Lesson Four

Topic: Characteristics and Essential aspects of Critical and Creative

Thinking.
Lesson outcomes: by the end of the lesson you should be able to:

a) Describe the characteristics of critical and creative thinking

b) Appreciate the dispositions of thought in CC
c) Explain tools of critical and creative thinking.
d) Distinguish between different tools of critical and creative thinking.
e) Apply tools of critical and creative thinking to problem solving and decision-making
Content

Subtopic one: Characteristics of Critical and Creative Thinking

There are eight characteristics of Critical and Creative thinking which includes:

 Asking questions
 Defining a problem.
 Examining evidence.
 Analyzing assumptions and biases.
 Avoiding emotional reasoning.
 Avoiding oversimplification.
 Considering other interpretations
 Tolerating ambiguity.
Essential Aspects of Critical and Creative thinking
 Dispositions: Critical thinkers are special, open-minded, value fair-mindedness, respect
evidence and reasoning, respect clarity and precision, look at different points of view, and
will change positions when reason leads them to do so.
 Criteria: the need to have conditions (criteria) that must be met for something to be
judged as believable. Although the argument can be made that each subject area has
different criteria, some standards apply to all subjects. “….an assertion must…. Be based
on relevant, accurate facts; based on credible sources; precise; unbiased; free from logical
fallacies; logically consistent; and strongly reasoned”
 Argument: Is a statement or proposition with supporting evidence. Critical thinking
involves identifying, evaluating, and constructing arguments.
 Reasoning: The ability to infer a conclusion from one or multiple premises. To do so
requires examining logical relationships among statements or data.
 Point of View: The way one views the world, which shapes one’s construction of
meaning. In search for understanding, critical thinkers view phenomena from any
different points of view.
  Procedures for Applying Criteria: Other types of thinking use a general procedure.
Critical thinking makes use of many procedures. These procedures include asking
questions, making judgements, and identifying assumptions.
Subtopic Two: Tools of Critical and Creative Thinking

Critical and Creative thinking Tools of Analysis

Critical and Creative thinking tools of analysis are also referred to as Dimensions of thinking. They
entail those essential components that must be taken into consideration when confronted with
issues that begs for an answer. The tools of analysis deals with the informational basis to which
can proceed in determining a solution based on inclusive and conclusive knowledge. They include:

1. All reasoning has a purpose.

Take time to state your purpose clearly.
Distinguish your purpose from related purposes.
Check periodically to be sure you are still on target.
Choose significant and realistic purposes.
2. All reasoning is an attempt to Figure something out, to settle some question, to solve
some problem.
Take time to clearly and precisely state the question at issue.
Express the question in several ways to clarify its meaning and scope.
Break the question into sub questions.
Identify if the question has one right answer, is a matter of opinion, or requires
reasoning from more than one point of view.
3. All reasoning is based on Assumptions.
Clearly identify your assumptions and determine whether they are justifiable.
Consider how your assumptions are shaping your point of view.
4. All reasoning is done from some Point of view.
Identify your point of view.
Seek other points of view and identify their strengths as well as weaknesses.
Strive to be fair-minded in evaluating all points of view.
5. All reasoning is based on Data, Information and evidence.
Restrict your claims to those supported by the data you have.
Search for information that opposes your position as well as information that support
it.
Make sure that all information used is clear, accurate, and relevant to the question at
issue.
Make sure you have gathered sufficient information.
6. All reasoning is expressed through, and shaped by, Concepts and Ideas.
Identify key concepts and explain them clearly.
Consider alternative concepts or alternative definitions to concepts.
Make sure you are using concepts with care and precision.
 7. All reasoning contains Inference or Interpretations by which we draw Conclusion and
give meaning to data.
Infer only what the evidence implies.
Check inferences for their consistency with each other.
Identify assumptions which lead you to your inferences.
8. All reasoning leads somewhere or has Implication and Consequences.
Trace the implications and consequences that follow from your reasoning.
Search for negative as well as positive implications.
Consider all possible consequences.
Critical and Creative thinking Tools of Evaluation
Critical and Creative thinking tools of evaluation are also referred to as Universal intellectual
standards. These are standards which must be applied to thinking whenever one is interested in
checking the quality of reasoning about a problem, issue, or situation.

a) Clarity: deals with questions such as: Could you elaborate further on that point? Could
you express that point in another way? Could you give me an illustration? Could you give
me an example? Clarity is the gateway standard. If a statement is unclear, we cannot
determine whether it is accurate or relevant.
b) Accuracy: Is that really true? How could we check that? How could we find out if that is
true? A statement can be clear but not accurate.
c) Precision: Could you give more details? Could you be more specific? A statement can be
both clear and accurate, but not precise.
d) Relevance: How is that connected to the question? How does that bear on the issue? – A
statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not relevant to the question or issue at
hand. Remember philosophy is about issues with broad implications/relevance.
e) Depth: How does your answer address the complexities in the question? How are you
taking into account the problems in the question? Is that dealing with the most significant
factors? –A statement can be clear, accurate, precise, and relevant, but superficial (that is,
lack depth). It fails to deal with the complexities of the issue. For example, when upon
attaining adolescence your mum told you, “don’t play with boys otherwise you get
expectant” – did that statement display depth?
f) Breadth: Do we need to consider another point of view? Is there another way to look at
this question? What would this look like from a conservative standpoint? What would this
look like from the point of view?
g) Logic: Does this really make sense? Does that follow from what you said? How does that
follow? But before you implied this and now you are saying that; how can both be true?

