- Components:
- Introduction.
- 1st p: The role of critical thinking.
- 2nd p: Assumptions and premises.
- 3rd p: Evidence.
- 4th p: Claims.
- 5th p: Reasoning.
- 6th p: The structure of an argument.
- 7th p: Fallacies.
- Conclusion.
Critical thinking is the quality of putting highly rational evaluations of arguments and evidence into use. This kind of thinking is usually neglected or selectively utilised due to being demanding and difficult in terms of application. In addition to some social layers that are benefiting from the absence of that quality to mislead people and easily apply their plans to them. Not to mention emotions that shape a major reason why we find it tough to put our bias aside. Ennis (1987) highlights two main pillars of critical thinking which are the ability to reflect sceptically and to think in a reasoned way. Generally, critical thinking does highly play a great role in human life and is associated with several perspectives and elements which govern and mark it.
Critical thinking develops various human qualities starting from observation, reasoning, decision-making, and persuasion, ending up with self-reliance. Critical thinking might seem to a layman as merely an academic way of thinking. However, critical thinking would be of higher effect if used publicly. That can be easily viewed through the wide quantity of fake news that finds its way to the minds of folks and which results in numerous issues. If critical thinking was used as a means of verification, we would have a society with a high immunity essentially from the two processes of disinformation and misinformation. Furthermore, if it was for critical thinking, we would not have leaders with hidden intentions voted and accepted by the people, we can even get humanity developed into a political system in which individuals can govern themselves by themselves, as they are already owning strong armour against any idea that aims to manipulate them. It is also a historical fact that the more critical thinking dominates our everyday life the more we develop new technologies, better political systems and so on. The impact of critical thinking has been observable in the age of enlightenment, as several thinkers, such as John Locke, Isaac Newton etc, started to analyse thoughts around them in a critical way of thinking. The latter deed could overthrow whole regimes and replace them with better ones.
Two of the main elements to be identified while conducting critical thinking are assumptions and premises which shape any kind of argument. Both might be thoughts, faiths, or facts that are reckoned. The only difference between the two is that the assumption is formulated implicitly, and thus it needs to be decoded, unlike the premise which is stated conspicuously and hence it is direct. The premises and assumptions provided in an argument are its foundations, thus, if they are false, the argument would have no basis to stand on. For example ''Being wet in the rain ends up in catching a cold. The workers worked for many hours in the pouring rain. Thus, they will catch a cold.''The previously mentioned passage is founded on a rational basis. On the other hand, if we introduced the passage with, ''Being without gods protection under the rain ends up in catching a cold." Here we can see that the passage was introduced by a mythical and non-rational assumption and thus the argument will wholly fall, as its foundation is false.
For a more solid ground, critical thinking should be based on rating evidence. The latter is the element by which we deduce the amount of the argument's credibility. It can be weak or strong, valid or invalid. Therefore, to rate a certain piece of evidence, attention must be paid to the authenticity, accuracy, recency, objectivity, consistency, and reliability of the evidence. In other words, the evidence should correspond entirely and precisely to the point that is meant to be proven in terms of time duration, topic, and field of expertise. For more clarity, evidence takes a kind of nature which lies on former deductions that are known as proven from various aspects. For instance: Smoking can cause cancer, thus, do not smoke if you want to avoid having cancer. In addition, the nature of evidence relies majorly upon objectivity. That is to say, the nature of the evidence is also based on objects that can be heard, smelled, touched, or experimented. Furthermore, evidence can be divided into four kinds. The first one is statistical evidence. It is as it directly indicates, based on a variety of data which are represented in mathematical forms. The second type is testimonial evidence, which contains certain events or happenings from the past or present that are being verified by a group of people. For example, hundreds of people have witnessed the destruction of several houses by the American military. The previously mentioned type of evidence has got some sub-types under it. These are eyewitnesses, expert-witness, and histography. The third type is anecdotal evidence which is based on storytelling. The previous fact might tell us that it is subjective. However, it is not used to prove accurate points, it is rather functioning as a shred of extra evidence or as a support to clear issues and points. An example of that is when you try to prove the importance of something such as having a school close to home and you come to mention the story of a boy who had to pass through a long way to reach school, and due to the long distance, he has been a victim of an accident which has put an end to his life. After those three kinds of evidence, here comes the fourth one which is analogical evidence. It is mainly the use of a familiar object or phenomenon to explain another ambiguous and unusual one. For example, the death of an elderly man is like a burning library. Here, there has been an analogy between the death of an elderly and a burning library since the library shares the factor of wisdom with the elderly man and since it is hard to directly define what an elderly man's death is.
