There are three kinds of criticism
Traditional alternative to criticism
No doubt criticism is a critical situation. Yet another time when character shows. And skill.
Criticism is not a branch of scientific research; it is a social action and a critical situation - a small step for humanity but a major event for a person.
Like hunting, criticism feels as a noble sport or an assassination; depends on which side of the gun you are.
When we give criticism we feel it is fair but we seem born to take criticism as surprise, stoning and humiliation. This is quite undiscerning. You can give and find value in any critique, precious stones hidden in the mud.
Criticism is not a branch of scientific research; it is a social action and a critical situation - a small step for humanity but a major event for a person.
Like hunting, criticism feels as a noble sport or an assassination; depends on which side of the gun you are.
When we give criticism we feel it is fair but we seem born to take criticism as surprise, stoning and humiliation. This is quite undiscerning. You can give and find value in any critique, precious stones hidden in the mud.
I propose that are three kinds of criticism: friendly, indifferent and hostile, each with its function. Do not confuse them. They have different aims and rules which you should recognise when you give critique and also when you receive it.
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Critique in all its forms, will not be received on merit, nor on precision. It will not simply win by the force of argument and the crystal clarity of Truth. Not at all. The business of critique concerns persons and requires rhetoric and tact; credibility, the right occasion, intentions and words clearly understood. Without which it will confuse and it will be rejected. Or, it will do the opposite of what was intended.
Criticise when you feel you have a right to do it and it is also wise to do it. Moreover, critiquing without asking yourself first for which cause you do it now and even more with which purpose, is a vicious bad habit.
When being criticised the urgent thing is to be aware that you are criticised. Do not argue with critique, it is not ping pong, handle it. Listen and to ask yourself which kind of it you face and why. Friendly? Objective? Hostile? You give or receive the three modes with a different mind.
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Criticise when you feel you have a right to do it and it is also wise to do it. Moreover, critiquing without asking yourself first for which cause you do it now and even more with which purpose, is a vicious bad habit.
When being criticised the urgent thing is to be aware that you are criticised. Do not argue with critique, it is not ping pong, handle it. Listen and to ask yourself which kind of it you face and why. Friendly? Objective? Hostile? You give or receive the three modes with a different mind.
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Liberi, Advice to the son
Friendly criticism observes, listens and gets involved. It is a gift or a client-centred service to help the one criticised. The critique takes the side of the person; to forewarn, to protect, to improve, and to succeed. You “load to win”. With such a purpose the critic will test carefully for strong and weak points and counsel what to correct or better. Friendly criticism is positive at least as much as negative. We catch a friend doing something good and praise it to increase that good. We mirror the negative to diminish it.
You do not analyse a friend just to show things as they are. Helpful critique brings new ideas and changes its object; you may show unexpected meaning and consequences, wider perspective; you seek more choice and new possibilities; you give advice about what should be and what not; you counsel what to do but also how to do it; This is work for the wise.
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When you receive friendly criticism relax, do not be defensive. Care to understand that it is custom-made for you, it takes your side, it is expressed in your presence and normally in private. It works for you. It is a gift of prudence. It is the ferment of new ideas, the challenge to do things better, to do more, a “success factor”. You start something, you face something new or you struggle to keep up. Friendly criticism is then a spring of courage, steering and energy. Without it you are in the dark. You feed on it to go on and keep on track. You count on it to know what to expect, without bad surprises. The mirror held to you by trusted ones improves you life. Quality life is nourished with friendly criticism.
You do not analyse a friend just to show things as they are. Helpful critique brings new ideas and changes its object; you may show unexpected meaning and consequences, wider perspective; you seek more choice and new possibilities; you give advice about what should be and what not; you counsel what to do but also how to do it; This is work for the wise.
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When you receive friendly criticism relax, do not be defensive. Care to understand that it is custom-made for you, it takes your side, it is expressed in your presence and normally in private. It works for you. It is a gift of prudence. It is the ferment of new ideas, the challenge to do things better, to do more, a “success factor”. You start something, you face something new or you struggle to keep up. Friendly criticism is then a spring of courage, steering and energy. Without it you are in the dark. You feed on it to go on and keep on track. You count on it to know what to expect, without bad surprises. The mirror held to you by trusted ones improves you life. Quality life is nourished with friendly criticism.
Do not interrupt. Listen! Ask questions but do not argue or defend yourself. Pride is misplaced here. No need to be humble but at least try to be. Open your heart. If some observation surprises you give it time to sink in. Thank for the advice and encourage it. Count with this resource and keep it alive. You need a mirror as much as you need time, money or skill. Ask for more.
