Why Critical Thinking?

The Problem:

Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right
prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought.
Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be system-atically cultivated.

A Definition:

Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it.

The Result:

A well cultivated critical thinker:

• raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely;

• gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively;

• comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards;

• thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions,
implications, and practical consequences; and

• communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.

Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. It requires rigorous standards of
excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving abilities and a commitment to
overcoming our native egocen-trism and sociocentrism

The Elements of Thought

Used With Sensitivity to Universal Intellectual Standards

Clarity  Accuracy Depth Breadth Significance

Precision

Relevance
 A Checklist for Reasoning

1) All reasoning has a PURPOSE.

•State your purpose clearly.
•Distinguish your purpose from related purposes.
•Check periodically to be sure you are still on target.
•Choose significant and realistic purposes.

2) All reasoning is an attempt to FIGURE something out, to settle some QUESTION, solve
some PROBLEM.
•State the question at issue clearly and precisely.
•Express the question in several ways to clarify its meaning and scope.
•Break the question into sub-questions.
•Distinguish questions that have definitive answers from those that are a matter of opinion
and from those that require consideration of multiple viewpoints.

3) All reasoning is based on ASSUMPTIONS.

•Clearly identify your assumptions and determine whether they are justifiable.
•Consider how your assumptions are shaping your point of view.

4) All reasoning is done from some POINT OF VIEW.

•Identify your point of view.
•Seek other points of view and identify their strengths as well as weaknesses.
•Strive to be fairminded in evaluating all points of view
5) All reasoning is based on DATA, INFORMATION and EVIDENCE.
•Restrict your claims to those supported by the data you have.
•Search for information that opposes your position as well as information that
supports it.
•Make sure that all information used is clear, accurate, and relevant to the question at
issue.
•Make sure you have gathered sufficient information.

6) All reasoning is expressed through, and shaped by, CONCEPTS and

IDEAS.
•Identify key concepts and explain them clearly.
•Consider alternative concepts or alternative definitions of concepts.
•Make sure you are using concepts with care and precision.

7) All reasoning contains INFERENCES or INTERPRETATIONS by which we draw

CONCLUSIONS and give meaning to data.
 •Infer only what the evidence implies.
•Check inferences for their consistency with each other.
•Identify assumptions that lead to inferences.

8) All reasoning leads somewhere or has IMPLICATIONS and

CONSEQUENCES.
•Trace the implications and consequences that follow from your reasoning.
•Search for negative as well as positive implications.
•Consider all possible consequences
 Questions Using the Elements of Thought
(in a paper, an activity, a reading assignment...)

Purpose: What am I trying to accomplish?

What is my central aim? My purpose?

Questions: What question am I raising?

What question am I addressing?
Am I considering the complexities in the question?

Information: What information am I using in coming to that conclusion?

What experience have I had to support this claim?
What information do I need to settle the question?

Inferences/ How did I reach this conclusion?

Conclusions: Is there another way to interpret the information?

Concepts: What is the main idea here?

Can I explain this idea?

Assumptions:
What am I taking for granted?
What assumption has led me to that conclusion?

Implications/ Consequences:
If someone accepted my position, what would be the implications?
What am I implying?

Points of View:
From what point of view am I looking at this issue?
Is there another point of view I should consider?
Three Levels of Thought

Lower order thinking is often distinguished from higher order

thinking. But higher order thinking can be inconsistent in quality. It

can be fair or unfair. To think at the highest level of quality, we need

not only intellectual skills, but intellectual traits as well

 Universal Intellectual Standards:

And questions that can be used to apply them

Universal intellectual standards are standards which should be applied to thinking to ensure its quality. To be learned they must be taught explicitly. The
ultimate goal, then, is for these standards to become infused in the thinking of students, forming part of their inner voice, guiding them to reason better.

Clarity:

Could you elaborate further on that point? Could you express that point in another way?

Could you give me an illustration? Could you give me an example?

Clarity is a gateway standard. If a statement is unclear, we cannot determine whether it is accurate or relevant. In fact, we cannot tell anything about it because we
don’t yet know what it is saying. For example, the question “What can be done about the education system in America?” is unclear. In order to adequately address the
question, we would need to have a clearer understanding of what the person asking the question is considering the “problem” to be. A clearer question might be “What
can educators do to ensure that students learn the skills and abilities which help them function successfully on the job and in their daily decision-making?”

Accuracy:

Is that really true? How could we check that? How could we find out if that is true?

A statement can be clear but not accurate, as in “Most dogs are over 300 pounds in weight.”

Precision:

Could you give me more details? Could you be more specific?

A statement can be both clear and accurate, but not precise, as in “Jack is over-weight.” (We don’t know how overweight Jack is, one pound or 500 pounds.)

