Critical Thinking. What is it really?

[Navigator]

Critical Thinking.

This implies that there are thoughts which are not critical, and thus should be categorized as such and then discarded as relevant to anything critical.

Open of course to subjective interpretation, but by and large the subjective can be criticized through the process of show and tell (evidence).

Most importantly, the object focused upon in relation to deciding what is critical and what is not has to be of critical importance in relation to individual subjectivity and collective objectivity - how the collective 'sees' the objective and goes about getting there.

As example of critical thinking in response to one recent item of data off the net...

New Zealand pastor blames gays for earthquakes

How do I approach this event critically?

I ask myself.

Q: Is this critical in relation to the objective?

A: No.

Q: Why not?

A: Because it is petty. It lacks substance and can be understood to be a symptom of the situation.
By that I mean to say, I understand the pastors beliefs but they are not critical to the situation as they offer no direct human made solution. It is simply an opinion, but one which contributes to the threat against solution.

So it is not discarded either. It still affects the critical.

Q: What else do i know about the pastor?

A: He is influenced by Christian morality. It is also and Islamic morality as well, as can be seen on the net.
Also the pastor is of Maori decent and thus will carry those traditions of belief with him in some way...related to the god of the Earth and her being a living conscious entity.

This of course has all transferred to the G-d of Abraham - probably the most influential phantom of the whole planet.

Q: How do I reconcile that with the critical objective when the two seem to be poles apart?

A: I cannot easily but am working on finding ways. All I can do is remain focused upon the critical objective and try to reason with anybody as to why they would be best to do the same...once of course we all agree on what that objective is.

Q: Is that which can be criticized therefore in opposition to the critical objective?

A: Yes - but that does not mean of course that it will overcome the critical objective.

Q: Is there a funny side to any of this?

A: Well I was wondering if the pastor meant that the two plates which were rubbing together were both male...I thought that was funny anyhoo...

Do you agree with my interpretation of critical thinking processes. There is a seat at my table.

 

[fagin]

1. I think you miss the meaning of critical thinking.
2. Brian Tamaki is an egotistical two faced knobhead. Being critical.

 

[Navigator]

1. I think you miss the meaning of critical thinking.

Or;

There is no particular meaning - it is just a phrase used to creat smoke and mirrors.

Anyway, I am open to reading what you personally think critical thinking actually is.

2. Brian Tamaki is an egotistical two faced knobhead. Being critical.

Yes, there is no doubt he is being critical. Or are you saying that you are being critical?

Is being critical all that is required to be a critical thinker then?

I don't think so, but I have already given my take on that. Did you just poke your head through the door to give an opinion (so to speak) or do you want to sit at the table and discuss it some more?

 

[Border Reiver]

Or;

There is no particular meaning - it is just a phrase used to creat smoke and mirrors.

Anyway, I am open to reading what you personally think critical thinking actually is.

These are the basic definitions of what is meant by "critical thinking." I find them to useful.

 

[Jim_MDP]

I don't think so, but I have already given my take on that. Did you just poke your head through the door to give an opinion (so to speak) or do you want to sit at the table and discuss it some more?

Such a disastrous beginning but with that much effort in it already, I guess you felt you had to keep running with it.

You're in the weeds, the tall grass... c'mon back now.

 

[Navigator]

These are the basic definitions of what is meant by "critical thinking." I find them to useful.

Critical thinking is described by Richard Paul as a movement in two waves (1994).[1] The "first wave" of critical thinking is often referred to as a 'critical analysis' that is clear, rational thinking involving critique. Its details vary amongst those who define it. According to Barry K. Beyer (1995), critical thinking means making clear, reasoned judgments. During the process of critical thinking, ideas should be reasoned, well thought out, and judged.[2] The National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking[3] defines critical thinking as the "intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.

Pretty much the same as I have offered in my opening post.

CT is not just about the focus on one particular subject/discipline. If one is unable to include all aspects of any given subject in relation to everything else, you are not applying CT to the fullest extent.

Indeed, CT properly used, should do away with belief altogether as something surplus to requirement.

It should also argue against the use of words which are used habitually interchangeably such as 'belief' and 'know'.

 

[Jim_MDP]

Pretty much the same as I have offered in my opening post.

CT is not just about the focus on one particular subject/discipline. If one is unable to include all aspects of any given subject in relation to everything else, you are not applying CT to the fullest extent.

