What is Critical Thinking?

[Stone Island]

I saw this neat passage by Stanley Fish in the New York Times and I thought I would share it:

Of the justifications for humanistic study offered in the comments, two seemed to me to have some force. The first is that taking courses in literature, philosophy and history provides training in critical thinking. I confess that I have always thought that “critical thinking” is an empty phrase, a slogan that a humanist has recourse to when someone asks what good is what you do and he or she has nothing to say. What’s the distinction, I have more than occasionally asked, between critical thinking and just thinking? Isn’t the adjective superfluous? And what exactly would “uncritical thinking” be? But now that I have read the often impassioned responses to my column, I have a better understanding of what critical thinking is.


Taking as an example the concept of IQ, William Haboush says that while a scientist will use it, a humanist “will ask what does it mean? Is it one thing or many? Who made up the questions used in measuring it.” This, then, is critical thinking – the analytic probing of formulas, precepts and pieces of received wisdom that too often go unexamined and unchallenged. This skill, Warren Call claims, is taught in humanities courses where students “analyze ideas, differing viewpoints, justifications, opinions and accounts” and, in the process, learn how to “construct a logical assessment . . . and defend their conclusions with facts and lucid argument.”


That certainly sounds like a skill worth having, and I agree that it can be acquired in courses where literary texts, philosophical arguments and historical evens are being scrutinized with an eye to seeing what lies beneath (or to the side of) their surfaces. But it also can be, and is, acquired elsewhere. Right now millions of TV viewers are acquiring it when they watch Chris Matthews or George Will or Cokie Roberts analyze the current political moment and say things like, “It would be wrong to draw any long run conclusion from Hilary Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire because in other states the voting population is unlikely to be 57 percent female and 97 percent white,” or “If we are to understand the immigration debate, we must go back the great waves of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” or “Homelessness is not a single problem, but a nest of problems that cannot be solved piecemeal.”


You can hear the same kind of thinking on sports radio, where host and callers-in debate the ingredients that go to make up a successful team. And critical thinking is what tens of thousands of preachers encourage every week in their sermons when they ask parishioners to slow down and reflect on the impulses, perhaps obscure to them, driving their everyday behavior.

Full article.

 

[Ichneumonwasp]

What is Critical Thinking?

A diverting activity for a lazy Saturday afternoon.

And probably a tasty breakfast cereal somewhere in the world.

 

[Mister Agenda]

Thanks for sharing, Stone. The thing about critical thinking is that you have to pace yourself. I know, in general terms, how to analyze and critique a movie, but I found it to be a barrier to enjoyment so I try to refrain, which allows me to appreciate much worse movies than I could if I applied more critical thinking.

I want as many of my beliefs as possible to be true and as few of my beliefs as possible to be false, and critical thinking helps me do that. My selective use of it, however, has probably led me to some false beliefs about the quality of certain movies. I have a belief, which I may not have examined closely enough, that it is tiresome to use critical thinking all the time, and probably very irritating to others, so I try not to spend too much time using it on ideas that I regard as unimportant to me or my understanding of reality.

 

[The Atheist]

Thanks for sharing, Stone. The thing about critical thinking is that you have to pace yourself. I know, in general terms, how to analyze and critique a movie, but I found it to be a barrier to enjoyment so I try to refrain, which allows me to appreciate much worse movies than I could if I applied more critical thinking.

I want as many of my beliefs as possible to be true and as few of my beliefs as possible to be false, and critical thinking helps me do that. My selective use of it, however, has probably led me to some false beliefs about the quality of certain movies. I have a belief, which I may not have examined closely enough, that it is tiresome to use critical thinking all the time, and probably very irritating to others, so I try not to spend too much time using it on ideas that I regard as unimportant to me or my understanding of reality.

Look, this is just a polite suggestion - I think you really need to think about whether you are thinking critically when you're thinking! Using "critical thinking" on movies, but not about your understanding of reality is a little at odds with the entire plan of thinking about things in a critical fashion.

A good start would be to toss out all of your beliefs immediately and start from scratch. Know what you know, learn about the bits you don't and avoid "believing" anything. Accept facts and deny fallacies.

Then again, you may have already prioritised by critical thinking that movies are your number one priority.

 

[Mister Agenda]

That was the exact opposite of what I was trying to convey! I need to work on my clarity. Anyway, I suspend my critical thinking and disbelief when watching movies up to my subjective point of tolerance (some movies are so bad even I can't enjoy them, and I've been known to enjoy a movie for being bad in an amusing way). I use critical thinking on ideas that are important to me and my understanding of reality.

Better?

