Understanding the Relationship

Between Critical and Creative

Thinking

an integrated relationship

The critical & creative functions

of the mind are so interwoven
That neither can be separated from the
other without an essential loss to
both.
anonymous

In Websters Dictionary of
Synonyms
The word critical when applied to persons
who judge and to their judgments, not only
may, but in very precise use does, imply an
effort to see a thing clearly and truly so that not
only the good in it may be distinguished from
the bad and the perfect from the imperfect, but
also that it as a whole may be fairly judged and
valued.

In Websters New World

Dictionary, the word creative
has three interrelated meanings:
1. Creating or able to create,
2. Having or showing imagination
or artistic or intellectual
inventiveness
3. Stimulating the imagination
and inventive powers

Criticality assesses;
creativity originates

Critical and creative thought are

both achievements of thought.

Creativity masters a process of

making or producing
Criticality masters a process
of assessing or judging

Intellectual discipline and rigor

are at home with originality and
productivity
In critical thinking we assess thinking
to make improvements.
In creative thinking we generate
thinking based on our sense of how to
make things better.

Thus critical thinking has a

creative component: to produce
a better product of thought
And creative thinking has a
critical component: to reshape
thinking in keeping with
criteria of excellence.

Critical thinking without a

creative output is merely
negative thinking.
Creative thinking without a critical
component is merely novel thinking.
It is easy to be merely negative or novel in
ones thought.

Achieving quality requires

standards of quality---and hence
criticality
Achieving useful produces of
ones thinking requires a
sense of how to make, or
recast, ones thinking at a
higher level.

To achieve any challenging end,

we must have:
criteria, gauges, measures,
models, principles, standards, or
tests to use in judging whether we
are approaching that end.

We dont achieve excellence in

thinking with no end in view.
We design for a reason
With standards that enable us to
generate a product that meets
crucial criteria. Our creative
thinking must be tested against
critical standards.

The generative power of our

thought represents its creativity
The judiciousness of our

thought represents its criticality.

Generativeness must be married
to judiciousness to achieve
excellence.

Every genuine act of figuring

out anything is a new making, a
new series of creative acts,
To come to however
understand
mundane.
anything requires that the
mind construct new
connections in the mind.

No one can be given knowledge

or understanding; they must all
create or construct it for
Didactic teaching does not
work
themselves.
because it violates the essential
conditions under which the mind
learns---by acts of construction in
the mind.

At even the most fundamental

level of learning, at the earliest
age We
of learning,
thethelearner
must abandon
notion that
be transmitted
mustknowledge
actively can
construct
(create)
without active creative
to learn.
construction on the part of the
learner.

At even the most fundamental

level of learning, at the earliest
age Am
of learning,
the learner
I being clear?
Am
I being assess
accurate?
must
actively
its
These are minimal
for
construction
to takecriteria
genuine
the construction of knowledge.
ownership.

The essential need for criticality

and creativity applies to the work of
Ifthe
we study
the development
the greatest minds--most
humbleofstudent
as well as
Aristotle, Beethoven, Curie, Da Vinci, Galileo,
that
of theNewton,
greatest
Michelangelo,
Darwin,genius
Einstein---we will
discover that each went through a period of growth
in which they internalized high standards of
criticality that played a significant role in the
manner in which they went about their later creative
production.

A Necessary Condition to the

Development of Critical and
Creative Thinking is:

A Questioning
Mind

Understanding the Mind of

Isaac Newton

At the age of 19 Newton drew up a list of questions under 45

headings. His title, Quaestiones, signaled his goal: to constantly
question the nature of matter, place, time, and motion. He
worked hard to understand the thinking of others working on his
list of problems. For example, he bought Dascartess Geometry
and read it by himself. After two or three pages, when he could
understand no further, he began again and advanced farther and
continued doing so till he made himself master of the whole.

Understanding the Mind of

Charles Darwin

Like Newton (and Einstein) Darwin had a careful mind

rather than a quick one: I have as much difficulty as ever in
expressing myself clearly and concisely; and this difficulty
has caused me a very great loss of time, but it had had the
compensating advantage of forcing me to think long and
intently about every sentence, and thus I have been lead to
see errors in reasoning and in my own observations or those
of others.

Understanding the Mind of

Albert Einstein
Einstein failed his entrance exam to Zurich
Polytechnic. When he finally passed (by
attending a cram school) he did not want to
think about scientific problems for a year. His
final exam was so non-distinguished that
afterward he was refused a post as an assistant.

Understanding the Mundane Nature of

Critical and Creative Thinking
Creativity should not be mystified.
Much of what appears to be inexplicable can
be explained by mundane accounts. The
great creative thinkers were great critical
thinkers, and vice versa. The interrelation
and interdependence holds for all learners
and thinkers at all levels.

Stimulating intellectual work develops the

intellect as both creator and evaluator: as a
creator that evaluates and as an evaluator
that creates. The result is fitness of mind,
comprehensive intellectual excellence.

The Foundation for Critical Thinking

www.criticalthinking.org