Indeed, CT properly used, should do away with belief altogether as something surplus to requirement.

It should also argue against the use of words which are used habitually interchangeably such as 'belief' and 'know'.

What the hell dude... three strikes, you're out (and that's just this one post).


No... it is not what you said in the OP. The "critical" in critical thinking is NOT a description of the subject matter, but rather a word form variant of "critique". The serious or otherwise nature of the topic is irrelevant.

I'll ignore the entire middle graph as it's well... silly.

Second... there's no religion involved or associated. Stop trying to force it.

I hope you don't try playing that CT abbreviation elsewhere. It has a well defined meaning to most nowadays (as you're quite aware), it's not going to mean Critical Thinking outside of this context (and barely within).


And... who the hell habitually interchanges belief believe and know? You perhaps? Feels like that religion creeping back in.

There's nothing wrong with struggling with your English skills.
But when you're corrected, don't triple down... stridently.

 

[Navigator]

You do understand don't you, that using language as a means of deflecting from the gist of what is being said is not a relevant form of argument. It is a way of avoiding having to agree with the argument without actually addressing the argument. It is not relevant to critical thinking processes to do so.

It is really more about remaining within feigned ignorance and arguing from that position - like 'You no speaka my language so I no have to try and understand what you are saying even though it is clear enough.' - it is wiggle room punctuated with personal slight against the OP. It is a common enough practice of a number of members which is part of the reason why I started the thread because such practice is so not what critical thinking is about. Critical thinkers do not let the use of language interfere with their ability to think critically or be distracted to the point of immature responses which have nothing to do with truthful argument, debate, or discussion.

Your comment regarding religion also has no relevance to the topic, any more than my abbreviating critical thinking to CT within the context of the thread subject does. It is besides the point.

The subject is as stated, so either contribute or go away.

 

[Jim_MDP]

You would be mistaken... entirely.

I don't need critical thinking to see that you latched onto an alternate, and inappropriate definition of "critical" and strove to create a thesis applying it to "critical thinking.

Your premise is flawed... end of discussion.
Or take it to Philosophy where all the mental masturbation belongs.

Continue to play with yourself, your games don't interest me. Buh bye.

 

[Dancing David]

Critical thinking is the using rational tools to determine the evidentiary basis of statements and beliefs.

 

[Loss Leader]

The subject is as stated, so either contribute or go away.

I don't think anything you've said in this thread is even in the same universe as correct. It's not wrong, either. It's like I asked you what color your car is, and you answered, "Left."

 

[Minoosh]

Thinking is the tip of the iceberg that we see above the water line. The iceberg includes all functions of the human brain; thinking is what we're aware of.

Critical means ... important, crucial, relevant, germane, on point, apropos ... and what is critical depends upon context. How useful is a given detail, in terms of solving a problem or predicting an outcome.

All things being equal, whether the overnight low temperature is 35 degrees or 40 degrees Fahrenheit (say, 2 to 5 degrees Celsius) is somewhat important in deciding what clothes to wear.

But knowing it will be 32F or 0 Celsius is critical to driving safely or preserving plant life. You will feel only little bit colder, but water will freeze, forming ice on roads and possibly killing many plants.

I guess to make it more abstract, basically you are taking a variety of inputs and sorting them out, based on what you know, separating the strands into those of greater and lesser impact, always questioning whether your background knowledge and your tools of reason are valid.

 

[Aridas]

Critical Thinking.

This implies that there are thoughts which are not critical,

There certainly are, given the nature of what critical thinking actually is. As was pointed out to you already with the wikipedia page, critical thinking refers to a distinct subset of "thoughts," to the extent that it's even reasonable to invoke "thoughts" in the first place.

and thus should be categorized as such and then discarded as relevant to anything critical.

This is nonsense that very strongly suggests that you're starting from your own personal definition for critical thinking that has fairly little to do with the commonly accepted nature and usage.

Open of course to subjective interpretation, but by and large the subjective can be criticized through the process of show and tell (evidence).

Sure, such can frequently be done, depending on the subject and starting premises.

Most importantly, the object focused upon in relation to deciding what is critical and what is not has to be of critical importance in relation to individual subjectivity and collective objectivity - how the collective 'sees' the objective and goes about getting there.

