Lecture 1 What is Critical Thinking

Lecture 1 What is Critical Thinking?
Critical Thinking (It is a vital skills)
a. It provides us with a crucial set of skills we need to make decisions and resolve issues that arise in our everyday lives.
b. Critical Thinking, like logic, requires learning how to think rather simply what to think. The word “critical” is derived from the Greek word kritikos, which means “discernment”, “the ability to judge” or “decision making”.
Logic is a crucial part of critical thinking, and requires good analytical skills. Logic is define as “the study of the methods and principles used in distinguishing correct (good) arguments from incorrect (bad) arguments.”
As critical thinkers, provides logical support for your beliefs.
c. In contrast to arguments based on logic, arguments based on opinion are defined as “beliefs based solely on personal feelings rather than reason or facts.
While we are all entitled to our opinions, arguments based solely on opinion are not necessarily reasonable, and may encourage us to make poor choices or act in ways we may later regret. Sometimes uninformed opinions can be harmful, both to us and to society.
People must developed the ability to think critically and to make effective life decisions. These decisions are shaped by many factors :- good analytical communication, research skills, open mindedness, flexibility, creativity.
d. Critical Thinking as a process. It involves a wide range of skills and attitudes. It include :-
Identifying other people’s positions, arguments and conclusions.
Evaluating the evidence for alternative points of views
Weighing up opposing arguments and evidence fairly
Being able to read between lines, seeing behind surfaces, and identifying false or unfair assumptions
Recognizing techniques used to make certain positions more appealing than others, such as false logic and persuasive devices
Reflecting on issues in structured way, bringing logic and insight to bear
Drawing conclusions about whether arguments are valid and justifiable, based on good evidence and sensible arguments
Synthesizing information : drawing together your judgments of the evidence, synthesizing these to form your own new position
Presenting a point of view in a structure, clear, well-reasoned way that convince others.

Cognitive Development in University Students (3 separate developmental stages)
Dualism
It is the first stage of cognitive development, and is common among undergraduates. It involves the assimilation of knowledge and experience in a simple, “dualistic” way, viewing issues as either right or wrong.
Dualistic thinkers see knowledge as outside themselves and look to authority figures for answers.
When researching an issue, dualistic students often exhibit confirmation bias, which involves only seeking out evidence that support their own views, and dismissing or contradictory evidence.
The fact that “research” confirms their views seems to reinforce their simplistic, black and white the world.
There are right and wrong answer. Authorities knows the right answer.

There are some uncertainties and different opinions in the world and authority can have different position, but these are temporary.
Called this period of disorientation and doubting all answer “sophomoritis”
Relativism
Rather than accepting that ambiguity may be unavoidable, relativistic thinkers reject the dualistic viewpoint and move to the opposite extreme, arguing that all truth is relative or just a matter of opinion
People at this stage believe that stating one’s opinion is the proper form of communication, and they look down on challenging others’ opinions as judgmental and even disrespectful.
Despite their outward relativism, however, they still look to authority figures, such as professors, to confirm their opinions.
When the authorities don’t have the right answer, everyone has a right to his or her own opinions, there are no right or wrong.

All thinking is contextual and relative but now equally valid.
Having their ideas challenged, grapping with controversial issues, encountering role models who are at higher stage of cognitive development and learning about their limits and the contradiction of their thinking.
Commitment
As students mature, they become to the realization that not all thinking is equally valid. Not only can authority figures be mistaken, but a certain level of uncertainty and ambiguity is unavoidable.
When students at this stage experience uncertainty, they are now able to make decisions and commit to particular positions on the basis of reason and the best evidence available.
At the same time, as independent thinkers they are open to challenge and are flexible enough to change their positions as new evidence becomes available.
As we mature and acquire better critical thinking skills, our way of conceptualizing and understand the world becomes increase complex. Unlikely the people at the stage who look to authority for answer. People at third stage accept responsibility for their interactions with their environment and are more open to challenges and more accepting ambiguity.
I should not just blindly follow or oppose authority. I need to orient myself in an uncertain world and make a decision or commitment.

