Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the practice of arriving at truth by making good inferences from acceptable premises.

Why isn't it just winning arguments?

The aim is learning, not winning arguments.

A critical thinker holds three intellectual virtues:

• Intellectual humility: willing to be wrong
• Intellectual honesty: represent your own and others’ views accurately
• Intellectual rigour: do the hard work, don’t take shortcuts

Why it's useful

• Preparing thoughtful citizens
• True understanding of the world
• Guarding against lies and manipulation (Bullshit)
• Identifying weakness in our own thinking (Bias, Fallacy)

Things that look like critical thinking but aren't

• Reflexive Skepticism used to dismiss anything inconvenient
• Dismissiveness
• Gainsaying: flat contradiction without reasons
• Whataboutism: deflecting by pointing to someone else’s failing
• Debates: optimized to win, not to learn

Related

• Argument
• Principle of Charity
• Norms of Assertion