Keywords

In a Word The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our thoughts. Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it. Excellence in thought can be cultivated and fertilized with creativity.

Polar Opposites on a Cartesian Circle

Blaise PascalFootnote 1 felt that “Man is obviously made for thinking. Therein lies all his dignity and his merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought.” A contemporary of René Descartes,Footnote 2 Pascal is however best remembered for resisting rationalism , which he thought could not determine major truths: “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know.” Blaise Pascal and René Descartes are reference points for two major attitudes to conscious representation of the world: although both saw reason as the primary source of knowledge, they disagreed profoundly over the competence of Man—the truth, as always, lies between faith and radical doubt.

I cannot teach anybody anything; I can only make them think.

—Socrates

The Idea of Critical Thinking …

For sure, pace the propensity of intellectuals to promulgate eternal truths, or at least make a lasting impression, the idea of critical thinking neither begins nor ends with Pascal or Descartes. Socrates set the agenda nearly 2,500 years ago when the “Socratic Method” established the need to seek evidence, analyze basic concepts , scrutinize reasoning and assumptions, and trace the implications not only of what is said but of what is done as well: “Knowledge will not come from teaching but from questioning .”Footnote 3 Thereafter, within the overall framework of skepticism, numerous scholars raised awareness of the potential power of reasoning and of the need for that to be systematically cultivated and cross-examined.Footnote 4

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.

—Francis Bacon

Critical thinking , by its very nature, demands recognition that all questioning stems from a point of view and occurs within a frame of reference; proceeds from some purpose—presumably, to answer a question or solve a problem ; relies on concepts and ideas that rest in turn on assumptions; has an informational base that must be interpreted; and draws on basic inferences to make conclusions that have implications and consequences. To note, each dimension of reasoning is linked simultaneously with the other; problems of thinking in any of them will impact others and should be monitored.Footnote 5 Hence, effective, full-spectrum questioning Footnote 6 that connects from multiple perspectives must illuminate each element of thought so it may permeate the model.

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Fig. Dimensions of critical thinking.

… And Some Definitions

Critical thinking is discerning judgment. It is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with the intention of improving it. It is the purposeful, reflective, reasonable, and self-regulatory process of thinking out possible explanations for findings and outcomes and determining how compatible the explanations are with these, with attention to the evidential, conceptual, methodological, “criteriological,” and contextual considerations upon which judgment is based.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in their readiness to doubt.

—H.L. Mencken

Else, it is an attitude of mind for analyzing and evaluating data and information gathered from observation, experience, reasoning, or communication with clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic, significance, and fairness.Footnote 7 It rests on (i) a set of cognitive, reflective skills in interpretation, analysis, evaluation , inference, explanation, and self-regulation ; and (ii) the ability and disposition to use these skills to guide behavior. According to Paul and Elder (2002), 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;

  • thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought , recognizing and assessing as need be assumptions as well as implications and consequences from interpretations and inferences ;

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

  • communicates effectively with others to figure out solutions to problems.

Reconciling Pascal and Descartes

Critical thinking underpins the scientific method: that is an organized, systematic, and cognitive process used by scientists in particular (but generally anyone wishing to answer a question or solve a problem) to search for cause-and-effect relationships. Its essential steps, each subject to peer review for possible mistakes, are to

  1. (i)

    Define the question or problemFootnote 8;

  2. (ii)

    Conduct background research, including data and information gathering and the literature review;

  3. (iii)

    Form hypotheses (“educated guesses”);

  4. (iv)

    Test the hypotheses through experimentation;

  5. (v)

    Analyze and interpret data and information to draw a conclusion; and

  6. (vi)

    Verify and re-verify the conclusion (and then communicate results).Footnote 9

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

—Benjamin Franklin

Critical thinking, then, is analytical , judgmental, and selective. (When you are thinking critically, you are making choices.) But what of creative (or lateral) thinking ? That is generative, nonjudgmental, and expansive. (Creative thinking has to do with change, especially when that involves escaping from a pattern. When you are thinking creatively, you are generating ideas that are unique and effective.) Sadly, even if critical thinking and creative thinking are both crucial for solving problems and discovering new knowledge , they are often treated separately. (Critical thinking is typically thought of as a left-brain activity and creative thinking as a right-brain activity.)Footnote 10 Yet, they both involve “thinking”. (Some have spoken of critico-creative thinking to emphasize the positive, imaginative aspects of critical thinking; however, this ungainly expression has not caught on.)

Culturally, we need to discard the belief that critical thinking is sufficient: it is a quite valuable part of thinking but it is totally inadequate in the absence of the possibility systems that the generative, productive, creative, and design aspects of creative thinking throw up. For superior outcomes, since nature has equipped us with complementary ways of processing information, whole-brain thinking is needed. To this intent, thankfully, Howard Gardner’s notion of multiple intelligences refreshes and expands traditional views of human potential.Footnote 11