Elements of Critical Thinking
Definition of Critical Thinking
Elements of Critical Thinking
- Identification of premises and conclusions. Critical thinkers break arguments into basic statements and draw logical implications.
- Clarification of arguments: Critical thinkers locate ambiguity and vagueness in arguments and propositions.
- Establishment of facts: Critical thinkers determine if the premises are reasonable and identify information that has been omitted or not collected. They determine if the implications are logical and search for potentially contradictory data.
- Evaluation of Logic: Critical thinkers determine if the premises support the conclusion. In deductive arguments, the conclusions must be true if the premises are true. In inductive arguments, the conclusions are likely if the premises are true.
- Final evaluation: Critical thinkers weigh the evidence and arguments. Supporting data, logic and evidence increase the weight of an argument. Contradictions and lack of evidence decrease the weight of an argument. Critical thinkers do not accept propositions if they think there is more evidence against them or if the argument is unclear, omits significant information, or has false premises or poor logic.
