Critical Thinking

WHAT IS CRITICAL THINKING?

Critical thinking is our primary tool in making better

judgments. Critical thinking is the careful application of
reason in the determination of whether a claim is true.
Notice that it isn’t so much coming up with claims, true or
otherwise, that constitutes critical thinking; it’s the
evaluation of claims, however we come up with them.
You might say that our subject is really thinking about
thinking—we engage in it when we consider whether our
ideas really make good sense. Of course, since our
actions usually depend on what thoughts or ideas we’ve
accepted, whether we do the intelligent thing also
depends on how well we consider those thoughts and
ideas.

''Critical thinking'' is the main enemy of ''dogmatic
thinking''.

A Dogma is belief without demonstration, a principle or
set of principles laid down by an authority as
incontrovertibly true. It serves as part of the primary
basis of an ideology or belief system, and it cannot be
changed or discarded without affecting the very system's
paradigm, or the ideology itself.

The term "dogmatic" can be used to refer to any belief
that is held stubbornly, including political and moral
beliefs. For this reason, there are religious dogmatisms,
political dogmatisms and moral dogmatisms.
 Thanks to critical thinking, we can:

- determine what information is or is not pertinent;

- distinguish between rational claims and emotional ones;
- separate fact from opinion;
- recognize the ways in which evidence might be limited or
compromised;
- spot deception and holes in the arguments of others;
- recognize logical flaws in arguments;
- attend to contradictory, inadequate, or ambiguous information;
- construct cogent arguments rooted in data rather than opinion;
- avoid overstated conclusions;
- identify holes in the evidence and suggest additional
information to collect;
- recognize that a problem may have no clear answer or
single solution;
- propose other options and weigh them in the decision;
- correctly and precisely use evidence to defend the
argument;
- logically and cohesively organize the argument;
The things that you will learn from critical thinking
are applicable to nearly any subject people can
talk or think about. The same principles that
apply to your everyday decision also apply to
issues of worldwide importance (Should the
United States invade Iran? Is global warming a
serious threat?). In matters both big and small,
the more critical thinking that goes on, the
better.
''Attempting to debate with a person who has abandoned
reason is like giving medicine to the dead. ''
Everybody makes errors of judgment from time to time.
The wise person is the one who wishes to keep such
errors to a minimum and who knows how to do it.
Claims are basic elements in critical thinking; they are
the things we say, aloud or in writing, to convey
information to express our opinions or beliefs.
These are the basic building blocks of critical thinking: claims,
issues, and arguments. Identifying these elements, including
separating them out from embellishments and impostors, and
analyzing and evaluating them are what critical thinking is all
about.
Many claims require little or no critical evaluation. They are so
obviously true (or false, as the case may be) that nobody
would see any need for a close examination. If you have a
sore throat, you tend to know it without a lot of contemplation.
But many claims can and should be given a close look and
evaluation—claims about important personal decisions
(Should you marry the person you’re seeing?), about societal
and political matters (What is the best political system?),
about the nature of the world (Do God and supernatural
things exist?). Some people hold offices in which their
decisions deeply affect others; perhaps the claims they make
about such decisions should be given an especially high level
of scrutiny.
Whenever we call a claim into question—that is, when we
ask questions about its truth or falsity—we raise an
issue. Claims, construed as issues and supported (or
not) by arguments, are the central focus of critical
thinking. The concept of an issue is very simple; an
issue is nothing more than a question—in fact, we can
use the two words interchangeably—the question is
simply whether a given claim is true or not.
Take, for example, the claim “There is an identical you
who lives in a different dimension.” What sort of
evidence would support such a claim? What sort of
evidence would support saying it is false? We have no
idea. Almost any claim about different “dimensions” or
“planes” or “parallel universes” would be apt to suffer
from the same problem.
Once we identify an issue, the next task is to weigh the
reasons for and against the claim and try to
determine its truth or falsity. This is where arguments
enter the picture. And arguments, we should say
right here, are the single most important ingredient in
critical thinking. Although it can get complicated, at
its core the idea is simple: We produce an argument
when we give a reason for thinking that a claim is
true.
A claim that is offered as a reason for believing another
claim is a premise. The claim for which a premise is
supposed to give a reason is the conclusion of the
argument.
 What Arguments Are Not

