What is Critical Thinking

Critical thinking consists of two words: critical and thinking. The word critical often means saying what is wrong with somebody/something. We are critical of something which we don’t like. However, finding fault in something or someone is not the goal of critical thinking. Instead, critical thinking implies the ability to objectively analyze information wherein we discuss both the positive and negative points and then do a careful and rational evaluation to draw a rational conclusion. 

Critical thinking is difficult to define because it is not a subject like science, history or philosophy. These disciplines are based on facts or observations and can be expressed precisely. Instead, it is a form of meta-knowledge that helps us understand the quality of the knowledge or information. 

Coursera defines critical thinking as the ability to interpret, evaluate, and analyze facts and information that are available to form a judgment or decide if something is right or wrong.¹

Linda Elder defines critical thinking as self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way.²

Critical thinking has also been defined as the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgment by applying rational, sceptical, and unbiased analyses and evaluations. Accordingly, the critical thinking must have the following components,

1. Rational: The assessment of critical thinkers must be based on reason rather than intuition or emotion. He
2. Sceptical: When you believe something, you have no doubt in your mind about the matter of your belief, and you are one hundred per cent sure about the veracity of your belief. However, a critical thinker is open-minded because he knows that absolute truth is unknowable. Hence, he is always sceptical about his judgement because there is always a possibility that his judgement is wrong, at least partially. Accordingly, he is willing to change his opinion when new facts come into his knowledge.  
3. Unbiased: A critical thinker must be unbiased because your personal interest in your assessment may affect the integrity of your decision. He must have no prejudice for or against something.  
4. Analysis: A critical thinker must study and examine the issue in detail, analyze the pros and cons, positive and negative, and then make the decision based on all facts and evidence.  
5. Evaluation: A critical thinker must evaluate the issue in all its dimensions to  judge or calculate the quality, importance, amount, or value of something

While the term’ critical thinking’ has a recent origin, there is nothing new in the concept behind it. The following words of Gautama Buddha, stated more than two thousand five hundred years ago, capture the spirit of critical thinking very accurately, 

“Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. 

But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.”

 Steps of Critical Thinking 

There are no standard protocols for critical thinking. It is not a knowledge but a mindset. A critical thinker may, however, follow these steps to develop critical thinking.

1: Assessment of information

You must correctly assess the quality of information. This can be done by knowing the source of information. For instance, if the information is published in a reputable scientific journal, it is more likely to be true. Similarly, the information published in textbooks, government websites and reputed sites like Wikipedia are mostly true since these sites insist on providing proper sources of information. In case of doubt, you can always refer to the primary source for accurate information. However, if the information is available on social media like WhatsApp or Facebook, the credibility of the information is low, and one should not accept it without proper scrutiny.

2: Understand Biases

All human beings are emotional creatures and, hence, have biases. For instance, we are biased if the matter pertains to our country, our religion, our language or our family. Hence, our decisions are coloured by our emotions, and we tend to favour those we like and disfavour those we dislike. Similarly, our minds make most of our decisions based on certain heuristics or thumb rules, which we develop through our experiences in life. As a result, we suffer from cognitive bias and commit predictable errors. We shall study the cognitive and emotional biases in detail in later chapters. Fortunately, we can identify these biases and correct them to make better decisions in life 

3: Develop rationality through  logical reasoning

Humans are considered rational animals since they can think and decide an issue based on logic and reason. Even when they are driven by emotions and practice faith, they have a reason for doing so. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the formal knowledge of logical analysis. As a result, they use erroneous reasons to justify their false beliefs. A critical thinker must learn how to reason by learning about arguments so as to discover the truth and differentiate it from untruth. 

4: Understand logical fallacies

Logic is a complex subject because it is never easy to differentiate between correct and incorrect reasoning. As a result, many people can convince others using false arguments, often called logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are quite deceptive since they look like genuine arguments which are often good enough to convince most people. Knowledge of logical fallacies can help critical thinkers protect themselves from such fallacious arguments and convince others to identify fallacies using proper reasoning. 

5: Emotional Management and Empathy 

Human beings want to maximize their pleasure and minimize their pain. Pleasure or pain are related to our feelings. Hence, what feels good also seems to be right to us. Similarly, we usually consider a thing wrong if it leads to unpleasant feelings. Our emotions are subjective and based on our nature, upbringing and life experiences. Hence, what looks good and right to us may not be so for other people. For instance, if you are a meat eater, you may love eating meat and salivate even at the sight of cooked meat. However, the same meat preparation may be so repulsive to a vegetarian so much that he may even vomit at the sight of it. Hence, a critical thinker must avoid using emotions, which are personal and subjective, while making important decisions in life. Instead, he must be empathetic and try to understand other people’s emotions by putting himself in other people’s shoes. 

