Critical and Creative Thinking E-Book

Robert DiYanni

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 382

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Critical and Creative Thinking: A Guide for Teachers reveals ways to develop a capacity to think both critically and creatively in practical and productive ways. * Explains why critical and creative thinking complement each other with clear examples * Provides a practical toolkit of cognitive techniques for generating and evaluating ideas using both creative and critical thinking * Enriches the discussion of creative and critical intersections with brief "inter-chapters" based on the thinking habits of Leonardo da Vinci * Offers an overview of current trends in critical and creative thinking, with applications across a spectrum of disciplines

Leseprobe

Critical and Creative Thinking

A Brief Guide for Teachers

Robert DiYanni

This edition first published 2016 © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Cover image: © kimberrywood / Shutterstock

For Joan Weber and Carl Weber

For my dear friends Dr. Joan Weber and Dr. Carl Weber, who have consistently demonstrated exemplary leadership in education and in medicine, with generosity, grace, and compassion.

CONTENTS

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Website

Part One: Introducing Critical and Creative Thinking

1: Essential Critical Thinking Concepts

What Is Critical Thinking?

Habits of Mind

Why Intellectual Habits and Character Matter

Overcoming Obstacles to Thinking

A Model for Critical Thinking

How You Know What You Know

Perception and Knowledge

Being Wrong

Why Errors Persist

Applications

References

Interchapter 1: Facts and Knowledge

Applications

References

2: Essential Creative Thinking Concepts

What Is Creative Thinking?

Seeking Alternatives and Possibilities

Reversing Relationships

Cross-fertilizing

Shifting Attention

Denying the Negative

The Creative Habit

Creative Confidence

Creative Theft

Creative Crime

Creative Questions

Applications

References

Interchapter 2: Sustaining Curiosity

Applications

References

Part Two: Practicing Critical and Creative Thinking

3: Becoming a Critical and Creative Thinker

Becoming a Critical Thinker

Intellectual Standards as Guidelines for Critical Thinking

Language and Thought

Reports, Inferences, and Judgments

The Prevalence and Power of Metaphor

Innovating through Analogy

Becoming a Creative Thinker

Developing the Creative Habit

Focus

Solo and Group Creativity

Concepts as Cognitive Tools

Applications

References

Interchapter 3: Embodying Experience

Applications

References

4: Critical Thinking Strategies and Applications

The Nature of Argument

Claims, Evidence, and Assumptions

Evidence: Claims and Warrants

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

Sherlock Holmes as a Logical Thinker

Syllogisms, Enthymemes, and Argument

Argument and Authority

Argument and Analogy

Argument and Causality

Causality, Coincidence, and Correlation

Further Causal Consequences

Applications

References

Interchapter 4: Blending Art and Science

Applications

References

5: Creative Thinking Strategies and Applications

Imagination First

Imagination, Creativity, and Innovation

The Limits of Imagination

Capacities for Imaginative Thinking

Why Ideas Are Important

How to Get Ideas

Creative Whacks

Being Practical/What Iffing

Combining Things

Using Paradox

Thinking the Unthinkable

Applications

References

Interchapter 5: Combining Connections

Applications

References

Part Three: Applying Critical and Creative Thinking

6: Decision Thinking:

Making Critical Decisions

Making Decisions

Affective Forecasting

Achieving Insights that Affect Decisions

Institutional Decisions

Incentives and Decisions

Decisiveness

Making Tough Decisions

Making Group Decisions

Applications

References

Interchapter 6: Embracing Ambiguity

Applications

Reference

7: Ethical Thinking:

Making Ethical Decisions

Basic Ethical Concepts

Ethics, Values, and Virtues

Ethical Imagination

Cosmopolitanism and Global Ethics

Technology and Ethics

The Ethics of Information

Ethical Decisions

Ethical Provocations

Applications

References

Index

EULA

List of Tables

Chapter 1

Table 1.1

Table 1.2

Chapter 2

Table 2.1

Table 2.2

Table 2.3

Chapter 3

Table 3.1

Table 3.2

Chapter 4

Table 4.1

Table 4.2

Table 4.3

Chapter 5

Table 5.1

Table 5.2

Chapter 6

Table 6.1

Table 6.2

Chapter 7

Table 7.1

Table 7.2

Table 7.3

List of Illustrations

Chapter 1

Figure 1.1 Critical thinking. © Keng Guan Toh/Shutterstock

Figure 1.2 Train in perspective. © Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock

