SESSION 01

What Is Critical
Thinking?
Dr. Steve Pham
Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Innovation,
International Business/Strategy, Strategic HRM
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 “Critical thinking is the reasoned evaluation
of opinions–our own and others.”
Jerome E. Bickenbach and Jacqueline M. Davies,
Good Reasons for Better Arguments, 1996

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Session Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you should
be able to articulate in your own words:
• What is critical thinking?
• What is critical thinking not?
• Why is critical thinking important?
• Why do we typically not think critically?
• How to use effectively an evaluation
template for critical analysis of
arguments?

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 What Is Critical Thinking?

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What Is Critical Thinking?
• Critical thinking is “playing devil’s advocate” i.e., someone who
pretends to disagree with you in order to have a good discussion about
something. So, is it good or bad?
• Critical thinking is judgmental–thinking carefully about something in
order to evaluate it and ultimately decide whether or not it’s something
you should accept. So critical thinking is a how-not-to-be-gullible kind
of thing. So, there is no clear black and white?

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What Is Critical Thinking?
• Critical thinking is judicious (wise) reasoning about what to believe
and, therefore, what to do.
• Judicious reasoning is deliberate (being deliberate implies an intentional
consideration of, a responsible attitude toward, ideas, values, and so
forth) and thorough (being thorough requires, among other things, an
appreciation of the breadth and depth of the issue in question, of the
complexities of the issue).
• As such, critical thinking is a skill – a multi-dimensional skill (Richard
Paul), it’s something you get better at, gradually, with practice.

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 • clarify your thinking purpose and context
• question your sources of information
• identify arguments
• analyse sources and arguments
• evaluate the arguments of others and
• create or synthesise your own arguments.

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What are the differences between
design thinking, critical thinking, and
creative thinking?

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Critical Thinking in Social Sciences – Dr. Steve Pham 12
 Activity–Thinking critically about what you see

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 What Is Critical Thinking Not?

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What Is Critical Thinking Not?
Critical thinking is NOT
• necessarily negative
• passive i.e., not a matter of simply sitting and passing judgment.
• solely destructive i.e., often becomes destructive, and only destructive
• necessarily adversarial

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Argument #1
This child is afraid of the dark.
Children who are afraid should be comforted.
Therefore, this child should be comforted.

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Argument #2
I’m afraid they’ll hurt me if I don’t cooperate.
I should trust my fears; I believe they’re well-founded.
Therefore, I should believe they’ll hurt me if I don’t co-operate.
I don’t want to be hurt by them.
Therefore, I should cooperate with them.

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What Is Critical Thinking Not?
Critical thinking is NOT
• necessarily cold, calculating, and unfeeling i.e., good critical thinking
takes emotion into account.
• intuitive
• just using our “common sense”

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 Why Is Critical Thinking
Important?

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Possible answers to these questions:
• Are there gods?
• Is abortion wrong?
• Does capitalism meet our needs and wants?
• Are men stronger than women?

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 Activity–Thinking critically about what you hear
Listen to the audio clip under the Student Resources tab on the
companion website at www.routledge.com/textbooks/tittle.
Any response?

Activity–Thinking critically about what you write

Write a few paragraphs arguing that this course will or will not be of benefit
to you.

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Why Is Critical Thinking Important?
Critical thinking is important because
• it helps people to be able to provide evidence and reasoning for
their opinions e.g., judgmental opinions, praise, and condemnation;
• it enables people to provide good/better/their own reasons for their
actions;
• it helps people have more autonomy, independence, or freedom
than people who just sort of go with the flow and accept whatever’s
given to them e.g., unconsciousness, distortion, misinformation, and
the loss of diversity, etc.

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Why Is Critical Thinking Important?
Critical thinking is important because
• it enables people to handle conflict to decide between opinions and
options—without evasion (the ships) or aggression (the moose);
• it is based on rational thought which is superior to emotion, intuition,
or faith as a basis for belief and action.
• critical thinking skills can be applied not only to the “big issues” e.g.,
social, political, and environmental issues but also to people’s day-to-
day decisions with long-term consequences.

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 “Where all think alike, no one thinks very
much.”
Walter Lippmann,
The Stakes of Diplomacy, 1915,

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… being a critical thinker means you have a full
set of tools, instruments, techniques, capacities,
for dealing with stuff … and the critical thinker
has lots of questions…

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 Template for critical
analysis of arguments

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 Activity–Thinking critically about what you read
Read and evaluate the following.
There’s nothing wrong with downloading music from the internet. First, everyone does it,
and second, it’s not like you’re taking something—after you download, the song’s still
there, it’s not like taking someone’s car. Some people say downloading music from the
internet isn’t fair because the musicians don’t get paid when you download, but you’re
paying for the internet connection—why should you have to pay twice? That’s not fair!
And people say that if everyone does it, sales of CDs will decrease, and then since
there’ll be no money in making CDs, the record companies will stop making them. But
everyone’s not doing it, so CD sales won’t decrease. And actually, a friend of mine told
me that after their band put one of their songs on their website, sales of their CD
increased! Lastly, downloading is legal; anything that’s morally acceptable is legal; so
downloading must be morally acceptable. People should stop worrying about this stuff
and go after the real criminals!

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Summary
• Critical thinking is judicious (deliberate and thorough) thinking (correct reasoning) about what to
believe and, therefore, what to do. It's a multi-dimensional skill that involves understanding and then
evaluating arguments for and against a particular claim.
• Critical thinking is neither negative, passive, destructive, nor adversarial; it is not cold, calculating,
and unfeeling; and it is neither intuitive, nor a matter of “common sense.”
• Critical thinking enables people to provide evidence and reasoning for our opinions and actions–
being autonomous or independent in control of our own lives vs. media conglomerates control what
is said (and how it's said) and what is not said.
• Critical thinking also increases diversity of opinion and, thus, the quality of citizenship–enables
us to handle conflict without evasion or aggression.
• Critical thinking is based on rational thought which is superior to emotion, intuition, or faith as a
basis for belief and action.
• Critical thinking skills can be applied not only to big issues, but also to day-to-day decisions, as
well as new or unfamiliar questions, ideas, and situations.

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 CRITICAL THINKING IN SOCIAL SCIENCES

Assessments Guide

Dr. Steve Pham

Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Innovation,
International Business/Strategy, Strategic HRM
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 SESSION 02

The Nature of
Argument
Dr. Steve Pham
Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Innovation,
International Business/Strategy, Strategic HRM
30
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