What is Critical Thinking?

Sensation - Eyes, Ears, Nose, Tongue, Skin provide our bodies with sensations which they pick up from the outside world. These sensations are transmitted by nerves to the biological structures which will translate them.

Biological - the sensations provided by the senses (the eyes, ears, hands, fingers and skin, nose, tongue) is input by nerves to the Brain, which then translates, decodes, and encodes messages and sends them out through the nervous system.

Psychological -Takes the messages from the brain and translates them into perceptions and reactions.

Cognitive -Translations through the biological and psychological dimensions of the thinking process of the perceptions and reactions into concepts, ideas, assumptions, suppositions, inferences, hypotheses, questions, beliefs, premises, logical arguments, etc...

Communications -Takes the messages from the brain and translates them into verbal, non-verbal, and written language to communicate the thoughts and ideas which were generated.

1. Birth to 2 years old - no thinking structures (called schemas) and starts to develop such schemas through exploration of senses and experimentation with environment.

2. Pre-operational Stage: 2 - 7 years old - develop language skills and more sophisticated cognitive structures but still is prelogical.
Not capable of conservation-ability to understand that substance does not change although it changes shape or form
Incapable of decentering-ability to see things from another perspective.

3. Concrete Operational Stage: 7 years to Adolescence - begin to grasp conservation and decentering. Begins to question life. Solves problems but haphazardly.

4. Formal Operations Stage: Adolescence and onward - now capable of sophisticated logical thought. Can think in abstract. Can think hypothetically and solve problems using the logic of combinations.

Note: Many theorists postulate a fifth Stage:

5. Dialectical Reasoning - stage beyond logic where critical thinking lies. Ability to perceive the frequent paradoxes in life and question and analyze the assumptions that underlie logic.

Critical thinking consists of three steps:

1. Becoming aware that assumptions exist

2. Making assumptions explicit

3. Assessing their accuracy

- Do these assumptions make sense?

- Do these assumptions fit reality as we understand and live it?

- Under what conditions do these assumptions seem to hold true? Under what conditions do they seem false?

All actions, decisions, and judgments spring from assumptions - if they are unchecked or inappropriate, we will make poor decisions and wrong judgments.

In personal relationships we learn to keep our lines of communications open-we avoid uncritically reproducing patterns of the modeled interactions we learned from our parental interaction.

In the workplace we avoid stagnation and atrophy and are willing to challenge the current paradigms which are uncritically accepted and may have come down in the workplace from a time and thinking which is no longer relevant to our current reality.

+ We blindly reproduce the damaging reactions we have learned.

+ We blindly accept at face value all justifications given by organizations and political leaders.

+ We blindly believe TV commercials.

+ We blindly trust political commercials.

+ We blindly accept and say that if the textbook says it; it must be so.

+ We blindly accept and say that if the organization does it; it must be right.

Contextual sensitivity - being sensitive to stereotypes about people from a particular group and trying to accept others at face value unconditionally.

Perspective thinking - trying to get into the other person's head, or walking in the other person's shoes so as to see the world the way that person sees and perceives the world.

Tolerance for ambiguity - ability to accept multiple interpretations of the same situation.

Alert to premature ultimatums - invoking a powerful idea or concept which inspires such reverence that any further debate is forestalled. e.g. a politician invokes "democracy"

Truth seeking: A courageous desire for the best knowledge, even if such knowledge fails to support or undermines one's preconceptions, beliefs or self interests.

Open-mindedness: Tolerance to divergent views, self-monitoring for possible bias.

Analyticity: Demanding the application of reason and evidence, alert to problematic situations, inclined to anticipate consequences.

Systematical: Valuing organization, focus and diligence to approach problems of all levels of complexity.

Critical Thinking Self-Confidence: Trusting of one's own reasoning skills and seeing oneself as a good thinker.

Inquisitiveness: Curious and eager to acquire knowledge and learn explanations even when the applications of the knowledge are not immediately apparent.

Cognitive Maturity: Prudence in making, suspending, or revising judgment. An awareness that multiple solutions can be acceptable. An appreciation of the need to reach closure even in the absence of complete knowledge.

