What is critical thinking? The term comes up in many contexts, but exactly what does it mean? We know it is a good thing, that we would like to be critical thinkers, and we know that people are not thinking critically when they do stupid things. We like when someone thinks we are a critical thinker but it is never clear exactly what we do that makes them think that.
Justice Potter Stewart, ruling on whether a movie contained hardcore pornography, said he couldn't define that term exactly, but "I know it when I see it." Critical thinking is like that: hard to define, but we know it when we see it.
Critical thinking is often confused with being intelligent, well-informed, clever, or wise. But these traits in themselves are not critical thinking. Aristotle, reputed to be one of the greatest minds of all times, said that men had more teeth than women, and that a heavier object would fall faster than a lighter object. A critical thinker would have tested these things empirically. It's not hard to count the teeth of a woman and a man and compare! Nor does it seem difficult to drop two objects from a height to see whether the heavier one hits first. Judging from many of his pronouncements, Aristotle often did not use critical thinking. A critical thinker follows rules - a "critical thinking canon." Critical thinking does not guarantee that you won't be wrong, but it does decrease the probability. In fact, a good definition of critical thinking is: The cognitive processes that give the greatest probability of being right.
To be continued...