04/03/2025

Basic Concepts of
Critical Thinking
CHAPTER 3

Meaning of Critical
Thinking
Lesson 1

1
 04/03/2025

Critical thinking…
• Isdefined as a wide range of cognitive
skills and intellectual dispositions
needed to effectively identify,
analyze, and evaluate arguments
and truth claims.
• means thinking clearly and intelligently

Critical thinking…
• helps to discover and overcome personal
preconceptions and biases; to
formulate and present convincing reasons
in support of conclusions
• helps to make reasonable, intelligent
decisions about what to believe and what
to do

2
 04/03/2025

Question…
•Does it mean that if you
are intelligent, you are a
good critical thinker?

Thus, critical thinking aims to…

•arrive at well-reasoned,
considered, and justifiable
conclusions.

3
 04/03/2025

Standards of Critical
Thinking
Lesson 2

• Some important intellectual standards

of critical thinking
Clarity
Precision
Accuracy
Relevance
Consistency
Logical correctness
Completeness
fairness

4
 04/03/2025

Clarity
• clear understanding of concepts and
clearly expressing them in a
language that is free of obscurity and
vagueness.
• Before we can effectively evaluate a
person‘s argument or claim, we need
to understand clearly what the
person is saying

Clarity
• clarity is a gateway standard, If a
statement is unclear, we cannot
determine whether it is accurate or
relevant.
• Sometimes lack of clarity is due to
laziness, carelessness, or a lack of skill.
At other times, it results from a
misguided effort to appear clever,
learned, or profound

5
 04/03/2025

Clarity
• Critical
thinkers, however, not only strive
for clarity of language but also seek
maximum clarity of thought.
• To achieve our personal goals in life, we
need a clear conception of our goals and
priorities, a realistic grasp of our abilities,
and a clear understanding of the problems
and opportunities we face

Precision
•a matter of being exact,
accurate and careful

6
 04/03/2025

Accuracy
• Accuracy is about correct
information.
• Wrong information leads to
wrong decision.
• attractive or sophisticated ideas
should be abandoned if it is based
on false information

Accuracy
• “Truth is the first virtue of
systems of thought. A theory
however elegant and economical
must be rejected or revised if it is
untrue.” – John Rawls

7
 04/03/2025

Relevance
• Thequestion of relevance is a
question of connections
• When there is a discussion or debate,
it should focus on relevant ideas and
information.

Consistency
• Consistency
is about the quality of
always behaving in the same way
or of having the same opinions or
standards.

8
 04/03/2025

Consistency
•2 kinds of inconsistency
1. logical inconsistency
2. Practical inconsistency

Consistency
1. logical inconsistency
involves saying or believing
inconsistent things (i.e.,
things that cannot both or all
be true) about a particular
matter

9
 04/03/2025

Consistency
2. Practical inconsistency
involves saying one thing
and doing another.

Consistency
Sometimes people are fully aware that
their words conflict with their deeds; in
short people sometime are hypocrites
 In some cases, people are not fully
aware that their words conflict with
their deeds.
Example, family vs making money

10
 04/03/2025

Logical Correctness
• Tothink logically is to reason
correctly
• Thinking
critically needs accurate
and supported beliefs

Completeness
• werightly prefer deep and
complete thinking to shallow
and superficial thinking

11
 04/03/2025

Fairness
• Criticalthinking demands that our
thinking be fair - that is, open
minded, impartial, and free of
distorting biases and preconceptions.

Characteristics of
Critical Thinking
LESSON 3

12
 04/03/2025

Basic Traits of
Critical Thinkers

Basic Traits of Critical Thinkers

• Are honest with themselves,
acknowledging what they don't know,
recognizing their limitations, and
being watchful of their own errors.
• Regard problems and controversial
issues as exciting challenges.

13
 04/03/2025

Basic Traits of Critical Thinkers

• Strive for understanding, keep curiosity
alive, remain patient with complexity,
and are ready to invest time to overcome
confusion.
• Base judgments on evidence rather than
personal preferences, deferring judgment
whenever evidence is insufficient. They
revise judgments when new evidence
reveals error

Basic Traits of Critical Thinkers

• Areinterested in other people's ideas and
so are willing to read and listen
attentively, even when they tend to
disagree with the other person.
• Recognize that extreme views are seldom
correct, so they avoid them, practice fair-
mindedness, and seek a balance view.

14
 04/03/2025

Basic Traits of Critical Thinkers

• Practice restraint, controlling
their feelings rather than being
controlled by them, and
thinking before acting.

Basic Traits of
Uncritical Thinkers

15
 04/03/2025

Basic Traits of Uncritical Thinkers

• Pretendthey know more than
they do, ignore their limitations,
and assume their views are error-
free.
• Regard problems and
controversial issues as nuisances
or threats to their ego.

Basic Traits of Uncritical Thinkers

• Are inpatient with complexity and
thus would rather remain confused
than make the effort to understand.
• Base judgments on first impressions
and gut reactions. They are
unconcerned about the amount or
quality of evidence and cling to their
views steadfastly.

16
 04/03/2025

Basic Traits of Uncritical Thinkers

• Are preoccupied with themselves and
their own opinions, and so are
unwilling to pay attention to others'
views.