Critical and Creative thinking tools of Transformation

Critical and Creative thinking tools of Transformation are also referred to as Valuable intellectual
traits. These are transformational traits exhibited by those individuals that embrace criticality and
creativity. They are virtue traits that define maturity in reason, objectivity in thought, rationality
in deliberations and sobriety save to mention consistency.

 Intellectual Humility: Having the knowledge of the limits of one’s knowledge, including
sensitivity to circumstances in which one’s native egocentrism is likely to function self-
deceptively; sensitivity to bias, prejudice and limitations of one’s viewpoint. Intellectual
humility depends on recognizing that one should not claim more than one actually knows.
It does not imply spinelessness or submissiveness. It implies the lack of intellectual
pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit, combined with insight into the logical
foundations, or lack of such foundations, of one’s beliefs.
 Intellectual Courage: Having the knowledge of the need to face and fairly address ideas,
beliefs or viewpoints toward which we have strong negative emotions and to which we
have not given a serious hearing. This courage is connected with the recognition that ideas
considered dangerous or absurd are sometimes rationally justified (in whole or in part) and
that conclusions and beliefs inculcated in us are sometimes false or misleading. To
determine for ourselves which is which, we must not passively and uncritically “accept”
what we have “learned”. Intellectual courage comes into play here, because inevitably we
will come to see some truth in some ideas considered dangerous and absurd, and distortion
or falsity in some ideas strongly held in our social group. We need courage to be true to
our own thinking in such circumstances.
 Intellectual Empathy: Having the knowledge of the need to imaginatively put oneself in
the place of others in order to genuinely understand them, this requires the consciousness
of our egocentric tendency to identify truth with our immediate perceptions of long-
standing thought or belief. This trait correlates with the ability to reconstruct accurately the
viewpoints and reasoning of others and to reason from premises, assumptions, and ideas
other than our own. This trait also correlates with the willingness to remember occasions
when we were wrong in the past despite an intense conviction that we were right, and with
the ability to imagine our being similarly deceived in a case-at-hand.

 Intellectual Integrity: Recognition of the need to be true to one’s own thinking; to be

consistent in the intellectual standards one applies; to hold one’s self to the same rigorous
standards of evidence and proof to which one holds one’s antagonists; to practice what one
advocates for others; and to honestly admit discrepancies and inconsistencies in one’s own
thought and action.

 Intellectual Perseverance: Having the knowledge of the need to use intellectual insights
and truths in spite of difficulties, obstacles, and frustrations; firm adherence to rational
principles despite the irrational opposition of others; a sense of the need to struggle with
confusion and unsettled questions over an extended period of time to achieve deeper
understanding or insight.
  Faith In Reason: Confidence that, in the long run, one’s own higher interests and those of
human kind at large will be best served by giving the freest play to reason, by encouraging
people to come to their own conclusions by developing their own rational faculties; faith
that, with proper encouragement and cultivation, people can learn to think for themselves,
to form rational viewpoints, draw reasonable conclusions, think coherently and logically
persuade each other by reason and become reasonable persons, despite the deep-seated
obstacles in the native character of the human mind and in society as we know it.

 Fair-mindedness: Having the knowledge of the need to treat all viewpoints alike, without
reference to one’s own feelings or vested interests, or the feelings or vested interests of
one’s friends, community or nation; implies adherence to intellectual standards without
reference to one’s own advantage or the advantage of one’s group.
Study Questions
1. “The reason why the world is embroiled in many problems because people don’t think but
because most people don’t think critically and creatively”. Discuss this statement with
reference to Kenya today.

2. Critically examine the seven traits of mind and then show their relevance in enhancing
roles and responsibilities of self management.

3. Discuss the characteristics of Critical thinking and then show their relationship to the
universal intellectual standards.

4. By way of examples show the relationship between critical thinking tools of analysis and
tools of evaluation.

5. “The reason why most institutions in Kenya perform dismally is because they are managed
by people whose thinking is characterized by lack of criticality and creativity”. Discuss.

6. Give examples to illustrate the main elements of critical thinking. How to reasoning skills
self-esteem and interactive learning fit in?
7. Using examples to illustrate your answer discuss the following:
a) Common core thinking skills
b) The essential components of critical thinking
c) The dispositions to be cultivated by a critical thinker.
8. With reference to critical and creative thinking to critical and creative thinking explain the
meaning of the following phrases:
a) Intellectual courage
b) Empathy
c) Faith in reason.
d) Self examination.