Critical Thinking Concepts Spot the flaw.

Critical Thinking Concepts is an app for iPhone and iPad that teaches you to reason more clearly. It covers 190+ concepts, including logical fallacies, cognitive biases and mental models, as short learning points you can read, quiz yourself on, listen to or swipe through in a few spare minutes. It’s made by AH Apps LLC.

Critical thinking is the habit of checking whether a claim holds up before you accept it. That means asking what the evidence is, whether the reasoning connects the evidence to the conclusion, what’s been left out, and whether your own biases are steering you. It isn’t about being negative; it’s about believing things for good reasons.

Learn the common ways reasoning goes wrong, one at a time, with a clear example of each. Then practice spotting them in real arguments: the news, ads, social media, meetings, and your own thinking. Quizzing yourself helps it stick better than rereading. Critical Thinking Concepts is built around that loop: short learning points, flashcards you mark right or wrong, and review that focuses on what you haven’t mastered yet.

A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning that makes an argument look stronger than it is. The conclusion might even be true, but the argument doesn’t support it. Knowing fallacies by name makes them much easier to notice, in other people’s arguments and in your own.

A few you’ll meet constantly: the ad hominem (attacking the person instead of the argument), the strawman (knocking down a weaker version of someone’s view), circular reasoning (assuming the conclusion you’re trying to prove), the hasty generalization (a big conclusion from a small sample) and the motte-and-bailey (retreating from a bold claim to a modest one when challenged). The app covers these and dozens more.

A few at a time, each with an example, then test yourself. Reading a long list once rarely sticks; seeing a fallacy, recalling its name and meeting it again a few days later does. In Critical Thinking Concepts you can read fallacies in the Feed, quiz yourself in Questions, hear them in the Audio player and swipe through them in Lightning.

A cognitive bias is a predictable pattern in how people misjudge things: a mental shortcut that usually saves effort but sometimes leads you wrong. Examples the app covers include the Dunning-Kruger effect, groupthink, the backfire effect and the curse of knowledge.

A logical fallacy is a flaw in an argument, something you can point to in what was said or written. A cognitive bias is a flaw in how a mind processes information, and it works on you whether or not you’re arguing. Biases often lead people to make fallacies, which is why it helps to learn both.

The Dunning-Kruger effect is the tendency for people with little skill in an area to overrate their ability. The knowledge they’re missing is the same knowledge they’d need to see their own mistakes. A beginner after a week of lessons can feel more confident than a teacher with twenty years of practice.

Mental models are simple ideas about how things work that you can reuse to understand new situations and make better decisions. Goodhart’s Law is one: when a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. First-principles thinking is another. Critical Thinking Concepts teaches mental models alongside fallacies and biases.

First-principles thinking means breaking a problem down to the basic facts you know are true, then reasoning up from there instead of copying how it’s usually done or arguing from comparison. It’s slower, but it finds answers that habit and convention miss.

Yes. Critical Thinking Concepts for iPhone and iPad covers logical fallacies, cognitive biases, mental models, argument analysis, rhetoric and persuasion, problem solving, decision making and the scientific method: 190+ concepts in all, each as a short learning point you can review in a few minutes a day.

There are four ways to learn. Feed is a scrolling stream of illustrated learning points you can search, sort by topic, favorite, bookmark or discard. Questions turns concepts into flashcards: tap to reveal the answer, then mark it Got it or Missed it. Audio reads facts or questions aloud. Lightning shows one full-screen concept at a time; swipe right to see it more often or left to see it less.

Yes. The Audio player reads learning points or quiz questions aloud, so you can learn with your phone in your pocket. Drive Mode is made for the car, turning a commute into review time.

Lightning shows one concept at a time, full screen. Swipe right on a card to see it more often, or left to see it less once you know it. Your swipes, like your ratings elsewhere in the app, tune what comes up next, so review time goes to the concepts you still need.

More than 190, across logical fallacies, cognitive biases, mental models and first principles, argument analysis, rhetorical devices and persuasive techniques, problem solving, decision making and the scientific method. Version 2.0 added more learning points.

As much as you like. Each learning point takes moments to read, so a few minutes in a queue or on a walk adds up. You can set a daily goal in minutes and watch your progress toward it.

Yes. Turn on Bionic Reading and the start of each word in a learning point is set in bold, guiding your eyes along the line. Turn it off for plain text.

It explains the concept on a card a different way, in new words. Hearing the same idea more than one way helps you remember it. Tap AI Remix on a card to try it.

Yes. Add the widget and a learning point sits on your home screen, so you can pick up a concept without opening the app.

Anyone who wants to reason better: students writing essays or preparing for debate, professionals who argue, negotiate or make decisions for a living, and anyone tired of being misled by headlines, ads and social media. No background in logic or philosophy is needed.

iPhone and iPad. It requires iOS 18.0 or later on iPhone and iPadOS 18.0 or later on iPad, and it’s on the App Store.

Send questions, bug reports or ideas through the contact page at anthonyharveyapps.com/contact-us. Critical Thinking Concepts is made by AH Apps LLC, an independent app developer.