When we use the word “argument,” we are not talking

about two people having a feud or fuss about
something. That use of the word has nothing much
to do with critical thinking, although many a heated
exchange could use some. Remember, arguments,
in our sense, do not even need two people; we
make arguments for our own use all the time.
Arguments can also be difficult to identify because
they are easily confused with two other kinds of
things: explanations and attempts to persuade.
We’ll have a brief look at each.
Some writers define an argument as an attempt to
persuade somebody of something. This is not correct.
An argument attempts to prove or support a
conclusion. When you attempt to persuade someone,
you attempt to win him or her to your point of view;
trying to persuade and trying to argue are logically
distinct enterprises. True, when you want to persuade
somebody of something, you might use an argument.
But not all arguments attempt to persuade, and many
attempts to persuade do not involve arguments. In fact,
giving an argument is often one of the least effective
methods of persuading people—which, of course, is
why so few advertisers bother with arguments.
Propaganda, for example, is an effective means of
persuasion. Flattery has been known to work, too.
 TWO KINDS OF GOOD ARGUMENTS

Logicians recognize two kinds of good arguments: A

good “deductive” argument and a good “inductive”
argument. Before we explain these arguments, we
should point out that the distinction between the
two is second nature to instructors of critical
thinking, and it is easy for them (and for us) to
sometimes forget that it is new to many people.
 Deductive Arguments
The first type of good argument, a good deductive argument,
is said to be “valid,” which means it isn’t possible for the
premises to be true and the conclusion false. Take this
argument about one of our former students:
Premise: Josh Fulcher lives in Alaska.
Conclusion: Therefore, Josh Fulcher lives in the United
States.
This is a valid argument because it isn’t possible for Josh
Fulcher to live in Alaska and not live in the United States.
One more example:
To put all this differently, the premises of a good deductive
argument, assuming they are true, prove or demonstrate
the conclusion.
 The Two Parts of an Argument
As we said, an argument, whether deductive or
inductive, has two parts, and one part is presented
as a reason for believing the other part is true. The
cardinal rule of argument identification is, therefore,
elementary. You need at least two claims, and the
word “therefore” or an equivalent must stand, either
explicitly or implicitly, before one of them.

An argument consists of two parts, one of which (the

premise or premises) demonstrates or supports the
other part (the conclusion).
 Inductive Arguments
The premises of the other type of good argument, a good
inductive argument, don’t prove or demonstrate the
conclusion. They support it. This means that, assuming
they are true, they raise the probability that the
conclusion is true. Premise: Fulcher lives in Alaska.
Conclusion: Therefore, he uses mosquito repellent.
Fulcher’s living in Alaska makes it more probable that
Fulcher uses mosquitorepellent.
And: Premise: People who live in Butte City already
spend a lot of time in the sun.
Conclusion: Therefore, a tanning salon won’t do well
there.
 The Language of Arguments
What are other words and phrases that work like “therefore”
to indicate that a conclusion is about to be expressed?
They include

■ It follows that . . .
■ This shows that . . .
■ Thus . . .
■ Hence . . .
■ Consequently . . .
■ Accordingly . . .
■ So . . .
■ My conclusion is . . .
People have opinions, views, thoughts, beliefs,
convictions, and ideas; for our purposes, these
are all the same. People may also express
these opinions and so forth in statements,
judgments, assertions, or—to use our preferred
word—claims. “Statement,” “judgment,”
“assertion,” and “claim” all mean the same thing
as we use them here.
Important terminology:
Claim: A statement, true or false, that expresses an opinion
or belief .
Dogma: A belief without demonstration.
Argument: A two-part structure of claims, one part of which
(the premise or premises) is given as a reason for thinking
the other part (the conclusion) is true .
Issue/Question: What is raised when a claim is called into
question .
Valid deductive argument: An argument whose premises
being true means that the conclusion must be true.
Strong inductive argument: The more support the premises
of an inductive argument provide for its conclusion, the
stronger the argument .
Value judgment: A claim that expresses an evaluation of
something.
Moral value judgment: A claim that expresses a moral or
ethical evaluation of something .
Rhetoric: Language that is psychologically persuasive but
does not have logical force .
Important mistakes that can be obstacles to
thinking critically:

- To reflexively suppose that all value judgments are

subjective.
- To confuse arguments with explanations.
- To confuse argument with persuasion.
- To confuse rhetorical or psychological force with
logical force, and to think that a psychologically
more persuasive argument must be a better
argument logically.