Friendly criticism allows sincerity on both sides and counts on it. This is a friend, a parent who does not let you down, alone. Warning from friends is the best friend you will ever have. In your inner circle, is a necessity like the salt in your food, a condition of progress and mutual protection from harm. If those close to you cannot tell you when something is not right, trouble is close ahead. Warning and counselling each other creates an environment of mutual trust and security, even if you feel uneasy at times.
Take the initiative. Try to invite such critique regularly, ask feedback instead of waiting for moments when your friends must decide to talk to you.
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There is a number of inferior things you can do when you are criticised:
You can avoid listening and keep evading the occasions when you expect critique.
You can reject criticism from the first words, saying in advance that you know it to be unjust, untimely or false.
You can grow angry and show that you cannot bear critique; it makes you feel threatened and insecure - weak character.
You can attack the one criticising you saying that they are to be criticised, not you. You can accuse them that they want to hurt you.
It is particularly pathetic to take critique personally when what is criticised is ideas, explanations and ways of doing things.
I this way you can be certain to win nothing but iritation from critique; everybody will know which is your sore finger, enemies to better hit on it and friends to grow disgusted to pay the service they do you with being offensed and loosing your trust.
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Friendly criticism allows sincerity on both sides and counts on it. This is a friend, a parent who does not let you down, alone. Warning from friends is the best friend you will ever have. In your inner circle, is a necessity like the salt in your food, a condition of progress and mutual protection from harm. If those close to you cannot tell you when something is not right, trouble is close ahead. Warning and counselling each other creates an environment of mutual trust and security, even if you feel uneasy at times.
Take the initiative. Try to invite such critique regularly, ask feedback instead of waiting for moments when your friends must decide to talk to you.
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There is a number of inferior things you can do when you are criticised:
You can avoid listening and keep evading the occasions when you expect critique.
You can reject criticism from the first words, saying in advance that you know it to be unjust, untimely or false.
You can grow angry and show that you cannot bear critique; it makes you feel threatened and insecure - weak character.
You can attack the one criticising you saying that they are to be criticised, not you. You can accuse them that they want to hurt you.
It is particularly pathetic to take critique personally when what is criticised is ideas, explanations and ways of doing things.
I this way you can be certain to win nothing but iritation from critique; everybody will know which is your sore finger, enemies to better hit on it and friends to grow disgusted to pay the service they do you with being offensed and loosing your trust.
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When you give friendly criticism announce it as friendly, in advance and with warmth. You are credible only if you are a recognised friend.
Do it in private, and – if it is serious - after thinking twice that it must be done.
Remember that the word criticism means close looking, showing both the good and the bad; and do so. Friendly criticism is clarification, education and counsel.
To help, ask questions and give concrete example; stress that which is good, explain the danger and the stakes and your own feeling. Say things that the person can understand and could accept. Spare pride.
Avoid judging and blaming things that cannot be repaired. Speak about what is doable in the future; do not deliberate backwards about what should have been done in the past. Deliberation is for the future.
Friendly counsel must always end with what is to do now and later. Show how, what could be the next step.
Imagine more choice, not less. More important than what not to do, is to find a choice of things to do. Give some new or wider perspective. We often need other people to take a distance and clarify the full or unintended meaning of what we do.
Make available your help. Give and example by showing how to do. Friendly criticism is not one-time but followed along as long as needed. Things keep changing. It is an enemy you would blame suddenly and go away without a solution, to leave him lost, or to push him one way, without choice.
Friendly criticism can be a strategy of design. When I am really keen to help someone succeed, after I explain what I do and why, I listen and inspect carefully what was done and then I offer my shower of critiques. I propose a cascade of objections, dry run for the moment when hope will hit the road for real. Each question knocks on some weak or blind spot and seeks the way to put it right. When one objection is resolved, I come with another one, and another and yet another. The aim is not to be right, but to test all options. In the same way, contradictory debate, even from obviously false sides, helps us think. There is no interest to win the debate, to be right.
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Pharmacy gaper taking the pill
Objective criticism analyses and evaluates. Indifferent as I like to call it, it is insensitive to persons: It serves some impartial discipline, a wider, higher and abstract ideal – truth, beauty, religion or justice, profit, excellence... so that it has no friends. .
