Critical Thinking: How to Survive in a Post-Truth World
What Is Critical Thinking?
Imagine you’re watching a news report and hear a story. Can you trust it, even if it sounds plausible? To assess the value of this news, start by reasoning and asking questions. For example: Could the people reporting the information really know what they claim? How competent are they, and where were they when the events happened? Could the journalist have misunderstood them? Are you being told a description of events or someone’s interpretation—basically, who’s right and who’s wrong?
What you just tried to do is essentially part of critical thinking: the ability to systematically doubt, verify what you hear or read, and filter out false information. This skill is like intellectual hygiene—absolutely necessary in an age when rapid media and information technology blur the line between truth and fiction.
Modern experts say we live in the era of post-truth. The term was first used by American playwright Steve Tesich in his 1992 essay “A Government of Lies.” In 2010, blogger David Roberts used it in the online publication Grist. In 2016, “post-truth” was named the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year due to its surge in usage.
Critical thinking is a popular but complex concept, and it can be understood in different ways. There’s little difference between Western and Russian interpretations: both focus on the reflexivity of our thinking and the ability to doubt and consider alternative scenarios. However, critical thinking is not just about local skepticism, but also about “higher-order doubt”—the critical stance of “never taking anything on faith.” It also involves a set of skills for working with information: checking facts, identifying the main point, summarizing, and comparing phenomena or events. Logic and the ability to reason hypothetically (“What if things were different?”) help us handle these tasks.
Finally, critical thinking includes the right to be wrong. Our own viewpoint may not be the truth, and we should question it as well. Doubting your own correctness is an important part of the skill. If you have all these abilities, along with the critical stance of “never taking anything on faith,” you are practicing critical thinking.
Critical Thinking in Philosophy and Psychology
The roots of critical thinking go back to the ancient Greek philosophers, whose assumptions, conclusions, and methods gradually formed a unified concept of the subject.
In the 17th century, the renowned French philosopher René Descartes described the method of radical doubt in his “Discourse on the Method,” based on skepticism—doubting everything. Descartes is also known for the famous phrase, “I think, therefore I am.” He believed this was the one statement that required no proof and was the primary truth from which to seek new truths.
One of the founders of the principle of “critical thinking” is considered to be American philosopher and educator John Dewey in the early 20th century. Dewey described methods and tools that help people solve various problems. He used the concept of inquiry to describe a set of purposeful actions that turn a confusing problem into a well-structured, solvable one. This involves several steps: formulating the problem, proposing hypotheses, and testing them through action.
In Russian tradition, psychologist Lev Vygotsky was a well-known proponent of the “instrumental” approach. He emphasized the crucial role of cultural tools in our thinking and behavior. Just as we chop wood with an axe or dig with a shovel, symbolic tools (like words and expressions in our native language) help us manage our attention, memory, and thinking. These tools are directed inward, at our own psyche. Without them, we are almost helpless.
Critical Thinking in Education and Work
Today, the term “critical thinking” is more associated with education than psychology, and it’s linked to the ability to handle information skillfully: structuring it, seeing cause-and-effect relationships, and arguing your position. While critical thinking isn’t usually taught in standard curricula, many schools include it as part of various subjects.
Human thinking relies on a critical stance, like a hand gripping an axe or hammer. The hand itself isn’t very strong, but when it uses a tool, it gets results. Critical thinking is that “tool” you can use effectively. It’s taught in creative ways, from interactive debates to brainstorming sessions.
There are several well-known techniques used in education. For example, “writing a cinquain” (a five-line poem summarizing the material learned) or the “lecture with stops” method, where after each section of a lecture, students pause to discuss and complete a task. Such methods are unique to the humanities and can’t be used to teach math, chemistry, or biology, nor can these subjects replace each other.
Teaching critical thinking can be paradoxical and challenging. Students are taught to “believe nothing at face value.” As a result, they become more “sharp-toothed”—that is, more critical. They learn to distinguish fiction from truth and false reasoning from valid arguments. At the same time, they stop seeing the subject as the gold standard of information, making them harder to teach and harder to grade using standard systems.
Now let’s look at practical areas, like business. If you’re hiring new employees, ask yourself: do you need simple executors or critical thinkers? If it’s the latter, be prepared for situations like those with “sharp-toothed” students. Such employees will say “no” to their boss, and you’ll need to know how to build productive working relationships with them.
There are ways to use critical thinkers to make effective decisions at work. The most famous theory about team roles was proposed by Meredith Belbin in 1967. According to his “role structure” method, each team member takes on a specific role in solving work tasks. There are nine roles: motivator, implementer, completer, coordinator, team worker, resource investigator, idea generator, specialist, and critic (sometimes called analyst).
Roles can change, but it’s important to avoid role errors in a team. For example, missing an idea generator, motivator, or critic: a good critic should understand the topic before objecting, help the idea generator formulate an idea, and then challenge it. Only by working together do all roles help each other be effective. Belbin’s theory describes the characteristics, strengths, and weaknesses of each role. The critic’s role focuses on finding weaknesses and contradictions, analyzing options, and stimulating processes. Strengths include objectivity and critical thinking; weaknesses include detachment and lack of motivation for others.
Critical thinking plays an important role in education and business, but it can also have negative effects. It can be used to dismantle false arguments, but it’s almost impossible to use it to create positive ideas.
Errors, Questions, and Blind Spots of Critical Thinking
Critical thinking isn’t universal and is only appropriate for certain tasks. Imagine you have screwdrivers of different shapes—each fits a specific screw head. Critical thinking is like a handle that fits all screwdriver types. But sometimes, you don’t need a screwdriver at all.
Interestingly, critical thinking is not typical of conspiracy theorists. You might think these people are skeptical and doubt commonly accepted facts. They’re convinced the world is different from what we think: Americans never landed on the Moon, vaccines harm children, or the coronavirus was created by a government to hurt others.
From a psychological perspective, “conspiratorial thinking” is very typical. It’s superficial knowledge with lots of leaps and even contradictions. There’s a peculiarity in the skepticism of such people: conspiracy theorists trust only their own eyes and won’t believe that π equals 3.14159265 until they measure a circle’s circumference and diameter themselves. How do you convince a conspiracy theorist? Unfortunately, there are no good solutions. You can try offering counterarguments, but it’s likely you won’t prove anything. Conspiracy theorists lack habits of critical thinking and strict reasoning, but have plenty of confidence in their own rightness.
There are still unresolved issues in the study of critical thinking. For example, how do we activate it when needed? What psychological mechanisms ensure it works reliably? Timely activation of these processes could save us from impulsive decisions. Another “blind spot” is the extremely poor rational thinking skills among adults. How did people who completed a classic science curriculum end up completely lacking critical thinking skills? And why do even those who realize the need to develop this skill still struggle to make progress? There’s little research on this topic.
Exercise to Develop Critical Thinking
You can test your critical thinking skills and start developing them. Here’s how:
- First, recall: do you check information and primary sources? Do you doubt everything, or do you easily take things at face value?
- Take the well-known Cognitive Reflection Test. Honestly solve the problems it contains. This is a good measure of your rationality and critical thinking.
- If you want to develop critical thinking, understand why you need it. What problems do you want to solve with it? In what situations will you use it?
- If you decide to learn critical thinking, start looking for your own mistakes—in judgments, assessments, and so on. It won’t be easy, but it’s a great way to grow.