Figure 1.3 Figures in perspective. © Darq/Shutterstock

Figure 1.4 Goblet/faces. © astudio/Shutterstock

Figure 1.5 Letter/number

Figure 1.6 Marine scene. © Audrey Armyagov/Shutterstock

Chapter 2

Figure 2.1 Thinking out of the box. © amasterphotographer/Shutterstock

Chapter 3

Figure 3.1 Facing heads. © Sangoiri/Shutterstock

Figure 3.2 Study of shoulder joints, Leonardo da Vinci. © The Print Collection Heritage-Images

Chapter 4

Figure 4.1 Logic logical. © Aaron Amat/Shutterstock

Chapter 5

Figure 5.1 Vision, Imagination, Creativity, Innovation. © Madartists/Dreamstime

Figure 5.2 Odd shapes

Figure 5.3 Rabbit/duck. © Fine Art Images/Superstock

Chapter 6

Figure 6.1 This way, that way. © Brian A. Jackson/Shutterstock

Figure 6.2

Mona Lisa

, Leonardo da Vinci. © Gianni Dagli Ortis/Corbis

Figure 6.3

St. John the Baptist

, Leonardo da Vinci. © Photo Scala, Florence

Chapter 7

Figure 7.1 Ethical decisions. © Stuart Miles/Fotolia

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Preface

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Preface

When we think about thinking, we often think first of “critical” thinking. The world at large values critical thinking highly—and for good reason. Critical thinking involves analysis and evaluation, interpretation and judgment. Critical thinking is essential for making sense of the world and for understanding ourselves.

To limit thinking, however, only to critical thinking is reductive, even dangerous. To supplement and complement critical thinking, we need “creative” thinking, the kind of imaginative thinking that leads to new ideas, to creativity and innovation. Creative thinking is also highly valued in the world at large. Creative thinking completes and fulfills critical thinking. Either without the other is inadequate. Whole-minded thinkers generate new ideas creatively and evaluate them critically.

Learning to think critically and creatively can make a difference in your personal and professional life. Developing your critical and creative capacities can increase your confidence, deepen your understanding, and improve your performance. Thinking well broadens your perception and enriches your intellectual and emotional well-being.

Not thinking well, on the other hand, reduces the range, depth, and intensity of your lived experience. Not thinking well limits your potential accomplishments. This book can help you overcome such limitations.

Combining critical and creative thinking, this book explains a set of approaches and offers a series of opportunities to think about a wide range of issues and topics. It includes both general guidelines and specific techniques to improve your thinking and the thinking of your students. Drawing from and consolidating a wide range of sources, it summarizes and synthesizes key ideas and presents them for your consideration.

A few words about the book's structure. Part One introduces essential concepts for critical and creative thinking. Part Two provides opportunities to practice them. Part Three applies critical and creative thinking to decision-making and questions of ethics. Six interchapters identify essential strategies for developing higher order thinking. Each strategy is associated with a thinking habit of Leonardo da Vinci.

It is one thing to learn about the various ways of thinking that this book provides; it is another, however, to develop skill in using them. To benefit most from what the book offers, you should work through its varied applications. Select a few for your reflections in writing.

There is nothing more vital than developing your capacity to think well about complex issues and questions. This book is designed to help you do just that, while developing your critical and creative thinking powers. These thinking powers can make a difference in how you perceive yourself, how you understand others, and how you experience the world. And they can help you make a similar difference in the lives of your students.

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge and thank a number of people for encouraging me on the path that eventuated in this book: Bob Boynton and Peter Stillman of Boynton/Cook who published my first book, Connections; Kathleen Hulley, who hired me to teach Critical Thinking at NYU; Pat C. Hoy II, former Director of the Expository Writing Program at NYU, who has long been a powerful influence on my own thinking about writing and its relationship to thinking. Bill Costanzo, Distinguished Professor of English at Westchester Community College, SUNY, who has given me much good advice; John Chaffee and Richard van de Lagemaat, two fine critical thinkers with important books on the subject; Nancy Willard Magaud, of the English Language Schools Association (ELSA) in France, who reviewed the manuscript and made helpful suggestions for revision.

At various stages of this book's development, including its many drafts, I received thoughtful and productive responses from a number of reviewers. I would like to thank the following for their input:

Roseanne Abbott, Australia Teacher of the Year in 2013, English Teacher and Department Chair, Callaghan College, New South Wales, Australia.

Jack Bartholomew, Chair of Science, Morristown Beard School, Morristown, New Jersey.