Perception

The way we receive and translate our experience
Also a significant filtering system
How we perceive defines how we think

Assumptions

Central to Critical Thinking
Implied, not conscious of them
Not always bad
Rest on notion some ideas are obvious
Make us comfortable with present beliefs & shut out alternatives

Emotion

Trying to "Leave emotion out of it!" is not possible.
Is a part of everything we do and think
Personal barriers play a part
Critical thinkers don't ignore or deny emotions; they accept and manage them

Language

Thinking can't be separated from language
Three primary purposes: Inform; Persuade; Explain
Language denotes and connotes
Metaphors are powerful language tools which influence how we think and problem solve. Metaphors are figures of speech which can give great color and depth to our language. Metaphors can be short phrases, stories, or poems. A metaphor is a verbal message which can be easily visualized by the reader or listener.

Argument

Claim, used to persuade that something is (or not) true or should (or not) be done

Claim contains three basic elements
1. Issue
2. One or more reasons (premises)
3. One or more conclusions

Can be valid or invalid based on structure
Only premises & conclusions - true or false
Goal of Critical Thinking is sound arguments; Valid (proper structure); With true premises
Sound argument has both: so the conclusion must be true
Therein the beauty and usefulness of logic

Fallacy

Reasoning that doesn't meet criteria for sound argument is fallacious
Valid
True premises
Complete (all relevant information)
Fallacy is incorrect pattern of reasoning
Does not always mean conclusion is false
Ads & editorials (usually!)

Logic

Two methods of reasoning

Deductive
Facts, certainty, syllogisms, validity, truth of premises sound arguments & conclusions

Inductive
Diverse facts, probability, generalizations, hypotheses, analogies inductive strength

Logic problems Problem Solving techniques:

Understand the problem. Read, Relate & Listen
Identify unknowns & knowns
Relationships between these (visual aids / visualize)
Generate strategy from above steps
Apply and solve. Repeat if necessary

Interpretation

Comprehend & express meaning or significance of wide variety of experiences, situations, data, events, judgments, conventions, beliefs, rules, procedures, or criteria.

Analysis

Identify the intended & actual inferential relationships among statements, questions, concepts, descriptions, or other forms of representation intended to express belief, judgment, experiences, reasons, information, or opinion

Evaluation

Assess the credibility of statements or other representations which are accounts or descriptions of a person's perception, experience, situation, judgment, belief, or opinion; and to assess the logical strength of the actual or intended inferential relationships among statements, descriptions, questions, or other forms of representation

Inference

Identify and secure elements needed to draw reasonable conclusions; to form conjectures and hypotheses; to consider relevant information & to educe the consequences flowing from data, statements, principles, evidence, judgments, beliefs, opinions, concepts, descriptions, questions, or other forms of representation

Explanation

State the results of one's reasoning; justify that reasoning in terms of evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, and contextual considerations upon which one's results were based; and to present one's reasoning in the form of cogent arguments.

Self-regulation

Self consciously to monitor one's cognitive activities, the elements used in those activities, and the results educed, particularly by applying skills in analysis and evaluation to one's own inferential judgments with a view toward questions, confirming, validation, or correcting either one's reasoning or results.

- Inquisitiveness about wide range of issues

- Concern to become and stay well-informed

- Alertness to opportunities to use Critical Thinking

- Self confidence in one's abilities to reason

- Open-mindedness about divergent world views

- Flexibility in considering alternatives & opinions

- Understanding the opinions of other people

- Fair-mindedness in appraising reasoning

- Honesty in facing one's own biases, prejudices, stereotypes, egocentric, and sociocentric tendencies

- Prudence in suspending, making, altering judgments

- Willingness to reconsider and revise views

- Clarity in stating question or concern

- Orderliness in working with complexity

- Diligence in seeking relevant information

- Reasonableness in selecting & applying criteria

- Care in focusing attention on the concern at hand

- Persistence through difficulties

- Precision to the degree permitted by subject & circumstances

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