Why do we need critical thinking?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

In today's world, which is rich in information (often contradictory), critical thinking is important for every person. This skill will also come in handy for those who, in general, think about the quality of their life and career, because developed critical thinking is the key to a deeper perception of the world and, as a result, to expanding the corridor of opportunities. We publish a summary of the webinar “How to rely on logic and facts in an endless stream of information? Fundamentals of Critical Thinking”to learn more about the skill that will teach you how to analyze arguments, make hypotheses and formulate your position reasonably on any issue.

Critical thinking is a very hot topic that everyone has heard. And nevertheless, even around the concept itself, there are many rumors, misunderstandings and even myths, which is a little comical, because critical thinking is precisely designed to deal with understatement, myths, and ambiguous information.

Critical thinking is a way of thinking that allows you to analyze and question both information coming from the outside and your own beliefs and way of thinking.

If we consider thinking as a solution to problems and see practical value in it, then within the framework of critical thinking we give our own assessment of what is happening and make decisions in conditions of uncertainty, which is important for any person, but especially if he takes a managerial position.

Critical thinking should not be confused with criticism in its ordinary sense or with criticism, because critical thinking is aimed primarily at content, information, discovery of facts, search for a solution, but in no case at the personality of the author, interlocutor, opponent. Criticism often uses audience manipulation to discredit the interlocutor.

History of critical thinking

The term appeared not so long ago, although the direction has been developing since ancient times. From what we know, the combination "critical thinking" was first used by an American philosopher and teacher John Dewey- one of the pillars of modern American philosophy - in his book "How We Think", which was first published at the beginning of the XX century.

The movement of skeptics stood at the origins of critical thinking: skepticism is a philosophical trend, within the framework of which it is customary to doubt everything in general.

A kind of constructive criticism was advocated by the same Thomas Aquinas, he also drew attention to the fact that it is necessary to study not only the arguments "for", but also "against". That is, you should always try to check if there is something that contradicts our statement. Rene Descartes, author of the famous statement “I think; therefore I exist”, also in his works and reasoning insisted that it is necessary to subject the results of experiments to doubt and verification.

But, probably, among all philosophers, mathematicians and thinkers, the closest to us Bertrand Russell, Nobel laureate in literature for the book "History of Western Philosophy". In the course of his disputes, including with representatives of religious institutions, who asked him to prove that God does not exist, Russell came up with a speculative experiment called the Flying Kettle. Suppose I tell you that a porcelain teapot rotates in the orbit of our planet, but it cannot be seen through any telescope, it is so small - therefore, my statement, in principle, can be true, since it is difficult to refute.

From the condition of this experiment, Russell put forward the principle of normal, constructive discussion - the burden of proof lies with the one who made the statement

An attack on logic and common sense is one of the ways to manipulate public opinion, so critical thinking is very important, but not only for this reason, but also because there is too much information around us: according to IDC, by 2025 its volume will be 175 zettabytes. This figure is simply impossible to imagine! For example, if you burn all this data to Blu-ray discs, then stacks of them can cover the distance from the Earth to the Moon 23 times.

An important role is also played by the fact that information is easily accessible (we always have a smartphone at hand), but there is not enough useful information, that is, that which can really serve as a basis for solving some problems. The more information, the less useful it is.

Another phenomenon is that now our brains are rearranging the circuits that were previously responsible for finding food, for finding information. That is, according to the assurances and experiments of neurophysiologists, the human brain begins to perceive information as food, and it is very easily accessible.

Therefore, it is extremely difficult for us to focus on one thing, and if the page of the site opens for longer than 5 seconds, we leave it, because there is a lot of other "food" around. Why wait for this one to ripen? Developed critical thinking is especially important in our era of fake news, because now you need to check everything in general and limit your range of information to only verified sources.

If we attend various conferences where analysts offer their versions of the most important skills of the present and the future, read books and look at some authoritative sites, we will meet critical thinking everywhere. One example is the World Economic Forum, where critical thinking has been in the top 10 skills for several years.