David Blagbrough, former Director of the British Council and of Inspire, a non-profit organization in London that works with at-risk students.

George Ewonus, Director, Advanced Placement Program, Canada.

Terence Young, Head of English, St Michael's University School, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

At Wiley Blackwell, I have had the good fortune to work with Jayne Fargnoli, who believed in this book from the beginning and who supported its development unstintingly. Mark Graney orchestrated the reviewing process expeditiously, and Julia Kirk managed the books production expertly. Thanks also to all the other Wiley Blackwell staff and freelancers involved in the production of this book. None of these good people should be held accountable for any errors contained in this book. Any errors are mine alone.

My final and most important acknowledgment of appreciation is to my wonderful wife, Mary Hammond DiYanni. Mary is a critical and creative thinker par excellence. I am fortunate beyond measure to have enjoyed her steadfast love and splendid companionship for more than four decades. My toughest critic, Mary has also been my most ardent supporter. I owe her not less than everything.

About the Website

Please visit the companion website to view additional content for this title at

www.wiley.com/go/diyanni/guidetocriticalcreativethinking

Available to Instructors Only:

Detailed lessons, written by the author as well as other teachers, that make thinking visible and call upon students' critical and creative thinking faculties and targeted at middle school, high school, or first-year university students.

Part OneIntroducing Critical and Creative Thinking

1Essential Critical Thinking Concepts

Figure 1.1 Critical thinking. © Keng Guan Toh/Shutterstock

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.

—Voltaire

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is a type of thinking in which you reflect and analyze when making decisions and solving problems. Based on logic and careful reasoning, critical thinking is purposeful thinking guided by reasoned evidence. It defines problems, identifies competing arguments, uses relevant data, raises key questions, and uses information effectively to make reasoned judgments. The word “critical” derives from the Greek work kritikos, which means “judge.” Critical thinking involves rationality and convergent thinking.

Critical thinking does not necessarily involve criticizing ideas (although sometimes, being “critical” in this way can be an aspect of thinking critically). Nor is critical thinking used only for serious subjects or important issues. You can think critically about what kind of popcorn to buy or what hat to wear, whether to marry or remain single, whether you should go to graduate school or move to a foreign country.

Characteristics of critical thinking include noticing perceptively and establishing careful connections; asking probing questions and making meaningful distinctions. Critical thinking involves analyzing, interpreting, and evaluating evidence; applying knowledge; thinking independently and interdependently.

Certain tendencies, or dispositions, are essential for critical thinking. Among them are open-mindedness, honesty, and flexibility; perseverance; reasonableness, diligence, and focus. Critical thinkers reconsider ideas and sometimes change their minds. They recognize the legitimacy of alternative views, embrace ambiguity and remain open to continued learning.

Essential critical thinking competencies include evaluation and self-direction. Evaluation through informed and sound judgments, and through considering values, is central to the process of critical thinking. Self-direction includes self-awareness and self-regulation—managing your thinking and your motivation for thinking. Critical thinking also involves asking productive questions. Asking the right kinds of questions is as important as answering them. Essential significant questions include those shown in Table 1.1.

Table 1.1 Essential critical thinking questions

What do you know?

What have you assumed?

What questions can you ask?

What does it mean?

What is the evidence?

What are the criteria?

Underlying these questions is the fundamental critical thinking question: “How do I know what I think I know?” And, “What evidence do I have for what I think I know?”

Critical thinkers constantly challenge their thinking and the thinking of others. They exhibit a stance of deliberate skepticism, refusing to accept assertions without evidence to support them. They also try to consider their own ideas from the perspective of others who might see things differently. The following questions, which have been adapted from Richard Paul's and Linda Elder's (2002) Critical Thinking, offer guidance in doing this.

Guiding questions for critical thinking

What are the purpose and goal of the thinking?

What question or problem is being addressed?

What is the point of view or perspective?

What claim or idea is being advanced, and why?

What facts, information, or data support the claim or idea?

What assumptions are being made, and which of those assumptions might be questioned or challenged?

What inferences are being made, and what conclusion is drawn from them?

What implications and consequences can be inferred?

What concept or theory guides the thinking?

Habits of Mind

Your intelligence is the sum of your habits of mind—how you use those mental habits to think and solve problems. This book is designed to improve your current productive habits of mind while helping you modify or eliminate bad thinking habits. The Institute for Habits of Mind identifies and recommends the following thinking habits: (1) applying past knowledge to new situations; (2) remaining open to continued learning; (3) posing questions and identifying problems; (4) taking intellectual risks; (5) developing and sustaining curiosity; (6) thinking independently and interdependently.