Another puzzle to be identified while conducting critical thinking is the claim. The word is derived from the Latin verb clāmāre which means shouting out. Thereupon, to make a claim signifies crying out a point or a specific view which can be verified by another rater. A claim as an endpoint of an argument consists of three categories; factual claims, value claims, and policy claims. Factual claims are based on commonly known things, such as popular natural, human, historical and legal phenomena. These kinds of claims can by themselves be factual relational, predictive, or historical claims. Factual relational claims aim to show a clear relationship between two happenings or conditions. For example: Eating ice cream in the winter will harm your tonsils. The other sub-type of a factual claim is the predictive claim. That claim is a simple logical conclusion that some things, be them events or phenomena are going to happen again in the future. For instance: By 2030 we will have most of the classes equipped with interactive boards. The last subtype of factual claims is the historical one. The latter lies on historical events with clear and common known evidence, such as using the fact that WWII mainly started with Hitler attacking Poland. Unlike claims which are factually based, value claims are based on the view of the claimer towards virtues. Particularly, what the claimer might label as right or wrong, moral or immoral, and ethical or non-ethical. To illustrate, I might say that we should all help one another for a better society. Similarly, there comes the policy claim, which is an actionable claim since it expresses an obligation. This claim can be recognised through the grammatical aspect when coming across some modal verbs, such as, should, need, have to, must etc. For instance, abortion should be allowed.
To have a complete critical view, it is important to consider the element of reasoning. It is the ability to create logical connections between various premises, statements, data, etc, to formulate or reach a certain conclusion. Initially, reasoning can differ according to the nature of the data attempted to be connected, as well as its occurring context. Thus, we can deduce six main kinds of reasoning; quasi-logical, and analogical, it is also divided into generalisation, cause and effect, coexistence, and dissociation. Quasi-logical reasoning is just like a mathematical equation; x=4, s=4, hence, x=s. For example, all linguistics university students are invited, I am a linguistics student, therefore, I am invited. Unlike that manner of reasoning, analogical one lies on valid similarities between events and objects etc. For instance, my phone is like yours, if you click longly on the menu button, it will open ''GOOGLE ASSISTANCE''. The other kind of reasoning is established upon generalisation. The latter can be valid only when the two generalised cases or things are known or proven to be so, otherwise, it'd be fallacious. For example, every European respects the environment. To diagnose reasoning through generalisation, we should see if the cases being generalised are truly proven to be the same within the circle of generalisation. Away from generalisation, there comes the causal type of reasoning. It is mainly derived from the very ancient Greece philosophy which has produced several thoughts through that type. Causal reasoning attempts to draw a line between cause and effect, removing the sense of arbitrariness. To illustrate, it is observed that the higher the temperature of a specific zone, the darker Men's skins get. For the cause-and-effect linkage to be valid, it should be proven or based on observable facts, not on myths and so on. On a similar basis, existential reasoning is based. For example, where there is grace, there is water. Here, it is clear that grace needs water to be there, so, if there is grace it must be a signal of the existence of water. At the end of the list comes a category of reasoning which is founded upon ''dissociation''. It is essentially making an idea inferior to another or making a statement that aims to distinguish between two thoughts in terms of merits. For instance, our military is not like the others, it might kill, but it is always for the sake of the general common good.
Indeed, the former elements are what shape an argument. For a clear illustration, let's imagine the argument as an ancient roman building(FigureA). The building is established firstly upon the basis and the podiums. Those represent premises, implicit beliefs, foundations, and theories. Upon these, collonade enclosing porticos/pillars are founded. In this sense, the reasoning is what is embodied there while covering and relating each part of the evidence. This building ends up with a triangular pediment. It fits up initially with the claim which is the end point of the argument.