Characteristics of a Critical Thinker
a. Analytical skills
Your ability to analyze and provide logical support for your beliefs
As a critical thinker, you need to be able to analyze and provide logical support support for your beliefs rather simply rely on your opinion.
Analytical skills are also important in recognizing and evaluating other people’s arguments so that you are not taken in faulty reasoning.
b. Communication and Literacy skills
Your ability to listen, speak, and write effectively, and the awareness of your own communication style
Cultural variations and differences in the communication styles of men and women, can also go a long way toward improving communication in a relationship.
c. Research and Inquire skills
Your ability to gather, evaluate and synthesize supporting evidence
Research skills are important in understanding and moving toward a resolution of a complex issue such as alfirmative action in college admissions.
Inquiry and gaining greater insight requires asking the right questions, as Milgram did in designing his study of obedience.
As critical thinkers, we need to avoid confirmation bias and the tendency to selectively see and interpret data to fit into our own world-views, a practice that often leads to research should also be accurate and based on credible evidence. Understanding and resolving issues requires this skills.
d. Flexibility and Tolerance of ambiguity
The ability to flexibly adapt to changing situations and to recognize the inherent ambiguity of human existence
As we mature, we become better at making decisions in the face of uncertainly and ambiguity.
Effective decision making includes setting clear short-term and long-term goals in our lives and developing a realistic strategy for achieving these goals.
Critical thinkers also build flexibility into their life plans so that they can adapt to changes, especially since most of us haven’t had sufficient experience to finalize our life plan during our first few years of college.
e. Open – minded Skepticism
The ability to overcome personal prejudices and biases and critically examine all sides of an issue before coming to a decision; often this involves the method of doubt, first proposed by French philosopher Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650), which involves setting aside our preconceptions and adopting a default position of skepticism.
They begin with an open-minded and an attitude of reflective skepticism.
The point is not simply to take a stand on an issue but rather to critically examine the evidence and assumptions put forth in support of different positions on the issue before coming to a final conclusion.
In doing so, effective critical thinkers are able to balance belief and doubt.

f. Creative problem solving skills
The ability to view problems from multiple perspectives and to come up with original solutions to complex problems.
They use their imagination to envision possibilities, including potential future problems, and to develop contingency plans to effectively deal with these scenarios.
Creativity also involves a willingness to take risk, to cope with the unexpected, to welcome challenge and even failure as a part of the process to arrive a new and deeper understanding.
Instead of giving up when times are difficult or resources are lacking, creative critical thinking are able to make creative use of available resources. Creative thinking is a much sought-after skill in the business world.
Because young people are usually less invented in traditional ideas and ways of doing things than are people who have been working in a field for years, they tend to be more open to new ideas.
g. Attentiveness, mindfulness, and curiosity
The ability to remain curious and attentive to the world, and to respect diversity and consider multiple opinions.
They are attentive and mindful to what’s going on around them and to their own thought and feelings.
Like the beginner’s mind, good critical thinkers do not reject, without sounds reasons, views that conflict with their own. Instead, they are willing to consider multiple perspective.
Some companies encourage their executive to take meditation breaks on the jobs since it has been found to improve their performance.
h. Collaborative learning skills
The ability to recognize and anticipate the reactions of others, and a willingness to collaborate with others to share and gain knowledge.
Critical thinking occurs in a real life context, we are not isolated individuals, we are interconnected beings.
As critical thinkers we need to move beyond the traditional, detached approach that is grounded in shared dialogue and community.
The failure to take into account context and relationship can lead to faulty decisions that we may later regret.
Good critical thinkers adapt a collaborative rather than an adversarial stance, in which they listen to and take others’ views into accounts.
Critical thinkers carefully consider all perspective and are open to revising their views in light of their broader understanding.

Benefits of Critical Thinking Skills
Improved attention and observation
More focused reading
Improved ability to identify the key points in a text or other message rather than becoming distracted by less important materials
Improved ability to respond to appropriate points in a message
Knowledge on how to get your point across more easily
Skills of analysis that you can choose to apply in a variety of situation
Effective critical thinking involves sharpening our resistance to irrational or narrow-minded arguments
Recognizing these irrational or narrow-minded approaches can sharpen our critical thinking skills and help devise strategies to counter them.
By sharpening your critical thinking skill, you can become more independent and less susceptible to world-views that faster narrow-mindedness.
Barriers to effective critical thinking
Misunderstanding of what is meant by criticism
Over-estimating our own abilities
Lack of methods, strategies or practice
Reluctance to critique experts
Affective reasons
Mistaking information for understanding
Insufficient focus and attention to detail
Critical Thinking and Self-Development
Critical thinking in not just about abstract thought. It is also about self-improvement and your whole development as a person
Self examination is an important part of this process. Good critical thinkers take charge of their lives and choices rather than opting for security of fitting into the crowd.
a. Help people deal more effectively with their problems
b. We should develop strategies for taking charge of our lives, develop realistic expectations and commit ourselves to acknowledging and developing the skills to resolves our problems.
By contrast, poor critical thinkers allow themselves to be controlled by circumstances and often deal ineffectively with problems, which often results in depression, anger, or other emotional problems.
Developing a rational life plan is an effective way of avoiding these problems
Make a hierarchy of when putting together your life plan, with the most important plans at the top, followed by a the less important ones,
A life plan is like a flight plan. Being putting together of your life plan by making a list of your values, interest, skills and talents and weaknesses. Start out by listing short-term goals and plan of action to achieve, and long-term goals.
Three-tiered model of thinking
Experience
The foundational level of critical thinking, involves firsthand experience, as well as empirical facts derived from other sources
Experience is the foundation of critical thinking and argumentation. It provides the materials for interpretation and analysis.
At this level of thinking we nearly describe our experiences rather than try to understand them.
Interpretation
It involves trying to make sense of our experiences.
This level of thinking includes individual interpretations of experiences as well as collective and cultural world-views.
Some of our interpretations may be well informed; others may be based merely on your opinions or personal feelings and prejudices.
Analysis
It involves raising our level of thinking and critically analyzing our interpretations of an experience, as well as those of others, refusing to accept either narrow interpretations of an experience on interpretations that are too board.
Analysis is most productive when it is done collectively because we each bring different experiences and interpretations, as well as skills in analysis, to the table. The three-tier model of thinking provides dynamic model of critical thinking in which analysis is always returning to experience for confirmation.
As critical thinkers, it is not only our resoning process that is important but also that our resourning is connected to reality.