Another argument for critical thinking is that thinking itself, in principle, implies a critical approach. In Europe (and in America, although slightly less), critical thinking is a basic discipline that is taught in secondary and high school in the framework of a subject called "media literacy". Unfortunately, this is not yet the case in our universities.

How does critical thinking develop?

First, there is a zero level - ordinary, automatic thinking, when we do not think, but act according to the knot: what we are told, we perceive without criticism. This approach gives us very simple solutions that absolutely everyone can think of. No creativity, no consistency - nothing.

Next comes the first level, which everyone should master, especially if we want to advance in the development of thinking abilities. This level is called "Youth" - not childhood, but not yet maturity.

He just accounts for all the skills of critical thinking: deliberate work with information, various kinds of logic (especially causal), empiricism, that is, an emphasis on facts, on real experience, and not on something that I was told or I I feel this way (it's intuition). And, of course, rational reasoning. These are all components of critical thinking.

Until we master these skills, we will face great difficulties in mastering higher forms of thinking, for example, systemic, strategic, contextual, conceptual. Higher forms of thinking are complex, they cannot develop until a person has a foundation, a foundation in the form of critical thinking.

Developed critical thinking is the key to a different perception of the world and, as a result, to more informed decisions and variable behavior, this is a way of dealing with mass culture, which implies simple decisions, dichotomy, white / black, right / left hemisphere, emocracy (the power of emotions). “Tell me, how do you feel about this idea, about this film? Give feedback based on feelings, on emotions”- this is what mass culture is actively promoting now, and emotions do not require such efforts as thinking.

Learning critical thinking skills

In our opinion, the most basic critical thinking skills, the development of which can have a powerful effect on further professional and personal life, are interpretation, analysis, assessment and inference.

Let's start with skill interpretations, which is the key to our perception of reality. We interpret all the data, all the information that comes to us through the senses, and this is how we perceive reality.

Interpretation is a skill that is activated first of all when faced with a block of information in any form, it is the ability to understand and express its meaning or meaning

Note that "express" is also a key word here, because we not only interpret information, but we also lay the interpretation when we ourselves transmit some data to someone. The efficiency of information transfer depends on how correctly our interlocutor (or opponent or colleague) can read this interpretation. Any information that we receive about a fact or event in reality, without interpretation, does not matter to us.

Interpretation is familiar to everyone and is often found in art. The artist, of course, does not always put a rational interpretation in his works, he expresses himself, and then on the excursion the guide tells us what a great artist and what he wanted to show everyone. Those who remember the lessons of literature remember how we were taught to interpret certain statements, certain fragments of the text - this is called "What did the author want to say?"

In our dialogues, in our communication, we come across a large number of phrases that are difficult to interpret without additional questions. “I have the right to my opinion” - this phrase, said by a colleague or subordinate, can have many hidden meanings and mean very different things. It is unlikely that we can draw a conclusion from this phrase alone. Or, for example, “I’ll think about it” from the side of the boss sounds like “Probably not”, and from the side of the subordinate - “I don’t really want to do this task”. Well, or, for example, such a well-known phrase as “Oh, everyone!”, Consisting of two interjections, can be interpreted in an infinite number of ways.

Therefore, the question that we pose to ourselves when we learn the skill of interpretation is: "How do we ourselves interpret the most important events that take place in the country, in the company, in the world?" Are we ready to accept the interpretation that is offered to us, or do we want to form our own? This is the very moment when we stop automatic thinking and critically approach what we are offered.

Now information without interpretation is practically not transmitted, and acute political or social information is always presented with a predetermined interpretation, which pushes us to the desired conclusion. The same applies to people's behavior: we automatically interpret various terms and try them on our colleagues and loved ones, we try to assess whether they show responsibility, responsiveness, honesty.

What are the negative consequences if we get lost in trying to interpret ourselves and follow the automatic path? We have a distortion of the perception of reality. It is distorted to us, you may be subject to manipulation in the perception of information. This, of course, does not mean that every time we have to say to everything: "No, no, no, this is not so."

