What Is Critical Thinking?
When people ask about the advantages of studying philosophy, one of the things you often hear is that the discipline helps promote “critical thinking.” We hear a lot about how it’s important for schools to help develop students’ critical thinking skills. But the precise nature of those skills is a little vague. What do we mean when we say someone is thinking critically? For that matter, what would it look like to think uncritically?
It actually took me a few years of teaching philosophy courses to develop a short answer to these questions that I could put on the syllabus. I’m a little miffed that I took so long, but I’m pretty happy with the final result. I share it here as an invitation to criticize my thinking about critical thinking. 🙂
Philosophy is often described as a discipline that improves critical thinking skills. What does that mean? I believe that two questions are central to philosophy: “Why?†and “What if?â€
When we ask “Why?” we are looking for the reasons to believe a claim or an idea – we don’t want to simply describe the way the world is, we want to figure out how it got to be this way. It’s not enough to say what you think is true – you need to be able to put forth the evidence that backs up your belief.
When we ask “What if?†we are using our imaginations and our intelligence to figure out the consequences of an event or an idea. We want to know as much as possible about how the world – or our lives – would be different if one particular claim were to be true.
Not coincidentally, science fiction got me asking these questions at an early age. I suspect that’s why I remain hooked on both SF and philosophy. What do you think?
About Dave Thomer
Born and raised in Philadelphia. Studied philosophy at Fordham University in the Bronx, where I made many great friends and met my wonderful wife. We moved back to Philadelphia, where I studied philosophy some more and became a teacher. Online and off, I'm looking for ways that we can be better citizens and build stronger communities.