For the sake of a full successful critical analysis, it is indispensable to find the existing fallacies, if there are any. Essentially, fallacies are based on either unconscious or conscious erroneous reasoning or lack of harmony in the reasoning used in the linkage of the elements within an argument. Fallacies are almost uncountable, thus, some popular fallacies are what we are going to discuss at the moment. One of the major fallacies is ''Two wrongs do not make a right''. This simply means: Person A did x to person B. Thus, Person B is right to do x to person A. Or, person A thinks that person B would do x to person A. Hence, Person A is allowed to do x to person B. To illustrate, Rosa stole Vladimir’s dinner in the past. Therefore, Vladimir is allowed to steal Rosa’s dinner today. Rosa has done a bad deed by stealing, but that cannot make the former deed to be righteous and is not a justification to be done back by any other person. Another frequently used fallacy is the strawman fallacy. It can be drawn as follows: Person A makes point x. Person B restates person A’s point (in a disfigured manner). Person B attacks the distorted form of the point. To deduce, point x is false. An example of that is the following dialogue:
Josef: Evolution is a scientific theory that is being more supported by proof day by day.
Luka: How dare you say that Men and animals are the same... We are very distinguished from other animals...(Luka has gone away from the point of Josef, created another version, and attacked it).
In a close manner, here comes a fallacy called ''Ad Hominem''. It is in the following form: person A is making point x. Person A is ugly. Thus, point x is false. That is to say, this fallacy is attacking a person physically and subjectively, rather than responding to his arguments. Unlike the former fallacies, which are in a way based on individuals, comes Ad populum which is based on the appeal to the majority. It is formulated like this: Many people think that x is right. Thus, x is right. This is a fallacious logic, because things are not right due to the majority's belief, they are rather true because they were scientifically or logically proven. Authorities are also used in fallacies in what is labelled as ''Appeal to authority''. Its form could be lined as: According to person A, x is true. Thus, x is true. Appealing to authorities can often be supportive to the point one might claim, but, when we appeal to the wrong authority which has no expertise in the field of speech, it becomes a fallacy. In a kin sense, we shall find the Post Hoc fallacy which might be called ''after this fallacy'' or ''magical thinking''. Its formula is as follows: x happened before y, so x has caused y. This fallacy is mainly based on claiming that if an event happened before another, it must have caused it. It is true sometimes, but not all the time, to make it true, proof must be provided. Generalisation is considered to be a fallacy when unproven, it is mostly called the ''hasten generalisation fallacy''. This one is formed like this: Sample x is taken from s. Sample x is a very little part of s. Conclusion d is derived from sample x. In other words, it is taking one single or few cases from a large population or various issues, generalising it, and then forcefully concluding that it is the case for all the matters in that sense. Language does also intervene in the process of fallacies creation. There can be a deflective use of language through using introductors, such as: obviously, of course, normally etc, as well as calls for modernity rather than proving the counter-argument wrong. Complicity encouragement is used as well through phrases as everybody knows, we all know, for sure, or as all of us think... That is in addition to emotive language which is the main enemy of critical thinking, by using sensitive and emotional concepts such as children, mercy, honour and so on. Lastly, false analogies are one of the frequently utilised fallacies. X is similar to y. Y has characteristic b. Hence, x has characteristic b. But x is not that similar to y. Simply, an object can have one similarity with another, but that does not mean they should be similar in everything else. We make frequent analogies between the sun and the truth, they indeed have many in common, but also when the analogy goes more literal or off-topic, it becomes fallacious.
In conclusion, critical thinking is of a major role in all aspects of our lives. Its main focus is put on the analysis of the argument, which should be as pure as possible from fallacies, and prejudices, while supported by correct reasoning, strong evidence, and a consistent claim. Critical thinking by its essence is also built on scepticism. The latter is what makes a person a Man of her own, not a stock place for invalid misleading ideas. To be a critical thinker, identify (identify the evidence, reasoning manner, fallacies and the claim used in the argument), analyse (Understand each component of the argument), and then evaluate ( give the argument that you have come across a rating according to the validity of its logical components).
Bibliography:
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