Connexions Annual Resource and Reading List
   Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
   First Published: 1989   Published: 1994
   A short and selective list of resources on issues addressed in the Connexions Annual, such as environment, education, peace, interntional development, women's issues, urban issues, housing, human rights, civil liberties, social change.
6. Critical Theory
   Resource Type: Book
   
7. The Critique of Practical Reason
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1788
   
8. The Critique of Pure Reason
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1787
   According to Kant, "The first step in regard to the subjects of pure reason, and which marks the infancy of that faculty, is dogmatic. The second, which we have just mentioned, is sceptical, and it gives evidence that our judgement has been improved by experience. But a third step, such as can be taken only by fully matured judgment, based on assured principles of proved universality, is now necessary, namely to subject to examination, not the facts of reason, but reason itself, ... not the censorship but the criticism of reason, whereby not its present bounds but its determinate and necessary limits."
9. Fashionable Nonsense: Postmodern Intellectuals' Abuse of Science
   Resource Type: Book
   First Published: 1997   Published: 1998
   The authors criticize postmodernism in academia for its misuses of scientific and mathematical concepts in postmodern writing. Fashionable Nonsense examines two related topics: (1) The incompetent and pretentious usage of scientific concepts by a small group of influential philosophers and intellectuals; (2) the problems of cognitive relativism, the idea that "modern science is nothing more than a 'myth', a 'narration' or a 'social construction' among many others". The stated goal of the book is not to attack "philosophy, the humanities or the social sciences in general...[but] to warn those who work in them (especially students) against some manifest cases of charlatanism," and in particular to "deconstruct" the notion that some books and writers are difficult because they deal with profound and difficult ideas. "If the texts seem incomprehensible, it is for the excellent reason that they mean precisely nothing." The book includes long extracts from the works of Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Paul Virilio, Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, Luce Irigaray, Bruno Latour, and Jean Baudrillard who are considered by some to be leading academics of Continental philosophy, critical theory, psychoanalysis or social sciences. Sokal and Bricmont set out to show how those intellectuals have used concepts from the physical sciences and mathematics incorrectly. The extracts are intentionally rather long to avoid accusations of taking sentences out of context.
   Published in French as Impostures Intellectuelles and in the United Kingdom as Intellectual Impostures.
10. A field guide to critical thinking
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    
11. 'Free speech' - as long as it doesn't offend anyone 
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 2009
    On the issue of free speech most of the right and much of the left are in agreement, and so too are many liberals, activists, and human rights apparatchiks. They hold essentially the same position on freedom of expression – they are for it ‘in principle’, but only so long as it isn’t used to express views that they find unacceptable or offensive. What they disagree about is merely who gets to decide what ideas are unacceptable, i.e., who gets to censor who.
    
