Defining Critical Thinking

Critical thinking...the awakening of the intellect to the study of itself.

Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developing throughout the past 2,500
years. The term "critical thinking" has its roots in the mid-late 20th century. Below,
we offer overlapping definitions which together form a substantive and trans-
disciplinary conception of critical thinking.

Critical Thinking as Defined by the National Council for Excellence in Critical

Thinking, 1987
A statement by Michael Scriven & Richard Paul, presented at the 8th Annual
International Conference on Critical Thinking and Education Reform, Summer 1987.
Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully
conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information
gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or
communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on
universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy,
precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth,
and fairness.
It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all
reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical
grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences;
objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinking — in
being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is incorporated
in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking,
mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking,
moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.
Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and
belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual
commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with:
1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a
particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of
a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of
those skills ("as an exercise") without acceptance of their results.
Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in
selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of
one’s own, or one's groups’, vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed,
however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fairmindedness and
intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the
charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use.
Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to
episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter
of degree and dependent on, among other things, the quality and depth of experience
in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one
is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with
such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards
self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and
dispositions is a life-long endeavor.
Another Brief Conceptualization of Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the
highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt
to live rationally, reasonably, empathically. They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed
nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They strive to diminish the power of their
egocentric and sociocentric tendencies. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking
offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve
thinking. They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity,
intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice and
confidence in reason. They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can
always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in
reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social
rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest. They strive to improve the world in
whatever ways they can and contribute to a more rational, civilized society. At the same
time, they recognize the complexities often inherent in doing so. They avoid thinking
simplistically about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and
needs of relevant others. They recognize the complexities in developing as thinkers, and
commit themselves to life-long practice toward self-improvement. They embody the Socratic
principle: The unexamined life is not worth living , because they realize that many unexamined
lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world. ~ Linda Elder, September,
2007

Why Critical Thinking?

The Problem
Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is
biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our
life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of
our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence
in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated.
A Definition
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or problem - in
which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge
of the structures inherent in thinking and
imposing intellectual standards upon them.
The Result
A well cultivated critical thinker:
 raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely;
 gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it
effectively comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them
against relevant criteria and standards;
 thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and
assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical
consequences; and
 communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex
problems.
Critical thinking is, in short, self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-
corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and
mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem solving
abilities and a commitment to overcome our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.
(Taken from Richard Paul and Linda Elder, The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and
Tools, Foundation for Critical Thinking Press, 2008)

Critical Thinking Defined by Edward Glaser

In a seminal study on critical thinking and education in 1941, Edward Glaser defines critical
thinking as follows “The ability to think critically, as conceived in this volume, involves three
things: ( 1 ) an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and
subjects that come within the range of one's experiences, (2) knowledge of the methods of
logical inquiry and reasoning, and (3) some skill in applying those methods. Critical thinking
calls for a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light
of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends. It also generally
requires ability to recognize problems, to find workable means for meeting those problems, to
gather and marshal pertinent information, to recognize unstated assumptions and values, to
comprehend and use language with accuracy, clarity, and discrimination, to interpret data, to
appraise evidence and evaluate arguments, to recognize the existence (or non-existence) of
logical relationships between propositions, to draw warranted conclusions and generalizations,
to put to test the conclusions and generalizations at which one arrives, to reconstruct one's
patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider experience, and to render accurate judgments about
specific things and qualities in everyday life.
(Edward M. Glaser, An Experiment in the Development of Critical Thinking, Teacher’s College,
Columbia University, 1941)

Critical Thinking: Basic Questions & Answers

Abstract

In this interview for Think magazine (April ’’92), Richard Paul provides a quick
overview of critical thinking and the issues surrounding it: defining it, common
mistakes in assessing it, its relation to communication skills, self-esteem,
collaborative learning, motivation, curiosity, job skills for the future, national
standards, and assessment strategies.
Question: Critical thinking is essential to effective learning and productive living.
Would you share your definition of critical thinking?
Paul: First, since critical thinking can be defined in a number of different ways
consistent with each other, we should not put a lot of weight on any one definition.
Definitions are at best scaffolding for the mind. With this qualification in mind, here is
a bit of scaffolding: critical thinking is thinking about your thinking while you’re thinking
in order to make your thinking better. Two things are crucial:
1) critical thinking is not just thinking, but thinking which entails self-
improvement

