Thought Academy’s mission is to help you become a better critical thinker by providing you with the tools and guidance you need. As a result, you’ll be able to make better decisions, have a better understanding of the world we live in, achieve better results in tests, enhance your relationships with people, and improve your job performance. In the end, you’ll become a better thinker and in the process you will make the world a better place.
We believe that a world in which we apply reason and careful thought to everything we do will be a better world. We believe that when we understand critical thinking concepts and master reasoning skills and apply them to our everyday lives we’ll be more successful. We believe that a world free of superstition will make progress much faster. We believe that living by the tenets of a philosophy of life leads to living a more joyous life.
Thought Academy is comprised of a series of articles organized under the categories Critical Thinking, Reasoning Skills, Freethinking, and Philosophy of Life. Each article covers a topic, and most articles will have an associated free downloadable file with exercises, a cheat sheet or other materials that will help you cement the concepts learned in the article. What this means in practice is that what you see is more or less half of what there is, and it’s all free for your benefit.
You may also watch our videos on these very same topics on our YouTube channel. When you visit, you may want to Subscribe to the channel so that YouTube will present you with new Thought Academy videos as soon as we post them.
Hi! I am Gabriel Wilensky, founder and President of Thought Academy, a website dedicated to teaching people how to think critically and rationally. I have many years of experience helping people become better critical thinkers through critical thinking articles and the development of tests to measure various thinking skills. I gave many talks and lectures at schools and universities, as well as many interviews on the radio on many subjects related to superstition, antisemitism, religious obscurantism and the negative repercussions of relinquishing our critical thinking faculties. Using reason for everything we do in life is critical to make the world a better place. This subject is one of the major topics of my forthcoming book, Fuel for Thought.
I am also the author of the books Six Million Crucifixions and Two Dozen Thoughts, both of which show what happens when people abandon reason, follow a creed or dogma blindly and unthinkingly, cease thinking critically, and follow the dictates of their tribe rather than those derived from the more appropriate thoughtful consideration of all perspectives.
Additionally, I worked for many years in the software industry where I applied many of the concepts discussed here to the software development process: expanding the number of ideas, evaluating new ideas, fostering creativity in my team, challenging assumptions, pushing for deeper and systematic analysis, verifying facts, and much more. As a result of this I was responsible for managing the development of many successful software products, several of which are being used by tens of millions of people. Quite a few of these products won many awards including two Codies, the software industry’s equivalent of the Oscars, and were covered by the media worldwide. Among them are such blockbuster hits as Morph, the Aladdin Activity Center, the Lion King Activity Center, GoPro Studio and the GoPro App.