It is meant to assess, to correct, to perfect, to redress and bring to task, to do everything towards precision, beauty, excellence, profit or success. With this purpose it must show things as they are, with no fantasy. Impersonal, it is supposed to be sincere.
It does what is needed, nothing personal.
It is often precious but it turns inhuman at times.
The finding of error, of imprecision, deviation, injustice, is valuable, fair and useful but not without exception
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It is meant to assess, to correct, to perfect, to redress and bring to task, to do everything towards precision, beauty, excellence, profit or success. With this purpose it must show things as they are, with no fantasy. Impersonal, it is supposed to be sincere.
It does what is needed, nothing personal.
It is often precious but it turns inhuman at times.
The finding of error, of imprecision, deviation, injustice, is valuable, fair and useful but not without exception
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Request objective criticism to be by the book. Both parties should play the game of reason, selfless and unbiased. Since “critique” is supposed to be impersonal, interest is never mentioned, as if it happened in heavens. Keep aware of your own interest, however. For this, the criteria used must be clarified, words must mean the same thing for everyone, and a constructive aim announced. What is said must be grounded by fact.
Make certain that the discussion is about the subject not about you. Do not accept critique to become a trial concluded by a sentence instead of being analysis followed by improvement.
The receiver’s etiquette is simple: listen calmly with no interruption, take notes, ask for (more) detail, clarification and example, acknowledge what you understood, consider what is to learn and confirm that you will consider. Thank for the critique when it is polite.
Good manners are essential with “impersonal” criticism. As philosopher D’Alembert wrote: « If the critique is fair and polite, you owe for it thanks and deference, if it is fair without tact, it merits deference without thanks ; if it is offensive and unjust, keep silent and forget it.” [1]
Not everything objective is good. Worst “objective” criticism comes as sterile fault-finding for the sake of itself, or from “impartial” barbarians with a bad digestion and corresponding bad disposition. Much of it comes from those who pick on everything because they believe that they are entitled to do it, as they are at the service of perfection, truth, precision, orthodoxy ... or “the way we do things here.” Try to be absent for these, find something urgent to do elsewhere.
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Make certain that the discussion is about the subject not about you. Do not accept critique to become a trial concluded by a sentence instead of being analysis followed by improvement.
The receiver’s etiquette is simple: listen calmly with no interruption, take notes, ask for (more) detail, clarification and example, acknowledge what you understood, consider what is to learn and confirm that you will consider. Thank for the critique when it is polite.
Good manners are essential with “impersonal” criticism. As philosopher D’Alembert wrote: « If the critique is fair and polite, you owe for it thanks and deference, if it is fair without tact, it merits deference without thanks ; if it is offensive and unjust, keep silent and forget it.” [1]
Not everything objective is good. Worst “objective” criticism comes as sterile fault-finding for the sake of itself, or from “impartial” barbarians with a bad digestion and corresponding bad disposition. Much of it comes from those who pick on everything because they believe that they are entitled to do it, as they are at the service of perfection, truth, precision, orthodoxy ... or “the way we do things here.” Try to be absent for these, find something urgent to do elsewhere.
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Perform objective criticism as you receive it, by the book. It is normative, “nothing personal”.
You criticise an object, a result, a way of doing, a method, an argument, maybe behaviour, but you keep away from opinions about how the person is. You would never miss separating fact from person. Ideally you avoid moral judgment, excepting of course when moral judgment is the issue discussed.
Clarify the point of view, remind your competence if needed, and affirm what makes the critique necessary and impartial and unbiased. Show benefits. It is useful to stress in what way your advice is constructive. Quote properly the independent criteria, facts and methods. Quote sources.
Keep with the subject criticised and never ignore it to affirm something else instead as a “critique” – that is a dialogue of the deaf. Excuse politely the possible displeasure. Conclude point by point and put things on record for reference.
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You criticise an object, a result, a way of doing, a method, an argument, maybe behaviour, but you keep away from opinions about how the person is. You would never miss separating fact from person. Ideally you avoid moral judgment, excepting of course when moral judgment is the issue discussed.
Clarify the point of view, remind your competence if needed, and affirm what makes the critique necessary and impartial and unbiased. Show benefits. It is useful to stress in what way your advice is constructive. Quote properly the independent criteria, facts and methods. Quote sources.
Keep with the subject criticised and never ignore it to affirm something else instead as a “critique” – that is a dialogue of the deaf. Excuse politely the possible displeasure. Conclude point by point and put things on record for reference.
