批判性思考的定义
让我们从确定思考和感觉的重要区别开始吧。“我感觉”和“我思考”有时候交换着使用，这样的做法会带来混淆。感觉是主观反应，表达出情绪，感受或者渴望；它通常不由自主地发生，而不需要经过有意识的精神活动。当我们受到侮辱是就会感到生气，当我们被威胁时就会害怕，或者当我们看到一个饥饿孩子的图片时就会产生同情，这时候不需要运用我们的意识。感觉自动就产生了。
在引导我们的注意力转移到我们应该思考的事情上，感觉是有用的；它还能提供必要的热情和保证来完成艰巨的思考工作。但是，由于出了名的不可靠，感觉从来不是思考的好替代者。有些感觉是有益的，体面的，甚至是高贵的；其它的就不是了，就像我们每天经历所验证的。我们经常喜欢做一些伤害我们的事情--比如，抽烟，没有防护的阳光浴，斥责我们的导师或老板或者将房子的租金用于购买彩票。
齐达内（ Zinedine Zidane）是他那个时代最伟大的足球运动员之一，很多专家相信他在决赛赛季（2006）中，他将带领法国队登上足球运动的顶峰——赢得梦寐以求的世界杯冠军。但是，在赛季最后时刻和意大利队争夺冠军时，在数亿观众的注视下，他恶意用头撞击一个意大利队员。裁判将他罚下场，法国队输了这场比赛，一次对感觉的屈从就永远地玷污了齐达内一生致力于建设的职业生涯。
和感觉相反，思考是一个有意识的精神活动过程，以解决问题，制定决策，或获得理解。鉴于感觉除了表达自己并没有其他目的，而思考的目的是超越自身获得知识或采取行动。这并不是说思考就是绝对可靠的；事实上，这本书的很大一部分在于揭示思考的错误，并告诉你 如何避免它们。即使思考有种种缺点，他还是我们人类行动的最可靠的指引。总结感觉和思考之间的关系，感觉需要检验后才可以值得信任，而思考就是那个最合理和最可靠的检查工具。
这有三大类思考:反思、创新和批判。这本书的焦点在批判性思考。批判性思考的本质是评估。因此，批判性思考可以定义为这样的过程，在这个过程中我们考察结论和论据，并且判断哪一个更有优势，哪个没有。换句话说，批判性思考是对答案的寻找，是个探索过程。毫不奇怪，批判性思考使用的最重要的一个技巧是刨根问底。非批判性思考者接受他们最初的想法和其他人基于表面价值的判断，批判性思考者则用这个方法质疑所有的想法。
想法：
维尔（Vile）教授在我的作文评分上作弊，他对某些主题给予了更多的权重。
问题：
他对其他人的评分是用相同的标准吗？不同的权重是否公平？
想法：
在妇女进入劳动市场之前，离婚的情况比较少。这说明妇女应该呆在家里。
问题
你如何确认是这个因素，而不是其他的因素，是离婚率上升到原因？
想法
大学教育不值得你付出的费用。有些人的工资水平永远不会比没有这些学位的工资高很多。
问题
钱是否是唯一衡量教育价值的尺度？对自我和生命理解的提升和应对困难能力的提升呢？
批判性思考也使用提问的方式来分析问题。比如，考虑一下价值观这个主题。当人们讨论价值观的时候，有些人说，“我们的国家丢掉了它的传统价值观”还有“如果父母和教师强调道德价值的话，会减少犯罪，特别是暴力犯罪。”批判性思考将督促我们提出以下问题：
1.价值观和信仰之间的关系是什么？价值观和信念之间的关系呢？
2.所有的价值观都有价值吗？
3.普通人对自己的价值观有多了解？有没有可能很多人在他们真正的价值观上自欺欺人？
4.某人的价值观是在哪里形成的？从个人自身还是外部，来自思想还是感觉？
5.教育能改变一个人的价值观吗？如果可以，这个改变通常是好的吗？
6.父母和教师应该尝试去塑造小孩的价值观吗？
原文：
Critical Thinking Defined
Let’s begin by making the important distinction between thinking and feeling. I feel and I think are sometimes used interchangeably, but that practice causes confusion. Feeling is a subjective response that reflects emotion, sentiment, or desire; it generally occurs spontaneously rather than through a conscious mental act. We don’t have to employ our minds to feel angry when we are insulted, afraid when we are threatened, or compassionate when we see a picture of a starving child. The feelings arise automatically.
Feeling is useful in directing our attention to matters we should think about; it also can provide the enthusiasm and commitment necessary to complete arduous mental tasks. However, feeling is never a good substitute for thinking because it is notoriously unreliable. Some feelings are beneficial, honorable, even noble; others are not, as everyday experience demonstrates. We often feel like doing things that will harm us—for example, smoking, sunbathing without sunscreen, telling off our professor or employer, or spending the rent money on lottery tickets.
Zinedine Zidane was one of the greatest soccer players of his generation, and many experts believed that in his final season (2006) he would lead France to the pinnacle of soccer success—winning the coveted World Cup. But then, toward the end of the championship game against Italy, he viciously head-butted an Italian player in full view of hundreds of millions of people. The referee banished him from the field, France lost the match, and a single surrender to feeling forever stained the brilliant career Zidane had dedicated his life to building.
In contrast to feeling, thinking is a conscious mental process performed to solve a problem, make a decision, or gain understanding.* Whereas feeling has no purpose beyond expressing itself, thinking aims beyond itself to knowledge or action. This is not to say that thinking is infallible; in fact, a good part of this book is devoted to exposing errors in thinking and showing you how to avoid them. Yet for all its shortcomings, thinking is the most reliable guide to action we humans possess. To sum up the relationship between feeling and thinking, feelings need to be tested before being trusted, and thinking is the most reasonable and reliable way to test them.
There are three broad categories of thinking: reflective, creative, and critical. The focus of this book is on critical thinking. The essence of critical thinking is evaluation. Critical thinking, therefore, may be defined as the process by which we test claims and arguments and determine which have merit and which do not. In other words, critical thinking is a search for answers, a quest. Not surprisingly, one of the most important techniques used in critical thinking is asking probing questions. Where the uncritical accept their first thoughts and other people’s statements at face value, critical thinkers challenge all ideas in this manner:
( *Some informal definitions of thinking include daydreaming. It is excluded from this definition because daydreaming is a passive mental state over which we exercise little or no control. It is therefore of little use in evaluating ideas.)
Thought
Professor Vile cheated me in my composition grade. He weighted some themes more heavily than others.
Question
Did he grade everyone on the same standard? Were the different weightings justified?
Thought
Before women entered the work force, there were fewer divorces. That shows that a woman’s place is in the home.
Question
How do you know that this factor, and not some other one(s), is responsible for the increase in divorces?
Thought
Acollege education isn’t worth what you pay for it. Some people never reach a salary level appreciably higher than the level they would have reached without the degree.
Question
Is money the only measure of the worth of an education? What about increased understanding of self and life and increased ability to cope with challenges?
Critical thinking also employs questions to analyze issues. Consider, for example, the subject of values. When it is being discussed, some people say, “Our country has lost its traditional values” and “There would be less crime, especially violent crime, if parents and teachers emphasized moral values.” Critical thinking would prompt us to ask,
- What is the relationship between values and beliefs? Between values and convictions?
- Are all values valuable?
- How aware is the average person of his or her values? Is it possible that many people deceive themselves about their real values?
- Where do one’s values originate? Within the individual or outside? In thought or in feeling?
- Does education change a person’s values? If so, is this change always for the better?
- Should parents and teachers attempt to shape children’s values?