 

[CFLarsen]

Look, this is just a polite suggestion - I think you really need to think about whether you are thinking critically when you're thinking! Using "critical thinking" on movies, but not about your understanding of reality is a little at odds with the entire plan of thinking about things in a critical fashion.

A good start would be to toss out all of your beliefs immediately and start from scratch. Know what you know, learn about the bits you don't and avoid "believing" anything.

You are incredibly dangerous if you tell people that. Because that is a sure fire way to die.

If you toss out the belief that

• Stepping off a cliff will kill you
• Putting a gun to your head and pull the trigger will kill you
• Playing in traffic will kill you
• Eating lots of those pills in your mother's medicine cabinet will kill you

you will die, long before you have learned how to distinguish between what will harm you, and what won't.

Sometimes, it is OK to believe what your parents told you.

 

[The Atheist]

That was the exact opposite of what I was trying to convey! I need to work on my clarity. Anyway, I suspend my critical thinking and disbelief when watching movies up to my subjective point of tolerance (some movies are so bad even I can't enjoy them, and I've been known to enjoy a movie for being bad in an amusing way). I use critical thinking on ideas that are important to me and my understanding of reality.

Better?

Much better!

Clarity is part of the Grammar portfolio.

 

[PixyMisa]

I saw this neat passage by Stanley Fish in the New York Times and I thought I would share it:

One might think that, in 46 years as an academic, Fish would have discovered the meaning of the expression "critical thinking" at some earlier point.

 

[athon]

I saw this neat passage by Stanley Fish in the New York Times and I thought I would share it:



Full article.

Excellent article. It demonstrates exactly what so many people believe - that critical thinking is synonymous with just 'thinking'.

Critical thinking is essentially a process of evaluation based on a set of standards and values. The nature of those standards is important. For instance, if you evaluate information for its likelihood of being accurate (and therefore useful) based on whether its source is a close friend or not, it's not quite as effective as if you evaluate the information based on other clues, such as where the information originates ultimately, and the impact it would have on this source if the information was incorrect.

It is essential to develop this as a skill for much the same reason as Mister Agenda suggested - it takes effort to engage critical thinking without practice. It has beend demonstrated that it takes far less effort for a person to consider a belief and accept it than to consider a belief and rate its chances of being correct, or even to dismiss it.

Therefore practice is required to analyse a situation for the degree of importance in applying critical thinking (some things require less consideration than others - thinking critically about whether the advertising for a can of baked beans is accurate isn't quite on the same scale as what medication could save your life) as well as possessing some skills in identifying the clues which highlight information as having worth or not.

As social animals, we have evolved measures to identify clues which take advantage of social thinking. For the most part, this works. However, with a change in social dynamics and a relaxing of other evolutionary stresses, social thinking becomes inferior to critical thinking in terms of providing useful information.

Society is only just catching up to that point in terms of education. We live in interesting times as far as that goes.

Athon

 

[blobru]

... You can hear the same kind of thinking on sports radio, where host and callers-in debate the ingredients that go to make up a successful team. And critical thinking is what tens of thousands of preachers encourage every week in their sermons when they ask parishioners to slow down and reflect on the impulses, perhaps obscure to them, driving their everyday behavior.

These last two examples are... intriguing.

I'd say the process of critical thinking should target all opinions: others', and one's own.

Sports radio attracts a pretty macho crowd, hyper-critical of others (especially with a losing team), but not what you'd call real self-critical, typically.

Church is the inverse of course: parishioners are encouraged to be self-critical, to criticize their base impulses, but not their basic beliefs, which they must accept uncritically from Others.

There are moments of critical thinking there, sure; for context, I wouldn't offer up either as instructive cases, however.

 

[Beerina]

One moment of critical thinking, from the nun teaching the final, 9th grade chatechism, the Confirmation year, "Given the large number of variations on religion, if we're right, be very suprised."

Personally, I'm betting some guy who picked up a bible and opened his own small church in some nameless town in the south is the one who finally got it right.

 

[godless dave]

Right now millions of TV viewers are acquiring it when they watch Chris Matthews or George Will or Cokie Roberts analyze the current political moment and say things like, “It would be wrong to draw any long run conclusion from Hilary Clinton’s victory in New Hampshire because in other states the voting population is unlikely to be 57 percent female and 97 percent white,” or “If we are to understand the immigration debate, we must go back the great waves of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries,” or “Homelessness is not a single problem, but a nest of problems that cannot be solved piecemeal.”

Except most people aren't doing that critical thinking while watching the news. That's the problem, and that's why the skill needs to be taught to children in school.

 

[slingblade]

You are incredibly dangerous if you tell people that. Because that is a sure fire way to die.