2) this improvement comes from skill in using standards by which one

appropriately assesses thinking. To put it briefly, it is self-improvement (in
thinking) through standards (that assess thinking).
To think well is to impose discipline and restraint on our thinking-by means of
intellectual standards — in order to raise our thinking to a level of "perfection" or
quality that is not natural or likely in undisciplined, spontaneous thought. The
dimension of critical thinking least understood is that of "intellectual standards." Most
teachers were not taught how to assess thinking through standards; indeed, often the
thinking of teachers themselves is very "undisciplined" and reflects a lack of
internalized intellectual standards.
Question: Could you give me an example?
Paul: Certainly, one of the most important distinctions that teachers need to routinely
make, and which takes disciplined thinking to make, is that between reasoning and
subjective reaction.
If we are trying to foster quality thinking, we don't want students simply to assert
things; we want them to try to reason things out on the basis of evidence and good
reasons. Often, teachers are unclear about this basic difference. Many teachers are
apt to take student writing or speech which is fluent and witty or glib and amusing as
good thinking. They are often unclear about the constituents of good reasoning.
Hence, even though a student may just be asserting things, not reasoning things out
at all, if she is doing so with vivacity and flamboyance, teachers are apt to take this to
be equivalent to good reasoning.
This was made clear in a recent California state-wide writing assessment in which
teachers and testers applauded a student essay, which they said illustrated
"exceptional achievement" in reasoned evaluation, an essay that contained no
reasoning at all, that was nothing more than one subjective reaction after another.
(See "Why Students-and Teachers-Don't Reason Well")
The assessing teachers and testers did not notice that the student failed to respond
to the directions, did not support his judgment with reasons and evidence, did not
consider possible criteria on which to base his judgment, did not analyze the subject
in the light of the criteria, and did not select evidence that clearly supported his
judgment. Instead the student:
described an emotional exchange
asserted-without evidence-some questionable claims
expressed a variety of subjective preferences
The assessing teachers were apparently not clear enough about the nature of
evaluative reasoning or the basic notions of criteria, evidence, reasons, and well-
supported judgment to notice the discrepancy. The result was, by the way, that a
flagrantly mis-graded student essay was showcased nationally (in ASCD's Developing
Minds), systematically misleading the 150,000 or so teachers who read the publication.
Question: Could this possibly be a rare mistake, not representative of teacher
knowledge?
Paul: I don't think so. Let me suggest a way in which you could begin to test my
contention. If you are familiar with any thinking skills programs, ask someone
knowledgeable about it the "Where's the beef?" question. Namely, "What intellectual
standards does the program articulate and teach?" I think you will first find that the
person is puzzled about what you mean. And then when you explain what you mean,
I think you will find that the person is not able to articulate any such standards.
Thinking skills programs without intellectual standards are tailor-made for mis-
instruction. For example, one of the major programs asks teachers to encourage
students to make inferences and use analogies, but is silent about how to teach
students to assess the inferences they make and the strengths and weaknesses of
the analogies they use. This misses the point. The idea is not to help students to make
more inferences but to make sound ones, not to help students to come up with more
analogies but with more useful and insightful ones.
Question: What is the solution to this problem? How, as a practical matter, can we
solve it?
Paul: Well, not with more gimmicks or quick fixes. Not with more fluff for teachers.
Only with quality long-term staff development that helps the teachers, over an
extended period of time, over years not months, to work on their own thinking and
come to terms with what intellectual standards are, why they are essential, and how
to teach for them. The State Department in Hawaii has just such a long-term, quality,
critical thinking program (see "mentor program"). So that's one model your readers
might look at. In addition, the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking
Instruction is focused precisely on the articulation of standards for thinking. I am
hopeful that eventually, through efforts such as these, we can move from the
superficial to the substantial in fostering quality student thinking. The present level of
instruction for thinking is very low indeed.
Question: But there are many areas of concern in instruction, not just one, not just
critical thinking, but communication skills, problem solving, creative thinking,
collaborative learning, self-esteem, and so forth. How are districts to deal with the full
array of needs? How are they to do all of these rather than simply one, no matter how
important that one may be?
Paul: This is the key. Everything essential to education supports everything else
essential to education. It is only when good things in education are viewed
superficially and wrongly that they seem disconnected, a bunch of separate goals, a
conglomeration of separate problems, like so many bee-bees in a bag. In fact, any
well-conceived program in critical thinking requires the integration of all of the skills
and abilities you mentioned above. Hence, critical thinking is not a set of skills
separable from excellence in communication, problem solving, creative thinking, or
collaborative learning, nor is it indifferent to one's sense of self-worth.