Your attempt to convey concepts here is, at best, extremely difficult to understand in the first place, let alone in relation to the commonly accepted usage of critical thinking, much as the attempts that I've made to decipher it seem to all point at you trying to emphasize irrelevant things to critical thinking. If it's important to you, you could try to restate it in a clearer manner.

As example of critical thinking in response to one recent item of data off the net...

New Zealand pastor blames gays for earthquakes

How do I approach this event critically?

I ask myself.

Q: Is this critical in relation to the objective?

A: No.

Which objective? In what way would "critical" apply? Even beyond that, this seems to be a very, very loose way to start.

Q: Why not?

A: Because it is petty. It lacks substance and can be understood to be a symptom of the situation.

Yeah, this seems like a very, very poor way to start. A notably better way to specifically start would be to identify what the actual argument being made and the premises of the argument, then evaluate those.

The actual argument, for example, seems to come down to "God is causing the earthquakes specifically as punishment for of the sin of homosexuality."

A few of the premises where that statement is in notable dispute by various groups are, for example -

- A god exists.
- That particular person's word on the matter is sufficient to accept the claim, given that his justification and reasoning seems largely unstated. It could be added in addition to that, here, based on various similar cases, it seems very likely to be extremely untrustworthy.
- Homosexuality is a sin.
- That "God" pointedly engages in causing indiscriminate disasters to punish groups for the sins of a few members of that group, harming both faithful and unfaithful.

Quite a few more could be pointed out, but that's enough to make the point I think. That it's "petty" or "lacks substance" comes after or as part of the evaluation of the identified premises.

By that I mean to say, I understand the pastors beliefs but they are not critical to the situation as they offer no direct human made solution.

Whether there is or is not a direct human made solution would be and is entirely and completely irrelevant when what's in question is identifying a cause. Furthermore, you are very obviously wrong, given that if the problem is God punishing a group for some among them committing acts of homosexuality, there are several fairly obvious potential human solutions, depending on the "God" in question. Stopping the acts of homosexuality, banishing the sinners, and punishing or killing the sinners would all be direct potential solutions employable by the people.

It is simply an opinion, but one which contributes to the threat against solution.

So it is not discarded either. It still affects the critical.

It certainly deserves to be treated as an unsubstantiated opinion, yes, but the rest of this is nonsense. As was just noted, providing a solution is entirely irrelevant when the claim at hand is simply claiming to identify the root problem in the first place.

Q: What else do i know about the pastor?

A: He is influenced by Christian morality. It is also and Islamic morality as well, as can be seen on the net.
Also the pastor is of Maori decent and thus will carry those traditions of belief with him in some way...related to the god of the Earth and her being a living conscious entity.

Of note, there is distinctly limited usage in judging claims based on the one who's made the claim. It's certainly not useless, but all of the relevant information that can be obtained will be indirect and reflect solely on the general credibility of the person, rather than directly on whether the specific claim is credible.

Q: How do I reconcile that with the critical objective when the two seem to be poles apart?

A: I cannot easily but am working on finding ways. All I can do is remain focused upon the critical objective and try to reason with anybody as to why they would be best to do the same...once of course we all agree on what that objective is.

Quite seriously, what is there to actually reconcile in the first place here?

When evaluating a particular claim, like in this example, evaluating that particular claim is the only thing that should be of real importance, not evaluating lots of other tangential or irrelevant claims and trying to twist them into relevance.

Q: Is that which can be criticized therefore in opposition to the critical objective?

A: Yes - but that does not mean of course that it will overcome the critical objective.

If I'm interpreting this correctly, this seems like a really awkward way to say that reason to doubt is not the same as reason to conclude a particular thing, which is true.

Reason to doubt is still reason to doubt, though, and especially so when a claimant is unable to provide anything more substantial than "it's possible" because it's unfalsifiable.

Q: Is there a funny side to any of this?

A: Well I was wondering if the pastor meant that the two plates which were rubbing together were both male...I thought that was funny anyhoo...

This is not really critical thinking. It is somewhat amusing, though.

Do you agree with my interpretation of critical thinking processes. There is a seat at my table.

As has been pointed out already in this post, no, I certainly do not agree with your interpretation or practice of "critical thinking." Hopefully, though, you'll learn a little, or at least be able to make a coherent and relevant response to communicate in what ways you think that I'm mistaken.

 

[JesseCuster]

The OP seems to be suffering from a bad dose of equivocation.

