Critical thinking is much more than “intelligence.” In The Sane Society (1955), Erich Fromm distinguished between intelligence, understood as an instrument of practical aims, and reason, a vital human faculty enabling us to see the underlying truths hidden beneath the superficial surface of everyday experience and thought.
“Intelligence, in this sense, is taking things for granted as they are, making combinations which have the purpose of facilitating their manipulation; intelligence is thought in the service of biological survival. Reason, on the other hand, aims at understanding; it tries to find out what is behind the surface, to recognize the kernel, the essence of the reality which surrounds us. Reason is not without a function, but its function is not to further physical as much as mental and spiritual existence.”
Reason, as Fromm explains it, is more than the ability to mechanistically “processing” information and solving problems as though we were programs or machines. Human reason enables us to distinguish the primary from secondary, the ends from the means. As we will explore later, reason, understood in this way, is a vital and essential faculty comprising critical thinking.
Critical thinking isn’t just any kind of thinking. To think well, to think critically is an art—a skill—requiring study, practice, and conscious effort to master.
— Read on jeffreynall.substack.com/p/thinking-for-ourselves-the-good-life
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