What makes some thinking critical, others uncritical?
‘Critical’, ‘criticism’ and ‘critic’ all originate from the ancient Greek word kritikos, meaning able to judge, discern or decide. In modern English, a ‘critic’ is someone whose job it is to make evaluative judgements, for example about films, books, music or food. Being ‘critical’ in this sense does not merely mean finding fault or expressing dislike, although that is another meaning of the word. It means giving a fair and unbiased opinion of something. Being critical and thinking critically are not the same thing.
If critical thinking did just mean judging, wouldn’t that mean that anyone could do it simply by giving an opinion? It takes no special training or practice to pass a judgement. If I watch a film and think that it is boring, even though it has had good reviews, no one can really say that my judgement is wrong and the professional critics are right. Someone can disagree with me, but that is just another judgement, no better or worse, you might say, than mine. In a limited sense, this is true. But a serious critical judgement is more than just a statement of preference or taste. A critical judgement must have some basis, which usually requires a measure of knowledge or expertise on the part of the person making the judgement. Just saying ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’ is not enough. There have to be some grounds for a judgement before we can call it critical.
We should also be aware of the difference between ‘critical thinking’, as a general descriptive term, and Critical Thinking (with a large C and T), which is the name of an academic discipline with a broadly defined syllabus. This book addresses both. In Units 2, 4 and 7 it covers the Critical Thinking (CT) component of the Cambridge and other syllabuses. But it goes well beyond the confines of exam preparation. In fact, having mentioned the distinction, we can largely ignore it. To have maximum value, thinking skills have to be transferable from one task or context to others. The aim of this book is to instil in students a critical approach to reading, listening and reasoning generally; and to provide the conceptual tools and skills that enable them to respond critically to a wide range of texts. The CT syllabus gives the book its structure but not its whole purpose. The objects of critical focus are referred to generically as ‘texts’. The word is used in its broadest sense. In real life a ‘text’ can be spoken or written or visual: a television programme, for example, or Tweet or blog; or just a conversation. In a book, of course, the texts are restricted to objects which can be placed on a page, so that they are often referred to instead as documents. Most of the documents that are used in the coming chapters are in the form of printed texts. But some are graphical or numerical; or a mixture of these. Two other generic terms that are used are ‘author’ and ‘audience’. The author of a text is the writer, artist or speaker who has produced it. The audience is the receiver: reader, watcher or listener.
Some CT textbooks give the impression that critical thinking is directed only at arguments. This can be quite misleading if it is taken too literally. Arguments are of particular interest in CT, but by no means exclusively so. Information, items of evidence, statements and assertions, explanations, dialogues, statistics, news stories, advertisements . . . all of these and more may require critical responses. What these various expressions have in common is that they all make claims: that is, utterances that are meant to be true. Since some claims are in fact untrue, they need to be assessed critically if we, the audience, are to avoid being misled. We cannot just accept the truth of a claim passively. Arguments are especially interesting because their primary purpose is to persuade or influence people in favour of some claim. The critical question therefore becomes whether the argument succeeds or fails: whether we should allow ourselves to be persuaded by it, or not.
Source: Butterworth, J., & Thwaites, G. (2013). Thinking skills: Critical thinking and problem solving. Cambridge University Press.
‘Critical’, ‘criticism’ and ‘critic’ all originate from the ancient Greek word kritikos, meaning able to judge, discern or decide. In modern English, a ‘critic’ is someone whose job it is to make evaluative judgements, for example about films, books, music or food. Being ‘critical’ in this sense does not merely mean finding fault or expressing dislike, although that is another meaning of the word. It means giving a fair and unbiased opinion of something. Being critical and thinking critically are not the same thing.
If critical thinking did just mean judging, wouldn’t that mean that anyone could do it simply by giving an opinion? It takes no special training or practice to pass a judgement. If I watch a film and think that it is boring, even though it has had good reviews, no one can really say that my judgement is wrong and the professional critics are right. Someone can disagree with me, but that is just another judgement, no better or worse, you might say, than mine. In a limited sense, this is true. But a serious critical judgement is more than just a statement of preference or taste. A critical judgement must have some basis, which usually requires a measure of knowledge or expertise on the part of the person making the judgement. Just saying ‘I like it’ or ‘I don’t like it’ is not enough. There have to be some grounds for a judgement before we can call it critical.
Some CT textbooks give the impression that critical thinking is directed only at arguments. This can be quite misleading if it is taken too literally. Arguments are of particular interest in CT, but by no means exclusively so. Information, items of evidence, statements and assertions, explanations, dialogues, statistics, news stories, advertisements . . . all of these and more may require critical responses. What these various expressions have in common is that they all make claims: that is, utterances that are meant to be true. Since some claims are in fact untrue, they need to be assessed critically if we, the audience, are to avoid being misled. We cannot just accept the truth of a claim passively. Arguments are especially interesting because their primary purpose is to persuade or influence people in favour of some claim. The critical question therefore becomes whether the argument succeeds or fails: whether we should allow ourselves to be persuaded by it, or not.
Source: Butterworth, J., & Thwaites, G. (2013). Thinking skills: Critical thinking and problem solving. Cambridge University Press.
Tags
Teacher Module