Peter Lamont Radical Thinking: How to See the Bigger Picture Swift Press 6 x 9 inches, 272 pages, ISBN 978-1800751347
Peter Lamont
On Radical Thinking: How to See the Bigger Picture
Interview of
January 5, 2026
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In a nutshell
Radical Thinking is a book about how we make sense of the world, and how we can make more sense of it. But it’s not a typical ‘critical thinking’ book. It’s ‘radical’ (from the Latin radic, meaning ‘root’) because it’s about the roots - the foundations - of what we think. In other words, it’s about the things that shape our thoughts.
For example, here are two of them. Whatever we think, about anything at all, depends on what we notice. However, we notice a fraction of what’s going on. And, whatever we notice, we need to interpret it. However, we always interpret it in a particular way. People notice different things and interpret them in different ways. So, we end up with different beliefs. What we believe also depends on what we assume, what we find convincing, how we feel, and what we want.
The book is also very different in the way that it covers these topics. It’s based on the assumption that, to make more sense of the world, we need to be more curious about how we look at it. And, since we can only look at the world from where we are, I use my location (Edinburgh) as a way to explore how we think about everything. I talk about curious local things (such as the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, the birth of Encyclopaedia Britannica and the original self-help book) to explain the things that shape our thoughts. It goes without saying, though I’ll say it anyway, that you don’t need to know anything about Edinburgh.
The wide angle
The book actually began as a ‘critical thinking’ course at the University of Edinburgh. However, having done research on the history of ‘critical thinking’, I took a different approach to the topic.
Basically, what happened in the twentieth century is that ‘critical thinking’ became increasingly about getting it right. It did this by focusing on the logical fallacies that we make, and on the biases that we have, which lead us to get it wrong. I didn’t want to do that because I don’t think that’s the best approach. After all, if we want to make sense of what people say in the real world – outside the philosophy classroom - logic only gets us so far. And, while we all have biases, how can we know when they lead us to get it wrong? We would need to know the truth. But that’s often what we’re arguing about. The result is what we see all the time. People disagree about what’s true and accuse each other of bias.
So, in the course, rather than focus on getting it right, I focused on what, I think, critical thinking should be: thinking about the process, not the outcome, of our thoughts. In other words, whatever you think, it’s not about where you end up. It’s about how you get there. We often end up in different places, but we get there through a similar process. It always depends on what we notice, on how we interpret it, and so on. And since, to make more sense of the world, we need to be more curious about how we see the world, I used intriguing stuff - quirky history, stories, and even magic tricks - to get students curious about how we make sense of the world.
As you might imagine, the course was very popular, but that was in late 2019. Then COVID happened and I couldn’t teach the course. That’s when I decided to turn it into a book.
A close-up
If you pick up the book, then you’ll probably begin at the beginning:
In the Old Town of Edinburgh, many years ago, there was a shop that sold curiosities. Every day, as people walked by the shop, they looked in the window. They looked at the curious things on display. The alluring oddities, enticing knick-knacks and bizarre novelties captured their attention. However, nobody went into the shop. Day after day, people looked in the window. They looked, from the same position, at whatever curious things were on display. They preferred some things to others. But nobody went into the shop. Then, one day, a curious child passed by. She looked at the things on display. She saw them all through the same window. Naturally, she preferred some things to others. However, she was curious. So, after a while, she noticed something else. It was something that nobody else had noticed … She noticed the window through which she was looking. That was when she realised that it was displaying a limited number of things. It was presenting them in a particular way. And, being a curious child, she wondered what she was missing. She wanted to see things from different angles. So, she decided to go into the shop.
I begin this way for a simple reason. The book is only for curious people. If they’re not interested in going into the shop, then it’s not for them.
Lastly
I wrote this book because I think that, right now, genuine critical thinking is more important than ever. But it needs to be based on curiosity about how we make sense of the real world, not on abstract concepts that are supposed to describe the ways that we get things wrong. If we want to understand what’s going on – fake news, alternative facts, the rise in conspiracy theories, increasing polarisation, etc. – then being told why others get it wrong simply won’t cut it. We need to go back to basics. We need to remind ourselves of the limits of our own view.
If we do that, then perhaps we’ll be more humble about our own beliefs, and more tolerant of those of others. I don’t promise the right answers because I don’t know the Truth. However, after more than twenty years of studying beliefs, I do know this: when someone expresses a belief that seems extraordinary to you, you can make sense of it. You don’t need to agree with them, but you can see how they got there. And that’s a reminder that there’s a bigger picture beyond your own worldview.
