Critical Thinking

Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life

by Richard W. Paul and Linda Elder

Financial Times Prentice Hall 2002
384 pages

Focus
Leadership & Mgt.
Strategy
Sales & Marketing
Finance
Human Resources
IT, Production & Logistics
Career Development
Small Business
Economics & Politics
Industries
Intercultural Mgt.
Concepts & Trends

Take-Aways
Critical thinking will help you survive and prosper in a rapidly changing world.
The critical thinker has faith in reason.
Examine your thought processes to spot egocentric and sociocentric tendencies.
It takes commitment and practice to develop sound thinking skills.
Know and understand the eight components of critical thought to learn to think
more effectively.
Test everything against your own reason; never blindly accept what others tell you.
Power struggles and other cultural factors in many organizations discourage
independent and innovative thought.
Thinking is always purposeful.
Fair-minded thinkers are able to view things from other peoples perspective even
from the perspective of their opponents.
Develop a plan to improve your thinking skills. Practice until critical thinking
becomes second nature.

Rating

(10 is best)

Overall

Applicability

Innovation

Style

Visit our Web site at www.getAbstract.com to learn about our summaries, personal subscriptions or corporate solutions
or call us at our U.S. office (954-359-4070) or Switzerland office (+41-41-367-5151). getAbstract is an Internet-based knowledge rating service and publisher of book summaries.
getAbstract maintains complete editorial responsibility for all parts of this summary. The respective copyrights of authors and publishers are acknowledged. All rights reserved. No part of
this summary may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, or otherwise, without prior written permission of getAbstract Ltd (Switzerland).

This summary is restricted to the personal use of waheeda saib (wsaib@fnb.co.za)

Relevance
What You Will Learn
In this Abstract, you will learn: 1) How to develop critical-thinking skills; 2) How the six
stages of critical thinking will help you develop self-knowledge; and 3) How to practice
your thinking skills until they become second nature.
Recommendation
The introduction to this book asserts that the world is becoming both more complex
and less liberal as a result of knee-jerk reactions and short-term thinking. In
contrast, say Richard W. Paul and Linda Elder, critical thinking helps people cope
with the uncertainties of modern life and become more confident in their decisions.
By mastering the tools and techniques of critical thinking, they say, readers will be
able to improve their emotional and intellectual skills, their job performance and the
success of their organizations. Their claims about material benefits may be somewhat
exaggerated, so getAbstract suggests applying some of that critical thinking to the
authors generalizations. Nonetheless, their general points are well-made, and many
readers will find these skills and techniques useful.

Abstract
We are all born
as unreflective
thinkers,
fundamentally
unaware of the
role that thinking
is playing in our
lives. Most of us
also die this way.

One of the
most important
sets of skills in
thinking develops
through ones
understanding
of the parts of
thinking. In other
words, we are
better able to find
problems in our
thinking when we
are able to take
our thinking apart.

Thinking and Change

The world is changing, growing ever more complicated and unpredictable. Everyone
faces new dangers and threats from environmental pollution, technology shifts, financial
instability and other phenomena. Critical thinking is a discipline that will help you make
better decisions in these challenging circumstances.
It takes work to develop critical-thinking skills, but critical thinking itself is no more
difficult than uncritical thinking. The first step is to examine the way you think now
your assumptions, your logic, your inferences and your decision making. Only those
who understand what thinking is are in a position to understand where their thinking
succeeds and where it fails. Excellent thinkers do not merely have outstanding skills;
they also have genuine intellectual virtues.
The intellectual virtues are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. They do not exist
or function in isolation. These virtues develop only with practice, and the first step
toward practice is to understand the features of good thinking:
Humility People who are intellectually humble are aware of the limitations of their
knowledge. They are free from the arrogance of prejudice.
Courage The intellectually courageous are open to the ideas of others and brave
enough to change their minds when other ideas are superior to their own. Intellectual
courage is necessary for fair-mindedness.
Empathy Empathy allows you to put yourself in the position of those who oppose
you and enables you to see things from their perspective.
Integrity Integrity means consistency between your words and actions, walking
the talk, practicing what you preach. Integrity is the opposite of hypocrisy.
Perseverance Failure to persevere is fatal to sound thinking. Critical thinking
requires working through layers of complexity to find the truth.
Critical Thinking

Copyright 2008 getAbstract

2 of 5


Among the most
important skills
of critical thinking
is the ability
to distinguish
between what
a statement or
situation actually
implies, and
what people
may merely
(and wrongly)
infer from it.

