Checking Your Premises

The novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand always counselled her readers to “check your premises,” that is, to actively examine the underlying assumptions and beliefs behind even the most minor thoughts, actions, or emotions. This is the fundamental concept behind the idea of critical thinking. Our sense perceptions give us the raw materials, but it is our minds that must grasp, process, and correctly interpret the information through reason and logic. Objective reality exists independent of our consciousness, but we must use our minds to determine whether we are grasping things correctly or incorrectly. There’s nothing automatic about thinking; we must make an active and conscious choice to think and to exert the effort to find true reality.

When we make inferences without the proper reflection and thought, we may err. Worse still, when we take actions on faulty premises, we run the risk of making serious mistakes in the real world. We may look at a pencil in a glass of water and it appears bent. It’s not. 

Refraction occurs because light travels through different media at different speeds, which can create optical illusions. As light rays intersect, the mind and eye assume the light travels in a straight line. As you look at the portion of the pencil that is submerged in the water, light travels from the water to the air (or from the water to glass to air). As this light ray changes medium, it undergoes refraction. As a result, the image of the pencil appears to be bent or broken.

Perception, aside from the powerful bromide, is not reality. Reality is reality; perception is perception, and refraction is a process of mental integration and active thought.

Double-Loop Learning

The management theorist Chris Argyris suggests a very useful paradigm for checking our premises. Often, when taking actions, we expect certain consequences. If they occur as anticipated, we pursue similar actions in the future. Argyris termed this a single-loop learning cycle. But when a negative or unintended consequence takes place, we either look for blame or worse, we double down on our previous actions.

Argyris argues that our actions are conditioned by our unexamined assumptions and values, a mental model that leads to our action strategies. In this respect, Argyris suggests that instead of doubling down on our previous actions when we aren’t achieving our aims (the bigger hammer approach), we are better off examining our underlying values and assumptions. This he calls a double-loop learning cycle. 

Argyris describes the distinctions this way:

[A] thermostat that automatically turns on the heat whenever the temperature in a room drops below 68°F is a good example of single-loop learning. A thermostat that could ask, "why am I set to 68°F?" and then explore whether or not some other temperature might more economically achieve the goal of heating the room would be engaged in double-loop learning

— Chris Argyris, Teaching Smart People How to Learn

Unlike thermostats, human beings are capable of double-loop learning and checking their premises. It is not, however, an automatic matter; it has to be learned and actively practiced.