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Children who constantly ask their parents “Why?” can be tiresome. So when people discourage habits of questioning and examining for the sake of expediency, they run the risk of extinguishing skills that will be needed later on. Critical thinking skills are also important beyond the classroom as you make important decisions affecting your life. In her book Reasoning and Communication, Josina Makau (1990) underscores both these skills and their value as follows: “These skills include the abilities to ask relevant questions, find, evaluate and effectively use relevant information, draw reasonable inferences and evaluate inferences. Proficient critical thinkers share at least several basic characteristics. They are committed to careful decision making. They make effective use of freedom of choice in their personal and professional lives. And they understand that exercising our liberties requires the development and use of critical thinking skills.” Critical thinking becomes a lifelong skill, to be used in the way you look at the world and evaluate the information you get every day. It should become a habit – a habit of mind – that enhances your ability to live successfully. Critical thinking is the process of finding, interpreting, integrating and evaluating information. At its base is the concept that all evaluation depends on a series of judgments, reports, abstractions, perceptions, inferences and predictions. For example, if you are asked, “Who is the best singer in the world?”, the immediate temptation is to begin tossing out names based on feelings or associations you already have in your mind. A better approach is to ask for some systematic method by which you can judge. “It all depends on what is meant by “best” would be a good way to start. Even the most subjective-sounding questions, like the one just stated, have some assumptions or criteria that are the basis for the answer. Whether the criteria are sound, it can be evaluated according to the standards of critical thinking, and thus their reasonableness can be established. Applying the skills of critical thinking can help you to make better use of information so that you can improve your reasoning and thereby improve the quality of the decisions you make daily. To apply these skills, let us define the ways in which reasoning can be approached.
2.2 Approaches to Reasoning
. Deduction. The formal process of reasoning was expressed in structures and rules early in the teachings of the ancient rhetoricians and philosophers. This is called deduction.
They devised careful systems to lead speakers, thinkers and listeners from premises to conclusions. The most popular and seemingly simple form was the syllogism, which consists of three parts: the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion.
The major premise usually expresses a main idea or universal law or principle. The minor premise connects some specific examples to one part of that main idea. The conclusion makes a connection to the other part of the main idea through a logical link. You are probably familiar with the following classical example:
Major premise: All men are mortal.
Minor premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Therefore Socrates is mortal.
This is a good example because it is short, it is based on sound premises, and it exactly follows both the form and the rules for a syllogism.
. Induction. This shows how most of us think. It is the drawing of conclusions on the basis of a review of the evidence. Induction tells not what is true, but what is likely to be true on the basis of the weight of the evidence. Whereas deduction is concerned with what is true and valid, induction deals with what is probable.
Determining what is probable means to evaluate the evidence or support behind any conclusion. Are elephants gray? How do you know? Better yet, why do you believe that elephants are gray? This simple question of elephant coloring could be answered by saying that every elephant you have ever seen is gray, every photograph of elephants you have ever seen shows them to be gray, you have heard of no other color ever being associated with elephants, and therefore elephants are gray. In this example, you can see the elements of induction. A number of examples or samples are examined; they are combined by something they have in common; and they lead to a conclusion that seems acceptable.
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