The researchers identified six predictable levels of critical thinkers, from ones lower in depth and effort to the advanced mind-masters, who are always steps ahead. Unreflective thinkers lack crucial skills that would allow them to parse their thought processes.
They also do not apply standards like accuracy, relevance, precision, and logic in a consistent fashion.
How many such people are out there? You probably can guess based on social media comments. This next level up thinker has awareness of the importance of thinking on their existence and knows that deficiencies in thinking can bring about major issues. As the psychologists explain, to solve a problem, you must first admit you have one.
They might not be able to identify all the flaws, however. A challenged thinker may have a sense that solid thinking involves navigating assumptions, inferences, and points of view, but only on an initial level. They may also be able to spot some instances of their own self-deception.
Thinkers at this level can go beyond the nascent intellectual humility and actively look to take control of their thinking across areas of their lives. They possess:. They not only recognize their own deficiencies but have the skills to address them.
To get to this stage, it is important to gain intellectual perseverance. Thinkers at this level can look to take control of their thinking across areas of their lives. They know their thinking can have blind spots, but initially take limited steps to address that. Using your mind more effectively is not automatic. Moving up on this pyramid of thinking is dependent on developing your critical thinking skills. These are people who don't reflect on thinking nor consider the consequences of not thinking.
Their prejudices and misconceptions lead them. They do not consistently apply standards like accuracy, relevance, precision, and logic. Deepstash helps you become inspired, wiser and productive, through bite-sized ideas from the best articles, books and videos out there. Critical thinking is described as a mode of thinking where the thinker improves the quality of their thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. Another definition describes critical thinking as a way to examine assumptions, discern hidden values, evaluate evidence, and judge conclusions.
We are like a beginner in ballet. We feel foolish adopting the basic positions. We don't feel graceful. We stumble and make mistakes. No one would pay money to watch us perform. We ourselves don't like what we see in the mirror of our minds. To reach this beginning stage in thinking, our values must begin to shift. We must begin to explore the foundation of our thinking and discover how we have come to think and believe as we do.
Let us consider this goal in a little more detail. Reflect now on some of the major influences that shaped your thinking and ours :. You were raised by parents with particular beliefs about the family, about personal relationships, about marriage, about childhood, about obedience, about religion, about politics, about schooling.
You formed various associations largely based on who was around you - associations with people with a viewpoint, values, and taboos. If you were to change any one of these influences, your belief system would be different. Suppose you had been born in the Middle Ages as a serf in the fields in France.
Can you see that if you had, virtually all of your beliefs would be altered? See if you can perform similar reflective experiments of your own. For example, imagine other changes in these influences and then imaginatively compare some of the beliefs you likely would have with the beliefs you actually do have. You will begin to appreciate how much you, and every other human, are a product of influences over which you, and they, had little or no control.
Neither you nor we directed these influences upon us. Their effects, clearly, were both good and bad. If, for example, we assume that many of these influences engendered false beliefs in us, it follows that in our minds right now there are false beliefs and we are acting on them. Yet, notice that the mind has no mechanism for screening out false beliefs. We all carry around in our minds prejudices from our culture, prejudices from where we were born and raised, prejudices from our parents, and prejudices from our friends and associates.
Finding ways to locate those flawed beliefs and replace them with more reasonable ones is part of the agenda of critical thinking. Another way to look at the forces, rational and irrational that shaped our minds is in terms of "modes of influence. For example, we think within a variety of domains: sociological, philosophical, ethical, intellectual, anthropological, ideological, political, economical, historical, biological, theological, and psychological.
We ended up with our particular beliefs because we were influenced to do so in the following ways:. Ethical: our minds are influenced by the extent to which we behave in accordance with our obligations and the way we define our obligations;. Intellectual: our minds are influenced by the ideas we hold, by the manner in which we reason and deal with abstractions and abstract systems;.
Ideological and political: our minds are influenced by the structure of power and its use by interest groups around us;. Reflections such as these should awaken in us a sense of how little we really know about our own minds. Our minds are largely unexplored worlds, inner worlds that have been taking shape for the whole of our lives. This inner world is the most important fact about us, for it is where we live.
