This is completely off base. Critical thinking deals, first and foremost, with the validity and soundness of what's in question. Talking about the direction that human beings are currently going as a species points at you deeply misunderstanding the nature and purpose.
Okay so you are saying that critical thinking is not something which can be applied to the direction humanity is going in.
You say that like segregation and acknowledging that things do have differences in reality is inherently bad and untrue, a position that you've referenced repeatedly in a number of threads and utterly failed to defend in any way that I've seen. It's to the point where I may as well ask why, exactly, you have a problem with being able to distinguish and acknowledge the differences between a tuna fish and a campfire and that they are not the same thing, even if they are parts of the same larger reality?
Your statement there isn't actually applying critical thinking as part of your thinking processes in relation to it be useful as a tool to not only acknowledge segregation but to understand it and through understanding it, find ways in which to - at the very least, avoid contributing to it.
Critical thinking is meant to objectively help distinguish how strong, trustworthy, or useful an argument or claim is. It is unmistakably a tool for segregation... and that's a good thing.
Aside from the fact that critical thinking can be used for far broader things, discriminating against good over bad arguments should only segregate one from contributing to the bad. If it does not, then it is not critical thinking.
Hypocrisy, for example, is bad. For example, criticizing a religious practice which involves support of disparity, whilst ignoring a political system which also involves support of disparity does not actually involve critical thinking processes, because it is hypocrisy.
Being able to neutrally assess the quality, usefulness, and meaningfulness of the arguments and claims presented does tend to be quite useful to actually achieving whichever objective, though. Your complaint here is analogous to the Creationist argument about how the Theory of Biological Evolution doesn't answer where life began as an attempt to dispute the validity of the theory itself. It's entirely irrelevant in the first place and thus completely off base as a basis to argue against it.
How are usefulness and meaningfulness determined through being neutral?
And the result of your attempt to redefine the nature of critical thinking was?
Excuse me? What has that statement to do with my own?
I said:
The example (the pastors claims) I chose as one subject is to take that as one such separate posture and move that through a series of questions in order to evaluate through Critical Thinking...
Going by your example, it was nothing more than an entirely inconclusive exercise in futility, from which little to nothing of value to the subject could be meaningfully addressed.
According to you who obviously have a different understanding of what critical thinking is about. You prefer being critical in your thinking (and subsequently are of the opinion that critical thinking is only about criticism) and see nothing crucial in the other points that I made in relation to the pastor.
How are you supposed to understand anyone if you cannot bridge that gap? Why do you suppose that understanding others (no matter if you agree with them or not) is something which (your version of) critical thinking can do without?
Heh. If you're trying this here, aren't you arrogantly ignoring that solutions can be simply finding the answer to a mystery, however slight that mystery may be? Not all solutions are courses of action to solve problems of behavior, after all.
My example in this case is one of human behavior. Obviously my focus is on critical thinking in relation to understanding human behavior. I haven't claimed that critical thinking cannot be applied to other things as well. so don't see the relevance in your statement there. It seems to say nothing at all in answer to what I said, which was:
There is no point in critical thinking if solution is not the objective. Finding solution is an extremely good reason for using Critical Thinking Processes.
'Solution' (not just ones involving human behavior) was the key word in that sentence.
That you even try to implicitly condemn mysterious "separatist groups" for supposed crimes is a mark of your credibility, quite frankly.
What the **** are you talking about? What I said was this;
Even if the solution is not accepted by the separatist groups does not mean that Critical Thinking is therefore pointless...
Let me break that down for you as example.
You have the opportunity to speak with this pastor (who represents a group) and using critical thinking correctly you point out the obvious flaws in his beliefs but also acknowledge that you understand where he is coming from and why where he is coming from is not conducive to good.
The pastor in turn responds with criticism, and an obvious lack in understanding or even the need to want to understand your position, and simply finds something to fault you with as a way of not having to bother trying to see how you see things.
This does not of itself signify
that Critical Thinking is therefore pointless...
Very simply, from what you claimed, you demonstrated that 1) you're trying to make up a new, personal version of critical thinking and 2) that the version that you're trying to push is largely worthless, poorly thought through, and completely undeserving of being described as critical thinking, even in the version of critical that you're trying to redefine it to use.
While that is obviously very harsh
criticism on your part, you forget even the name of the thread.
"Critical Thinking. What is it really?"
So you are arguing really that critical thinking is just plain old everyday criticism. That's it.
So of course, assuming you are correct about that, critical thinking is therefore nothing useful for anything other than as a tool for supporting intentional segregation.
Therefore, I am mistaken in what I think actual critical thinking is, and am actually talking about something quite different from that.
I am talking about
crucial thinking.
The difference then, between critical thinking and
crucial thinking, can be likened to the difference between gossip and knowledge.
And since thinking propels expression/action, then the expressions/actions of critical thinkers are going to be noticeably different from the expression/action of crucial thinkers.
That explains a lot.
It sounds more than a little like you want to be talking about something notably closer to lateral thinking than critical thinking, by this point. Critical Thinking is inherently not about producing solutions. Period. It's about analyzing and evaluating the merits and flaws of proposed things in an objective manner.
Oxymoron
Trying to demand that it include things that are notably outside its scope from the start is little more than an effort to break it and remove its value, regardless of whether it's witting or unwitting.
Its 'value' is not crucial. No more crucial of value than gossip.