Relevance:

How is that connected to the question? How does that bear on the issue?

A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not relevant to the question at issue. For example, students often think that the amount of
effort they put into a course should be used in raising their grade in a course. Often, however, “effort” does not measure the quality of student
learning, and when that is so, effort is irrelevant to their appropriate grade

Depth:

How does your answer address the complexities in the question? How are you taking into account the problems in the question? Are you
dealing with the most significant factors?

A statement can be clear, accurate, precise, and relevant, but superficial (that is, lack depth). For example, the statement “Just Say No”, which is often used to discourage chil-
dren and teens from using drugs, is clear, accurate, precise, and relevant. Nevertheless, it lacks depth because it treats an extremely complex issue, the pervasive problem of drug
use among young people, superficially. It fails to deal with the complexities of the issue.

Breadth:

Do we need to consider another point of view? Is there another way to look at this ques-tion? What would this look like from a conservative
standpoint? What would this look like from the point of view of…?
 A line of reasoning may be clear, accurate, precise, relevant, and deep, but lack breadth (as in an argument from either the conservative or liberal standpoints which gets
deeply into an issue, but only recognizes the insights of one side of the question).

Logic:

Does this really make sense? Does that follow from what you said? How does that follow? Before you implied this and now you are saying that, I don’t see how both can be true.

When we think, we bring a variety of thoughts together into some order. When the combination of thoughts are mutually supporting and make sense in
combination, the thinking is “logical.” When the combination is not mutually supporting, is contradictory in some sense, or does not “make sense,” the combination is
“not logical.”

Fairness:

Are we considering all relevant viewpoints in good faith? Are we distorting some infor-mation to maintain our biased perspective? Are we more
concerned about our vested interests than the common good?

We naturally think from our own perspective, from a point of view which tends to privilege our position. Fairness implies the treating of all relevant viewpoints alike
without reference to one’s own feelings or interests. Because we tend to be biased in favor of our own viewpoint, it is important to keep the standard of fairness at the
fore-front of our thinking. This is especially important when the situation may call on us to see things we don’t want to see, or give something up that we want to hold
onto

CLARITY: Could you elaborate further? Could you give me an example? Could you illustrate what you mean?
ACCURACY: How could we check on that?

How could we find out if that is true?

How could we verify or test that?

Precision

Could you be more specific?

Could you give me more details?

Could you be more exact?

Relevance

How does that relate to the problem?

How does that bear on the question?

How does that help us with the issue?

Depth

What factors make this a difficult problem?

What are some of the complexities of this question?

What are some of the difficulties we need to deal with?

Breadth

Do we need to look at this from another perspective?

Do we need to consider another point of view?

Do we need to look at this in other ways?

Logic

Does all this make sense together?

Does your first paragraph fit in with your last?

Does what you say follow from the evidence?

Significance

Is this the most important problem to consider?

Is this the central idea to focus on?

Which of these facts are most important?

Fairness

Do I have any vested interest in this issue?

Am I sympathetically representing the viewpoints

of others?
Template for Analyzing the Logic of an Article

Take an article that you have been assigned to read for class, completing the

“logic” of it using the template below. This template can be modified for

analyzing the logic of a chapter in a textbook.

The Logic of “(name of the article)”

1) The main purpose of this article is ________________________________.

(State as accurately as possible the author’s purpose for writing the article.)

2) The key question that the author is addressing is ____________________.

(Figure out the key question in the mind of the author when s/he wrote the article.)

3) The most important information in this article is ___________________.

(Figure out the facts, experiences, data the author is using to support her/his

conclusions.)

4) The main inferences/conclusions in this article are __________________.

(Identify the key conclusions the author comes to and presents in the article.)

5) The key concept(s) we need to understand in this article is (are) ____________.

By these concepts the author means _________________________.

(Figure out the most important ideas you would have to understand in order to

understand the author’s line of reasoning.)

6) The main assumption(s) underlying the author’s thinking is (are) ___________.

(Figure out what the author is taking for granted [that might be questioned].)

7a) If we take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications are ______________.

(What consequences are likely to follow if people take the author’s line of reasoning

seriously?)

7b) If we fail to take this line of reasoning seriously, the implications are __________.

(What consequences are likely to follow if people ignore the author’s reasoning?)

8) The main point(s) of view presented in this article is (are) _________________.

(What is the author looking at, and how is s/he seeing it?)
Criteria for Evaluating Reasoning

1. Purpose: What is the purpose of the reasoner? Is the purpose clearly

stated or clearly implied? Is it justifiable?

2. Question: Is the question at issue well-stated? Is it clear and unbiased?

Does the expression of the question do justice to the complexity of the

matter at issue? Are the question and purpose directly relevant to each

other?