Question: Could you explain briefly why this is so?
Paul: Consider critical thinking first. We think critically when we have at least one
problem to solve. One is not doing good critical thinking, therefore, if one is not solving
any problems. If there is no problem there is no point in thinking critically. The
"opposite" is also true. Uncritical problem solving is unintelligible. There is no way to
solve problems effectively unless one thinks critically about the nature of the problems
and of how to go about solving them. Thinking our way through a problem to a
solution, then, is critical thinking, not something else. Furthermore, critical thinking,
because it involves our working out afresh our own thinking on a subject, and because
our own thinking is always a unique product of our self-structured experience, ideas,
and reasoning, is intrinsically a new "creation", a new "making", a new set of cognitive
and affective structures of some kind. All thinking, in short, is a creation of the mind's
work, and when it is disciplined so as to be well-integrated into our experience, it is a
new creation precisely because of the inevitable novelty of that integration. And when
it helps us to solve problems that we could not solve before, it is surely properly called
"creative".
The "making" and the "testing of that making" are intimately interconnected. In critical
thinking we make and shape ideas and experiences so that they may be used to
structure and solve problems, frame decisions, and, as the case may be, effectively
communicate with others. The making, shaping, testing, structuring, solving, and
communicating are not different activities of a fragmented mind but the same
seamless whole viewed from different perspectives.
Question: How do communication skills fit in?
Paul: Some communication is surface communication, trivial communication--surface
and trivial communication don't really require education. All of us can engage in small
talk, can share gossip. And we don't require any intricate skills to do that fairly well.
Where communication becomes part of our educational goal is in reading, writing,
speaking and listening. These are the four modalities of communication which are
essential to education and each of them is a mode of reasoning. Each of them
involves problems. Each of them is shot through with critical thinking needs. Take the
apparently simple matter of reading a book worth reading. The author has developed
her thinking in the book, has taken some ideas and in some way represented those
ideas in extended form. Our job as a reader is to translate the meaning of the author
into meanings that we can understand.
This is a complicated process requiring critical thinking every step along the way.
What is the purpose for the book?
What is the author trying to accomplish?
What issues or problems are raised?
What data, what experiences, what evidence are given?
What concepts are used to organize this data, these experiences?
How is the author thinking about the world?
Is her thinking justified as far as we can see from our perspective?
And how does she justify it from her perspective?
How can we enter her perspective to appreciate what she has to say?
All of these are the kinds of questions that a critical reader raises. And a critical reader
in this sense is simply someone trying to come to terms with the text.
So if one is an uncritical reader, writer, speaker, or listener, one is not a good reader,
writer, speaker, or listener at all. To do any of these well is to think critically while
doing so and, at one and the same time, to solve specific problems of communication,
hence to effectively communicate.
Communication, in short, is always a transaction between at least two logics. In
reading, as I have said, there is the logic of the thinking of the author and the logic of
the thinking of the reader. The critical reader reconstructs (and so translates) the logic
of the writer into the logic of the reader's thinking and experience. This entails
disciplined intellectual work. The end result is a new creation; the writer's thinking for
the first time now exists within the reader's mind. No mean feat!
Question: And self esteem? How does it fit in?
Paul: Healthy self-esteem emerges from a justified sense of self-worth, just as self-
worth emerges from competence, ability, and genuine success. If one simply feels
good about oneself for no good reason, then one is either arrogant (which is surely
not desirable) or, alternatively, has a dangerous sense of misplaced confidence.
Teenagers, for example, sometimes think so well of themselves that they operate
under the illusion that they can safely drive while drunk or safely take drugs. They
often feel much too highly of their own competence and powers and are much too
unaware of their limitations. To accurately sort out genuine self-worth from a false
sense of self-esteem requires, yes you guessed it, critical thinking.
Question: And finally, what about collaborative learning? How does it fit in?
Paul: Collaborative learning is desirable only if grounded in disciplined critical
thinking. Without critical thinking, collaborative learning is likely to become
collaborative mis-learning. It is collective bad thinking in which the bad thinking being
shared becomes validated. Remember, gossip is a form of collaborative learning;
peer group indoctrination is a form of collaborative learning; mass hysteria is a form
of speed collaborative learning (mass learning of a most undesirable kind). We learn
prejudices collaboratively, social hates and fears collaboratively, stereotypes and
narrowness of mind, collaboratively. If we don’t put disciplined critical thinking into the
heart and soul of the collaboration, we get the mode of collaboration which is
antithetical to education, knowledge, and insight.
So there are a lot of important educational goals deeply tied into critical thinking just
as critical thinking is deeply tied into them. Basically the problem in the schools is that