There is nothing
more practical
than sound
thinking.

Whenever we
reason, we must
reason within
some point of
view or frame
of reference.
Any defect in
that point of
view or frame of
reference is a
possible source
of problems in
the reasoning.

The traits of
mind essential for
critical thinking are
interdependent.

Ability to reason Many people lack confidence that reason can provide answers
and solutions in a complex world. Instead of using reasoning, they allow themselves
to be guided by blind faith, tradition or emotional impulses.
Autonomy Autonomy means relying on yourself and your own thinking. Thinking
critically, being open to other points of view and seeing others perspectives all
require independent thought.
Fair-mindedness Fair-minded thinkers equally respect all points of view whether or
not they agree.

Self-knowledge and Fairness

Building critical thinking skills requires self-knowledge and a determination to be fair.
Many people adopt unconscious attitudes. Critical thinking cuts through those attitudes to
find the truth. Personal development of critical thinking happens in six stages:
1. The Unreflective Thinker You are born unreflective, that is, unaware of how you go
about thinking. By reflecting on how you think, you improve your thought processes.
2. The Challenged Thinker Awareness of a problem with your thinking, such as
faulty assumptions, is a sign of progress toward critical thinking.
3. The Beginning Thinker Beginners acknowledge that thinking is important and
make some efforts toward betterment, but often those efforts are irregular and not
sustained. This stage is comparable to that of an alcoholic who merely recognizes the
problem. Recognition is necessary, but not enough to overcome the problem.
4. The Practicing Thinker Regular practice is indispensable to improvement. Devise
a plan for improvement and execute it consistently.
5. The Advanced Thinker Regular practice will help you make sustained progress.
6. The Master Thinker Your critical-thinking skills are well-developed and
almost automatic.

The Eight Elements of Thinking

Critical thinking requires thoughtfully using these components:
1. Purpose Thinking is always purposeful. The purpose may be conscious or
unconscious. Critical thinkers understand their purpose and think accordingly.
2. Point of view All thinking takes place from a particular perspective. You cannot
think without a frame of reference or point of view.
3. Assumptions An assumption is a presupposition that helps shape your point
of view. Assumptions may be true or false, justified or unjustified. Examine and
test your assumptions.
4. Implications Implications are inherent in a situation or a decision. They reveal
possibilities that might result from the situation. Consequences are the realization of
such possibilities.
5. Information Thinking requires constructing information from raw facts.
6. Inferences Use the process of drawing out deductions to make sense of data.
7. Concepts Conceptual reasoning shapes data into identifiable patterns. Concepts are
the implicit theories, principles, axioms and rules that guide your thinking.
8. Questions The question may be first or last in the list of the elements of thought.
It may precede the purpose and it may come after concepts have been fashioned. The
critical thinker will pose questions throughout the thought process.
Critical Thinking

Copyright 2008 getAbstract

3 of 5

Critical thinkers should test their thinking against the following standards:
Only when
critical thinking
is a corporate
value will an
organization
remain dynamic
in the long run.

Critical thinking,
when applied to
decision making,
enhances the
rationality of
decisions made
by raising the
pattern of decision
making to the level
of conscious and
deliberate choice.

Much of the
worst decision
making is the
result of the failure
to recognize
that a decision
is at hand.

Sociocentric
thinking is fostered
by the way groups
use language.
Groups justify
unjust acts and
ways of thinking
through their
use of concepts
or ideas.

Clarity Thoughts must be clear. Nebulous or ambiguous thinking leads to

questionable conclusions and bad decisions.
Accuracy Accurate thinking is in accordance with the facts. Inaccurate statements,
for example in advertising campaigns, can persuade uncritical thinkers.
Precision Precision infers an adequate but not excessive amount of detail.
Specificity and precision are necessary to optimize clarity and accuracy.
Relevance Relevant thinking is germane to the purpose.
Depth Deep thinking goes beyond the superficial and grapples with the complexity
underlying the thought.
Breadth People who use broad thinking take into account all perspectives, points
of view and arguments, and assess them fairly.
Logical order Thinking that moves according to logic is sound and strong, not
self-contradictory or disconnected.
Significant Significance ensures that thought will not chase trivial tangents, but
will focus on issues at the heart of the problem.
Fairness Fairness gives due respect to the opinions of others, and avoids
stereotyping and prejudice.