6: Justify the truth using sound arguments

It is not sufficient to know the truth; you must also be able to convince others to accept the truth using logic, reasoning, and evidence. For instance, suppose you are a cop who has seen a murder or any other crime taking place before your eyes. Naturally, you want the criminal to be punished. While your statement as a witness can be useful in punishing the criminal, it will not be sufficient, as you can’t be an investigator and a witness at the same time. In order to convince the judge, you must have some collaborative evidence like fingerprint, motive, etc. If you record the voice or the video of the crime, it would be considered far more reliable for the purpose of investigation than merely being a witness’s statement. However, if such strong evidence is not available, you have to provide some independent evidence and convince others using logic and reason. Similarly, a critical thinker must collect evidence to prove his findings and use logic and reason to convince 

7: Make the best decision  

Real-world problems are not like textbook problems, where the right answers are already decided and known. When we make decisions in real life, we have to make assumptions about the unknown factors, assess the risk, and evaluate the probability of success in each decision. We can’t be sure of the correctness of our decision because only the future will tell if our decision has been correct. If we achieve the objective, our decisions will be considered right; otherwise, they will be wrong. 

Colin Powell, a distinguished officer and 4-star general,  developed his own rule of thumb for making tough decisions in life, which he called his 40-70 rule. The rule states that you need between 40 and 70 per cent of the total information to make a decision. You make a hasty decision if you have less s than 40 per cent of the information, and if you fail to decide even after you have 70% of the information, it may be too late.  

The 40-70 rule can be interpreted in another way as well. When making an important decision, don’t choose a course of action with less than a 40% chance of success. However, don’t postpone the decision-making if you have a 70% chance of success. If you don’t make a decision unless you are 100% sure of the success, you will probably never be able to make courageous decisions in life. However,  the calculation of the percentage of information or probability of success is not an easy task. Only an experienced person can calculate the probability accurately using his intuition and make the best decision. A critical thinker not only develops insight into the possibility of success but must also be able to convince others using reason and logic. 

Qualities of a critical thinker

When we follow the aforementioned steps to develop critical thinking, we gradually transform ourselves from being an ordinary thinker to a critical thinker. We seek truth and engage in self-reflection. We develop the habit of using reason instead of emotions to make important decisions in our personal and professional lives. A critical thinker is not an emotionless, stone-hearted person who does not feel for the world. Instead, he is a person whose emotions is under control, and he can act rationally depending on the situation. He knows when to use emotions and when to avoid emotions while making decisions. Hence, the judgement of a critical thinker is fair, just, unbiased and unselfish.

A critical thinker doesn’t believe anything blindly, even if it is written in the holy books or the whole world believes it. He would not accept anything without reasoning. He questions the existing ideas, beliefs and dogma and always looks for reason and evidence before accepting something. 

Critical thinkers must be able to speak and write clearly to express their thoughts and ideas lucidly. They must be good at persuading other people using reason, logic and evidence. However, they should also be open-minded to accept their mistakes and learn new things in life. Hence, they can be persuaded to change their opinion and perspective if there are sufficient reasons and evidence. Accordingly, a critical thinker is always ready to accept new explanations, theories, paradigms and models to understand reality better. A critical thinker is a practical person who does not follow any theory or ideology blindly, but uses them creatively and improvce them to find solutions to the complex problems of life.  

Importance of Critical Thinking 

 Critical thinking is one of the most important skills needed in the modern world to navigate through the challenges of the modern world. It is no wonder that people with critical thinking skills are in high demand in every field of life. For example, in a survey conducted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U, 2011), 95% of the chief academic officers from 433 institutions rated critical thinking as one of the most important intellectual skills for their students. The finding resonated with voices from the workforce, in that 81% of the employers surveyed by AAC&U (2011) wanted colleges to place a stronger emphasis on critical thinking. Similarly, Casner-Lotto and Barrington (2006) found that among 400 surveyed employers, 92.1% identified critical thinking/problem solving as a very important skill for 4-year college graduates to be successful in today’s workforce.In a research conducted by the Educational Testing Service (ETS, 2013), the vice presidents of academic affairs from more than 200 institutions were interviewed regarding the most commonly measured general education skills, and critical thinking was one of the most frequently mentioned competencies considered essential for both academic and career success. [Casner-Lotto and Barrington (2006)]³

References :

1. https://www.coursera.org/articles/critical-thinking-skills ↩︎
2. https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766 ↩︎
3. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1109287.pdf ↩︎

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