Critical Thinking
Engaging in critical thinking is an activity basic to academic enquiry. Phrases like 'critical thinking', 'critical analysis', 'analyse critically', 'to think critically', or similar formulations are very commonly used in universities. Yet the idea of being critical is often misunderstood. It is often mistaken for a related, but quite distinct, sense of finding fault or being negative.
Defining critical
In an academic environment, being critical means:
- To be open-minded
- To be intellectually sceptical about ideas, claims, and arguments
- Not accepting things at face value.
Being critical
When thinking critically about ideas, claims and arguments you are asking yourself a range of questions about them. For example, consider the claim that being left-handed is a sign of bodily dysfunction. Being critical of such a claim would involve asking questions like:
- Who is making the claim? This question helps you to identify the source of the claim
- What is the authority for the claim? This question will help you to identify whether the claim rests on opinion, prejudice, hearsay, evidence or whatever
- What evidence is there to support the claim?
- How reliable is the evidence?
- What other interpretations of the evidence might there be?
These questions enable you to evaluate the claim and hence decide whether it should be accepted or rejected.
Thus being critical involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of any given viewpoint.
To do this you will also need to be able to tell the difference between an argument and non-arguments as well as recognising bad forms of argument.