In my essay, “Fixing Stupid,” I argued that even though colleges seem to be making many people stupider these days, we can reverse that trend in relatively short order by going back to teaching classical critical thinking.

Since then, several people have asked me what I meant by that—how I define “critical thinking.” That’s a fair question, and an important one. And even though I defined it briefly in the last essay, I’d like to take this opportunity to expand on that definition and explain just what I mean when I use the term “critical thinking.”

First of all, as I made clear in “Fixing Stupid,” critical thinking is not the same as Marxist critical theory, although the two are often conflated—intentionally, in my view. Critical theory, as I explained, is laser-focused on the negative. It seeks to tear down, not build up. Questioning everything—”the ruthless criticism of all that exists,” in Marx’s words—might be a good place to begin the critical thinking process, but it is certainly not the end point.

Classical critical thinking traces its roots to the Ionian city-state of Miletus in the sixth century B.C., where Thales of Miletus developed a truth-seeking process called “critical thinking.” This involved formulating, proposing, and examining hypotheses to explain the nature of the universe—a method strikingly similar to—and very likely the foundation of—today’s “scientific method.” 

If it seems odd to talk about the scientific method in relation to philosophy, keep in mind that good philosophers and good scientists share a common goal: to discover truth. What we call the scientific method is merely a framework for doing just that, regardless of the discipline. Remember, the Latin root of “science,” scire, simply means “to know.”

Critical thinking, then, is first and foremost about thinking. It requires us to engage our brains, grapple with difficult concepts, ask hard questions, and apply the scientific method. This is hard work and does not come naturally to most people. We must train ourselves to do it, with the help of teachers and mentors.

Second, critical thinking is critical, which in this context doesn’t necessarily imply negativity. It simply means to be objective, dispassionate, and analytical. Think of a professional movie “critic.” He doesn’t just pan every movie he sees. Instead, he attempts to provide an objective and unbiased appraisal of a film’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall quality.

He might not like the genre or the subject matter or even one of the actors, but if he’s any good at his job, he does his best not to let that influence his judgment. He breaks down the film into its parts, perhaps opining that a weak script is rescued by superb acting, while the cinematography is breathtaking. That is what it means to be “critical” in the sense that I’m using the word.

Now imagine a CEO who observes that her company’s revenue has fallen precipitously over the past few months. “What is going on?” she asks herself. She examines the available information—sales figures, customer databases, advertising reach, what her competitors are doing, and how they’re faring. She talks to her colleagues and subordinates. Then she formulates a hypothesis: “We need to up our social media game.”

So she instructs her marketing team to focus more on social media advertising. She watches the trend lines to see if sales improve. If they do, she concludes that they’ve solved the problem. If not, she goes back to the drawing board, digging deeper into the data and formulating another hypothesis—all while being as objective, dispassionate, and analytical as possible.

That is how critical thinking works in real life. And that is what we are no longer teaching our students to do—or at least not teaching them very well, according to the employer surveys I cited in my last article.

And yet, as I also noted in that piece, every legitimate, knowledge-based college course—which is to say, those not focused on emotional manipulation or ideological indoctrination—offers ample opportunities to teach the skills I’ve described above. There’s no reason we can’t do it, and every reason we should.

Indeed, as I argued in “Fixing Stupid,” we must.

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