Applying past knowledge to new situations

Using what you already know, you make connections between prior knowledge and new situations. American philosopher John Dewey reminds us that we learn by reflecting on our experiences. Thomas Edison claimed that he never made mistakes, but rather kept learning what didn't work in the process of figuring out what might.

Remaining open to continued learning

You continue learning all your life, which involves identifying opportunities for continuous learning everywhere. Being “open” to learning opportunities includes being willing to consider other perspectives and ideas, to possibilities for intellectual growth and development wherever they can be found.

Posing questions and identifying problems

Asking productive questions and identifying problems are essential for quality thinking. Socrates asked probing questions, pushing those he questioned ever deeper into inquiry, often to the point of exasperation and an acknowledgment of their ignorance. Questions invite answers; considering answers to thoughtful questions helps you discover the limits of your knowledge.

Taking intellectual risks

Taking risks with your thinking, moving outside your comfort zone prods you to think in new and interesting ways. Taking risks involves the chance of failure; it involves being frustrated by uncertainty. Progress, however, depends upon taking chances. Being willing to fail, and even to embrace failure, is essential for invention and discovery.

Developing and sustaining intellectual curiosity

Curiosity is the motivation for all learning. Children are immensely curious about all sorts of things. Many people, unfortunately, lose that curiosity during their years of schooling. One of the greatest thinkers of all time, Leonardo da Vinci, considered curiosity fundamental to his life as an artist, scientist, and inventor. He repeatedly acknowledged curiosity as his most important habit of mind.

Thinking independently and interdependently

Although necessary, independent thinking is only part of the story; also necessary is collaborative thinking. The process is reciprocal: you link your thinking with the thinking of others. You feed off the ideas of others, who then feed off yours. Both independent and interdependent thinking spur progress and spark innovation.

Why Intellectual Habits and Character Matter

To become truly useful, these habits of mind need to be actualized as things you do regularly. In making these kinds of thinking habitual, you develop what Ron Ritchhart (2004) has called “intellectual character,” a cohesive way of thinking that is distinctively your own. His notion of intellectual character includes habits of mind, along with patterns of thinking and general dispositions about thinking that reflect how you think. Developing an intellectual character requires building on positive thinking dispositions, such as persistence, patience, and perseverance. Your intellectual character defines you as an individual thinker; it reflects your particular way of engaging the world mindfully.

David Brooks (2014) echoes and extends these ideas with a set of “mental virtues” he believes are embedded in character, virtues necessary for quality higher-order thinking. Among these mental virtues are intellectual courage, which Brooks defines as the “willingness to hold unpopular views.” Firmness and autonomy require an ability to hold to your ideas in the face of opposition. They involve a balancing act between flaccidity and rigidity, and between respect for authority and tradition on one hand, and the ability to depart from those influences, on the other. Brooks adds generosity and humility to the mix, recognizing others' ideas and acknowledging the limits of your knowledge and understanding. Thinking well requires resisting vanity and laziness, pushing against the need for certainty, resisting the urge to avoid painful truths. In short, good critical thinking for Brooks is a “moral enterprise,” one that requires “the ability to go against our lesser impulses for the sake of our higher ones.”

Enhancing your ability to think critically can have a pronounced effect on your behavior as well as on your attitude toward learning and the thinking of others. Taking intellectual risks can make you both a more daring thinker and a more interesting one. Being open to the possibility of failure can lead you to a more experimental and exploratory frame of mind, permitting you to try different options with the knowledge that some won't work out. Risk-taking demonstrates a kind of intellectual courage necessary for eventual creative breakthroughs.

Learning to think interdependently enriches your intellectual experience, with opportunities for you to bounce ideas off others and to share in the pleasure of figuring things out together. It also provides practice in the necessary skill of collaboration, which is critically important in today's workplace. Being open to others' ideas and perspectives and willing to change your mind helps to develop skills in negotiation and conflict management, while enhancing your reputation as a reasonable and flexible thinker.

Overcoming Obstacles to Thinking

To develop productive intellectual habits, you need to overcome various obstacles that can block your thinking. In Conceptual Blockbusting, James L. Adams (2001) discusses blocks to thought, including perceptual blocks, cultural blocks, intellectual blocks, emotional blocks, and polarizing blocks.