3. Information: Does the writer cite relevant evidence, experiences, and/or

information essential to the issue? Is the information accurate? Does the

writer address the complexities of the issue?

4. Concepts: Does the writer clarify key concepts when necessary? Are the

concepts used justifiably?

5. Assumptions: Does the writer show a sensitivity to what he or she is

taking for granted or assuming? (Insofar as those assumptions might

reasonably be questioned?) Does the writer use questionable assumptions without addressing problems
which might be inherent in those

assumptions?

6. Inferences: Does the writer develop a line of reasoning explaining well

how s/he is arriving at her or his main conclusions?

7. Point of View: Does the writer show a sensitivity to alternative relevant

points of view or lines of reasoning? Does s/he consider and respond to

objections framed from other relevant points of view?

8. Implications: Does the writer show a sensitivity to the implications and

consequences of the position s/he is taking?

 Three Kinds of Questions
In approaching a question, it is useful to figure out what type it is. Is it a question with one definitive
answer? Is it a question that calls for a subjective choice? Or does the question require you to consider
competing points of view?
 A Template for Problem-Solving
To be an effective problem solver:

1) Figure out, and regularly re-articulate, your goals, purposes, and needs. Recognize problems as
obstacles to reaching your goals, achieving your purposes, or satisfying your needs.

2) Wherever possible take problems one by one. State each problem as clearly and precisely as you can.

3) Study the problem to determine the “kind” of problem you are dealing with. For example, what do
you have to do to solve it?

4) Distinguish problems over which you have some control from problems over which you have no
control. Concentrate your efforts on problems you can potentially solve.

5) Figure out the information you need to solve the problem. Actively seek that information.

6) Carefully analyze and interpret the information you collect, drawing reasonable inferences.

7) Determine your options for action. What can you do in the short term? In the long term? Recognize
your limitations in terms of money, time, and power.

8) Evaluate your options, determining their advantages and disadvantages.

9) Adopt a strategy. Follow through on it. This may involve direct action or a carefully thought-through
wait-and-see approach.

10) When you act, monitor the implications of your action. Be ready to revise your strategy if the
situation requires it. Be prepared to change your analysis or statement of the problem, as more
information about the problem becomes available
 ANALYZING & ASSESSING RESEARCH

Use this template to assess the quality of any research project or paper.

1) All research has a fundamental PURPOSE and goal.

• Research purposes and goals should be clearly stated.

• Related purposes should be explicitly distinguished.

• All segments of the research should be relevant to the purpose.

• All research purposes should be realistic and significant.

2) All research addresses a fundamental QUESTION, problem or issue.

• The fundamental question at issue should be clearly and precisely stated.

• Related questions should be articulated and distinguished.

• All segments of the research should be relevant to the central question.

• All research questions should be realistic and significant.

• All research questions should define clearly stated intellectual tasks that, being fulfilled, settle the
questions.

3) All research identifies data, INFORMATION, and evidence relevant to its fundamental question and
purpose.

• All information used should be clear, accurate, and relevant to the fundamental question at issue.

• Information gathered must be sufficient to settle the question at issue.

• Information contrary to the main conclusions of the research should be explained.

4) All research contains INFERENCES or interpretations by which conclusions are drawn.

• All conclusions should be clear, accurate, and relevant to the key question at issue.

• Conclusions drawn should not go beyond what the data imply.

• Conclusions should be consistent and reconcile discrepancies in the data.

• Conclusions should explain how the key questions at issue have been settled.

5) All research is conducted from some POINT OF VIEW or frame of reference.

• All points of view in the research should be identified.

• Objections from competing points of view should be identified and fairly addressed.

6) All research is based on ASSUMPTIONS.

• Clearly identify and assess major assumptions in the research.

• Explain how the assumptions shape the research point of view.

7) All research is expressed through, and shaped by, CONCEPTS and ideas.

• Assess for clarity the key concepts in the research.

• Assess the significance of the key concepts in the research.

8) All research leads somewhere (i.e., have IMPLICATIONS and consequences).

• Trace the implications and consequences that follow from the research.

• Search for negative as well as positive implications.

• Consider all significant implications and consequences.

Critical thinkers routinely apply intellectual standards to the elements of reasoning in
order to develop intellectual traits

Stages of Critical Thinking Development

 THE PROBLEM OF EGOCENTRIC THINKING

Egocentric thinking results from the unfortunate fact that humans do not naturally

consider the rights and needs of others. We do not naturally appreciate the point of

view of others nor the limitations in our own point of view. We become explicitly aware

of our egocentric thinking only if trained to do so. We do not naturally recognize our

egocentric assumptions, the egocentric way we use information, the egocentric way we

interpret data, the source of our egocentric concepts and ideas, the implications of our

egocentric thought. We do not naturally recognize our self-serving perspective.