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Stoning Of Saint Emerantiana
Hostile criticism finds fault or invents it. Directly or in disguise it is to the person; not to repair, but to defend or to attack, to reject, to blame, to undermine or to destroy.
Unfavourable, it works to contain and make things hard for the target.
It is aimed at enemies, to unsettle while defending against something. It tries to stop, to block, to make things harder or to discredit and ridicule. It could be a sincere outburst of aversion but, most of the time, such criticism is subversive.
What it wants to avoid is being of any help.
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Unfavourable, it works to contain and make things hard for the target.
It is aimed at enemies, to unsettle while defending against something. It tries to stop, to block, to make things harder or to discredit and ridicule. It could be a sincere outburst of aversion but, most of the time, such criticism is subversive.
What it wants to avoid is being of any help.
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Handle hostile criticism with cool firm hands in appropriate gloves. As Baltasar Gracian says so well “Enemies are of more use to the wise man than friends are to the fool. Malice is wont to level mountains of difficulties, upon the scaling of which goodwill would hesitate to embark. Many owe their greatness to their malicious critics. [2]
An unpleasant remark may warn you of weakness or fear being present among your critics. Therefore, listen from beginning to end and use it as a detector. You could do something about those weaknesses and fears. Quite often hostile criticism comes from mere evil disposition and you should not kindle it, let the flame consume itself.
Hostile criticism can be very useful; in spite of its unfriendly intention, rebuke may be vital in pointing at your vulnerable spot, signalling errors and gaffes your friends would never mention and most of all it helps you to adjust your aim. If the fault-finders knew this they would keep silent. Some of them actually do; they keep you in the dark and drown you in silence; or freeze you in indifference. No feedback is bad feedback. That discourages the things well done and leaves errors grow. The first hostile criticism is silence.
A treacherous brand of hostile criticism is flattery, encouraging you to keep going astray, to blow up until you burst like the frog in the fable. It is difficult to conceive that a smiling admiring face is of an enemy, but exercise will teach you. A variant of this deceiving scheme is to say something that would provoke you to do or say something stupid; or to tell you something absolutely silly so that you jump in to correct a mistake and give out some wanted information.
Patience is the rule with all this vermin but you may have to reject and clarify things offhand – without listening all the way - when the critique is slander, trying to institute some “claim” to take advantage of you. Otherwise, silence and oblivion are best. Keep a plain face, do not show where it hurts. Remember the fable of the fox hidden in a hole who would keep mum whenever hit with a stick and scream at each mistaken poke.
Of course, at times, hostile criticism is real stoning and war and then the rules of war apply.
When you practice hostile criticism I assume you are justified to do such a nasty thing fit for the unfree. You defend something legitimate that is threatened and punish evil, cross iron with a bad foe stronger than you. The worst would be to do such critique mindlessly. Remember that a gentleman is someone who would never offend someone by mistake [3].
Take care not to help the enemy adjust his aim, nor prevent him to persist in error. It may be sufficient to keep silent. Silence is a deadly kind of criticism: “no feedback!” Let the bad person in the dark!
As Napoleon seems to have said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Only a fool would teach his enemy. Instead, incite to more of the bad thing .
Alternatively, Flattery is also hostile criticism, as I explained. The tyrants deserve it. You do not owe sincerity to an oppressor. Let hubris swell until it bursts.
When you blame, be sudden, to surprise and to confuse. Do not signal error, simply failure. Remember how easy it is to find fault and how time consuming to fix it. Give proofs but avoid examples, just point at how hopeless things are, with no advice.
Other forms of disapproval push back directly to contain or sanction or prevent. They shame, pressure, diminish credibility, mock, institute proofs for later judgment. A long list of bad things one can do...
© 2011, 2012 Ioan Tenner & Daniel Tenner
An unpleasant remark may warn you of weakness or fear being present among your critics. Therefore, listen from beginning to end and use it as a detector. You could do something about those weaknesses and fears. Quite often hostile criticism comes from mere evil disposition and you should not kindle it, let the flame consume itself.
Hostile criticism can be very useful; in spite of its unfriendly intention, rebuke may be vital in pointing at your vulnerable spot, signalling errors and gaffes your friends would never mention and most of all it helps you to adjust your aim. If the fault-finders knew this they would keep silent. Some of them actually do; they keep you in the dark and drown you in silence; or freeze you in indifference. No feedback is bad feedback. That discourages the things well done and leaves errors grow. The first hostile criticism is silence.
