Govier (1989, 122) explains that what critical thinking students require is a check-list of “discrediting factors” that they could identify in any type of public discourse, not only in argumentation, and which could indicate that there are reasoning issues underlying that particular discourse. The list could include factors such as:
● use of emotive language, meant to elicit an emotional rather than a rational response;
● explanations for phenomena that are not real (the earth is flat) or that are flawed;
● classifications that are based on flawed criteria;
● exaggerations that are presented as the only possible explanations;
● unsupported claims, in which case no evidence is offered to support that particular claim;
● alternative positions are not examined;
● rhetorical questions are formulated in support of various claims, instead of justifications or evidence;
● false dichotomies;
● no appeal to authority or to research results is employed to support various claims.
To these we could add:
● the use of intentionally ambiguous language that does not actually state anything clearly;
● the use of complicated jargon to deter understanding and make the discourse seem scientifically sound;
● the use of buzzwords that reflect issues which people consider important, relevant and current but which actually do not reveal anything of substance;
● the use of smokescreens by which a key point is hidden behind a plethora of irrelevant words.
All these rhetorical devices are important for critical thinkers to understand and evaluate, not because they could mask disinformation in all cases, but because they might be employed in order to detract their attention, to persuade them with respect to an issue which is not sufficiently supported by actual evidence, to elicit emotional rather than rational responses, and, generally speaking, to create the impression that a lot has been said on a certain issue and therefore no further discussion is warranted.
c) Conversation analysis
Walton (1989, 174-175) explains that there are several types of dialogue or conversation that are frequently the subject of critical investigations:
1) persuasion dialogue in which case each participant tries to persuade the other that their position, assertion, etc. is the best and it should be accepted, based on the premises which are presented. This could devolve from constructive persuasive dialogue into a dispute into which the two sides negate each other and one has to be completely abandoned in order for the other one to be accepted. Examples: parliamentary debates; criminal trials.
2) inquiry meant to obtain further information and knowledge on a certain issue, thus gaining the necessary evidence to validate a conclusion. The inquiry is based on obtaining factual premises that demonstrate the conclusion.
3) negotiation is based on promoting one’s interests and conceding the least by obtaining the best deal possible. Negotiation does not require convictions, values, ideas, truths, but rather trade-offs and exchanges in order to obtain the best outcome for oneself.
In all of these cases, critical thinking provides a useful toolbox for the analysis of the claims, assertions, persuasive instances, trade-offs, information, facts presented so as to determine the best course of action or whether the dialogues proceed correctly, transparently, openly, responsibly. However, in many instances, analysing conversations and dialogues could present certain challenges, as they usually take place in real time and might overburden the critical thinker. Govier (1989 123) explains that it is sometimes more facile to analyse written discourse from a critical perspective than it is to apply the same methods to conversations and/or spoken language. Several reasons are presented for this difficulty:
● spoken discourse needs to be analysed faster, the elements that make it up, arguments, rhetorical devices, instances of persuasion, emotional appeals etc. must be identified as the speech or the conversation progresses, which requires more adept, attentive critical thinkers;
● social and personal factors, such as social status and power relations, play a role in this type of analysis as they could affect the critical thinker’s acuity;
● real contexts are fast-paced, images may disappear before they are properly interpreted, the conversation may move on to other points, and thus make effective analysis challenging.
There are also some advantages to direct conversational analysis:
● in face-to-face conversations, speakers could be interrogated further with respect to the claims they are making and the arguments they are presenting, to their assumption and unstated beliefs;
● body language and facial expressions could also contribute to evaluating a person’s credibility and legitimacy in making the claims, their honesty, openness and reliability.
