what is critical thinking?
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Person A: X is true.
Person B: Should I believe that X is true? Is X a fact, or just person A’s opinion? Does X seem unlikely, or does it fit in with the other things I know about the world? Is X something I emotionally want to believe? Could X *seem* true, but be easy to be wrong about? Is X something I emotionally want *not* to believe? If X were false, how could I find that out? Is person A knowledgeable and reliable about X? Would person A have motive to lie to me about X? Is person A a trustworthy source? Could person A be wrong, lied-to about or misunderstanding X? Does X mean what I think it does, or have I got the wrong end of it? Am I drawing conclusion Y about it, and could I be wrong about that?
You know, just sanity-checking things you’re told, and not just blindly believing them without poking and prodding them a bit first.
If someone told you they put lunch on your desk so you should pay them $5 now… you’d ask yourself a few questions before forking over the money, right? You’d want to go check – or if you couldn’t do that, you’d wonder if this was some kind of scam, and whether you should trust them. The way you work that out is called critical thinking.
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