Critical thinking is one of the most valuable sets of life skills you can ever have and it’s never too late to learn them. People who can think critically are better at problem solving of all kinds, whether at school or work, in ordinary daily life, and even in crises. You can practice critical thinking by working through typical arguments from premises to conclusions.
Thinking critically isn’t about following a single path to an inevitable conclusion. It’s about developing a set of powerful and versatile mental processing tools in your head and being able to apply these meaningfully to the world around you.
You need no special qualifications to become a strong critical thinker, and can’t pick it up simply from reading books about critical thinking. The only way to hone critical thinking skills is to practice critical thinking.
If you’re ready to learn more about critical thinking arguments for beginners then read on…
What is critical thinking?
Let’s first illustrate the answer to this question by taking a look at how we can think critically about potential misinformation online.
Imagine…
Your friend on a social media site has shared a photograph of election ballot slips apparently being tipped into a river by a postal truck driver, reportedly a supporter of a political party who will benefit from lower postal voter turnout.
Your friend is a supporter of another party and expresses outrage at the alleged law-breaking, election influencing, and reduced chances for her own party candidate. Many other friends pile in with sympathetic and equally outraged comments, or new allegations.
The temptation might be strong to accept the narrative caption which accompanies the picture, echo your friends’ emotional responses, and share the photo further. However, as a critical thinker, you should step back and ask some crucial questions first:
- Is the photo obviously manipulated? Sophisticated image alterations can now be made which won’t be spotted by the majority of non-experts. Could this be an image of a simple truck crash with ballot papers photoshopped in?
- Does your friend fact-check stories, pictures, memes etc.. before posting them online? If she has a history of posting stories which turned out to be false, it reduces her credibility in presenting the current story.
- Is there anything in the photograph which supports or undermines the claims made? If you can see that the van has a foreign registration plate, the ballot papers aren’t in English, or the date on the clock is actually several years ago, it is clear that the true story is somewhat different to the one being told.
Let’s say that your initial suspicions after asking yourself these questions are enough that you do a quick web search for the story.
Your search reveals that credible sources have already uncovered the photo as having been manipulated and spread by an online political group. It was originally a local news story about a crashed postal truck in another country five years earlier and has no relationship whatsoever to the current election in your country…
Your critical thinking helped you to avoid falling into group-think along with your friends and saved you from spreading more misinformation online. These real life type examples are are an excellent way to grasp the relevance and value of critical thinking arguments for beginners.
Now for a little of the theory. Critical thinking is a description that brings together a range of useful intellectual skills and their synergies. While there is no definitive list, there are some common key competences necessary for critical thinking:
- Conducting analysis. Being able to understand the issue in question; distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information; identify commonalities, differences and connections.
- Making inferences. Using inductive or deductive reasoning to draw out meanings; identifying assumptions; abstracting ideas; applying analogies and recognizing cause and effect relationships in order to develop theories or potential conclusions.
- Evaluating evidence. Making a judgement about whether a theory or statement is credible or correct; adjusting views and theories in the light of new data or perspectives; grasping the significance of events and information.
- Making robust decisions. Reaching sound conclusions by applying critical thinking skills to the available evidence.
To apply critical thinking in real life, you also need to possess the right attitude to problem solving, as well as the critical thinking skills themselves.
This means being automatically inclined to think critically in the face of a difficult question or problem. Being fair, open-minded, curious and free from ideology or group-think will all help to create a mindset in which critical thinking can thrive.
What are critical thinking arguments?
Let’s now look at some of the basic building blocks underpinning critical thinking arguments for beginners.
In critical thinking and logic, ‘argument’ has a particular meaning. It refers to a set of statements, consisting of one conclusion and one or more premises. The conclusion is the statement that the argument is intended to prove. The premises are the reasons offered for believing that the conclusion is true.
A critical thinking argument could use a deductive reasoning approach, an inductive reasoning approach, or both.
Deductive reasoning
Deductive reasoning attempts to absolutely guarantee a conclusion’s truth through logic. If a deductive argument’s premises are true, it should be impossible for its conclusion to be false. For example:
- All humans are mortal. (Premise)
- Socrates is a human. (Premise)
- Therefore, Socrates is mortal. (Conclusion)
Inductive reasoning
Inductive reasoning attempts to show that the conclusion is probably true, with each premise making the case for the conclusion stronger or weaker. For example:
- Three independent witnesses saw Max climb in through the window of the house. (Premise)
- Max’s fingerprints are on the window frame and several stolen items. (Premise)
- Max confessed to the burglary. (Premise)
- Therefore, Max committed the burglary. (Conclusion)
Do note that in either case, straight assertions, explanations or conditional sentences are not arguments.
How do I assess a critical thinking argument?
You can evaluate whether an argument is valid or invalid, sound or unsound, strong or weak.
Validity
If an argument is said to be ‘valid’, it means that it is impossible for the conclusion to be false if the premises are true. If an argument is ‘invalid’, it is possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion false.
Soundness
An argument is ‘sound’ if it is both valid and contains only true premises. If either of these conditions isn’t met then the argument is ‘unsound’.
Strength
A deductively ‘strong’ argument is both valid and it is reasonable for the person in question to believe the premises are true. In a deductively weak argument, the person considering the premises may have good reason to doubt them.
When an argument is inductively strong, the truth of the premises makes the the truth of the conclusion probable. In contrast, in an inductively ‘weak’ argument, the truth of the premises do not make the truth of the conclusion probable.
Counterexamples
A ‘counterexample’ is a consistent story which shows that an argument can have true premises but a false conclusion, rendering it invalid.
NB A valid argument is not necessarily true, and a weak argument is not necessarily false.
All of these fundamentals can be applied both to simple practice arguments and then to more complex problems of the type you might encounter in real life.
For example:
- All unicorns are Swedish (Premise)
- My new pet is a unicorn (Premise)
- Therefore, my new pet is Swedish (Conclusion)
The premises here are both false – unicorns do not exist, and I therefore cannot own one as a pet. However, if they were true, then the conclusion would be true. What we have here is a valid argument, but not a sound one, nor a strong one.
How can I practice critical thinking arguments for beginners?
Now that you have the basic tools and concepts for putting together a critical thinking argument, you can look out for real life examples to practice with.
News stories
Look at the headlines covering stories in TV, online or paper news. Do you agree that the facts of the story are credible and constitute premises strong enough to justify the headline drawn from them?
Social media
Critically examine stories and claims shared by friends and contacts online. Ask yourself whether the evidence presented is credible and justifies the claims being made.
Corporate statements
Evaluate claims made by big corporations in public statements and annual reports alongside their actions and impacts. For example, if a major oil company claims that it is working to combat climate change, how strong, valid and sound are their arguments?
Conclusion…
Whatever your starting point, we hope this article has set you on the road to becoming a critical thinker, and that these developing skills might open new doors at school, at work or in other areas of life. The world needs more critical thinking at all levels and your contribution might one day be valuable.