Continuous Learning
Skillful thinkers learn from experience and confront their self-deceptions. They gain
insight and assess their experiences. They expunge contradictory or inconsistent thought.
They stand up against media pressure, social pressure and conclusions drawn from
limited experience. How do you develop such capabilities? One technique for breaking
the hold that contemporary social pressures have on you is to read books from another
age, written by authors who did not share the prejudices of our time.
Egocentricity and sociocentricity are both forms of narrow-mindedness, and both are
serious obstacles to critical thought. Egocentricity refers to the almost universal human
tendency to see the world in terms of your own desires, ambitions and goals. Egocentric
thinkers view things exclusively from their own points of view and spend much effort
justifying their presumptions and conduct if, indeed, they bother to examine them at
all. Sometimes, success can lock people into egocentric points of view. After all, their
thinking seems to have worked for them. On the other hand, egocentric people who do
not succeed may become self-pitying failures whose self-absorption prevents them from
changing their perspective or frame of reference.
The two egocentric strategies domination and submission are both strategically selfserving. Egocentricity also may lead to numerous thought deficiencies, including selective
memory, narrow-mindedness, self-righteousness, hypocrisy, excessive simplification,
refusal to confront facts and absurdity.
Sociocentrism resembles egocentrism but replaces the ego with the group. The
sociocentrist judges from the standpoint of his or her group. The group may be a nation,
a profession, a clique, a religious denomination or some other aggregation of people.
Sociocentrism is often unconscious and develops at an early age. Even children identify
with the linguistic or national group to which they belong.
Corporations, of course, are groups, and some elements of corporate life may reinforce
a tendency to sociocentric thinking. The obstacles to critical thinking in corporate
organizations include:
Critical Thinking

Copyright 2008 getAbstract

4 of 5

All of us are
deeply socially
conditioned. We
do not naturally
develop the ability
to effectively
critique social
norms and
taboos.

Power struggles Endorsing wrong views and illogical conclusions, especially when
powerful people espouse those views, may itself be a path to power.
Group representations Members of the group generally work to maintain a good
appearance in the eyes of outsiders; this can discourage open questions about issues
that might harm such an appearance.
Bureaucracy Bureaucracy discourages independent judgment, and favors habitual
routines and regulations.
Success Success may lead organizations to draw the wrong lessons from their
experiences. Success may occur despite, rather than because of, the culture of
the corporation.

Strategic Thinking
Strategic thinking leads to understanding and improving the way you think. Diagnose
your deficiencies and take intellectual action to correct them. The 11 keys to strategic
thinking are:

All thinking
pursues a
purpose.

Poor thinking
does not
necessarily reveal
itself immediately
as such. Even
thinking of the
most absurd
kind may prove
successful for a
time, if it caters to
theprejudices
of people and fits
into an established
logic of power.

1. Interdependence Analyze the links and patterns among thoughts, desires and
feelings. Identify patterns and subject them to the discipline of reason.
2. Logic Recognize that you bring meaning to the world by your thoughts, and
carefully analyze your goals, questions, information, assumptions, concepts
and conclusions.
3. Assessment Conduct a regular assessment and criticize your mode of thinking to
maintain your thinking skills at a high level of effectiveness.
4. Egocentricity Recognize the danger of egocentric thought.
5. Egocentricity of others Anyone can be egocentric, and some people may behave
irrationally. However, the strategic thinker conducts a fair and thorough analysis
before imputing irrationality to others.
6. Generalization Ample experimental and historical evidence indicates that people
make generalizations based on limited and usually quite recent data. The strategic
thinker puts all experience and information in context.
7. Distrust of appearances Egocentric thinking often appears at first to be quite
rational. Develop ruthless perseverance to get beyond superficial appearances.
8. Deliberation The strategic thinker is aware that unconscious, unplanned action is
apt to be irrational.
9. Dominance and submission Self-examination will reveal when you are acting in a
dominant or submissive manner.
10. Sociocentricity A strategic thinker questions thoughts and decisions that are merely
expressions of social identity.
11. Work The strategic thinker acknowledges that developing critical thinking skills
takes concentrated and sustained effort over time.

About the Authors

Dr. Richard W. Paul chairs the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking. Dr.
Linda Elder is an educational psychologist and president of the Foundation for Critical
Thinking. She is the executive director of the Center for Critical Thinking, and he directs
its research and professional development.
Critical Thinking

Copyright 2008 getAbstract

5 of 5