If you toss out the belief that

• Stepping off a cliff will kill you
• Putting a gun to your head and pull the trigger will kill you
• Playing in traffic will kill you
• Eating lots of those pills in your mother's medicine cabinet will kill you

you will die, long before you have learned how to distinguish between what will harm you, and what won't.

Sometimes, it is OK to believe what your parents told you.

Those are not beliefs. They have substantial evidence to back them up, even if one is too young to know that.

It is not necessary to believe that which one can know, just as it is not necessary to know (to prove, have evidence of) that which one can believe.

 

[CFLarsen]

Those are not beliefs. They have substantial evidence to back them up, even if one is too young to know that.

It is not necessary to believe that which one can know, just as it is not necessary to know (to prove, have evidence of) that which one can believe.

Those are beliefs to the child who hears them. Everything is - but the child cannot distinguish between belief and substantiated fact. So, it accepts everything as fact, because it is the safest. Mom and dad aren't out to kill me, so I'd better do what they say.

But sometimes, they cheat: There is no bogeyman, but it sure is effective to prevent you from playing with electricity or make you go to bed early.

And sometimes, they are just wrong themselves: Didn't your parents tell you never to go swimming right after eating? You had to wait for at least 30 minutes (I always heard it as 1 hour), or else, you could get cramps and drown. Turns out to be a myth.

We never "start from scratch". We always rely on some kind of passed-on information, be it belief or knowledge. Later, when we learn how, we can examine one belief after another. But it is ridiculous - and dangerous - to cast out all beliefs at once. We only learn what are beliefs and what are facts after we examine them.

 

[slingblade]

TA didn't give this advice to a child, though, did he?

 

[CFLarsen]

TA didn't give this advice to a child, though, did he?

It doesn't matter if it is a child or an adult. Both have to learn how to distinguish between belief and fact.

 

[Piscivore]

Those are beliefs to the child who hears them. Everything is - but the child cannot distinguish between belief and substantiated fact. So, it accepts everything as fact, because it is the safest. Mom and dad aren't out to kill me, so I'd better do what they say.

Replace "child" with "person", "Mom and Dad" with "other people" and that's how a lot of people end up in abusive relationships, cults, and multi-level marketing schemes, IMO. They were taught that people in general were trustworthy and beneficent. "Basically good at heart", as I believe one young girl put it, shortly before her death.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Critical thinking belongs within the humanities. Fish shows some understanding of that when he wrote

Taking as an example the concept of IQ, William Haboush says that while a scientist will use it, a humanist “will ask what does it mean? Is it one thing or many? Who made up the questions used in measuring it.” This, then, is critical thinking – the analytic probing of formulas, precepts and pieces of received wisdom that too often go unexamined and unchallenged.

But then he showed a lack of understanding of just how pervasive that unexamined, unchallenged thinking is within himself when he went on to write

But it also can be, and is, acquired elsewhere. Right now millions of TV viewers are acquiring it...

His examples were valid, but he neglected to notice that those examples probably constitute about 1% of what has actually come out of the TV political pundits mouths. Fish failed to notice just how big the tree was he found those tiny cherries on.

I think Fish has the right idea as far as the concept goes. But I would certainly question his optimism that as much critical thinking is going on here as he seems to think.

 

[slingblade]

It doesn't matter if it is a child or an adult. Both have to learn how to distinguish between belief and fact.

At this point, the only one I can see in need of such knowledge is you. The things you listed are facts, not beliefs. You failed to distinguish that, yourself, in making your list.

You are also the one who brought children into the point TA was making, not TA. He was advising a fellow adult. How on earth did kids enter into what TA was saying?


Quoting your list again:

• Stepping off a cliff will kill you
• Putting a gun to your head and pull the trigger will kill you
• Playing in traffic will kill you
• Eating lots of those pills in your mother's medicine cabinet will kill you

These are not beliefs. They are facts. These are not the sorts of things TA was suggesting anyone "toss out."

...and the second one on your list isn't even true if the gun isn't loaded. Although it's wisest to always assume all guns are loaded, the simple truth is that pulling the trigger on an unloaded gun cannot kill anyone.

Why do you think the things you listed are beliefs, instead of facts any reasonably intelligent adult might already know?

 

[The Atheist]

At this point, the only one I can see in need of such knowledge is you.

Cheers for all that. I finally gave up and put him on ignore. I feel his comments/questions are best left unanswered, as the stupidity is obvious, but thanks for ripping him yet another new one. It has been said that if I said the sky was blue*, CFLarsen would disagree with me.

I believe this is true.



*assuming a gloriously fine day as we have here today, Claus.