Caravaggio, Doubting Thomas Critical thinking should disobey before being reasonable.
The freedom of questioning everything - reason included - and the defying of received opinion and of face value must be unfettered.
Those who profess that critical thinking is nothing but inspecting beliefs and arguments to be realistic and disciplined, put a yoke on their own neck and then preach freedom.
A critical mind - with its intuitive movement, its commonsense judgments and its more orderly reasoning - tests itself and the world with no holds barred. The first instinctive move of critical sense is not to be self-satisfied and sufficient, to resist complacency and sway, to differ, not to conform or be awed by authority. Realism, verification and method of argumentation trot behind as a necessary second move, but do not make much critical difference without the initial spontaneous move of critical initiative.
The critical thinker respects authority only on merit and accepts received knowledge and truth only after understanding it.
I claim that what is called and taught today under the ambitious name "critical thinking" as it it were the whole process of the critical attitude at work in the world is incomplete, only one face of the coin. We are presented with a critique of thinking but the other living face of this Janus, critical spirit, the gadfly, the seeker of "something else" is ignored, swept under the carpet.
The manuals of “critical thinking”, while teaching how to evaluate credibility and soundness of claims, by showing what is good and bad argument, also prescribe what truth is, what must happen in our head, what criteria to use, as if those axioms and criteria were sacred, above suspicion; but they are not. Those things are themselves subjects of critique. Such manuals are rich with procedures, skills, logical rules and examples of fallacies, vital knowledge, but incomplete; if you just learn and follow the rules, your thinking will be utterly uncritical. I dare you that this much is not enough for critical thinking.
Yes, it is great education to learn courses and read books of critical thinking... provided you take time to forget all the petty little rules and procedures, and include that general culture into your commonsense good judgment.
To make this simple, critical thinking is in my view the one by which you have the courage, at any time needed, to draw a line and say: “Now I will think for myself, with as little as I know, as reasonably as I can, and I will decide what is true for me and what not, what is good for me and what is bad, what I like and not, what I chose or reject, what to refrain from and what to do.”
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Something else, liberation, our own point of view, fairness, new truth, agency, life – not just copies of copies - comes from discontent, first intuitive or irrational and later, hopefully, justified. Creation is undoing, changing, replacing. It is asking: “Why so?” and “Why not otherwise?” It certainly needs to demolish the given and requires a disorder space to turn; at least here in your mind, where your freedom to swing your fist does not meet someone else’s nose.
Your critical thinking is personal. It follows your interest and intentions and is grounded by your understanding, the image in your mind, not someone else’s. It is a core part of your freedom to consider any choices, to be an autonomous agent, a person. It is not neutral. We have the right to feel and to say no in our mind, long before we ground our opposition by strict argument and justify criticism with valid proofs. That will come later. Any creation, any thought of change says “no!” to what is. Or, it says “yes” to something else which is not. Not yet.
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However, if we are not mad, we become accountable, morally and logically, for the conclusions we make ours and when thoughts come out in words and deeds. When we cast our criticism among people we must be reasonable, moderate and constructive as persistently as we were anarchic inside the crucible of our mind. To paraphrase the common place of the notorious Dr Johnson, We may follow Fancy for our guide but must take Reason as our companion. [1]
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[1] The original said “We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.” —DR. SAMUEL JOHNSON, letter to James Boswell in: Boswell James, The life of Samuel Johnson..., vol. 1, Carter, Hendee and Co, Boston, 1832
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