Just like science cannot and does not provide answers to unfalsifiable propositions and demanding that it do so would require significantly deviating from it in spirit and principle.
Oh - there is no point in demanding anything from critical thinkers. They do not think critically for the purpose of anything crucial. That explains the arguments between such factions as theism and atheism. The arguments are not crucial. They serve at best as instruments designed to relieve bordom and are addictive at that.
To be clear, are you really just trying to argue that "Because a person did not use a particular tool that they didn't feel like using or used it poorly, we should change the tool entirely for everyone in hopes that maybe, just maybe, that person would use the new form?"
Eliminate non crucial thought (and its accompanying behaviors) in favor of an agree upon
crucial outcome. Sounds smart and worthwhile thinking about possibly doing. Yep.
If so, I quite firmly oppose your sentiments.
That is quite understandable. You do not strike me as someone who cares about anything crucial and have in relation to me always being critical...but now I understand far better why that is.
Perhaps the understanding might serve to change the way we both behave toward one another.
A damp sponge is generally dramatically better a tool to clean up spilled milk than a hammer and fairly useless at beating a nail into a wooden board compared to a hammer. Given the nature of the tasks, changing the damp sponge into a different tool that's better at beating nails into a wooden board will fairly certainly make it much worse at cleaning up spilled milk. Tools have their place and proper usage and trying to change how they work in a dramatic fashion because some people chose not to use them in the first place or to misuse them can only rarely be made into a compelling case.
Gotcha. Your efforts to help me understand are well appreciated Aridas. I am now educated as to what critical thinking is about. Thank you for that. Your focus is the critical and mine is the crucial. We might as well be on different planets, but since that in not the case, at least with this clearer understanding I can appreciate WHY so many members here are into critical thinking and WHAT that actually means.
This is
crucial information.
Sure, understanding is important, in general, and is not in itself agreement with whatever thing is receiving attention. That, I will agree with. That doesn't make all tangentially related information directly relevant to things. The claim itself is "separate" from the claimant. Understanding the claimant can only give background about the context that the claim was made in. This background information adds to the picture, sure, but it can only be of direct value when the claim is about that information anyways. "I am a millionaire" would be a claim where that information would be relevant in determining whether it should be believed. "This red ball will fit through this blue hole" would be a claim where the background information about the speaker is of no direct merit in evaluating it, outside of helping to roughly establish how generally credible they are.
Is the above an example of critical thinking or does it belong in the more crucial 'lateral thinking dept.?
And if we're talking about a Christian version of their god, whether the earth is a living entity or not is largely irrelevant compared to the part where it has sufficient power to do so. Understanding where a person's coming from is good practice in general, but is not part of critical thinking, which is specifically about objectively analyzing and evaluating the claims and arguments in question. Combining both of those can make for a notable improvement when trying to figure out ways to persuade a person to think more objectively, which is a notably different thing than applying critical thinking to evaluate something for oneself.
Yep - as I said, thanks for the lesson here. I asked (in the thread title), gave my own understanding, argued with some of the counter arguments, and am now been informed that
critical thinking is not as I understood it nor what I am arguing for...
Criticism is different, true, in that criticism is not required to be objective or even relevant to qualify as "criticism" and is generally considered to be negative. Critical thinking, as has been pointed out multiple times, deals with objectively analyzing and evaluating things and is generally considered to be neutral. Critical thinking is far more about testing in concept than it is about claiming that something's wrong.
Gotcha.
Your understanding about the main objective of critical thinking is fairly clearly wrong, then, as has been pointed out. Trying to specifically find solutions to problems is a good thing, yes, it's just not what critical thinking deals with directly. Rather, critical thinking helps separate better solutions from worse and irrelevant/useless ones in that context. It has an important role, but is not the totality of the process.
So then, I am not altogether incorrect in regards to my understanding of critical thinking processes, but only in that I have identified it as THE process when it is really only
PART of that process (= to understand and to find solutions) - it has its place, but is not of itself all that is involved with crucial thinking processes.
As such, as PART of that process, it is
crucial, but on its own, not and never can be, crucial at all
I quite disagree here. Humor certainly has its place and uses, but not in any objective assessment.
Perhaps not in any
neutral objective assessment. But I doubt that there is such a thing.
Emotion (which is where humor, derives) is simply part of the deal. Subjectivity always rules over the objective because the objective does not THINK, it merely/amazingly exists.
It can certainly be used in the communication and understanding of the results of an objective assessment, but not the assessment itself, thus, it has no place in critical thinking.
Critical thinking on its own, seems a pointless enough device. Pointless as in, non crucial to anything relative (subjective within objective) . It only derives its crucial-ness in congregate
with other forms of thinking which ARE crucial, (even, perhaps, on their own).
As such critical thinking is not really able to be used
on its own and
must be used in conjunction with other types of thinking. Even as you claim, it is a tool specific to segregation, it cannot be segregated from other forms of thinking and, by that, shown to be of any crucial use. It does not stand on its own merits. It requires other types of thinking as well.
The quoted itself was actually not really criticism, though. Rather, it simply expressed disagreement and referred to points made elsewhere. Criticism refers to the actual reasons for dispute, good or bad. As for the increased focus on persuasiveness that you seem to be advocating in general, some general advice for anyone seeking to do so is "Pay attention to your audience."
I hope that you notice that I do.
