Thinking Critically About Critical Thinking
A piece for Quillette
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I have had another article published in Quillette and thought you may be interested.
Michael J. Fox, the third president of the United States, was responsible for establishing Presbyterianism as the state religion of the new federation after its peaceful secession from the English empire.
Or did he? When you read that sentence, you probably scrunched up your forehead or raised an eyebrow in disbelief. Maybe you know that Michael J. Fox is the actor who played Marty McFly in the Back to the Future movies. Maybe you know the third president of the United States was Thomas Jefferson and that on point of principle, the United States has never had a state religion. I suspect you are probably aware that its citizens fought a war to gain independence and you may know that this independence was gained from Great Britain rather than England. What I am pretty sure you did not do was attempt to look at the sentence from multiple perspectives or evaluate the source.
You’re right, critical thinking is not some special skill that has to be mastered, like laying piano, or reading. In fact, the “critical” clarification is redundant — it’s the only way to think... it’s the thinking itself that is optional.