we separate things, treat them in isolation and mistreat them as a result. We end up
with a superficial representation, then, of each of the individual things that is essential
to education, rather than seeing how each important good thing helps inform all the
others
Question: One important aim of schooling should be to create a climate that evokes
children’s sense of wonder and inspires their imagination to soar. What can teachers
do to "kindle" this spark and keep it alive in education?
Paul: First of all, we kill the child's curiosity, her desire to question deeply, by
superficial didactic instruction. Young children continually ask why. Why this and why
that? And why this other thing? But we soon shut that curiosity down with glib
answers, answers to fend off rather than to respond to the logic of the question. In
every field of knowledge, every answer generates more questions, so that the more
we know the more we recognize we don't know. It is only people who have little
knowledge who take their knowledge to be complete and entire. If we thought deeply
about almost any of the answers which we glibly give to children, we would recognize
that we don't really have a satisfactory answer to most of their questions. Many of our
answers are no more than a repetition of what we as children heard from adults. We
pass on the misconceptions of our parents and those of their parents. We say what
we heard, not what we know. We rarely join the quest with our children. We rarely
admit our ignorance, even to ourselves. Why does rain fall from the sky? Why is snow
cold? What is electricity and how does it go through the wire? Why are people bad?
Why does evil exist? Why is there war? Why did my dog have to die? Why do flowers
bloom? Do we really have good answers to these questions?
Question: How does curiosity fit in with critical thinking?
Paul: To flourish, curiosity must evolve into disciplined inquiry and reflection. Left to
itself it will soar like a kite without a tail, that is, right into the ground! Intellectual
curiosity is an important trait of mind, but it requires a family of other traits to fulfill it.
It requires intellectual humility, intellectual courage, intellectual integrity, intellectual
perseverance, and faith in reason. After all, intellectual curiosity is not a thing in itself
— valuable in itself and for itself. It is valuable because it can lead to knowledge,
understanding, and insight; because it can help broaden, deepen, sharpen our minds,
making us better, more humane, more richly endowed persons.
To reach these ends, the mind must be more than curious, it must be willing to work,
willing to suffer through confusion and frustration, willing to face limitations and
overcome obstacles, open to the views of others, and willing to entertain ideas that
many people find threatening. That is, there is no point in our trying to model and
encourage curiosity, if we are not willing to foster an environment in which the minds
of our students can learn the value and pain of hard intellectual work. We do our
students a disservice if we imply that all we need is unbridled curiosity, that with it
alone knowledge comes to us with blissful ease in an atmosphere of fun, fun, fun.
What good is curiosity if we don't know what to do next or how to satisfy it? We can
create the environment necessary to the discipline, power, joy, and work of critical
thinking only by modeling it before and with our students. They must see our minds
at work. Our minds must stimulate theirs with questions and yet further question;
questions that probe information and experience; questions that call for reasons and
evidence; questions that lead students to examine interpretations and conclusions,
pursuing their basis in fact and experience; questions that help students to discover
their assumptions, questions that stimulate students to follow out the implications of
their thought, to test their ideas, to take their ideas apart, to challenge their ideas, to
take their ideas seriously. It is in the totality of this intellectually rigorous atmosphere
that natural curiosity thrives.
Question: It is important for our students to be productive members of the work-force.
How can schools better prepare students to meet these challenges?
Paul: The fundamental characteristic of the world students now enter is ever-
accelerating change; a world in which information is multiplying even as it is swiftly
becoming obsolete and out of date; a world in which ideas are continually
restructured, retested, and rethought; where one cannot survive with simply one way
of thinking; where one must continually adapt one's thinking to the thinking of others;
where one must respect the need for accuracy and precision and meticulousness; a
world in which job skills must continually be upgraded and perfected — even
transformed. We have never had to face such a world before. Education has never
before had to prepare students for such dynamic flux, unpredictability, and complexity
for such ferment, tumult, and disarray.
We as educators are now on the firing line.
Are we willing to fundamentally rethink our methods of teaching?
Are we ready for the 21st Century?
Are we willing to learn new concepts and ideas?
Are we willing to learn a new sense of discipline as we teach it to our students?
Are we willing to bring new rigor to our own thinking in order to help our students
bring that same rigor to theirs?
Are we willing, in short, to become critical thinkers so that we might be an
example of what our students must internalize and become?
These are profound challenges to the profession. They call upon us to do what no
previous generation of teachers was ever called upon to do. Those of us willing to pay
the price will yet have to teach side by side with teachers unwilling to pay the price.
This will make our job even more difficult, but not less exciting, not less important, not
less rewarding. Critical thinking is the heart of well-conceived educational reform and