Basic Traits of Uncritical Thinkers

• Ignore the need for balance and give
preference to views that support their
established views.
• Tend to follow their feelings and act
impulsively

17
 04/03/2025

Barriers to Critical
Thinking
LESSON 4

Barriers to Critical Thinking

1. Egocentrism
2. Sociocentrism
3. Unwarranted Assumptions
and Stereotypes
4. Relativistic Thinking
5. Wishful Thinking

18
 04/03/2025

1. Egocentric
• Egocentrics are selfish, self-absorbed
people who view their interests, ideas,
and values as superior to everyone
else‘s.
• You are responsible for your successes but
not for your failures.
• Not capable of listening to others and
understanding them.
•

1. Egocentric
• Prioritizing your own desires all the
time.
• Big ego to think that you know better
than others. You look for flaws rather
than looking for opportunity to grow
and learn
• You tend to think that you are always
in the spot light.

19
 04/03/2025

1. Egocentric
• Self-interestedthinking is the
tendency to accept and defend
beliefs that harmonize with one‘s
self-interest.

1. Egocentric
• For example,
most doctors support legislation making it
more difficult for them to be sued for
malpractice because they do not want to
punish for mistakes committed in the
workplace.
Most university professors strongly
support tenure, paid sabbaticals, low
teaching loads, and a strong faculty voice
in university governance because these
will promote their interest.

20
 04/03/2025

2. Sociocentrism
• group-centered thinking
• can
hinder rational thinking by
focusing excessively on the
group

2. Sociocentrism
• Group bias is the tendency to see
one‘s own group (nation, tribe, sect,
peer group, and the like) as being
inherently better than others
• Social scientists tell us that such
thinking is extremely common
throughout human history and
across cultures

21
 04/03/2025

2. Sociocentrism
• Conformism refers to our tendency to
follow the crowd - that is, to conform
(often unthinkingly) to authority or to
group standards of conduct and belief
• The desire to belong, to be part of the
ingroup, can be among the most powerful
of human motivations. This desire can
seriously cripple our powers of critical
reasoning and decision-making

3. Unwarranted Assumptions
and Stereotypes
• Anassumption is something we believe to
be true without any proof or conclusive
evidence.
• Some of our assumptions can be
reasonable, but some are unwarranted.

22
 04/03/2025

3. Unwarranted Assumptions
and Stereotypes
• Oneof the most common types of unwarranted
assumptions is a stereotype.
•a stereotype is a generalized belief about
a particular category of people.
• Because people are not identical, no matter what
race or other similarities they share,
stereotypical conceptions will often be false or
misleading

3. Unwarranted Assumptions
and Stereotypes
• Nursing Stereotypes
“Nursing is a woman’s job”
“Nurses are too busy to get to know their
patients”
“Nurses are just doctors’ personal assistants”
“Nurses don’t need breaks”
“Nurses need an IV of caffeine to function”

23
 04/03/2025

3. Unwarranted Assumptions
and Stereotypes

4. Relativistic Thinking
•Relativism is the view that
truth is a matter of opinion.
•Two popular forms of
relativism:
1.subjectivism and
2.cultural relativism

24
 04/03/2025

4. Relativistic Thinking
1.Subjectivism
the view that truth is a
matter of individual opinion
whatever an individual
believes is true, is true for
that person, and there is no
such thing as “objective” or
“absolute” truth

4. Relativistic Thinking
1.Subjectivism
Example: Jaime believes that
abortion is wrong and Joan
believes that abortion is not
always wrong. According to
subjectivism, abortion is always
wrong for Jaime and not always
wrong for Joan. Both beliefs are
true – for them.

25
 04/03/2025

4. Relativistic Thinking
2. cultural relativism
the view that truth is a
matter of social or cultural
opinion
the view that what is true
for person A is what person
A‘s culture or society
believes is true

4. Relativistic Thinking
2. cultural relativism
For example:
Drinking wine, for example, is
widely considered to be wrong in
Iran but is not generally considered
to be wrong in France. According to
cultural relativism, therefore,
drinking wine is immoral in Iran
but is morally permissible in
France.

26
 04/03/2025

5. Wishful Thinking
•refersto a state of believing
something not because you
had good evidence for it but
simply because you wished it
were true

Benefits of Critical
Thinking
LESSON 5

27
 04/03/2025

Critical Thinking in Life

1. critical thinking can help us
avoid making foolish personal
decisions
Choosing a course/profession
what relationships to enter into
what personal behavior to
develop

Critical Thinking in Life

Critical thinking can help
us avoid such mistakes by
teaching us to think about
important life decisions
more carefully, clearly, and
logically.

28
 04/03/2025

Critical Thinking in Life

2. critical thinking plays a vital role
in promoting democratic
processes
It is vital that citizens’ decisions
be as informed and as rational as
possible

Critical Thinking in Life

Many of today‘s most serious societal
problems - environmental destruction,
poverty, ethnic conflicts, decaying the
morality of societies, high level of
corruption, violating basic human
rights, displacement, to mention just
a few - have largely been caused by
poor critical thinking.

29
 04/03/2025

Critical Thinking in Life

3. critical thinking is worth
studying for its own sake,
simply for the personal
enrichment it can bring to
our lives

Critical Thinking in Life

One of the most basic truths of the
human condition is that most people,
most of the time, believe what they are
told
people accepted without question that
the earth was the center of the
universe,
that demons cause disease that
slavery was just,
that women are inferior to men.

30
 04/03/2025

Critical Thinking in Life

Critical thinking, honestly and
courageously pursued can help
free us from the unexamined
assumptions and biases of our
upbringing and our society.

Critical Thinking in Life

“This is what I’ve been
taught, but is it true?”

31