As humans we live with the unrealistic but confident sense that we have fundamentally

figured out the way things actually are, and that we have done this objectively. We naturally

believe in our intuitive perceptions—however inaccurate. Instead of using intellectual

standards in thinking, we often use self-centered psychological standards to determine

what to believe and what to reject. Here are the most commonly used psychological

standards in human thinking.

“IT’S TRUE BECAUSE I BELIEVE IT.”Innate egocentrism: I assume that what I

believe is true even though I have never questioned the basis for many of my beliefs.

“IT’S TRUE BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IT.”Innate sociocentrism: I assume that the

dominant beliefs of the groups to which I belong are true even though I have never

questioned the basis for those beliefs.

“IT’S TRUE BECAUSE I WANT TO BELIEVE IT.”Innate wish fulfillment: I believe in

whatever puts me (or the groups to which I belong) in a positive light. I believe what “feels

good,” what does not require me to change my thinking in any significant way, what does

not require me to admit I have been wrong.

“IT’S TRUE BECAUSE I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED IT.”Innate self-validation:

I have a strong desire to maintain beliefs that I have long held, even though I have not

seriously considered the extent to which those beliefs are justified by the evidence.

“IT’S TRUE BECAUSE IT IS IN MY SELFISH INTEREST TO BELIEVE IT.” Innate

selfishness: I believe whatever justifies my getting more power, money, or personal

advantage even though these beliefs are not grounded in sound reasoning or evidence
THE PROBLEM OF SOCIOCENTRIC THINKING

Most people do not understand the degree to which they have uncritically

internalized the dominant prejudices of their society or culture. Sociologists

and anthropologists identify this as the state of being “culture bound.” This

phenomenon is caused by sociocentric thinking, which includes:

■ The uncritical tendency to place one’s culture, nation, religion above all others.

■ The uncritical tendency to select self-serving positive descriptions of ourselves

and negative descriptions of those who think differently from us.

■ The uncritical tendency to internalize group norms and beliefs, take on group

identities, and act as we are expected to act—without the least sense that what

we are doing might reasonably be questioned.

■ The tendency to blindly conform to group restrictions (many of which are

arbitrary or coercive).

■ The failure to think beyond the traditional prejudices of one’s culture.

■ The failure to study and internalize the insights of other cultures (improving

thereby the breadth and depth of one’s thinking).

■ The failure to distinguish universal ethics from relativistic cultural requirements

and taboos.

■ The failure to realize that mass media in every culture shapes the news from the

point of view of that culture.

■ The failure to think historically and anthropologically (and hence to be trapped

in current ways of thinking).

■ The failure to see sociocentric thinking as a significant impediment to

intellectual development.

Sociocentric thinking is a hallmark of an uncritical society. It can be

diminished only when replaced by cross-cultural, fairminded thinking — critical

thinking in the strong sense

Envisioning Critical Societies

The critical habit of thought, if usual in society, will pervade all its

mores, because it is a way of taking up the problems of life. Men

educated in it cannot be stampeded by stump orators ... They are

slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable in

all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait

for evidence and weigh evidence, uninfluenced by the emphasis

or confidence with which assertions are made on one side or the

other. They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices and

all kinds of cajolery. Education in the critical faculty is the only

education of which it can be truly said that it makes good citizens.

William Graham Sumner, 1906

Humans have the capacity to be rational and fair. But this capacity must be

developed. It will be significantly developed only if critical societies emerge.

Critical societies will develop only to the extent that:

■ Critical thinking is viewed as essential to living a reasonable and fairminded life.

■ Critical thinking is routinely taught; consistently fostered.

■ The problematics of thinking are an abiding concern.

■ Closed-mindedness is systemically discouraged; open-mindedness

systematically encouraged.

■ Intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual empathy, confidence in

reason, and intellectual courage are social values.

■ Egocentric and sociocentric thinking are recognized as a bane in social life.

■ Children are routinely taught that the rights and needs of others are equal to their own.

■ A multi-cultural world view is fostered.

■ People are encouraged to think for themselves and discouraged from uncritically

accepting the thinking or behavior of others.

■ People routinely study and diminish irrational thought.

■ People internalize universal intellectual standards.

If we want critical societies we must create them.
The Thinker’s Guide Library

The Thinker’s Guide series provides convenient, inexpensive, portable references that students

and faculty can use to improve the quality of studying, learning, and teaching. Their modest cost

enables instructors to require them of all students (in addition to a textbook). Their compactness

enables students to keep them at hand whenever they are working in or out of class. Their

succinctness serves as a continual reminder of the most basic principles of critical thinking.

For Students & Faculty