It may be “so”, but this “so” should be our deliberate decision, and not a calm automatic acceptance. Well, plus the unpredictability of the consequences. If your interpretation is completely different from that of those who carry out your decisions or, conversely, approve them, then the predictability of the consequences becomes extremely low.

The following critical thinking skills - analysis and evaluation, we will talk about them together. We all know the skill of analysis since school, it consists in the fact that we divide a certain whole into parts and consider each part separately in order to qualitatively evaluate, make our own judgment, make an informed conclusion and make a decision.

What does it make sense to divide the message into within the framework of critical thinking? On the thesis, arguments (at all levels), as well as extraneous material, which, relatively speaking, does not affect the narration itself essentially, meaningfully.

How does analysis help us? When we are able to analyze the message, the text, we can keep the focus on the logic of the narrative, are able to track the structure, consistency and notice their absence. This means that we are able to build rational, respectful communication with the author of the text. So, in critical thinking there are certain rules for conducting a conversation or conducting correspondence - critical thinkers never attack the thesis of their opponents, colleagues, or like-minded people. We must analyze precisely the way of their thinking, arguments, base, how they came to this conclusion.

As a very simple example - a fragment of the text: “Good news! Beeline has become one of the most efficient telecom brands in the world. In the Effie Index Global 2020, it was ranked fourth among brands in this category in Europe and seventh in the world. Quite a small fragment, but nevertheless we can highlight in it all those parts that we mentioned.

The main idea-thesis- indeed, Beeline has become one of the most effective telecom brands in the world. They want to inform us that Beeline is cool. Then comes the answer to the question "why?", On the basis of which this conclusion was made. Not because it seems to me so, but the black and yellow stripe looks beautiful, but because there is argument, premise, reason: "In the rating of such and such, he took the fourth place among brands in this category."

That is, there is a certain source, an authoritative rating agency, and the argument to which they refer. Well and foreign material- this is a personal attitude ("Good news", "Bad news", "How happy I am"), which does not carry an essential load, it can be immediately discarded from consideration.

Just a few words about appraisal: This is a very complex skill. In critical thinking, arguments are primarily evaluated because the thesis follows from them, as we could see earlier. It is bad form to attack a thesis; instead, it is customary to examine the arguments: this is both more respectful and develops the ability to think critically. Arguments are evaluated according to a large number of criteria, 600-page books are written on this topic, but the main criteria are truth, acceptabilityand adequacy.

Acceptability is the logical connection between the thesis and the argument, the relevance of the argument to the thesis. Sometimes our speakers come up with such good arguments that we are ready to believe them, losing sight of the fact that the arguments say something completely different. For example: "You should train a lot because athletes train a lot."

It seems that both are about training, but if I'm not an athlete, then what does this have to do with me? A similar technique is often used by politicians who like to answer the wrong question that was asked, that is, to prove a different thesis. Therefore, if you own the assessment, the criterion of relevance, or acceptability, is well mastered by you, which means that you can to some extent protect yourself from this influence, from manipulation.

When you yourself, already creating your own texts, are able to form a structured message, where all the arguments are correct and applicable to the thesis, you get rational convincing messages. That is, the skills of analysis and assessment work in one direction - to be able to read what comes to us, and in the other - to broadcast a message so that other people understand what the essence of your statement is.

The last skill is inference, what may be the result of interpretation, analysis, assessment, analysis of an information block, a conclusion or a thought on how to act in the future. The skill lies in the fact that from a large amount of information that we have studied in one form or another, select those elements, data, facts, analytics, interpretations, on the basis of which we can come to the most probable conclusion.

It is very important to understand here that the conclusions we arrive at in everyday life are always only plausible, but they will never be 100% provable. Unless, of course, you are a mathematician and do not practice formal deductive logic. Real situations have many hidden parameters, facts that we do not control, so our conclusions will always be plausible, but never reliable. Nevertheless, we need to make decisions based on them.

In general, to summarize, the whole essence of critical thinking is in the statement as early as the 18th century, which says that knowledge of certain principles can easily compensate for ignorance of certain facts.