WHY IS CRITICAL THINKING IMPORTANT FOR YOUR LIFE?

In this article I discuss the meaning and the importance of developing and advancing the skill of critical thinking. I argue that this ability can improve the quality of one's life, contribute to one's greater success at work and nurture better relationships among people. Critical thinking can lead us to easier discover what truth is and challenge our deeply held beliefs, attitudes and views that guide our reasoning and behaviour.

According to Cambridge Dictionary, critical thinking is “the process of thinking carefully about a subject or idea, without following feelings or opinions to affect you.ˮ [1] When we have the ability of critical thinking, we cannot be easily convinced and persuaded. [2] Rather, we want to systematically evaluate what we hear and read and ask the right, critical questions which assist us in our journey for better judgements and conclusions. [3] In our contemporary time, we are bombarded with so much information and it is not always easy to discern what is indeed truth and worthy.

Already in the fifth century B.C. great classical philosopher Socrates (c. 470-399 BC) emphasizes that the examined life is not worth living and that we should not stop asking deeper and profound questions. According to him, education’s main role was not to provide immediate answers, but rather engage students in challenging conversations in order to invoke critical thinking and encourage students’ judgement. [4]

Contemporary scholars, Richard W. Paul and Linda B. Elder, elaborate in their insightful book, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, how to become a successful critical thinker. They highlight that critical thinking can be used for a noble and for a bad purpose, it can serve fair-mindedness or self-centeredness. A strong thinker is a fair thinker, while a weak thinker is a selfish thinker. To put it differently: “Weak-sense critical thinking is the use of critical thinking to defend your current beliefs. Strong-sense critical thinking is the use of the same skills to evaluate all claims and beliefs, especially your own.ˮ [5]

To think in a fair minded way indicates a critical assessment of one’s own thinking as well as of others. Thus, fair minded or strong thinkers evaluate with the same effort and appreciation not only the arguments and conclusions of others, but also their own. An individual aims to recognize not only weak aspects, but also strengths of one’s opponents. [6]
In contrast, to think in a selfish or a weak way means to use one’s intellectual skills to make opponents thinking look unacceptable, although it may not always be the case (for instance, think about some lawyers and politicians who use their reasoning not for ethical purposes, but for their own selfish interests). As Paul and Elder illustrate,

Liberals see mistakes in the arguments of conservatives; conservatives see mistakes in the arguments of liberals. Believers see mistakes in the thinking of nonbelievers; nonbelievers see mistakes in the thinking of believers. Those who oppose abortion readily see mistakes in the arguments for abortion; those who favor abortion readily see mistakes in the arguments against it. [7]

In order to become a person who can successfully and critically think, one needs to develop fundamental traits of mind. The following traits will make the mind disciplined: intellectual humility, intellectual sense of justice, intellectual perseverance, intellectual fair-mindedness, intellectual confidence in reason, intellectual courage, intellectual empathy, intellectual autonomy and intellectual integrity. [8] Paul and Elder claim that,

Such virtues enable us to enter, in good faith, all viewpoints relevant to a complex issue before coming to final conclusions, to seek out weaknesses in our thinking, to be moved by reasoning that is superior to our own. When possible we have the advantage in seeing all sides and are able to work with them, supporting in each what we see as sound and respectfully disagreeing with that which we see as flawed. [9]

The development and cultivation of these traits is not an easy task. It is a challenging process to overcome selfishness and narrow-minded thinking, prejudices and biases, fear of rejection, cowardice, laziness and conformity, arrogance and hypocrisy. All traits of mind demand persistent effort, time and energy for a person to attain them. Without some of these traits, a person cannot, for instance, accomplish successful relationships. Paul and Elder give an example of spouse who does not possess intellectual empathy and interprets things and situations only from his/her perspective. Such relationship and marriage can rarely be truly happy. [10] Another example is intellectual perseverance which implies that a person will not give up when intellectually challenging or complex tasks appear. For instance, a Christian can hardly be fair in his/her judgement to the views of an atheists without studying and comprehending their arguments and reasoning. This is also valid for atheists and their understanding of Christians.[11] As Paul and Elder summarize:

True excellence in thinking is not simply the result of isolated intellectual skills. There are inevitable problems in the thinking of persons who, without knowing it, lack intellectual virtues. Instead, they frequently display the traits of the undisciplined mind. To the extent one is unconsciously motivated to believe what one wants to believe, what is most comfortable to believe, what puts one in a good light, what serves one's selfish interest, one is unable to function as a rational person. [12]

To conclude, our goal was through this paper, to advocate and promote critical thinking and the disciplined mind as something vital for better understanding among people especially when their perspectives are different or opposite. Critical thinking and the disciplined mind should assist us in becoming more humble and raise an awareness about limits of our knowledge. It should provide us with the ability to evaluate with the greater vigor what is everyday offered to us through media, the Internet, work, education, etc. Moreover, it should help us to easier distinguish which answers, options and views are more meaningful and worthy. Let us begin with asking the right and critical questions and not passively accept persuasions around us as, well as inside us.

REFERENCES

[1] Cambridge Dictionary, “Critical Thinking,ˮ available at https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/critical-thinking [accessed February 28 2018].
[2] Richard L., Epstein and Carolyn Kernberger, Critical Thinking. 3rd ed. (Toronto: Wadsworth, 2006).
[3] Neil M. Browne, and Stuart M. Keeley, Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking. 8th ed. (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007).
[4] Paul Woodruff, ''Socratic Education,'' in Philosophers on Education, ed. Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (London: Routledge, 1998), 14-31., and Marija Sertic, Care-Full Education: A Character and a Care Approach to Moral Education as a Response to the Reductionist Trends in Education (Dissertation at KU Leuven, 2017), 9.
[5] Browne, and Keeley, Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking, 10.
[6] Richard W. Paul and Linda B. Elder, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life (Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: FT Press, 2002).
[7] Paul and Elder, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, 38.
[8] Paul and Elder, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, 39.
[9] Paul and Elder, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, 58.
[10] Paul and Elder, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, 46.
[11] Paul and Elder, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, 50.
[12] Paul and Elder, Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, 58.