However, public debates require engaged, critical thinkers who can spot reasoning flaws and counter them appropriately. Therefore, courses in critical thinking should also explore this type of interactions so as to better assist students in developing the skillset that they require. Bailin and Battersby (2021, 32) suggest engaging the students in an inquiry-based approach to teaching critical thinking, as they explain that arguments do not exist in isolation and they are often part of debates, which come with their own set of rules and expectations. Reasoned judgment and evaluation in such cases requires that the critical thinker is aware not only of the exchanged arguments, statements, claims, etc. but also of the larger social context in which the debate occurs so that they have all the necessary information to evaluate what is being included, and equally importantly, what is left out of the debate, to weigh the merits of what is stated, based on a relevant set of criteria, while keeping one’s mind open to both sides of the debate. They suggest a set of questions that could direct such an inquiry into the solidity of a debate:
● What is the issue approached?
● What claims or judgements about the issue are made?
● What are the reasons and arguments that each side presents?
● What is the relevance of the reasons and arguments to the issue?
● What is the context in which the issue is discussed?
● How strong are the arguments, explanations, hypotheses, data presented by each side?
● What conclusion could the critical thinker draw on their own from what was presented? (Battersby & Bailin, 2021, 33-34).
Along the same lines, Browne (2021, 221) also explains that a question-based critical thinking process is one of the best methods of approaching critical thinking as it becomes a community-building process, rather than a cross-examination and judgmental undertaking. He terms this process collaborative critical thinking, a communal endeavour, based on mutual respect and friendliness, which fosters the development of constructive relationships, and not a struggle or a competition in which there are winners or losers. Thus, the critical thinking process becomes a dialogue in itself, an active endeavour to identify the strong and weak points of a dialogue or conversation, an active engagement on the part of the critical thinker with the subject matter presented, and the end result is a stronger understanding of the principles of reasoning that enriches and develops the whole community.
d) Narrative analysis
Narratives perform a vital function in human communication as they respond to the human need to understand one’s environment and experiences, to make sense of the world. To this end, narratives expound causal, temporal and spatial relationships that order events and confer meaning and are, therefore, explanatory, correlational and organizational in nature.
Fisher (1987 64-65) explains that the narrative paradigm which underpins human communication, interaction and societal development revolves around five presuppositions:
1. Humans are first and foremost storytellers;
2. Human decision-making and communication are focused on “good reasons” which vary according to the situation, the genre, the medium of communication, the culture, etc.;
3. Good reasons are dependent on history, biography, culture, the characters involved;
4. Narratives are assigned varying degrees of rationality based on narrative probability (the coherence of a story) and narrative fidelity (if the stories ring true to the audience’s life experiences);
5. Narratives construct the human world and people choose among various narratives as they construct and reconstruct the world they live in. Good reasons, along with symbols, are the “communicative expressions of social reality.”
Therefore, narratives rely on good reasons to be convincing and to gain traction with audiences. Evaluating these good reasons is one of the most important tasks of the critical thinker, as well as decoding the symbols and the cultural references they employ.
Halverston et al (2011, 12) posit that narratives are responsible for giving meaning to language, of creating word patterns and phrases which are meaningful and can be decoded appropriately by the audiences. Madisson & Ventsel (2021, 22) further explain that telling a story means that experience is segmented into concrete units which are afterwards ordered in a definitive and meaningful manner, by creating temporal and causal relations. However, this process is based on subjective interpretation and, consequently, one cannot speak of true stories, but only of interpretations which reflect particular interests, values, beliefs, understandings, etc. Colley (2017, 4) defines narratives as “temporally, spatially and causally connected sequence of events, selected and evaluated as meaningful for a particular audience”.
Narratives provide a clearly understandable structure and predictability, which is why they are often employed as the main means of aiding the audiences in comprehending and managing crises, conflicts and other types of threatening events. Gottschall (2019, 47) states that narratives reflect but also exercise the human mind’s associative processes for the difficult situations that it may be confronted with and that it needs to untangle. Halverson et al. (2011, 14) present narratives as “a coherent system of interrelated and sequentially organized stories that share a common rhetorical desire to resolve a conflict by establishing audience expectations according to the known trajectories of its literary and rhetorical form”, which means that narratives operate according to set rules regarding what is plausible and how event could unfold as dictated by the narrative patterns specific to a culture or history.