Perceptual blocks to thinking

Perceptual blocks inhibit your ability to make sense of what you are looking at. They interfere with what you can see. To overcome perceptual blocks you keep looking until you can make sense of what you are seeing.

In looking at Picasso's painting Guernica, for example, you notice distorted human figures. You can find Guernica on many Internet sites, including http://www.pablopicasso.org/guernica.jsp.

You see a horse with an open mouth, its tongue a spike, in what appears an agonized scream; you see an extended arm and a hand holding a light. You see distorted human arms and legs, hands and fingers and feet in contorted postures. You see a head thrown back with its mouth open, a person with arms extended upwards, and a hand clutching a sharp object.

Making sense begins with careful noticing. It involves relating the details you see, considering why they have been put together. It involves asking questions about what you observe. In the process you arrive at an understanding of the significance of what you are looking at.

Besides doing your own noticing, you can also ask colleagues or friends what they see and what sense they make of Guernica. You can also do some research into what Picasso attempted with this painting, and why he created it. Knowing something about the historical events that inspired Picasso to paint Guernica and learning something about the painting's varied contexts can deepen your understanding and enhance your appreciation.

Learning to see ably requires patience, effort, and practice. You prepare yourself to see; you learn how to look. One crucial element for improving your thinking, then, is to become more observant—to broaden and deepen your perception.

To notice the special features of Chartres cathedral, to appreciate the moves of basketball star LeBron James, or the skills of actors, such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett, you have to know something about architecture, basketball, or acting, respectively. One pillar of observation is knowledge. The more you know about something, the better you see it, understand it, and appreciate it. You may take pride in your knowledge of architecture, basketball, movies and acting, a pride earned through a deepening of knowledge. That deepened knowledge enables you to see more and to see better than those who lack such knowledge. You can overcome perceptual blocks to thinking, then, in a variety of ways. Seeing more and seeing better, and knowing more are some productive perceptual blockbusting strategies.

Cultural blocks to thinking

Cultural blocks develop from ingrained thinking habits. Cultural blocks to thinking derive from ethnic, racial, national, and intellectual traditions, as well as from your gender and social class. Italians and Norwegians, Latinos and Native Americans, Japanese and Singaporeans, men and women, the wealthy and the poor, bankers and poets, have different life priorities largely because of their different experiences and their differing social and cultural, political, and economic backgrounds. Similarly, people of different religions are committed to varied ideas about the role of children or animals in society, or the degree of respect given the elderly, or to educators, for that matter. Your perspectives on issues, including your way of seeing the world, are influenced by such factors.

Cultural blocks inhibit thinking. Recognizing cultural blocks is the first step toward avoiding them as an impediment to thinking. Being aware of your cultural filters enables you to better understand why you see the world as you do and why others may see it differently. It's a first step toward recognizing those other ways of seeing and acknowledging their legitimacy and value. This acknowledgment validates your own cultural background, perceptions, and filters, while also recognizing the legitimacy of other ways of seeing things, of other cultural perspectives.

Intellectual blocks to thinking

Intellectual blocks involve knowledge and its limitations. You may sometimes find yourself unable to solve a problem because you lack information or because the information you have is incomplete or incorrect. In buying a car, for example, you may not know the performance ratings of various models, or of their differing repair or safety records. You may have only information provided by dealers and their sales reps. If you lack a knowledge of cars, you will lack confidence when purchasing one.

On the other hand, you may know quite a bit about a particular subject yet lack the skill to express your ideas effectively. How often have you said to yourself, “I really knew what I wanted to say, but I just couldn't find the right words?” To break through an intellectual block, you need to acquire additional information or to deepen your understanding. You may have to think more deeply and more broadly about what you know—to consider other ways your knowledge can be applied or valued.

Emotional blocks to thinking

Emotional blocks to thought occur when feelings interfere with thinking. Emotional blocks include your fears and anxieties, with perhaps the biggest emotional block to thinking being the fear of being wrong. You may be concerned about how people perceive you, especially what they might think if you are mistaken. Consequently, you may be reluctant to advance ideas you are unsure of. “What if I'm wrong?” you might wonder. “What if people think my comment is stupid?” Such emotional blocks can inhibit your ability to explore ideas; they impede your thinking. The solution is to allow yourself the luxury of being wrong, to forgive yourself for your mistakes. Mistakes are necessary for intellectual development. Not always knowing the answers is normal; error can lead to discovery, as the history of science and technology repeatedly demonstrates. The invention of Kevlar, for example, which is used in bullet-proof vests, was developed after a serendipitous lab experiment that didn't work out; the failed experiment led to the discovery of a fiber that was five times stronger than steel and many times lighter, one that has saved thousands of lives. Such knowledge can alleviate your fears about being wrong and overcome emotional blocks to thinking.

