What is critical thinking and its benefits.

Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developing throughout the past 2500 years. The term "critical thinking" has its roots in the mid-late 20th century. 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 and consistently, attempt to live rationally, reasonably and empathically. The National Council For Excellence in Critical Thinking defines it as an 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. 

Critical thinking enables us to analyse and evaluate information to identify justifiable reason or evidence for doing something or for not doing something, justifications for believing something or for not believing something. Whenever we ask for reasons for any of our actions, we are thinking critically. Developing a questioning attitude is essential for a critical thinker which is self directed as well as directed towards others. The quality of our life and that of what we produce depends on our thought. Critical thinking helps us to improve the quality and reliability of our thinking process, which in turn will result in a better way of living. The following are some of the major benefits of critical thinking • It helps us to become a wise person. • To come up with a judicious evaluation of events. • To develop a sense of intellectual integrity. • To become accurate precise and clear. • To develop a relevant, deep, broad and logical attitude in understanding and handling different situations. • To develop a special strength of mind, liberal and free from biases and prejudices. • To become a good decision maker. • To become rational.To follow certain standards of reflective thinking. • To identify and to focus on the relevant aspects of an issue. • To become reasonable. • To act rationally rather than emotionally. • In academic matters it helps students to learn, evaluate and understand the subject matter in a more judicious way.

Barriers to Critical thinking 1. Social brainwashing and our view of the world An individual develops his understanding of the world from his own surroundings and from his society. There he comes under the influence of many factors like his parents, teachers, friends, as well as print and electronic media which are not always unbiased. Such influences prevent free thinking. 2. Tendencies to think in binaries The common human tendency is to judge everything in binaries, like good or bad, just or unjust etc. Doing this often leads to bad theories. 3. Fears regarding free thinking The fear of voicing a new opinion stems from the fear of making mistakes or of making a fool of oneself. This results in following the path of others, in spite of the realisation that this is wrong. Many of our societies as well as our traditional educational systems discourage free thinking. To overcome this a critic needs self-will to express what he thinks is right. 4. Personal interests and personal experiences We often tend to judge and evaluate ideas and situations based on our social and emotional commitment, individual interest and past experiences. This prevents rational, objective and critical analysis of issues. 5. Pride and egocentrism (self-centered thinking) Many people consider themselves as the greatest and the most powerful of all the others. They are egocentric and they consider themselves as the centre of the universe. Such people stick to their own perspective and fail to appreciate alternate ways of looking at things. 6. Sociocentrism or ethnocentrism (group/society/cultural-centered thinking) Following the thought patterns common to a group, society or culture as well as thinking in favour of a particular group or community without judging its credibility is a barrier to critical thinking.

7. Fear of change or an unwillingness to change Some people are afraid or unwilling to change their views which makes them reluctant to conduct critical thinking. 8. Bias and prejudice Personal prejudices as well as biases create problems in thinking objectively and critically 9. Narrow-mindedness or close-mindedness We need an open and liberal state of mind ready to receive new ideas and to admit positive criticism to follow critical thinking. 10. Wishful thinking Tendency to think and believe what one wishes as true discourages a person from thinking critically. 11. Poor reading and comprehension skills, poor or dysfunctional communication skills Lack of proper reading, inability to understand as well as poor communication skills have an adverse effect on critical thinking.Arguments In critical thinking we are trying to find out reasons or evidence for all our activities. It is related to logic. Hence arguments form the basis of critical thinking. An argument is an attempt to persuade by giving good reasons. While arguing we are trying to provide supporting evidence or justification in support of what we do and what we believe. Difference between argument and opinion An argument is always supported or backed by reason or evidence. It is an attempt to give rational justifications for whatever we do or believe. An argument is a product of rational deliberation, whereas an opinion is not supported by evidence or reason. It is just a passing comment on something. For instance consider the following statements:

 1. The new method of teaching is better than the previous one. 2. The new method of teaching is better than the previous one because it helps students to score better marks Here the first statement is an opinion since it is not supported by evidence to prove the statement. The second statement, on the other hand, is an argument because it is backed by evidence to prove the claim. Most often, we form opinions after rational deliberation and hence they are based on arguments.

Recognising an argument/ Features of an argument Each argument is composed of premises (this is a term for statements that express your reasons or evidence) that are arranged in the right way to support your conclusion (the main claim or interpretation you are offering). Following are the main features that will help you recognise an argument • An argument is a string of statements. • The statements are to be related. • The relation should be such that a few of the statements give support to one main statement. • The supporting statements are called premises. They are the evidence or justifications given to support the major claim. • The major claim or supported statement is called conclusion. The words ‘therefore’ ‘so’ are used for this. For example: All malayalees are highly educated. Veena is a Malayalee. So, she is highly educated. In this example we have a group of related statements. The first two statements support the major claim that we want to prove. The first two statements are premises given in support of the final statement which is the conclusion. You can make your arguments stronger by 

1. Using good premises (ones you have good reason to believe are both true and relevant to the issue at hand), 2. Making sure your premises provide good support for your conclusion (and not some other conclusion, or no conclusion at all), 3. Checking that you have addressed the most important or relevant aspects of the issue (that is, that your premises and conclusion focus on what is really important to the issue you're arguing about), and 4. Not making claims that are so strong or sweeping that you can't really support them.

Evaluating an argument We evaluate an argument based on two criteria. They are 1. Logical content: Every argument is an attempt at establishing a claim on the basis of other claims. The logical content of an argument refers to this logical structure of an argument which makes it a good argument. It ensures the validity of an argument. In a valid argument, true premises will lead to true conclusions. This is one of the most important concepts of an argument. 2. Truth content: Truth content makes an argument a sound argument. When we ask whether the evidence given in support of the conclusion is true, we are considering the truth content of an argument. For example, consider the following argument Amitabh Bachchan is the father of Abhishek Bachchan. Karishma Kapoor is the wife of Abhishek Bachan. So, Amithab Bachchan is the father-in-law of Karishma Kapoor. 

This argument is a valid argument since it has all the features of an argument or the logical structure of an argument. This is a good argument, but not a sound argument since it lacks truth content. The premises given in support of the conclusion are not true. Hence this cannot be accepted. Now consider another argument Amithab Bachan is the father of Abhishek Bachan. Aiswarya Rai is the wife of Abhishek Bachan. So, Amithab Bachan is the father-in-law of Aiswarya Rai. This is a sound argument since it has logical content as well as truth content.