Welcome

Welcome to ThinkCritically.net. This site will be a reference point for the articles and videos I have produced about critical thinking. I created these for my friends at Freedomain Radio, but they can be used by anyone. At the moment the site is a work in progress, because I have only published a handful of articles and videos in the series, but eventually it will be home to the complete series of about 15 articles.

Each topic has an article, a video (PowerPoint version of the article) as well as sample questions with answers. If you wish to get involved in the discussion of the content or questions, I suggest you head over to Freedomain Radio’s Message Board and look for the Critical Thinking topics in the Philosophy Section.

There is also a glossary on this site, which will be added to as new concepts are introduced in the series. Use it to find the definitions of terms.

So, what is Critical Thinking all about?

Critical Thinking is a set of skills, it is not a set of facts. Memorising definitions and the like isn’t going to sharpen the way you think, only practice will. Luckily, we are given opportunities to apply these skills many times every day, so getting the practice isn’t difficult. The purpose of critical thinking is to train our minds to think rationally.

Learning these skills will help you:

• Think rationally
• Know how to arrive at the correct answer to questions
• Be able to articulate the process of reasoning
• Be able to find mistakes and know how to correct them
• See what does and does not follow from a statement
• Argue your position clearly and rationally
• Deal with problems with vagueness in language