Joey writes:
Edward Glaser, in his An Experiment in the Development of Critical Thinking (1941), writes that the ability to think critically involves three things:
1. An attitude of being disposed (state of mind regarding something) to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences,
2. Knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning,
3. Some skill in applying those methods.
I believe this most closely approximates what I believe to be critical thinking, and I truly believe that it is quite important in your personal, professional, and scholastic pursuits.
Also, I believe that Critical Thinking is at the crux of an Interdisciplinary Studies degree, because you are asked to basically make up your own degree within certain parameters to highlight your skills and abilities. Critical thinking makes you decide what is important to you that you want others to know and what you have done to further those efforts. At the end of our posts are some more questions that we want you to ask yourselves and respond to. Thanks.
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I agree that critical thinking is absolutely crucial to an interdisciplinary student. Strictly speaking, I think critical thinking is important for _any_ student, but I think interdisciplinarity is nearly impossible without strong critical thinking skills. It's only through critical thinking that we are able to synthesize multiple disciplines.
Objectivity is a skill which must be developed hand-in-hand with critical thinking. One of the most important parts of critical thinking, to me, is learning to examine yourself and your own biases and thought patterns, and only through objectivity can you critically examine and find flaws in your own thinking. The same goes, though, for critically examining the words and actions of others, like books and websites you might read. Learn to read between the lines!
Critical Thinking: an introduction to the basic skills is an interesting book on this subject; I particularly liked the section on objective reporting. (If my link works, you can read some of it on the free preview from Google Books.)
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Critical Thinking
How does your critical thinking relate to being interdisciplinary?
Comment on how the Virtual Philosopher scored your response. From the comments you received about your responses, what insight have you gained about your own critical thinking and reasoning?
How does the outline of your critical thinking disposition match with the application of it in doing the Virtual Philosopher?
I also think that critical thinking is a very important aspect to be an interdisciplinarian. If I want to solve a problem using more than one dispicline, I must look at that problem from numerous aspects of each discipline and then combine it all to find the best solution for that given problem. To me this is critical thinking because you must evaluate, analyze, interpret, explain, and then slove the problem. If you are not critically thinking then you just evaluate the problem and then solve it without going through all the possible solutions.
ReplyDeleteMy critical thinking disposition said I was highly susceptible to critical thinking. I think my main problem is that I am a selective critical thinker. Instead of applying this skill to everything, I only use it when I feel it is absolutely necessary. This should not be case. Hopefully one day critically thinking will be second nature to me and it benefit me in enormous ways.
Also I am unsure about what the Virtual Philosopher is and where I go to find it.
Ada,
ReplyDeleteThanks for posting that link to the critical thinking book. I just checked it out and it does seem like a very helpful book!! I really like how it has self-tests in it also just to make sure you fully understand and are on the right track for each chapter! Thanks again!
What I found so funny after completing the virtual philosopher quiz was that although I always considered myself a rational and moral person, I found that I had very mixed choices. One example of this was when asked about killing, I replied that that it is always wrong, but when asked if I would kill one person to spare a group I said I would. This truly shows that no matter how much you think you know about yourself you can still be surprised when faced with a difficult situation. Critical thinking is imperative to everyday life but even more important when under pressure and this exercise definitely opened my eyes to the fact that although I thought my decisions were clear, I had opposing beliefs and opinions per situation.
ReplyDeleteThat virtual philospher showed me my conflictions as well. It is basically an assessment of your morals, whether they are in accordance with your beliefs or are actually contradictory with them. The website is http://web.uncg.edu/dcl/courses/vicecrime/vp/vp.html. Try it and see what happens.
ReplyDeleteI thought the Virtual Philosopher was interesting, but I think it should be taken with a _huge_ grain of salt. I feel its logic is somewhat fallacious. Some of the questions it asks are far more complicated than the answers and evaluations it provides. For example, it said I was "inconsistent" because I said that lying was sometimes justifiable but I chose not to lie to my friend. I do indeed feel that lying is sometimes justifiable, but only very rarely, and I feel like lying to my friend about something like that would be disrespectful to her and completely unnecessary. So, honestly, I think the VP does give some significant food for thought, but make sure you're critically analyzing his analysis. =)
ReplyDeleteJust something to think about...
I think critical thinking is the essence of interdisciplarity. The ability to consider multiple sides to a problem and consider them all-even the ones that are in conflict with each other-leads to a deeper understanding of a subject and allows for a more feasible solution. So many things in life are complicated. To be able to look at them in this way is a great benefit to the interdisciplinarian.
ReplyDeleteI was fine on the virtual philosopher until I got to the liver transplant situation. In my mind, the sickest person should receive the liver - but I guess that, ethically, it is more complicated than that. This situation brings to mind the Steve Jobs situation...I heard not that long ago that he was very ill and required a liver transplant. Within a matter of months he is back at work and doing very well with his new liver...I remember thinking-is it because he is so wealthy that he received a new liver so quickly?
My critical thinking disposition was "highly susceptible to critical thinking" but I demoted myself to "moderately susceptiable to critical thinking" because sometimes I have emotional responses which cloud my thinking. For the most part, I think my results with the critical thinking dispositon matched with the virtual philosopher results. I am not the greatest critical thinker but I'm moving in the right direction and making progress.
Ada,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the virtual philosopher should be taken with a grain of salt. Especially the question about the liver transplant. Basically, there is a ethical question to every option. In life, choices must be made. Each choice a person makes in life has ramifications and an individual might not be able to predict what those ramifications might be.
Oh wow, I hated that liver transplant problem. I was fine on the other questions, but I'm not sure I would ever want to be in a situation where I had to decide who got an organ. (Choosing to save somebody is one thing, like in the lifeboat question, but I don't think I could ever decide who dies.) It's definitely a good thing I never tried to get into medicine =)
ReplyDeleteAmy,
ReplyDeleteI hope critical thinking becomes second nature to me too. Sometimes I have knee-jerk reactions that diminish my ability to think critically. Like you said - a selective critical thinker...I think this class is a great opportunity to bring critical thinking to the foreground of our thought processes and hopefully we can adjust our thinking process as a result.