restructuring, because it is at the heart of the changes of the 21st Century. Let us
hope that enough of us will have the fortitude and vision to grasp this reality and
transform our lives and our schools accordingly.
Question: National standards will result in national accountability. What is your vision
for the future?
Paul: Most of the national assessment we have done thus far is based on lower-order
learning and thinking. It has focused on what might be called surface knowledge. It
has rewarded the kind of thinking that lends itself to multiple choice machine-graded
assessment. We now recognize that the assessment of the future must focus on
higher – not lower – order thinking; that it must assess more reasoning than recall;
that it must assess authentic performances, students engaged in bona fide intellectual
work.
Our problem is in designing and implementing such assessment. In November of this
last year, Gerald Nosich and I developed and presented, at the request of the U.S.
Department of Education, a model for the national assessment of higher order
thinking. At a follow-up meeting of critical thinking's problem-solving, communication,
and testing scholars and practitioners, it was almost unanimously agreed that it is
possible to assess higher-order thinking on a national scale. It was clear from the
commitments of the departments of Education, Labor, and Commerce that such an
assessment is in the cards.
The fact is, we must have standards and assessment strategies for higher-order
thinking for a number of reasons.
First, assessment and accountability are here to stay. The public will not accept
less.
Second, what is not assessed is not, on the whole, taught.
Third, what is mis-assessed is mis-taught.
Fourth, higher-order thinking, critical thinking abilities, are increasingly crucial
to success in every domain of personal and professional life.
Fifth, critical thinking research is making the cultivation and assessment of
higher-order thinking do-able.
The road will not be easy, but if we take the knowledge, understanding, and insights
we have gained about critical thinking over the last twelve years, there is much that
we could do in assessment that we haven't yet done — at the level of the individual
classroom teacher, at the level of the school system, at the level of the state, and at
the national level.
Of course, we want to do this in such a way as not to commit the "Harvard Fallacy;"
the mistaken notion that because graduates from Harvard are very successful, that
the teaching at Harvard necessarily had something to do with it.
It may be that the best prepared and well-connected students coming out of high
school are going to end up as the best who graduate from college, no matter what
college they attend. We need to focus our assessment, in other words, on how much
value has been added by an institution. We need to know where students stood at the
beginning, to assess the instruction they received on their way from the beginning to
the end. We need pre-and post-testing and assessment in order to see which schools,
which institutions, which districts are really adding value, and significant value, to the
quality of thinking and learning of their students.
Finally, we have to realize that we already have instruments available for assessing
what might be called the fine-textured micro-skills of critical thinking. We already know
how to design prompts that test students' ability to identify a plausible statement of a
writer's purpose; distinguish clearly between purposes; inferences, assumptions, and
consequences; discuss reasonably the merits of different versions of a problem or
question; decide the most reasonable statement of an author's point of view;
recognize bias, narrowness, and contradictions in the point of view of an excerpt;
distinguish evidence from conclusions based on that evidence; give evidence to back
up their positions in an essay; recognize conclusions that go beyond the evidence;
distinguish central from peripheral concepts; identify crucial implications of a passage;
evaluate an author's inferences; draw reasonable inferences from positions stated . .
. and so on.
With respect to intellectual standards, we are quite able to design prompts that require
students to recognize clarity in contrast to unclarity; distinguish accurate from
inaccurate accounts; decide when a statement is relevant or irrelevant to a given
point; identify inconsistent positions as well as consistent ones; discriminate deep,
complete, and significant accounts from those that are superficial, fragmentary, and
trivial; evaluate responses with respect to their fairness; distinguish well-evidenced
accounts from those unsupported by reasons and evidence; and tell good reasons
from bad.
With respect to large scale essay assessment, we know enough now about random
sampling to be able to require extended reasoning and writing without having to pay
for the individual assessment of millions of essays.
What remains is to put what we know into action: at the school and district level to
facilitate long-term teacher development around higher-order thinking, at the state
and national level to provide for long-term assessment of district, state, and national
performance. The project will take generations and perhaps in some sense will never
end.
After all, when will we have developed our thinking far enough, when will we have
enough intellectual integrity, enough intellectual courage, enough intellectual
perseverance, enough intellectual skill and ability, enough fairmindedness, enough
reasonability?
One thing is painfully clear. We already have more than enough rote memorization
and uninspired didactic teaching; more than enough passivity and indifference,
cynicism and defeatism, complacency and ineptness. The ball is in our court. Let's
take up the challenge together and make, with our students, a new and better world.
{This is taken from the book: How to Prepare Students for a rapidly Changing World by Richard
Paul.}

