Good thinking is multi-dimensional--it means that in order to achieve good result, we should combine critical, creative, ethical and spiritual thinking in the endeavors to solve problems.
Critical Thinking
Facione (2006) reports that his study in 1990 found that there was a consensus by a panel of experts that critical thinking is thinking that has the following core skills: analysis, interpretation, evaluation, inference, explanation, and self-regulation skills. Another study was done by Pennsylvania State University
to assess the credibility of statements or other representations which are accounts or descriptions of a person’s perception, experience, situation, judgment, belief, or opinion; and to assess the logical strength of the actual or the intended inferential relationships among statements (Facione, 2006: 5).
to identify and secure elements needed to draw reasonable conclusions; to form conjecture and hypothesis; to consider relevant information and to educe consequences flowing from data, statements, principles, evidence, judgments, beliefs, opinions, concepts, descriptions, questions or other forms of representations (Facione, 2006: 6).
Explanation is defined by the experts as “stating and identifying reasoning in terms of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, and contextual considerations upon which one’s results were based; and to present one’s reasoning in the form of cogent argument” (Facione, 2006: 6). The last core critical thinking skill, self-regulation is defined as
self-consciously to monitor one’s cognitive abilities, the elements used in those activities, and the result educed, particularly by applying skills in analysis, and evaluation to one’s own inferential judgments with a view toward questioning, confirming, validating, or correcting one’s reasoning or results (Facione, 2006: 7).
Creative Thinking
Torrance (1979) develops a framework of creative thinking which consists of four elements which are fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality. Fluency is being prolific in producing ideas or alternative solutions to a problem. Fluency presupposes comprehensive understanding of subjects studied. In order to achieve fluency one has to be able to compare, convert, define, describe, explain, paraphrase, predict and summarize ideas and subject studied. Flexibility means being able to produce ideas that demonstrate multiplicity of thoughts which can generate a diversity of possibilities. It involves seeing things from multiple perspectives and using different approaches and strategies. Being flexible is being able to change, adapt, demonstrate, distinguish, apply, extrapolate, interpolate, interpret, and predict. Elaboration is a process of improving ideas by supplying more details. Adding more details and clarity to ideas will enhance the conceivability and understanding of the topics. In the elaboration process, one should be able to appraise, critique, determine, evaluate, grade, judge, measure, select, and test. Originality means being able to produce new and novelty ideas. It involves synthesis of ideas by combining them together in a different way. Being original is being able to compose, create, design, generate, modify, rearrange, reconstruct, and revise ideas.
Ethical Reasoning
Ethical reasoning is a cognitive process of clarifying and justifying moral actions, ideas and beliefs. It is also the process of analyzing and evaluating reasons for and against moral beliefs and actions from opposing ethical perspectives. Fasko (1994) found that skills needed to do ethical reasoning are the same as the skills of critical thinking. Ethical reasoning requires interpretation; clarification; evaluation of information in the context of the inquirer and the other persons involved; formation of hypotheses; and flexibility that is awareness of social condition, change and specific situation—sensitivity to context. Lipman (2003) explains that thinking that is sensitive to context is thinking that recognizes exceptional circumstances and sensitive to particularities and uniqueness. For example, lying is always wrong but in a particular situation, to save one’s life, lying is unavoidable and considered the right action.
Ethical reasoning also involves considering alternative ways of behaving; being empathic; evaluating intentions; and considering possible consequences of actions for all parties involved. The aim of ethical reasoning is to make correct moral judgment before choosing how to act or a way of living. In addition, it aims at recognizing our own moral contradictions and self-interest through deep contemplation of our own feelings and judgments and making connection between our moral judgments and ethical principles. At the societal level, ethical reasoning aims at describing what is and what should be, that is, to describe present moral condition and to offer alternatives explanations and prescriptions of better and more accurate moral solution based on sound ethical principles.
Spiritual Thinking
Spiritual perception is the perceiving of signs in the natural world and human experiences and the Revelation as indications of the existence of God and His attributes. Spiritual thinking is a method to achieve spiritual cognition. Spiritual thinking begins with the urge to know and find the truth. Man’s strategy for living is depended on his understanding of the world. Man’s attempt to understand the world starts with observation of the material world and human experiences. His quest for understanding yields knowledge of the world and human experiences. However, knowing through observation and empirical investigation does not provide the whole truth about existence. According to Iqbal (2006: 12 – 14), man’s life is a journey from the material to the spiritual world.
The forward march of his life depends on the establishment of connection with reality that confronts him. It is knowledge by sense perception and understanding that established this connection….The onward march of his spirit depends on his reflective observation on knowledge of nature to awaken his consciousness that nature is a sign.
This reflective observation is stimulated by questions such as from where is this originated? What is its purpose? Is there a message in this? These questions form a link between the material and non-material world. It is a first step towards realization that there are other sources of knowledge. Therefore, spiritual thinking is thinking about perennial questions and questioning one’s assumptions of metaphysical, epistemological and ethical belief which are fundamental to one’s life. The answers to these questions form a configuration of meaning for one to make sense of the world.
Hamka (1995) and Iqbal (2006) posit that philosophy is a handmaiden to understand religion and to strengthen religious beliefs. Nasr (2006) argues that there is harmony between philosophy and spiritual vision. This is not to claim that through spiritual thinking man can gain knowledge of the metaphysical world for the intellect can only think of the data and information gathered by the senses. But, through spiritual thinking man is capable of making a conclusion that the universe is an indication of the existence of a Superior Being which is God. Reflecting on the universe also makes one realizes some of God’s attributes such as God the Most Creative Creator (al-Ghazali, n.d.). The evidences of the connection between doing philosophy and spiritual thinking are experiences of individuals who have found that the universe and human experience is replete with indications of the existence of God.
For example, Hofmann’s (2001) deep concern with the problems of human experiences in ethics and morality in the west makes him questions the conclusion made by the Western sociological thought that value is relative which is against his understanding of philosophical anthropology. Related to the question of values, Hofmann also pondered on the question of the existence of God. After thoroughly and critically analyzing works of philosophers, such as Wittgenstein, Pascal, Swinburn, and Kant, he concludes with the conviction of the existence of God. The consequence of this conclusion is to know God. This directed Hofmann to another question of how God discloses Himself to human beings. This question led him to acknowledge the need for revelations. Using philosophy as an approach in search for truth, he made a conclusion that embracing Islam is the logical consequence of the truth he found. Convinced with the role philosophy played in bridging the rational and the spiritual thought, he wrote a book titled “On the role of Islamic philosophy” published in 1983 and another book dedicated to his son titled “A philosophical approach to Islam” published in 1985. Hofmann’s search for truth using philosophical approach made him to conclude that “a typical attitude of an agnostic is not an intelligent one; that man simply cannot escape a decision to believe; that the createdness of what exists around us is obvious; that Islam undoubtedly finds itself in the greatest harmony with overall reality” (Hofmann, 2006).
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