 

[Bladesman87]

Q: Is this critical in relation to the objective?

I don't understand the question, but it doesn't seem related to my understanding of critical thinking.

Critical thinking is related to the analysis of information and arguments and largely revolves around concepts such as validity and soundness, cognitive biases, and formal and informal fallacies. At least that's what my lectures for that module were about.

If we started with "New Zealand pastor blames gays for earthquakes" we might begin by considering the evidence for whether any such pastor said that. We would consider whether this is at face value a reasonable concept, and then delve into the specifics of what was said and the validity or soundness of any arguments contained within.

I have no idea what you mean by a "critical objective" or what it would mean to overcome it.

 

[BStrong]

Pretty much the same as I have offered in my opening post.

CT is not just about the focus on one particular subject/discipline. If one is unable to include all aspects of any given subject in relation to everything else, you are not applying CT to the fullest extent.

Indeed, CT properly used, should do away with belief altogether as something surplus to requirement.

It should also argue against the use of words which are used habitually interchangeably such as 'belief' and 'know'.

Have you abandoned your other thread in CT to start another go-nowhere pseudo-intellectual cluster?

Out of respect for the MA I'll not go too far with this, but there was a pretty decent hardcore punk band back in the day who was named for the group activity that best describes your current threads.

 

[abaddon]

I don't understand the question, but it doesn't seem related to my understanding of critical thinking.

Critical thinking is related to the analysis of information and arguments and largely revolves around concepts such as validity and soundness, cognitive biases, and formal and informal fallacies. At least that's what my lectures for that module were about.

If we started with "New Zealand pastor blames gays for earthquakes" we might begin by considering the evidence for whether any such pastor said that. We would consider whether this is at face value a reasonable concept, and then delve into the specifics of what was said and the validity or soundness of any arguments contained within.

I have no idea what you mean by a "critical objective" or what it would mean to overcome it.

I can't say for sure, but it seems to me that our proponent is defining critical thinking in much the same way as a film critic, that is, as a film critic makes a critical review of a given film based on subjectivity, preference and taste, so a critical thinker is operating on the very same principles, criticising a given idea or notion on the basis of subjectivity, preference and taste.

I could be wrong, but that is how it appears.

It remains for the proponent to clarify what exactly it might be that they think "critical thinking" actually is. Absent such clarification, we are simply left guessing what it might be intended to mean or be interpreted as.

 

[JesseCuster]

When the OP says something like "I understand the pastors beliefs but they are not critical to the situation as they offer no direct human made solution" then it appears that they mean critical in the sense of being or relating to an illness or condition involving danger of death as opposed to meaning exercising or involving careful judgment or judicious evaluation (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/critical?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld)

Hence fallacy of equivocation, the OP is arguing against "critical thinking" by using a meaning (or meanings) of the word "critical" that isn't germane to the phrase "critical thinking", which involves a different meaning of the word "critical".

 

[Navigator]

Thinking is the tip of the iceberg that we see above the water line. The iceberg includes all functions of the human brain; thinking is what we're aware of.

Critical means ... important, crucial, relevant, germane, on point, apropos ... and what is critical depends upon context. How useful is a given detail, in terms of solving a problem or predicting an outcome.

All things being equal, whether the overnight low temperature is 35 degrees or 40 degrees Fahrenheit (say, 2 to 5 degrees Celsius) is somewhat important in deciding what clothes to wear.

But knowing it will be 32F or 0 Celsius is critical to driving safely or preserving plant life. You will feel only little bit colder, but water will freeze, forming ice on roads and possibly killing many plants.

I guess to make it more abstract, basically you are taking a variety of inputs and sorting them out, based on what you know, separating the strands into those of greater and lesser impact, always questioning whether your background knowledge and your tools of reason are valid.

^This.

It is reasonable to determine what is involved in actual Critical Thinking rather than what subject matter is or isn't worthy of the effort.

The thing being, no subject should be outside the influence of Critical Thinking Processes and all subject should be inclusive to actual Critical Thinking rather than something less than that, parading as the real thing.

Thus, the OP subject. 'What is Critical Thinking?' As a subject in itself, Critical Thinking need be applied in order to get to the heart of the matter in relation to the answer to that question.

 

[Joey McGee]

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8MfjLNsf_mg9p_Dl2jLbMPxiCVwhQ0-L

Let us know when you're done the course!