Our Concept and Definition of Critical Thinking

Why Critical Thinking?

The Problem

Everyone thinks. It is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed,
or downright prejudiced. Yet, the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on
the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought,
however, must be systematically cultivated.

A Definition

Critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves
the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. Critical thinking is self-directed,
self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. 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 our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.

To Analyze Thinking

Identify its purpose, and question at issue, as well as its information, inferences(s), assumptions, implications, main
concept(s), and point of view.

To Assess Thinking

Check it for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, logic, and fairness.

The Result

A well-cultivated critical thinker:

 Raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely
 Gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively
 Comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards
 Thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as needs be, their
assumptions, implications, and practical consequences
 Communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems
The Etymology & Dictionary Definition of "Critical Thinking"
The concept of critical thinking we adhere to reflects a concept embedded not only in a core body of research over
the last 30 to 50 years but also derived from roots in ancient Greek. The word ’’critical’’ derives etymologically from
two Greek roots: "kriticos" (meaning discerning judgment) and "kriterion" (meaning standards). Etymologically, then,
the word implies the development of "discerning judgment based on standards."
In Webster’s New World Dictionary, the relevant entry reads "characterized by careful analysis and judgment" and is
followed by the gloss, "critical — in its strictest sense — implies an attempt at objective judgment so as to determine
both merits and faults." Applied to thinking, then, we might provisionally define critical thinking as thinking that explicitly
aims at well-founded judgment and hence utilizes appropriate evaluative standards in the attempt to determine the
true worth, merit, or value of something.
The tradition of research into critical thinking reflects the common perception that human thinking left to itself often
gravitates toward prejudice, over-generalization, common fallacies, self-deception, rigidity, and narrowness.
The critical thinking tradition seeks ways of understanding the mind and then training the intellect so that such "errors",
"blunders", and "distortions" of thought are minimized. It assumes that the capacity of humans for good reasoning can
be nurtured and developed by an educational process aimed directly at that end.
The history of critical thinking documents the development of this insight in a variety of subject matter domains and in
a variety of social situations. Each major dimension of critical thinking has been carved out in intellectual debate and
dispute through 2400 years of intellectual history.
That history allows us to distinguish two contradictory intellectual tendencies: a tendency on the part of the large
majority to uncritically accept whatever was presently believed as more or less eternal truth and a conflicting tendency
on the part of a small minority — those who thought critically — to systematically question what was commonly
accepted and seek, as a result, to establish sounder, more reflective criteria and standards for judging what it does
and does not make sense to accept as true.
Our basic concept of critical thinking is, at root, simple. We could define it as the art of taking charge of your own mind.
Its value is also at root simple: if we can take charge of our own minds, we can take charge of our lives; we can
improve them, bringing them under our self command and direction. Of course, this requires that we learn self-
discipline and the art of self-examination. This involves becoming interested in how our minds work, how we can
monitor, fine tune, and modify their operations for the better. It involves getting into the habit of reflectively examining
our impulsive and accustomed ways of thinking and acting in every dimension of our lives.
All that we do, we do on the basis of some motivations or reasons. But we rarely examine our motivations to see if
they make sense. We rarely scrutinize our reasons critically to see if they are rationally justified. As consumers we
sometimes buy things impulsively and uncritically, without stopping to determine whether we really need what we are
inclined to buy or whether we can afford it or whether it’s good for our health or whether the price is competitive. As
parents we often respond to our children impulsively and uncritically, without stopping to determine whether our
actions are consistent with how we want to act as parents or whether we are contributing to their self esteem or
whether we are discouraging them from thinking or from taking responsibility for their own behavior.
As citizens, too often we vote impulsively and uncritically, without taking the time to familiarize ourselves with the
relevant issues and positions, without thinking about the long-run implications of what is being proposed, without
paying attention to how politicians manipulate us by flattery or vague and empty promises. As friends, too often we
become the victims of our own infantile needs, "getting involved" with people who bring out the worst in us or who
stimulate us to act in ways that we have been trying to change. As husbands or wives, too often we think only of our
own desires and points of view, uncritically ignoring the needs and perspectives of our mates, assuming that what we
want and what we think is clearly justified and true, and that when they disagree with us they are being unreasonable
and unfair.
As patients, too often we allow ourselves to become passive and uncritical in our health care, not establishing good
habits of eating and exercise, not questioning what our doctor says, not designing or following good plans for our own
wellness. As teachers, too often we allow ourselves to uncritically teach as we have been taught, giving assignments
that students can mindlessly do, inadvertently discouraging their initiative and independence, missing opportunities to
cultivate their self-discipline and thoughtfulness.
It is quite possible and, unfortunately, quite "natural" to live an unexamined life; to live in a more or less automated,
uncritical way. It is possible to live, in other words, without really taking charge of the persons we are becoming;
without developing or acting upon the skills and insights we are capable of. However, if we allow ourselves to become
unreflective persons — or rather, to the extent that we do — we are likely to do injury to ourselves and others, and to
miss many opportunities to make our own lives, and the lives of others, fuller, happier, and more productive.
On this view, as you can see, critical thinking is an eminently practical goal and value. It is focused on an ancient
Greek ideal of "living an examined life". It is based on the skills, the insights, and the values essential to that end. It is
a way of going about living and learning that empowers us and our students in quite practical ways. When taken
seriously, it can transform every dimension of school life: how we formulate and promulgate rules; how we relate to
our students; how we encourage them to relate to each other; how we cultivate their reading, writing, speaking, and
listening; what we model for them in and outside the classroom, and how we do each of these things.
Of course, we are likely to make critical thinking a basic value in school only insofar as we make it a basic value in
our own lives. Therefore, to become adept at teaching so as to foster critical thinking, we must become committed to
thinking critically and reflectively about our own lives and the lives of those around us. We must become active, daily,
practitioners of critical thought. We must regularly model for our students what it is to reflectively examine, critically
assess, and effectively improve the way we live.
Critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves
the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. Critical thinking is self-directed,
self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-corrective thinking. 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 our native egocentrism and sociocentrism.

Critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality
in a fair-minded way. People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically. They
are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They strive to diminish the
power of their egocentric and sociocentric tendencies. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers –
concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking. They work diligently to develop
the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual
sense of justice and confidence in reason.

They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and
they will always at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions,
uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest. They strive to improve the world in
whatever ways they can and contribute to a more rational, civilized society. At the same time, they recognize the
complexities often inherent in doing so.

They strive never to think simplistically about complicated issues and always consider the rights and needs of relevant
others. They recognize the complexities in developing as thinkers, and commit themselves to life-long practice toward
self-improvement. They embody the Socratic principle: The unexamined life is not worth living, because they realize
that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world.

~ Linda Elder, September 2007

Sumner's Definition of Critical Thinking

What is Critical Thinking?

(William Graham Sumner — 1906)
[Critical thinking is] . . . the examination and test of propositions of any kind which are
offered for acceptance, in order to find out whether they correspond to reality or not.
The critical faculty is a product of education and training. It is a mental habit and
power. It is a prime condition of human welfare that men and women should be trained
in it. It is our only guarantee against delusion, deception, superstition, and
misapprehension of ourselves and our earthly circumstances.

Education is good just so far as it produces well-developed critical faculty . . . A

teacher of any subject, who insists on accuracy and a rational control of all processes
and methods, and who holds everything open to unlimited verification and revision, is
cultivating that method as a habit in the pupils. Men educated in it cannot be
stampeded . . . They are slow to believe. They can hold things as possible or probable
in all degrees, without certainty and without pain. They can wait for evidence and
weigh evidence . . . They can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices. Education in
the critical faculty is the only education of which it can be truly said that it makes good
citizens.

{Sumner, W. G. (1940). Folkways: A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs,
Mores, and Morals, New York: Ginn and Co., pp. 632, 633.}