Critical Questions are the Basis of Critical Thought!

What are the attributes of a critical thinker? What are the practices of a critical thinker? How does one orient their mind towards criticality and how does this differ from other modes of thought? The answer is that they ask the right questions at the right time! That is not so obvious at first. A question is "right" as opposed to what, "wrong"? What does the "right" time mean; that a window of opportunity has passed before some of the implications of not having asked a crucial question have effected you? Both of these postulates are possible. Maybe you are asking irrelevant questions, unspecified questions, too generic, or non-fundamental. Maybe you have not asked a question that would yield preliminary information.

Critical thinking as defined in Wikipedia refers to the:


the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgment.[1] The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis or evaluation of factual evidence. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking.[2] It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem-solving abilities as well as a commitment to overcome native egocentrism[3][4] and sociocentrism.

I think this is a fair definition of what the concept invokes. The general idea is that the critical thinker can synthesize and analyze information while applying rigorous intellectual standards to the process. It is reflective, inherently skeptical, uses reason and evidence, appraising, evaluative, open-minded, questioning, and always committed to truth. I'd like to note that the word "critical" has a somewhat ambiguous connotation. Some believe that it implies a notion of adversity or "to criticize". Others may hear the word and think its an unjust criticism or sense of judging. Even more may think it refers to Critical Theory, a political philosophy aimed at "challenging power structures". The notion of "Critical" in the concept I invoke, is that of rigor, doubt, clarity, questioning, empirical, rational, self reflective, probes assumptions, and evaluates inferences and interpretations. It can be directed towards political ends, and it should but is not inherently activist oriented as in the case of critical theory. Nor does it refer to some odd notion of "attack". In fact, one of a key skills of a critical thinker is distinguishing personal attack on identity from the content of an argument or observation. What I am doing now, is also a feature of critical thinking: clarifying terminology and making key distinctions where necessary to make myself clear.

A resource I like is from the Foundation for Critical Thinking. These are very simple guidelines that should be internalized by everyone. They show some basic forms of questioning and standards we can apply to the critical thinking process. One thing to note is that the standards seem to imply that critical thinking has a time and a place. For example, take the notion of precision. Would it be reasonable to apply this notion to a poem you are reading in English class? Does depth matter when you are giving a briefing to your boss about the prior day? How about purpose, that might be very crucial when figuring out what the poem means? Are there situations where accuracy can be foregone? What levels of precision are required for a specific context?
















This is already a lot to take in. Some of it might even be obvious. But ask yourself; are you applying any of these in your life? Are you only doing it selectively when it benefits you but completely ignore all of this when its inconvenient? One of the main impediments, or indications that you are not thinking critically, is Egocentrism. One way around this is a degree of empathy and application of the Principle of Charity.

Anyway, there are many attributes of a successful critical thinker. Being able to identify a problem is crucial. Gathering the proper supporting information is also crucial. Probing into unstated assumptions and clarifying terminology is another important aspect. Proper inference according to the laws of logic in a non-fallacious way is another. At the core of all of this is the notion of Socratic Questioning. This was a method of thought implemented and taught by Socrates. For example, someone may identify a problem and a critical thinker can ask clarifying questions as to why the topic should be conceived of as a problem, and what a problem even is. If we agree that there is a problem, someone may present information to demonstrate. A Socratic question might ask for justification as to why the information supports the classification that something is a problem. Or they can point to features of the information to subject its validity to doubt. Much of reasoning relies on implicit assumptions. A Socratic question might ask for it to be revealed. For example, you could ask, what other proposition has to be true in order for this to be plausible? Notice that this is not just a tool for "winning a debate", but for problem solving. How else can we solve a problem unless we pose questions that give us insight into the problem. Critical questioning is not only useful for debate, but also for group decision making, conflict resolution, and even designing software. The list is endless. One thing I am not advocating is an infinite regress of "Why" questioning. Your questions should be directed and goal oriented. Some contexts though, may end up in an infinite regress. Part of critical thinking is knowing how to avoid these situations.

Related techniques are the "Eight Disciplines Problem Solving" developed at Ford for effective problem solving, the Five Whys developed at Toyota, or a technique in finance called SWOT analysis. I think fundamental to all of these industrial techniques is Socratic Questioning. Even Cognitive Behavioral Theory focuses on getting patients to ask the right questions to help with mental disorders. One question, in addition to the original question could be, was that a sufficient answer to my original question? There can be levels of questioning as well, as given by Bloom's Taxonomy.




The idea is that there is higher order questions that can be asked. You can ask questions about the quality of your questions. You can get at more general underlying concepts. There are many other frameworks for posing questions. Some are listed below:


The TeachThought Learning Taxonomy


UbD’s Six Facets Of Understanding



Marzano & Kendall/Taxonomy

I mentioned in the beginning that critical thinking implies asking questions. I've given a lot of content here to dwell on. The idea is to get you in a questioning frame of mind. Sometimes its not obvious what the right questions should be, or what the most fundamental are, but through a process of question-response within internal and external dialogue, you can sharpen your skills and become better. There are very advanced techniques for evaluating arguments and evidence. Next blog post we will cover some fundamentals from argumentation theory for identifying common argument patterns. Many critical thinking classes just have their students memorize common fallacies or biases. I want to avoid that. You should be able to spot fallacious reasoning even if you dont know the name of the fallacy or bias. Maybe you can even identify a new pattern of illegitimate reasoning and catalogue it with the rest! Lets say I am making the case that Home Town Buffet is horrible on the basis of a general low rating, and that this particular one around the corner will be horrible too. This could be a fallacy of illicit transference called Fallacy of Division. If you did not know this before, you should be able to reason your way to it; or discover it on the spot. Of course, in this example we should ask what the rating mechanism was and clarify what we mean by horrible.


Some people have said that "there are no stupid questions"; I disagree. If during a physics lecture, the professor asks for any questions, and you raise your hand asking "what color is your pencil"; I deem that irrelevant. However, maybe it is not irrelevant or stupid if you have a fuller context. Limited information in a given context could deem something irrelevant. My preliminary conclusion in this example however is that it is stupid, but I am open to revising my beliefs in light of new evidence. I am also open to hearing an argument that "no questions are stupid", but as of now it seems like a rule of thumb or aphorism used by instructors that we can dismiss. How would one even nullify a general rule of thumb like that anyway?