Construct a reasonable view
One humorist compared finding the truth to painting a barn door by throwing open cans of paint at it. Few people who throw at the door miss it entirely. Yet no one can really cover the whole door in one toss. People who express their viewpoints are seeking truth. Yet almost no reasonable person claims to have covered the whole barn door—to have the Whole Truth about anything. Instead, each viewpoint is one approach among many possible approaches. If you don’t think that any one viewpoint is complete, then it’s up to you to combine the perspectives on the issues. In doing so, you choose an original viewpoint. This, like composing a song or painting a picture, is a creative act and an exhilarating exercise in critical thinking.
2. The Function of Critical Thinking
Any organization draws its life from certain assumption about the way thing should be done. Before the institution can change, those assumptions need to be loosened up or reinvented. In many ways, the real location of an institution is inside our heads.
Critical thinking also helps us uncover bias and prejudice. This is a first step toward communicating with people of other races and cultures.
Crises occur when our thinking fails to keep pace with reality. An example is the ecological crisis, which sprang from the assumption that people could pollute the earth, air, and water without long-term consequences. Consider how different our world would be if our leaders had thought like the first woman chief of the Cherokees. Asked about the best advice her elders had given her, she said, “Look forward. Turn what has been done into a better path. If you are a leader, think about the impact of your decision on seven generations into the future.”
Novelist Ernest Hemingway once said that anyone who wanted to be a great writer must have a built-in, shockproof crap detector. That inelegant comment points to a perennial truth: As critical thinkers, we can be constantly on the lookout for thinking that’s inaccurate, sloppy, or misleading.
This is a skill that will never go out of style. History offers a continuing story of half-truth, faulty assumptions, and other nonsense once commonly accepted as true:
l Bloodsucking leeches can be used to cure disease.
l Illnesses result from an imbalance in the four vital fluids: blood, phlegm, water, and bile.
l Racial integration of the armed forces will lead to the destruction of soldiers’ morale.
l Caucasians are inherently more intelligent than people of other races.
l Mixing the blood of the races will lead to genetically inferior offspring.
l Women are incapable of voting intelligently.
l We will never invent anything smaller than a transistor. (That was before the computer chip.)
l Computers will usher in the age of the paperless office.
In response to such ideas rose the critical thinkers of history. These men and women courageously pointed out that—metaphorically speaking—the emperor had no clothes.
Critical thinking is a path to freedom from half-truths and deception. You have the right to question what you see, hear, and read. Acquiring this ability is one of the major goals of a liberal education.
3. Critical Thinking as Thorough Thinking
For some people, the term critical thinking has negative connotations. If you prefer, use the words thorough thinking instead. Both terms point to the same array of activities: sorting out conflicting claims, weighting the evidence for them, letting go of personal biases, and arriving at reasonable views. This adds up to an ongoing conversation, a constant practices process, not a product.
We live in a society that seems to value quick answers and certainty. This is often at odds with effective thinking. Thorough thinking is the ability to examine and reexamine ideas that may seem obvious. Such thinking takes time and the willingness to say there subversive words: I don’t know. Thorough thinking is also the willingness to change our point of view as we continue to examine a problem. This calls for courage and detachment. Just ask anyone who has given a cherished point of view in light of new evidence. 感谢您阅读《Ideas 》一文，出国留学网(liuxue86.com)编辑部希望本文能帮助到您。
