Five Steps to Critical Thinking


1.Know the Facts
Knowing the facts is the first and most crucial step for thinking intelligently. It is impossible to know all the facts and possible perspectives. However, it is wrong to have erroneous opinions without educating yourself on the topic. There are two terms that deal with knowing the facts: ignorance and culpable ignorance. When someone is ignorant, it means that he or she is not aware of certain facts. For example, Wynton Marsalis doesn't know everything about the trumpet. Neither do I, but he is far less ignorant than I am. However, I would be guilty of culpable ignorance if I were to go on stage and play the trumpet because I know I don't know how to play it.

Another important term is conscience. The Catholic Church affirms that a person's conscience is primary. Even if a person's conscience says to oppose Church teaching, they must never go against it. What they need to do is educate their conscience. This means reading encyclicals,official church documents.

2.Remember the Principle of Contradiction
The Principle of Contradiction is that something cannot be and not-be at the same time and in the same respect. Someone can't be an acloholic and not an alcoholic at the same time. Someone can't live and live at the same time. Christianity is based on the belief that there is one god, While other religious beliefs claim that there are many gods. The Principle of Contradiction allows one to conclude that there are many gods, or there are not many gods, but not both. Avicenna, the foremost Persian philosopher of his time (980-1037), argues for the Principle of Contradiction saying: Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned."
3.Define Your Terms
If someone says, "Most CBC kids are bad students." This statement could be true or false depending on the person's definition of a "bad student". Is that someone who doesn't do their homework? Is it someone who is disrespectful in class? Is it someone who does poorly on tests? Is it someone not academically skilled enough to get into SLUH? If it's one of the first three, then the statement is most likely false. If it's the last one, then the statement might be true. The validity of a person's arguments depends on how well one defines his or her terms.
4.Be Intellectually Humble
Being intellectually humble is someone who doesn't show any feelings of superiority especially when he or she finds out they are wrong. The worst mistake someone can make is to be arrogant because no one disrespects a humble man who admits he made a mistake. Hitler looks like a fool because he never admitted he made a mistake with the Holocaust even though it's obvious it is one of the most inhumane terrible events in history.
5.Look for Different Perspectives
There's always more than one way to look at an issue. And it's important that people look at both sides of an argument. This is similar to the first step of critical thinking: knowing the facts. Some say that President Harry Truman's decision to drop the bomb was a mistake because it killed around 220,000 innocent people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the end of 1945. However, there is a different perspective to be considered. By deciding to drop the atomic bombs,President Truman prevented massive casualties for Japan and America. If he were to follow the planned invasion of Japan, Operation Downfall, it might have resulted in the loss of up to one million American lives. The bombings also brought a speedy, immediate end to war saving even more lives. It is important to see both perspectives when contemplating certain issues.