Asking the Right Questions

4 minute read

🎯 Core Message: Steps to practice and develop critical thinking

Summary

Chapter 1:

As a critical thinker you are willing to agree with others, but first you need some convincing answers to your questions.

What is critical thinking:

  • Awareness of a set of interrelated critical questions
  • Ability to ask and answer these critical questions in an appropriate manner
  • Desire to actively use critical questions

Checklist for panning for gold:

  • Did I ask why someone wants me to believe something?
  • Did I take notes as I thought about potential problems with what was being said?
  • Did I evaluate what was being said?
  • Did I form my own conclusion about the topic based on the reasonableness of what was said?

We may choose to do certain things that provide us with contacts with important people. We value important people (concrete idea) because we value status (abstract idea).

Our normal tendency to listen to only those with similar value priorities needs our active resistance; we have to fight against the tendency.

Values of a critical thinker:

  • Autonomy → encouraging people to pay attention to those with different perspectives
  • Curiosity → “read and listen”, other people have the power to move you forward, to liberate you from your current condition of partial knowledge
  • Humility → “echo Socrates when he said that he knew that he did not know”
  • Respect for good reasoning wherever you find it
  • Act with confidence based on your beliefs, but hold your own conclusions with only that degree of firmness that permits you to still wonder to yourself, “Might I be wrong”?

Chapter 2:

Key concepts:

  • Argument = conclusion + reasons supporting it
  • Knowledge of potential problems is the first step to defeating them
  • Key idea: “SLOW DOWN” when you are thinking about things important to you

The habit we want to form is asking ourselves, “Why am I thinking what I am thinking?”

Potential speedbumps to critical thinking:

  • Stereotypes → you approach any topic with certain beliefs or habits of mind
  • Halo effect → tendency to recognize one positive/negative trait of person and then associate that to everything about the person
  • Confirmation bias → tendency to see only that evidence that confirms what we already believe as being good evidence
  • Recency effect → what is immediately available as a basis for our thinking is often the most recent piece of information we have encountered
  • Answering the wrong question → we unconsciously substitute our question for the one we were asked
  • Egocentrism → central role we assign to ourselves as opposed to opinions of others
  • Curse of knowledge → we cannot recall what it is like when we did not know what we now know
  • Wishful thinking → we need to keep asking “Is this true because I want it to be true or is there convincing evidence that it’s true?”

Chapter 3:

Core idea: What is the issue and the conclusion?

Issue → question or controversy responsible for the conversation or discussion. It is the stimulus for what is being said.

Types of issues:

  • Prescriptive issue → raise questions about what we should do or what is right or wrong, good or bad
  • Descriptive issue → raise questions about the accuracy of the descriptions about the past, present or future

We cannot critically evaluate until we find the conclusion.

Persuasive communication → structure “this (conclusion) because of that (supporting reasons)”

Unsupported claims are mere opinions.

How to find the conclusion:

  1. Ask what the issue is
  2. Look for indicator words
  3. Look in likely locations (beginning or at the end)
  4. Remember what a conclusion is NOT:
    • Examples, facts, statistics, definitions, background information, evidence
  5. Check the context of communication and the author’s background

Chapter 4:

Key idea: What are the reasons?

Reason → statements that form the basis for creating the credibility of a conclusion

Mark of a rational person is to support his beliefs with adequate proof.

You cannot determine the worth of a conclusion until you identify the reason.

Ideally, reasons are the tool by which conclusions are shaped and modified, not the other way around.

Chapter 5:

Key idea: What words or phrases are ambiguous?

Ambiguity in an argument can and should be avoided.

Locating key terms:

  • Review the issue for possible key terms
  • Look for words or phrases within an argument
  • Keep an eye out for abstract words or phrases
  • Use reverse-role playing to determine how someone might define certain words or phrases differently

Get into the habit of asking “What do you mean by that?” and “Could any of the words or phrases have different meaning?”

Ambiguity is not always an accident.

No one has right to be believed if he cannot provide you with a clear picture of reasoning.

Chapter 6:

Key idea: What are the assumptions?

Clues for identifying value assumptions:

  • Investigate the author’s background
  • Ask, “Why do the consequences of the author’s position seem so important to him or her?”
  • Search for similar social controversies to find analogous value assumptions
  • Use reverse role-playing. Take a position opposite to author’s position and identify which values are important to that opposite position
  • Look for common value conflicts such as individual responsibility vs collective responsibility

To locate descriptive assumptions:

  • Keep thinking about the gap between conclusion and the reasons
  • Look for unstated ideas that support reasons
  • Identify with the opposition
  • Learn more about the issues

Reference

Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking by M. Neil Browne and Stuart M. Keeley

You May Also Enjoy