A treacherous brand of hostile criticism is flattery, encouraging you to keep going astray, to blow up until you burst like the frog in the fable. It is difficult to conceive that a smiling admiring face is of an enemy, but exercise will teach you. A variant of this deceiving scheme is to say something that would provoke you to do or say something stupid; or to tell you something absolutely silly so that you jump in to correct a mistake and give out some wanted information.
Patience is the rule with all this vermin but you may have to reject and clarify things offhand – without listening all the way - when the critique is slander, trying to institute some “claim” to take advantage of you. Otherwise, silence and oblivion are best. Keep a plain face, do not show where it hurts. Remember the fable of the fox hidden in a hole who would keep mum whenever hit with a stick and scream at each mistaken poke.
Of course, at times, hostile criticism is real stoning and war and then the rules of war apply.
When you practice hostile criticism I assume you are justified to do such a nasty thing fit for the unfree. You defend something legitimate that is threatened and punish evil, cross iron with a bad foe stronger than you. The worst would be to do such critique mindlessly. Remember that a gentleman is someone who would never offend someone by mistake [3].
Take care not to help the enemy adjust his aim, nor prevent him to persist in error. It may be sufficient to keep silent. Silence is a deadly kind of criticism: “no feedback!” Let the bad person in the dark!
As Napoleon seems to have said, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” Only a fool would teach his enemy. Instead, incite to more of the bad thing .
Alternatively, Flattery is also hostile criticism, as I explained. The tyrants deserve it. You do not owe sincerity to an oppressor. Let hubris swell until it bursts.
When you blame, be sudden, to surprise and to confuse. Do not signal error, simply failure. Remember how easy it is to find fault and how time consuming to fix it. Give proofs but avoid examples, just point at how hopeless things are, with no advice.
Other forms of disapproval push back directly to contain or sanction or prevent. They shame, pressure, diminish credibility, mock, institute proofs for later judgment. A long list of bad things one can do...
© 2011, 2012 Ioan Tenner & Daniel Tenner
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References
[1] « Si la critique est juste et pleine d'égards, vous lui devez des remercîments et de la déférence ; si elle est juste sans égards, de la déférence sans remercîments ; si elle est outrageante et injuste, le silence et l'oubli » D'Alembert. Apologie de l'étude, Œuvres, t. IV, p. 224, cf. LITTRE.
[2] Max 84, The Oracle, A Manual of the Art of Discretion, Baltasar Gracian, Translated by Walton L.B. J. M. Dent & Sons LTD, London, 1953
[3] Oscar Wilde: “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.” The Routledge dictionary of quotations, Robert Andrews, Routledge, 1987
References
[1] « Si la critique est juste et pleine d'égards, vous lui devez des remercîments et de la déférence ; si elle est juste sans égards, de la déférence sans remercîments ; si elle est outrageante et injuste, le silence et l'oubli » D'Alembert. Apologie de l'étude, Œuvres, t. IV, p. 224, cf. LITTRE.
[2] Max 84, The Oracle, A Manual of the Art of Discretion, Baltasar Gracian, Translated by Walton L.B. J. M. Dent & Sons LTD, London, 1953
[3] Oscar Wilde: “A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone's feelings unintentionally.” The Routledge dictionary of quotations, Robert Andrews, Routledge, 1987
Critical thinking is disobedient, not correct
Caravaggio, Doubting Thomas
Critical thinking is disobedient. It is the constant questioning and defying of received opinion and face value. Those who profess that critical thinking is nothing but correct thinking and discerning of logical errors put a yoke on their own neck and then preach freedom.
The reverse of “critical thinking” is not making errors or bad thinking but credulity and lack of independent judgment. The opposite of being gullible and servile is the disobedient mind that examines everything, with or without method.
Your own critical thinking is the real-life criticism that takes place in our mind, intimately. Besides analyzing other people's arguments and reasons to judge whether they are justified and logical, we have our own ideas, not questioned but questioning; our inner practice of criticism, friendly, objective or hostile, doubts and challenges everything, no holds barred.
Critical thinking is a grain of rebellion against authority and conformity. The critical thinker respects authority only on merit and accepts received knowledge only after understanding it.
The root of our critical thinking is our critical sense - an attitude, a disposition, an instinct. Critical sense roams as orderly as storm. It takes liberty to approve or reject, and proceeds to undo or to support, rationally or irrationally, often because so we please or itch. It may rise against justified belief, repeal what everybody admires or defend that which everyone around us disapproves. We have a right to differ. We own the right to select out as we select in, to shun or prefer, to contest and to dream away. We have the mental right to depart from what is; even when the present is faultless. You can be disapproving without being right or proving that you are right. This defiance is a reaction of life, of the “me”, not a syllogism.
