INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING

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INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING
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There are multiple decisions which you have to
make entirely by yourself. You cant lean on
anybody else. And a good commander, once he
issues an order, must receive complete
compliance. An indecisive commander cannot
achieve instant compliance. Or one who is unable
to make up his own mind and tries to lean on his
subordinates will never achieve instant
compliance either.
General Curtis LeMay, from Mission With Lemay
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CLASS OVERVIEW

• History of Critical Thinking
• Fundamentals of Critical Thinking
• Skills Needed to Think Critically
• Critical Thinking - Defined
• Intellectual Standards and Elements of
  Reasoning
• Common Fallacies
• Case Study (optional)

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HISTORY

• The Beginning Socrates
• Early Years Plato, Aristotle
• and other Greek philosophers
• Middle Ages Francis Bacon
• Today Albert Einstein, Mark Twain, Harry Houdini
  and Carl Sagan

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FUNDAMENTALS

• The Essence of Critical Thinking is
• - The ability to assess reasoning
• - The ability to take apart thoughts to draw
  logical conclusions.

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CRITICAL THINKINGDEFINED

• A logical process that makes the
• decision making of leaders more
• manageable.

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COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS

• Critical Listening
• Listening to maximize the accurate understanding
  of what others say

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COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS

• Critical ReadingAn active, intellectually
  engaged process of reading, interpreting and
  understanding text

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COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS

• Critical WritingArranging our ideas in a
  logical order to express ourselves in a
  disciplined manner

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IN THE END . . .

• Critical Thinking is The art of thinking about
  your thinking while you are thinking in order to
  make your thinking better

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INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

• 1. Clarity - A gateway standard relevant to all
  others
• - A statement or question must be clear to
  determine accuracy, relevance, logicalness

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INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

• 2. Accuracy - A statement may be clear but not
  accurate
• -- Ask questions to determine truth, source
  legitimacy

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INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

• 3. Precision - A statement may be clear and
  accurate, but nor precise
• -- Precision is achieved by asking for more
  details or specific explanations

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INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

• 4. Relevance - A statement may be clear,
  accurate, precise, but not relevant to a
  discussion or issue
• -- Probe how the stated position connects
  to the question or bears on the issue

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INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

• 5. Depth - A statement can have clarity,
  accuracy, precision, relevance but is
  superficial
• -- Ask yourself how you are addressing
  complexities of an issue
• -- Consider if you are addressing the most
  significant factors

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INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

• 6. Breadth - A line of reasoning may be clear,
  accurate, precise, relevant and deep, but
  one-sided
• -- Ask if there is another point of view
  another way to look at the question a differing
  perspective

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INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

• 7. Logicalness - A combination of thoughts that
  is mutually supporting and makes sense in
  combination
• -- Ask if your thoughts make sense, or if, and
  how, they follow from what you said

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INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

• 8. Significance - Concentrating on the most
  significant and important information
• -- Address what is the most significant
  information how it is important in context and
  which questions/ideas are most significant/importa
  nt

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INTELLECTUAL STANDARDS

• 9. Fairness - Justifying thought by thinking
  fairly in context
• -- Many questions to consider
• What justifies your thinking?
• Are you considering all evidence?
• Is your purpose fair?
• What is my agenda? Is it an obstacle?

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ELEMENTS OF REASONING

• 1. Purpose - Reasoning has an end, or objective
• -- Ask yourself about clarity of purpose, and
  how its stated
• -- Is the purpose significant? Achievable?
  Realistic? Justifiable?

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ELEMENTS OF REASONING

• 2. Question at issue Is it the right question
  and are there other relevant questions?
• -- Probe what are the fundamental issues, the
  precise question(s), its complexity and why its
  so
• -- Ask if there are other questions needing to
  be explored

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ELEMENTS OF REASONING

• 3. Point of View a frame of reference
• -- You should ask, from which point of view do
  you start?
• -- Are you locked to a view, allowing no
  inclusion of other views in your thinking?
• -- Are there multiple views to consider?

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ELEMENTS OF REASONING

• 4. Information/Data - probing veracity,
  significance
• -- Ask if your data is accurate, clear, fair
  
• -- Ask what data is most important, and if
  sources are reliable
• -- Ask if you have avoided personal bias
• -- What are alternate, valid sources of
  information?

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ELEMENTS OF REASONING

• 5. Concepts, Theories and Ideas these
  contribute to depth of thought
• -- Determine most fundamental concept to
  consider
• -- How does it connect to key concepts in your
  life?
• -- How might clarity of your concepts be
  altered to change your point of view?

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ELEMENTS OF REASONING

• 6. Assumptions - reasoning starts with having a
  certain assumption(s)
• -- You should ask if your assumptions are
  justifiable or should be questioned.
• -- What are you taking for granted?

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ELEMENTS OF REASONING

• Implications/Consequences - understanding
  decision implications
• -- Tracing logical consequences in
  advance.
• -- Considering most significant
  implications of a decision.
• -- Affecting whom, when, where and how?
  

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ELEMENTS OF REASONING

• 8. Inferences - reasoning proceeds by steps
• -- Perceiving a situation, reviewing facts,
  and coming to a conclusion, or inference
• -- Who makes the inference?
• -- Is there more than one inference that can
  be made?
• -- Can you conclude your inference is sound
  in your reasoning?

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FALLACY

• What is a fallacy?
• An argument that appears sound, at first glance,
  but contains a flaw in reasoning which makes it
  unsound

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EXAMPLES OF FALLACIES

• Burden of Proof (a.k.a. Appeal to Ignorance)

Example Two wrongs make a right
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FALLACIES

• Hasty generalization
• (Example A pair of shoes I bought wore out
  quickly I conclude that all shoes of this brand
  are shoddy.)
• Post hoc reasoning
• (Example I walk under a ladder and soon after I
  have an accident I conclude that walking under a
  ladder is bad luck.)

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FALLACIES

• Band Wagon (peer pressure)

• Guilt by Association

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EXERCISE

• Bringing Intellectual Standards and Elements of
  Reasoning to Bear Upon a Problem

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SUMMARY

• History of Critical Thinking
• Fundamentals of Critical Thinking
• Skills Needed to Think Critically
• Critical Thinking - Defined
• Intellectual Standards and Elements of
  Reasoning
• Common Fallacies
• Case Study (optional)

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CONCLUSION

• Critical Thinkers
• Use elements of reasoning to take apart
  thought and draw logical conclusions
• They examine reasoning by applying
• intellectual standards
• Intellectual standards help them
  reach just, reasonable conclusions

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Critical Thinking
Judge
Decide Solve a problem
Whenever one must figure out what to believe or
what to do, and do so in a rational and
insightful way