Critical Thinking Skills to the Rescue!

“or are they?” asks Joe Chislett

Over the last year there has been a clamour for ‘critical thinking’ skills. As someone who has both taught and assessed these, and who has a business devoted to ‘Empowering human thinking”, you might think I’d leap on that bandwagon. But I’m reluctant to do so. Not because critical thinking skills are not important: they are. But because they are only part of the picture. When it comes to really empowering your thinking, they are useless without a set of other skills or abilities alongside them.

I will set aside the question of what we mean exactly by “critical thinking” skills. This is a whole problem area in itself, as the phrase can range from the trivially banal (don’t take things at face value) to quite technical rules about logic, arguments, and the use of evidence. I will assume for now that there are a set of skills that most people would agree fall under this banner: such as being able to distinguish different types of claim, consider the evidence-base for them, or the quality of reasons or arguments you are given for accepting them.

So why are these skills not any good by themselves?

This is where our two facts, about people, and about the context they think in, come in.

Fact 1: Humans are a blend

The first fact to take on board is that humans are not entirely logical. The idea that you can simply show people what a valid argument looks like, or explain the difference between, say, evidence and anecdote, and then expect that people will suddenly transform the way they think and behave is naïve to say the least. Better, some argue, to stick to gut instinct, stories, emotions to get your points across.

Humans are tribal, storytelling creatures, and there is no point trying to get them to respond to logic and reasons. Except this isn’t true either. People do respond to reasons and arguments. It’s just they also respond to feelings and emotions.

The truth is that we are a mixture of things. Of the inquisitive, the instinctive, the logical, the imaginative, the intuitive; the head and the heart. And that all these things – these different thoughts and emotions, the more and the less conscious, are going on, nearly all the time.

Fact 2: our thinking takes place in a context

We do not think in a vacuum, but amongst other people. People who may or may not think differently. We live in a shared social world, with shared as well as conflicting desires, goals and values. We are also embodied beings, who experience the world through our senses – as well as through the language and behaviour of others. What all this means is that sharing ideas, sharing information, claims, arguments, viewpoints, is as much a process of negotiation as it is persuasion.

The reason why people find it hard to accept counter-evidence is not because they are unaware of the rules of evidence, but because it comes up against other, psychological or sociological facts to do with our self-esteem, social standing or reputation.

These two facts may seem totally obvious, but from my experience, they get forgotten by the people who write the critical thinking textbooks (and I should know, having contributed to them myself).

So what do we need to do?

The simple answer is that critical thinking skills are necessary, but not sufficient; and that in order to have any actual impact on the world, they are one of a set of 4 conditions that we need to meet.

Condition 1: Critical thinking and (good) judgment

Humans as we have acknowledged are a blend of things – of thoughts, sensations, emotions, instincts and desires. Most of the time these things go on out of our control. We don’t choose to have thoughts or feelings we have, the particular ideas that pop into our heads.

However, we can choose the ones we want to take forward. This requires us to make a judgment. Judgment is the heart of critical thinking. We don’t need to think critically unless a judgment is required; but judgments are required; and to make them we need to think critically.

Condition 2: Combine critical and creative thinking

But it is not enough. Critical thinking can help us evaluate ideas, but it can’t give us ideas in the first place. For this we need creativity. (That’s if we want to have some autonomy, some input; obviously we can just put forward the ideas that ChatGPT provides for us.) But this is not a problem, since creativity is a naturally human trait.

Any idea that we have that is not purely logical, is by definition creative, since it means it has not something that can have been deduced from what went in to forming it. We need creative thinking alongside critical thinking. To make an analogy, critical thinking without creativity is like a car without an engine. Creativity without critical thinking is like a car without an engine or brakes.

Also, this idea that being logical or rational means drawing careful conclusions, never going beyond the evidence – this isn’t how we think. This doesn’t even necessarily mean good, logical thinking. When we solve problems the way scientists think, they jump to conclusions, then test them.

Condition 3: Be able to share your thinking with others

Even if you can think up ideas and select which ones are worth pursuing, and have good reasons for your selection, it is no use if those ideas stay inside your head. You need to have the confidence to share them with other people. And yet it’s no good being able to put forward and argue for your own ideas if all you do is alienate other people.

So you need to be able to share your ideas effectively, and this requires a whole separate set of skills. (Since people are not purely logical and rational, it is not enough just to give them reasons and evidence for instance for why you are right and they are wrong.)

Condition 4: Link thinking to action

Even if you are able to think critically and creatively, to have ideas and be able to select the best ones, and be able to justify those choices – and to frame them in ways that will land with others – it’s no good if it takes you forever coming up with them. We are embodied beings, in a real, physical world, where actions are needed, and often where swift decisive action is rewarded.

This doesn’t mean that you give up on thinking critically. It just means that there is a time and a place for it, and that it needs to be done in a way where the outcome is not just more thinking. Fortunately, this is where some of the other, faster-thinking features of human cognition come into play: the intuition, the instinct. The trick is to know when to listen to these, and when it’s time to maybe put on the brakes.

In conclusion: human thinking is way more than just critical thinking, but critical thinking is a necessary component.

The trick is how to do it effectively, to balance it with the other aspects of our thinking.

In particular, we need to meet the 4 conditions outlined above. Only then can our thinking be truly empowered.

Joe Chislett provides training on How to Maximise Your Thinking. He is a lifelong creative writer, an author on critical thinking, and the founder of KRITIKOS. Connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-chislett-64a41a142