Holmstrom (2016: 120) also emphasises that narratives are especially important when human beings are confronted with crisis situations, in which information is scarce and which create a void of comprehension. In their attempt to make sense of unfolding events, people are more willing to accept any story that makes some sense, regardless of its merits and validity because “facts alone cannot ease the feeling of being lost intellectually. Narratives answer the basic human need for structure and predictability. If one side fails to provide a meaningful narrative, others will fill the void” (Holmstrom ,2016, 120).
Therefore, it is important for the critical thinker to analyse the ways in which the connections, regardless of their type, are created and how the messages are tailored for specific audiences. More precisely, the critical thinker needs to examine what is being stated in the narrative, but even more importantly, what details are omitted from the narrative, and to what end. This could be done by reviewing narratives regarding the same events from multiple sources, which have different audiences, and parallels could be construed with respect to the missing or altered information in each of the narrative variants.
Colley (2017, 4) explains that narratives have a clear linear structure, with a beginning, a middle and an end, which are socially constructed and involve actors, setting and plot. The narrative is based on a past, which leads to the present and presents a possible future. And in line with Campbell’s myth structure, the narrative gains strength when it is centered around a resolution of conflict, meaning that it starts with an initial disruption, presents and explains the necessary steps to solve the issue and then presents the order restored, thus offering a satisfactory resolution. Miskimmon et al. (2013, 7-10) take over the classical structure of the narrative and apply it to international relations in what they call strategic narratives. Miskimmon et al. (2013) explain that strategic narratives are “representations of a sequence of events and identities, a communicative tool through which political actors – usually elites – attempt to give determined meaning to the past, present and future in order to achieve political objectives” (2013, 7). Tatham (2010, 27) insists on the fact that strategic narratives are tailored and targeted to a specific audience “A thematic and sequenced account that conveys meaning from authors to participants about specific events”. This means that strategic narratives can be employed to shape the understanding and interactions in international relations as well. To this end, they can mold policies, determine strategic advantages, project desired organisational images, induce certain reactions to crises and conflicts, build expectations with respect to certain actors or situations, produce predictions about future courses of action, etc.
Strategic narratives also consist of: actors, events (plot and time), and setting (including space). The actors present their own characters in the narratives, they depict the events, which could be historical or contemporary, but always based on chronology and causality and meant to support and promote the actors’ interests and values. The actors and the events are represented against the backdrop of the setting or the context which involves spatial representations as well as other types of contexts, be they legislative, diplomatic, historical, economic, etc. The setting is vital as it determines the actors’ actions and affects the ways in which events unfold in the audience’s perceptions. Being in control of the setting means that an actor has more chances of promoting their narrative to the audience and of getting the audience to interpret the respective narrative in the desired vein.
Given all these aspects regarding the ways in which narratives are constructed and promoted and to which end, we believe it is necessary to develop a toolkit for the critical thinker to use in examining them as well. We will continue in the inquiry vein, as we believe it is the most likely to produce the desired interaction with the narratives and their proponents, while at the same time allowing the critical thinker to maintain a detached, yet friendly perspective on them.
● What is the narrative about? What crisis, event, situation is at its core?
● Who are the actors involved?
● What are those actors’ interests?
● What events are presented in the narrative?
● What events are not presented in the narrative?
● What causal relationships are constructed? Is there indeed a causal relationship between those events?
● What temporal sequences are indicated? Is that truly the temporal sequence as other sources certify?
● What historical contextual elements are relevant for the narrative? What historical contextual clues does the narrative employ? What historical contextual clues are omitted?
● What spatial setting is included in the narrative? How has the respective spatial setting evolved in time?
● What legislative and/or diplomatic setting is employed in the narrative? Are any relevant legislative and/or diplomatic aspects omitted?
These questions could assist the critical thinker in bringing to light the ways in which the narratives are constructed, the reasons for the inclusion of certain elements as well as for the exclusion of others, and throw light on the involved actors’ interests and the extent to which they could be shaping the narratives to serve those interests, possibly to the detriment of others.