12. The Holy Family or Critique of Critical Criticism
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1845
    
13. I was a psychic for the FBI
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 1979
    Para-review investigates parapathology
14. Intellectual Self-Defense
    Find Your Inner Chomsky
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2005   Published: 2008
    What must a citizen in a democracy know to make the word democracy meaningful? Baillargeon provides readers with the tools to see through everyday spin and jargon -- from politics to advertising, from mysticism to news reporting.
15. Interview with Ulli Diemer
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 1990
    Jeff Orchard interviews Ulli Diemer about socialism, capitalism, life, and social change.
16. James Randi Educational Foundation WWW site
    Resource Type: Internet WWW site
    An educational resource on the paranormal, parascientific and the supernatural.
17. Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution 
    Volume I: State and Bureaucracy
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1977
    A wide-ranging and thorough exposition of Marx's views on democracy.
18. Marxists Internet Archive 
    Resource Type: Internet WWW site
    Large archive of the writings of Marx and Engels and of others in the Marxist tradition. Searchable.
19. Mickey Z. Cool Observer
    Resource Type: Internet WWW site
    First Published: 2003
    Mickey Z. is a writer, editor, blogger and novelist living in New York City.
20. News and Letters
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Articles from a Marxist-Humanist perspective.
21. 911Myths
    Resource Type: Internet WWW site
    Skeptical analysis of conspiracy theories about September 11, 2001.
22. On Rumours
    How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 2009
    As a work of populist social science, On Rumours is compelling. More an extended essay than a full-sized book, it describes the social and psychological forces that make the spread of misinformation inevitable. Its argument runs like this: whether or not we choose to believe something, and whether we feel inclined to pass it on, depends largely on what we already believe.
23. Paul Goodman: Writing on the Web
    Resource Type: Internet WWW site
    Writings of the social critic Paul Goodman.
24. Post 9/11 Conspiracism
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 2006
    The tendency to explain all major world events as primarily the product of a secret conspiracy is called conspiracism. The antidote to conspiracism is Power Structure Research.
25. Postmodern Disrobed
    Review of Intellectual Impostures
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 1998
    Sokal and Bricmont do an admirable job of exposing the daffy absurdity of postmodernism intellectuals.
26. Radical Digressions 
    Resource Type: Internet WWW site
    First Published: 2006   Published: 2009
    Ulli Diemer's Notebook: events and comment from a left perspective.
    
27. Rationality/Science 
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 1995
    Chomsky writes: "It strikes me as remarkable that the left today should seek to deprive oppressed people not only of the joys of understanding and insight, but also of tools of emancipation, informing us that the "project of the Enlightenment" is dead, that we must abandon the "illusions" of science and rationality--a message that will gladden the hearts of the powerful, delighted to monopolize these instruments for their own use."
28. The Red Menace 
    A libertarian socialist newsletter
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    First Published: 1975   Published: 1980
    Articles on topics such as socialism, Marxism, anarchism, work, popular education, organizing, wages for housework, Leninism, bureaucracy, hierarchy, jargon, prostitution, obscenity, science fiction, and terrorism.
    
29. Screw Loose Change Video
    Resource Type: Internet WWW site
    This is a counter-video of the famous "Loose Change 2nd Edition". Using their own video and words, "Screw Loose Change" debunks the theories and statements made in Loose Change 2nd Edition.
30. The September 11 X-Files
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 2002
    One problem with conspiracy theorizing is that it can distract from the true and (sometimes mundane) misdeeds and mistakes of government.
31. Skeptical Inquirer
    The Magazine for Science and Reason - Periodical profile
    Resource Type: Serial Publication (Periodical)
    Encourages the critical investigation of paranormal and fringe-science claims from a responsible, scientific point of view and disseminates factual information about the results of such inquiries to the scientific community and the public. Also promotes science and scientific inquiry, critical thinking, science education, and the use of reason in examining important issues.
32. Stupid Opinion #1: All Opinions are Equal
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 2006
    People say, "Don't be judgmental" - as if we shouldn't evaluate behavior, from amazingly loving to atrocious. Many intone, "No one has the right to judge opinions" - as if racist opinions, say, had the same validity as anti-racist opinions.
    
33. The Truth About the "9/11 Truth Movement"
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 2006
    A rebuttal of some of the claims made by 9/11 conspiracy theorists.
34. The Unknown Dimension 
    European Marxism Since Lenin
    Resource Type: Book
    First Published: 1972
    The radical intellectual tradition of European post-Leninist Marxism, so different from the dogma of the orthodox leftist parties, is an unknowwn dimension. This anthology sets out to recover this Marxist tradition and to restore the centrality of Marxist revolutionary thought and practice.
35. When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad
    Resource Type: Article/Report/Letter
    First Published: 2002
    Aren’t these conspiracy theories too silly to address? That should be the case. But, sadly, they do attract people.

Experts on Critical Thinking in the Sources Directory

1. Connexions Information Sharing Services
2. Connexions Library/Archive
3. Kumon Math & Reading Centres
4. Marxists Internet Archive
5. Randy Park, Author and Speaker -- "Thinking for Results"
6. Radical Digressions