It determines our joy and frustration. It limits what we can see and imagine. It highlights what we do see. It can drive us crazy. It can provide us with solace, peace, and tranquility. If we can appreciate these facts about us, we will find the motivation to take charge of our thinking, to be something more than clay in the hands of others, to become, in fact, the ruling force in our own lives. Try to figure out the extent to which, and in what ways, your thinking has been influenced by the following factors:.
As you do so, try to imagine how your thinking might be different if you had been born in a different culture with different influences than those you have had in your life. Obviously you cannot know precisely how you would differ, but the idea is to step outside yourself and imagine that if the above factors were different for you, your thinking would differ accordingly.
Trap 1, the temptation of dogmatic absolutism - believing that truth is acquired not through reasoning and inquiry but, rather, through some predetermined nonintellectual faith. Trap 2, the temptation of subjective relativism - believing that there are no intellectual standards by which to judge anything as true or false. Both traps promise easy answers. To advance as a beginning thinker and not fall into one or the other of these traps requires developing confidence in reason as a way of acquiring sound knowledge and insight.
These two pathologies are mirror images of each other. If we become either a subjective relativist or a dogmatic absolutist, we will lose our motivation to develop as a critical thinker. As a subjective relativist, we will come to believe that everyone automatically acquires "their own truth" in some inexplicable subjective way. As a dogmatic absolutist, we end up following wherever our "faith" leads us. In both cases, there is no real place for the intellectual work and discipline of critical thinking.
Both render it superfluous. Both free us from any intellectual responsibility. If we avoid these traps, if we recognize how we have been shaped by forces beyond our control, if we discover that there are skills that can help us begin to take charge of our minds, if we develop some initial confidence in reason, if we develop some intellectual humility and perseverance, we are ready to begin creating a genuine foundation on which we can rebuild our identity and character as thinkers and persons of integrity.
The key question is how? How exactly can we do this? We shall focus on this question to the end of this chapter. In a sense, it is the most vital goal of the whole book.
Are you committed to regular practice? When people explicitly recognize that improvement in thinking requires regular practice, and adopt some regimen of practice, then, and only then, have they become what we call "practicing thinkers. There is no one way to go about this process of designing a regimen of practice. There are many potential ways, some better, and some worse for you. For example, you might thumb through some of the other chapters of this resource. Each provides some suggestions for improving your thinking.
You can use any of these suggestions as a starting point. You might review the "Test the Idea" activities. You might study the elements of thought, the standards for thought, and the traits of mind. You might analyze Chapter 9 , on making intelligent decisions, and Chapters 15 and 16 , on strategic thinking. Think of it this way: Everything you read in this resource represents a resource for you to use in devising a systematic plan for improving your thinking.
It's a good idea to read it with this orientation. If you are like most people, you can discover some practical starting points. The problem will be in following through on any that you find. This is the problem in most areas of skill development: People do not usually follow through. They do not establish habits of regular practice. They are discouraged by the strain and awkwardness of early attempts to perform well.
You need to make decisions regarding a plan you think is do-able for you. This means a plan you can live with, one that will not burn you out or overwhelm you. Ultimately, success comes to those who are persistent and who figure out strategies for themselves. Still, at this stage you probably don't know for sure what will work for you, only what seems like it might.
You have to field-test your ideas. To be realistic, you should expect to experiment with a variety of plans before you find one that works well for you. You were born At some point in time. You were born In some place.
You were Raised by parents with particular beliefs. You Formed various associations. Ideological and political. Your family. Your personal history.
Your colleagues. Your supervisors. Obviously you cannot know exactly how you would differ, but the idea is to step outside yourself and imagine that if the above factors were different for you, your thinking would differ as a result. A person should experiment many strategies to know which one will work.
I would say, puzzled and games would be a great beginning for practicing thinking. The important thing is for a person not to have high expectations for themselves in becoming skilled thinkers, instead they should learn the ways that actually helps them improve gradually and have reasonable expectations.
The key in practicing thinking is to focus on fundamentals and try not to do too much. For example when you go to your work during rush hour a lot of time will be wasted.
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