Live critical thinking uses two measures “deux poids, deux mesures” [1], not one: besides testing against reality, standards and other people’s views, it is also testing things against us: our interests, our preferences, our understanding and even the most obscure of our feelings.
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Something else, liberation, our own point of view, fairness, new truth, 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.
To make this simple, critical thinking is 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, and I will decide what is true for me and what not, what is good for me and what is bad, what to refrain from and what to do.”
Your critical thinking is a mixture of free dreaming and thinking. It happens informally, hidden in your mind, not publicly. This is why it should know no inhibition and no mercy. It has the right to be as wild and iconoclastic as Nietzsche shows it to be. Nothing should be impossible in the mind when there are no rules and material limitations; there is no guilt in harbouring any thought that may arise, without censure, moral or logical. You should not kill your baby-thoughts because they are born wild.
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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. [2]
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A critical temper questions everything, ceaselessly: to understand, to help or to fight. It has a habit to test everything from all sides; to judge things sound after it knocks on them. It is taking the freedom to see what is inside things, underneath at their root and behind them; not to submit instead to dominant opinion like mouton. There is nothing wrong in this urge to see things with our own eyes, touch them like Thomas the Unbeliever, and judge them with our intuition or common sense, as modest and fallible as they may be.
Critical thinking is, as I claim, a method of the person. When I consider my own habits of criticism I observe a constant preference, a style to challenge and test things on all sides, with insistence, to check whether or not they sound empty. This, in all sympathy and even when I have little doubt about the truth or the correctness of the matter at hand. I feel that submitting ideas to showers of contrary arguments and challenges is useful, valuable and constructive. My method is to start by advancing one critique, confronting it with the proposed idea and advancing until the argument or the idea “wins or loses” and convinces me. Then, I signal victory of one critique or concede defeat, with no hard feelings, it is “de bonne guerre”. After this I advance the next objection and follow the same cycle, and so on. I could do this for a long time, undisturbed by the fall of my successive arguments. I am pleased when my arguments fall. The aim is to test and to improve, to strengthen by the vaccine of critique, not to win or to destroy. Interesting to see that such a functioning of the mind appears as unbearable and even dishonest to some people. Too bad for them!
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Critical thinking is also a key part of good judgment: it is personal understanding.
Before reasoning your critical thinking sets the ground on which you will judge; it finds or even gives meaning, clarifies what things are for you, points at the essential. It chooses your rules. It elaborates your truth, the beliefs based on which you will judge. Ahead of applying properly prescribed criteria your critical sense will choose what criteria to apply.
In my experience, most of the things I understood that did not work, were not detected by formal rules, they were intuitions of what things really meant, what was really important, what rules were adequate, of what felt not right or guessing that the proposed choices were a wrong choice, other choices of choices being possible.
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If you begin your thinking in submission, even to healthy logical rules, instead of starting divergent, you are doomed to only find in the end what you knew already. You will have to grow old before you earn the right to think. And then, the experts will still explain you that you did not understand.
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The books on “critical thinking”, by explaining what is good and bad argument, also tell you what must happen in your head. They are full of procedures, skills, logical rules and examples of fallacies, very useful, valuable, true, important to learn from, but, if you just follow the literal rules, your thinking will be utterly uncritical. Is then critical thinking a mere inspection or arguments and detection of faults? Advancing by the book? Censoring your own thinking as you censor somebody else's arguments? This is misleading. Where is the method to challenge things, the world? Sometimes I wonder if the authors ever questioned what they want to achieve.
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Good judgment follows, after the anarchic choices of criticism and it is still not by the book; if your judgment is to be good, it embraces complex, contradictory, incomplete knowledge, the one we have in our real life. Its point of view is not objective precision. What counts most for good judgment are preferences, norms and values of the human person not of scientific truth or logic. Certainly, ideas should follow and be consistent but the aim is in the good sense of the content not the perfection of the form.
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Critical thinking starts in uprising but it should not end in rebellion.
Self examining comes next, to make you master, not slave, of your own critical reaction. Now, to free your deliberation and not to be blinded by passion or wishful thinking you need to rise above yourself, above your critical drive, to understand which is your point of view [3], what moved you to be critical, and if you speak, why you speak and what you want to achieve; otherwise, your criticism is like the buzzing of flies.
