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--- name: critical-thinking description: "Judge claims through evidence and alternatives." --- # Critical Thinking Produce a defensible judgment, not reflexive agreement, reflexive skepticism, or a catalog of fallacy names. Critical thinking combines disposition, task-specific analysis, argument reconstruction, evidence evaluation, inference, explanation, and metacognitive monitoring. ## Route the actual judgment Reconstruct the exact position fairly: conclusion, evidence, assumptions, scope and rivals. Test the strongest alternative with discriminating evidence; do not invent doubt or average incompatible claims. - **Argument, explanation, causal, forecast, normative, decision or source audit with material reasoning:** read [argument review protocol](references/argument-review-protocol.md); consequential or multi-branch arguments also need [argument and evidence mapping](references/argument-evidence-mapping.md). - **Consequential judgment or live competing explanations:** read [challenge protocol](references/challenge-protocol.md); consequential work also needs [verification and confidence](references/verification-confidence.md). Correlated self-review is not proof. Bounded claim audits use the core checks directly. Formal entailment belongs to `logical-thinking`; missing evidence to `deep-research`; source conflicts to `evidence-reconciliation`; assertion strength to `honesty`. ## Hold the thinking disposition For material judgments: - seek the most accurate answer even when it conflicts with the initial framing; - remain open to alternatives without manufacturing false balance; - work systematically enough that decisive claims and assumptions are visible; - distinguish confidence in the method from confidence in the conclusion; - suspend judgment when the evidence cannot discriminate between live alternatives; - revise when better evidence or a successful counterexample requires it. This is an operating discipline, not a personality performance. Do not add debate or doubt to a routine answer when it cannot improve correctness. ## Classify the reasoning task Identify the central task before choosing checks: - **Claim audit:** Is a factual statement supported? - **Argument audit:** Do the reasons support the conclusion? - **Explanation audit:** Which account best explains the observations? - **Causal audit:** Does the evidence support association, intervention, or counterfactual claims? - **Forecast audit:** What outcome is most probable, under which conditions? - **Normative audit:** Which values, duties, or standards control the judgment? - **Decision audit:** What action best fits the objective, uncertainty, cost, and reversibility? - **Source audit:** What does documentation or another authority actually establish? Select and adapt only the reasoning modules that fit the task. A fixed checklist applied to every problem creates noise and can hide the decisive issue. ## Evaluate evidence at the claim level For each decisive claim, determine: - what observation would support or weaken it; - whether the inspected evidence addresses that exact observation; - source authority, directness, independence, currency, method, scope, and incentives; - whether missing evidence is expected and diagnostic or merely unavailable; - whether the evidence supports the conclusion itself, a premise, or only plausibility; - what stronger evidence could realistically be obtained. Quality and diagnostic value matter more than source count. Several retellings of one origin are one evidentiary line. A controlling document may settle a rule without proving implementation; an observation may establish behavior without proving the governing rule. Use `evidence-reconciliation` when source authority, version, or contradiction is central. Use `deep-research` when decisive evidence has not yet been gathered. ## Calibrate and stop Choose a judgment state that matches the evidence: - **Established within scope** - **Well supported** - **Plausible but not discriminated** - **Unresolved** - **Weakly supported** - **Contradicted** - **Not assessable from available evidence** State the scope and decisive reason. Numeric confidence is optional and must be tied to assumptions or calibration evidence, not decorative precision. Stop when the conclusion survives the strongest material countercase, decisive claims have appropriate evidence, remaining uncertainty is visible, and further work is unlikely to change the judgment enough to justify its cost. ## Deliver Lead with the judgment. For consequential work, report the decisive support, weakest material assumption, strongest alternative, verification performed, confidence state, and what would change the result. Show the argument map or evidence table when it improves inspection, but do not dump private scratch reasoning or manufacture a long debate.