Resistance
None of us likes to be wrong, and when we are challenged, we often exhibit resistance, which is defined as “the use of immature defense mechanisms that are rigid, impulsive, maladaptive, and nonanalytic.
Resistance acts as a barrier to effective critical thinking .Almost all of us defense mechanisms when we fell overwhelmed. Resistance, however, becomes a problems a problem when it is used as a habitual way of responding to issues.
Such habitual use interferes with our self-development, since it involves avoiding novel experiences and ideas that challenge out world-views.
In addition, resistance can create anxiety, since it puts us in a defensive made and can shield us from the ideas and view-points of others, thus preventing us from working collaboratively and coming up with a well thought out plan pf action.
Avoidance
It involves escaping or intentionally avoiding certain people and situation.
Some people who hold strong opinions but are insecure in their ability to defend these positions hang out with people who agree with them or read literature and watch television news shows that support their world-view.
As a form of resistance, avoidance can lead to a serious look of communication and even hostility among people who hold opposing points of views.
Anger
It involves responding to challenges with threatening physical or verbal cues.
Rather than using critical thinking when confronted with on opposing viewpoint, some people respond with anger.
People with physical and/or social power are more likely than those without it to use anger to silence those who disagree with them.
Anger may be expressed overly by glares, threats, physical violence, gang activity, or even war.
Not all anger is resistance, motivate us to correct injustice.
Clichés
Clichés are oft-repeated statement that sidetrack the real issues and prevent effective critical thought.
Advertising and politicians often use clichés as a means of sidetracking us from considering the quality of the product or the issue at hand.
Clichés can also keep us from critically examining our own life choices used sparingly, clichés can be helpful to illustrate a point.
However, the habitual use of clichés acts as a barrier to critical thinking.
Denial
It involves ignoring or refuting challenging viewpoints or evidence.
Ignorance
It is a type of resistance where we intentionally avoid learning about a particular issue about which information is readily available, in order to get out of having to think or talk about it.
People are more likely to think critically about issues about which they have knowledge in dept.
In certain situation, we are ignorant about an issue simply because the information about it is not available to us. However, sometimes we just don’t want to know.
Ignorance is often used as an excuse for inaction. Some people believe that ignorant excuses them from having to think critically about or take action on an issue. As a result, the issue is not resolved or even become worse.
Conformity
It involves going along with group or peer viewpoints even when you disagree with them. Many people fear that they will not be accepted by their peers if they disagree with them. Even though they may actually disagree, they go along with the group rather than risk rejection.
Other people conform because they don’t have a point of view of their own on an issue.
Saying “I can see both sides of the issue” often masks a reluctance to think critically about it.
Many people fear nothing more terribly than to take a position which stands our sharply and clearly from prevailing opinion.
The tendency of most is to adopt a view that is so ambiguous that is will include everything, and so popular that it will include everyone.
Struggling
It involves getting so caught up in the minute details of an issue that nothing gets accomplished.
It is appropriate to struggle with or agonize over difficult issues before coming to a tentative stand.
However, some people get so caught up in the minute details and “what if” of an issue -- a situation sometimes referred to an “analysis paralysis” -- that nothing gets accomplished. Procrastinators are most likely to use this type of resistance.
Although struggling with an issue as part of the analytical process of coming up with a resolution and plan for action is an important component of critical thinking, when the struggle becomes an end-in-itself, we are engaging in resistance, not critical thinking.
Distractions
Distractions are hindrances that prevent clear thinking and effective critical analysis.
Some people the silence and being left alone with their own thoughts.
Many of us use television, loud music, partying, work, drugs, alcohor or shopping to prevent our minds from critically thinking about troublesome issues in our lives.People may over eat instead of examining the causes o their cravings or unhappiness.