Now, when you formulate arguments and speak, there is usage and canons to respect [4]. Now you censor. It is insane to practice all we imagine and feel and it is boorish to punish people with our freedom to think; politeness and prudence preserve from harm!
My view of critical thinking values and includes as you can observe reality check, logic and good scientific method, all the good advice of the "critical thinking" books, but without being reduced to them. It is much larger in scope.
You may not need to be logical when you start thinking, but you do when you conclude. That is the moment to read the many books, some excellent, about “critical thinking”, . Critique expressed must be consistent inside and fit outside into the limits of accepted reality and of accepted opinion. That is the stage when the proper flow of logic rules and the awareness of fallacies, formal and informal, preserves you from ridicule and defeat. If you cannot cope with this, better keep your mouth shut.
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PS: Of course, a flaw weakens my view presented here; it is not foolproof. Critical thinking is dangerous anarchy in the head, not for kindergarten. The fool will understand that anything goes. The fool will confuse the birth of ideas with the growth, the verification and the communication of ideas. The convergent thinker will also be confused. He prefers disciplined ideas reflecting reality, not shots in the dark. Who likes chaos? But we need this dark space to conceive the newness which we later analyse and to prove. Where there is nothing born and no sign of pregnancy even the midwifery of Socrates will educate nothing.
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[1] Deuteronomy. 25:13-14 and Proverbs 20:10
[2] 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
[3] Gert J. J. Biesta and Geert Jan J.M. Stams, Critical Thinking and the Question of Critique..., Studies in Philosophy and Education 20: 57–74, 2001, Kluwer Academic Publishers
[4] McInerny, D. Q., Being Logical. A Guide to Good Thinking,
Random House, New York, 2004
The reverse of “critical thinking” is not making errors or bad thinking but credulity and lack of independent judgment. The opposite of being gullible and servile is the disobedient mind that examines everything, with or without method.
Your own critical thinking is the real-life criticism that takes place in our mind, intimately. Besides analyzing other people's arguments and reasons to judge whether they are justified and logical, we have our own ideas, not questioned but questioning; our inner practice of criticism, friendly, objective or hostile, doubts and challenges everything, no holds barred.
Critical thinking is a grain of rebellion against authority and conformity. The critical thinker respects authority only on merit and accepts received knowledge only after understanding it.
The root of our critical thinking is our critical sense - an attitude, a disposition, an instinct. Critical sense roams as orderly as storm. It takes liberty to approve or reject, and proceeds to undo or to support, rationally or irrationally, often because so we please or itch. It may rise against justified belief, repeal what everybody admires or defend that which everyone around us disapproves. We have a right to differ. We own the right to select out as we select in, to shun or prefer, to contest and to dream away. We have the mental right to depart from what is; even when the present is faultless. You can be disapproving without being right or proving that you are right. This defiance is a reaction of life, of the “me”, not a syllogism.
Live critical thinking uses two measures “deux poids, deux mesures” [1], not one: besides testing against reality, standards and other people’s views, it is also testing things against us: our interests, our preferences, our understanding and even the most obscure of our feelings.
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Something else, liberation, our own point of view, fairness, new truth, 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.
To make this simple, critical thinking is 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, and I will decide what is true for me and what not, what is good for me and what is bad, what to refrain from and what to do.”
Your critical thinking is a mixture of free dreaming and thinking. It happens informally, hidden in your mind, not publicly. This is why it should know no inhibition and no mercy. It has the right to be as wild and iconoclastic as Nietzsche shows it to be. Nothing should be impossible in the mind when there are no rules and material limitations; there is no guilt in harbouring any thought that may arise, without censure, moral or logical. You should not kill your baby-thoughts because they are born wild.
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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. [2]
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A critical temper questions everything, ceaselessly: to understand, to help or to fight. It has a habit to test everything from all sides; to judge things sound after it knocks on them. It is taking the freedom to see what is inside things, underneath at their root and behind them; not to submit instead to dominant opinion like mouton. There is nothing wrong in this urge to see things with our own eyes, touch them like Thomas the Unbeliever, and judge them with our intuition or common sense, as modest and fallible as they may be.
