The Four Elements of Thinking: Reasoning, Creativity, Synthesis, Evaluation

By: Benjamin Cheung PhD

Narrated by: Tom Dheere

Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

Stuck mulling over a problem? Do you find it hard to make decisions? Do you struggle to be creative? Are you overwhelmed by information overload? Got thinker's block?

The Four Elements of Thinking introduces tools in your thinker's toolbox. It introduces a methodical and practical approach to thinking. It associates the four vital aspects of thinking (Reasoning, Creativity, Synthesis, and Evaluation) with easy to remember mnemonics (Earth, Air, Water, and Fire). The four elements presents a system to improve your skills at managing information, decision-making, creativity, reasoning, and problem solving.

The book will allow you to see new opportunities and solutions by engaging key mental tools during the thinking process. The four elements introduces a method for systematic investigation of the deep study of a subject. Each of the four elements of thinking is comprised of four components. In turn, each of the components is comprised of principles which are tools in a thinker's toolkit. The elements of Earth, Air, Water and Fire remind you to apply Reasoning, Creativity, Synthesis and Evaluation throughout the thinking process.

Empedocles from ancient Greece claimed the world was composed of the four elements of Earth, Air, Fire, Water. These elements are now easy to remember because they are infused into popular culture.

• Earth thinking represents reasoning that is coherent and logical. It is composed of the Evidence, Inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning and abductive reasoning components.
• Air thinking is a proxy for creativity. It is composed of the Investigation, Incubation, Insight and Innovation components.
• Water thinking symbolizes synthesis thinking which is composed of the linking, perspective, synthesis, and pivots components.
• Fire thinking stands for Evaluation. It is composed of the decision, judgment, contingency and validation components.

The problem solving flow describes a seven-step method using the methods of the Four elements.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 Benjamin Cheung (P)2019 Benjamin Cheung

Great Book

A great guide on how to organize and test ideas. I'm going to listen to it, over and over!

Thinking is quite a process!

The book delves into the details of thinking, examining each step in each process of thinking. The writing is very technical but extremely understandable. Tom Dheere, the narrator, was exceptional in his performance.

A Step by Step Breakdown of How to Think

The Four Elements of Thinking provides a wonderful and thorough analysis of re-thinking how to think. A step by step approach to problem solving is presented to strengthen and increase your confidence in your decision making skills.
Tom Dheere provides an inviting read and welcomes the listener to a cordial breakdown of the thought-provoking material.

Informative!

I found the connection between Earth, Air, Fire and Water to the key aspects of thinking to be a very useful basis for improving thinking

Babble

In every chapter, the author defines the elements using different, but similar words. The author repeatedly uses long lists of words, followed by another, and another, and so on, and so on. The author fails to connect the ideas to any practical use or application of the information.