Another emotional block to thinking is an inability to tolerate confusion, uncertainty, and ambiguity. Periods of uncertainty are often necessary for breakthroughs in thinking. A toleration of chaos in thinking, however temporary, can be critical. In writing a report, for example, you shouldn't expect to decide on your idea, plan the organization, and write the ideal version in a single attempt. Exploring a subject, entertaining ideas, experimenting with different organizational structures, and writing some messy drafts is common, even for professional writers. The esteemed American writer E. B. White took six drafts and 25 hours of work before he was satisfied with a single paragraph that he published about the moon landing in The New Yorker magazine in 1969. Few successful thinkers and writers get things just right the first time, even masters of their craft like E. B. White.

Polarizing blocks to thinking

To polarize is to see things as opposed—“polar opposites” we call them, such as “us” and “them,” liberal and conservative, fashionable and unfashionable. Polarized thinking is “black and white” thinking, “either–or” thinking. Such thinking creates mutually exclusive categories that avoid compromise. Polarized categories, such as the following, inhibit thinking:

Yes/no

Friend/enemy

Win/lose

Diligent/lazy

Strong/weak

Intelligent/stupid

Avoid limiting your thinking with these and other polarized categories; seek instead, the middle ground between them. Think, for example, about being “for” or “against” some plan, project, or idea. Consider how such a limited forced choice often misrepresents the complexity of your feelings. You might create a continuum that permits gradations between the opposing perspectives. You may want to say, in such a case, “Hold on. I am for this part of the plan, but I'm against that part.” You may favor curtailing health care costs, for example, but that does not necessarily mean that you support the President's latest plan for health care reform. Conversely, opposing the President's plan doesn't mean that you are against controlling the costs of health care. You may favor a particular economic stimulus package—just not the one that either Barack Obama or his opposition favors. Perhaps you support elements of each of their plans, but don't support either totally. “Yes but” and “No but” provide a structure for avoiding black-and-white, all-or-nothing polarized thinking.

Asking “to what extent” or “to what degree” is more productive than seeing a situation as “all or nothing.” To avoid “black and white,” “either–or” thinking, ask yourself the following question: “To what extent” is an idea acceptable, a book interesting, a film entertaining or provocative? Considering degree or extent pushes you to make distinctions, to explore and consider possibilities and shades of difference. It encourages listening to others' views and perspectives, thinking interdependently, and ultimately developing better critical thinking habits of mind (see Table 1.2).

Table 1.2 How to overcome obstacles to thinking

Obstacles to thinking

Ways to overcome obstacles

Perceptual blocks

Practice observing and noticing.

Cultural blocks

Become aware of cultural perspectives.

Intellectual blocks

Study. Review. Research.

Emotional blocks

Conquer fear of mistakes.

Polarizing blocks

Identify the middle ground.

A Model for Critical Thinking

In Theory of Knowledge, Richard van de Lagemaat (2006) presents a cyclical model for critical thinking: Question—Clarify—Support—Evaluate—Reflect. The model is cyclical, such that after the final stage reflection, the cycle begins again. According to this model, you begin with what you know—or think you know. And then you cycle through the following actions:

You ask questions

: What questions can you ask about this knowledge?

You seek clarification

: What does this knowledge mean for you?

You consider available support

: What is the evidence for this knowledge?

You evaluate

: What are the criteria by which you evaluate this knowledge?

You reflect

: What have you assumed and what can you consider about this knowledge?

The circularity of the process suggests continuity; it never really ends. You continue to question and clarify, to seek evidentiary support. You keep on evaluating and reflecting on what you know. In the process, you deepen your understanding and extend your critical thinking capacities.

How You Know What You Know

Underlying Richard van de Lagemaat's model of critical thinking—or indeed any model of thinking—lies a basic question: “How do you know what you know?” “Where does your knowledge come from?” Essentially, you learn things in three ways:

through your individual experience of the world;

through reading and hearing from others;

through figuring things out for yourself.

Experience, or empirical knowledge, comes through your senses—what you observe, feel, hear, smell, taste, and the like. Learning from others involves accepting authority, taking on faith what experts say about a subject. Figuring things out involves using your reasoning powers to understand and arrive at conclusions. Some philosophers posit a fourth way of knowing, a kind of intuitive understanding independent of experience. This kind of knowledge is somehow already there inside you; it is innate, or inborn; you simply have to discover it.