Critical thinking is, as I claim, a method of the person. When I consider my own habits of criticism I observe a constant preference, a style to challenge and test things on all sides, with insistence, to check whether or not they sound empty. This, in all sympathy and even when I have little doubt about the truth or the correctness of the matter at hand. I feel that submitting ideas to showers of contrary arguments and challenges is useful, valuable and constructive. My method is to start by advancing one critique, confronting it with the proposed idea and advancing until the argument or the idea “wins or loses” and convinces me. Then, I signal victory of one critique or concede defeat, with no hard feelings, it is “de bonne guerre”. After this I advance the next objection and follow the same cycle, and so on. I could do this for a long time, undisturbed by the fall of my successive arguments. I am pleased when my arguments fall. The aim is to test and to improve, to strengthen by the vaccine of critique, not to win or to destroy. Interesting to see that such a functioning of the mind appears as unbearable and even dishonest to some people. Too bad for them!
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Critical thinking is also a key part of good judgment: it is personal understanding.
Before reasoning your critical thinking sets the ground on which you will judge; it finds or even gives meaning, clarifies what things are for you, points at the essential. It chooses your rules. It elaborates your truth, the beliefs based on which you will judge. Ahead of applying properly prescribed criteria your critical sense will choose what criteria to apply.
In my experience, most of the things I understood that did not work, were not detected by formal rules, they were intuitions of what things really meant, what was really important, what rules were adequate, of what felt not right or guessing that the proposed choices were a wrong choice, other choices of choices being possible.
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If you begin your thinking in submission, even to healthy logical rules, instead of starting divergent, you are doomed to only find in the end what you knew already. You will have to grow old before you earn the right to think. And then, the experts will still explain you that you did not understand.
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The books on “critical thinking”, by explaining what is good and bad argument, also tell you what must happen in your head. They are full of procedures, skills, logical rules and examples of fallacies, very useful, valuable, true, important to learn from, but, if you just follow the literal rules, your thinking will be utterly uncritical. Is then critical thinking a mere inspection or arguments and detection of faults? Advancing by the book? Censoring your own thinking as you censor somebody else's arguments? This is misleading. Where is the method to challenge things, the world? Sometimes I wonder if the authors ever questioned what they want to achieve.
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Good judgment follows, after the anarchic choices of criticism and it is still not by the book; if your judgment is to be good, it embraces complex, contradictory, incomplete knowledge, the one we have in our real life. Its point of view is not objective precision. What counts most for good judgment are preferences, norms and values of the human person not of scientific truth or logic. Certainly, ideas should follow and be consistent but the aim is in the good sense of the content not the perfection of the form.
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Critical thinking starts in uprising but it should not end in rebellion.
Self examining comes next, to make you master, not slave, of your own critical reaction. Now, to free your deliberation and not to be blinded by passion or wishful thinking you need to rise above yourself, above your critical drive, to understand which is your point of view [3], what moved you to be critical, and if you speak, why you speak and what you want to achieve; otherwise, your criticism is like the buzzing of flies.
Now, when you formulate arguments and speak, there is usage and canons to respect [4]. Now you censor. It is insane to practice all we imagine and feel and it is boorish to punish people with our freedom to think; politeness and prudence preserve from harm!
My view of critical thinking values and includes as you can observe reality check, logic and good scientific method, all the good advice of the "critical thinking" books, but without being reduced to them. It is much larger in scope.
You may not need to be logical when you start thinking, but you do when you conclude. That is the moment to read the many books, some excellent, about “critical thinking”, . Critique expressed must be consistent inside and fit outside into the limits of accepted reality and of accepted opinion. That is the stage when the proper flow of logic rules and the awareness of fallacies, formal and informal, preserves you from ridicule and defeat. If you cannot cope with this, better keep your mouth shut.
*
PS: Of course, a flaw weakens my view presented here; it is not foolproof. Critical thinking is dangerous anarchy in the head, not for kindergarten. The fool will understand that anything goes. The fool will confuse the birth of ideas with the growth, the verification and the communication of ideas. The convergent thinker will also be confused. He prefers disciplined ideas reflecting reality, not shots in the dark. Who likes chaos? But we need this dark space to conceive the newness which we later analyse and to prove. Where there is nothing born and no sign of pregnancy even the midwifery of Socrates will educate nothing.
_____________________________________
[1] Deuteronomy. 25:13-14 and Proverbs 20:10
[2] 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
[3] Gert J. J. Biesta and Geert Jan J.M. Stams, Critical Thinking and the Question of Critique..., Studies in Philosophy and Education 20: 57–74, 2001, Kluwer Academic Publishers
[4] McInerny, D. Q., Being Logical. A Guide to Good Thinking,
Random House, New York, 2004
