What is it?
Definitions of critical thinking range from the succinct (Wikipedia provides the quote "purposeful reflective judgment concerning what to believe or what to do") to the verbose (check out the "Defining Critical Thinking" page at CriticalThinking.org). For the purpose of this introduction, I'm going to draw on the book Critical Thinking: An Introduction by Alec Fisher. This book devotes a whole chapter to defining the term, including classic definitions from John Dewey, Edward Glaser, Robert Ennis, and Richard Paul; however, we can get the gist of the idea from the chapter summary:
[C]ritical thinking is contrasted with unreflective thinking--the kind of thinking which occurs when somebody jumps to a conclusion, or accepts some evidence, claim or decision at face value, without really thinking about it. It is a skilful activity, which may be done more or less well, and good critical thinking will meet various intellectual standards, like those of clarity, relevance, adequacy, coherence and so on. Critical thinking requires the interpretation and evaluation of observations, communications and other sources of information. It also requires skill in thinking about assumptions, in asking pertinent questions, in drawing out implications--that is to say, in reasoning and arguing issues through. Furthermore, the critical thinker believes that there are many situations in which the best way to decide what to believe or do is to employ this kind of reasoned and reflective thinking and thus tends to these methods whenever they are appropriate.
In case the concept still isn't clear, hang on while we look at some applications in order to illustrate.
A first application
We'll draw on the methodology from Fisher's book, which I highly recommend for a more in-depth look at the topic as well as multiple examples and exercises. Fisher provides a "Thinking Map" for analysis and evaluation of arguments that looks like this:
Analysis
1. What are/is the main conclusion(s)?
2. What are the reasons and their structure?
3. What is assumed?
4. Clarify the meanings which need it.
Evaluation
5. Are the reasons acceptable?
6. (a) Does the reasoning support its conclusion(s)?
(b) Are there other relevant considerations/arguments which strengthen or weaken the case?
7. What is your overall evaluation?
Next time around, we'll use this framework on an actual argument, and delve into another useful tool, the argument map.