Each of these ways of knowing, however, can lead you astray. Empirical knowledge cannot always be trusted, for sometimes you don't observe things accurately. Taking the word of others can also lead you into error when others are untruthful or mistaken. Using your reason can be problematic if you don't reason logically, or if you base your reasoning on false premises or erroneous information. And intuitive understanding might not be corroborated by empirical experience.

Another challenge to knowledge concerns models of how the world works, because models are often vastly oversimplified when they are not simply wrong. As Nate Silver (2012) points out in The Signal and the Noise, inaccurate models magnify error because mistakes about complex systems are measured not by degrees or small margins of error, but by large orders of magnitude—the difference of a single zero between, say, 1,000,000 and 10,000,000, or the difference in a political forecasting error large enough to swing an election to one candidate rather than another. Perhaps the best known example of how small divergences in initial conditions can lead to divergent outcomes is the so-called “butterfly effect,” in which it a massive storm on one continent can result from a distant butterfly flapping its wings on another.

One complication with our knowing things is that particular facts change over time. In The Half-Life of Facts, Samuel Arbesman (2012) suggests that facts have “half-lives” in the same way elements do. He explains that we can understand the rates at which facts are created and the rates at which they are disseminated. Facts in the aggregate can be predicted in systematic ways. We can classify the ways facts emerge and are replaced by other more accurate facts. Some facts are in constant flux—the weather and the stock market, for example. Others change exceedingly slowly—the number of continents and oceans, for example. And then there are facts whose rate of change is somewhere in between, “mesofacts,” as he calls them. Examples include the number of planets in the solar system; the number of chemical elements in the periodic table; the ways we store, process, and disseminate information. Knowledge is not inert; it does not stand still. Changes in our knowledge—in what and how we know—occur all the time in large and small ways. This kind of knowledge variability is the rule rather than the exception.

Perception and Knowledge

Perception is more complex than it typically appears. It involves more than a simple kind of “seeing.” Perception involves interpretation, and hence understanding; it reflects what you think you know and not just what you think you “see.”

The art historian E. H. Gombrich (1960) has suggested that we cannot separate “what we see from what we know.” This is so for three reasons. First, you can't know more than you can see. That is, you can't understand something until you “see” it either literally or figuratively (as when you “grasp” or “see” an idea). Second, your ability to see (and understand) anything is grounded in your prior experience. Your understanding is based on this prior knowledge and on the expectations that derive from it. And third, your knowledge and seeing are linked because they are based on the conceptual categories you “think” with. You always see something “as” something that can be categorized, something that you know from experience or from general knowledge. The categories you use to see things enable you to see them yet, at the same time, limit your ability to see them in other ways, or to see other things. Categories work as perceptual filters that enable your seeing while, paradoxically, constraining it.

Seeing is also a kind of thinking, and “observation is also invention,” as another art historian, Rudolf Arnheim (1969), has argued. When you see something, you make sense of it by making inferences about it, guessing what it is and adjusting those guesses to conform to your changing perceptions. Seeing, thus, is an active, selective, and interpretive process; it is not simply an automatic, objective absorbing of external reality.

How does this process of seeing work? When you see something, you begin “editing” it. Your brain highlights particular features of what you are looking at and suppresses others. Without the brain's editing of visual stimuli, you would not be able to make sense of what you see. By selecting, classifying, and relating details, your brain enables you to see something rather than a confused jumble. When viewing an object rooted in the ground, its trunk rising and proliferating in branches festooned with leaves, you see it “as” something—in this case as a deciduous tree. If your brain did not isolate particular features and highlight them, you would register, as American psychologist William James has noted, “a blooming, buzzing confusion.”

Up till now, we have been emphasizing how we see via our sight. Perception, however, refers more broadly to an awareness of things through the other senses as well. Perceiving through your senses provides a knowledge and experience of the world and of others. Sight, for example, is essential in critical ways for scientific observation, for historical investigation, including eyewitness accounts, and for every aspect of architecture and the arts of painting, drawing, and sculpture, as well as for work in mathematics and music, language and literature—and much more. Hearing is essential for music, of course, and for theater, but it is also important for the study of literature—poetry especially—as well as for work in political science and rhetoric. Careful listening attunes us to nuances of meaning and implication, especially in social circumstances, especially when they involve unfamiliar cultural norms and values.

Perceptual illusions

One of the dangers of perception is that sometimes things you see appear different from the way they really are. Artists have long known how to make things appear “realistic”—the way they seem to us in everyday life—by using linear perspective. That's why the photograph of the train in Figure 1.2 seems right to us.

Figure 1.2 Train in perspective. © Oleksiy Mark/Shutterstock

Look now at the three silhouette shapes in Figure 1.3. Things look a bit strange because the figures have not been scaled. The figures are actually the same size—though the one in the rear looks larger than those in the middle and in the foreground. Your eyes and brain tell you that the figures differ in size, but a measurement will confirm that all three are indeed the same size.

Figure 1.3 Figures in perspective. © Darq/Shutterstock

Figure ground and perception

In looking at objects, you focus on some aspects or details rather than on others—on the “figure” and not on the “ground.” Reading these words, for example, you ignore the white background in favor of the black printed letters. You ignore, too, the spaces between the words—withoutthespacesthereitwouldbehardtoreadthewords.

Some images can be confusing because they can be “read” in more than one way at the same time. Such figures or images are unstable and ambiguous. You can use figure and ground to look at the two images in Figures 1.4 (Goblet/faces) and 1.5 (Letter/number). In looking at Figure 1.4, focusing on the white part of the figure while keeping the black area as the (back)ground, you see two faces staring at each other. In switching the figure and ground, focusing now on the black figure with the white as background, you can see a goblet. In Figure 1.5, Letter/number, you can see either the letter B or the number 13. These unstable images, rife with visual ambiguity, suggest that things can be seen in more than one way–though not at the same time.

Figure 1.4 Goblet/faces. © astudio/Shutterstock

Figure 1.5 Letter/number

Perception and expectation

Expectations influence what and how you see. Read the following signs:

We go

Oh how

to

I love

Miami

Paris

in the

in the

the winter

the spring

Did you read “We go to Miami in the Winter” and “I Love Paris in the Spring”? Or did you read them as “We go to Miami in the the Winter” and “Oh How I Love Paris in the the Spring”—which is what is actually written. Most people miss the second “the” in each case because that is not what they expected.

You see what you expect to see, and you don't see what may be in front of your nose if you did not expect to see it. In a striking set of psychological experiments, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons (2010) had participants watch a video showing two teams, one dressed in white, the other in black, as they bounced a ball back and forth. The participants counted the number of bounces made by the white-clothed players. During the experiment, a person dressed in a gorilla costume walked in front of the camera. In one experiment the “gorilla” went by quickly; in another, the “gorilla” stood for a few seconds before moving out of camera range. The psychologists asked the participants whether they saw anything unusual during their viewing of the video. Half saw only the teams bouncing basketballs, completely missing the “gorilla.” It didn't matter whether the “gorilla” walked by quickly or paused briefly. Some participants, in fact, refused to believe that the “gorilla” was there at all—even after being confronted with the evidence on film. They simply did not believe they could have missed something so obvious. In fact, however, they didn't see it. You can find the original and subsequent examples of this selective attention test on YouTube.

Rolf Dobelli (2013) in The Art of Thinking Clearly calls his phenomenon “the illusion of attention.” He suggests that we vastly overrate our ability to attend to things—especially when doing or seeing two or more things simultaneously. It is not so much that you miss every extraordinary event that streams past your visual plane. What you fail to notice remains unrecognized and unvalued. You may have no idea what you missed; you don't know what you don't know. This is dangerous because when you think you are perceiving everything of importance, you aren't. The reality may be distinctly otherwise.

Perception and culture

One additional filter of perception is culture. Your cultural background enables you to see things in certain ways. However, it also prevents you from seeing things in other ways. Or at least it makes it more difficult to see things from a different cultural perspective. That is one reason there is so much misunderstanding and conflict in the world. And it's one of the prime reasons a capacity to consider perspectives other than your own, other ways of seeing and understanding—other ways of describing “reality”—is so important.

Roger von Oech (1986), who has written and consulted widely on thinking, tells a story about differing perceptions and understandings that result from differing cultural expectations. During World War II, American soldiers dated English women. Because of differing cultural expectations about dating, each accused the other of being sexually aggressive. The confusion resulted because of differently interpreted signals regarding kissing. According to American cultural norms of the time, kissing is about five on a sequence of thirty courtship steps leading to sexual intimacy. In the American sequence of events, kissing signals early romantic interest.