We talk a lot right now about the need for more critical thinking—better or faster ways to test how viable or trustworthy an idea really is, whether it’s yours or someone else’s.
Usually, that conversation assumes you need specialized training, advanced education, or deep subject-matter expertise to do it well.
But you don’t. All you need is one or two simple questions.
Question #1: “Why would that work?”
This question is designed for ideas that take the form of a claim:
We should do X to achieve Y.
When you ask “Why would that work?” something important happens. It immediately pulls the conversation out of explanations, data dumps, and lists of supporting evidence, and forces it into a different territory: causal reasoning.
You’re no longer asking what supports this idea.
You’re asking what makes it plausible as a way to achieve that outcome.
And what you’ll often discover is that people haven’t actually articulated that, or at least not very well. They may be operating from received ideas—things they’ve heard repeated so often they feel self-evident.
This is where many ideas hide behind what are known as thought-ending clichés:
- “It is what it is.”
- “That’s just how this works.”
- “Everyone knows that.”
Those statements aren’t explanations. They’re signals to stop thinking.
So if you want to hold ideas—especially your own—to a reasonable standard, the move is to pause and ask:
“Why would that work?”
Not aggressively, not skeptically—just curiously.
If you’re testing your own idea, an even better move is to explain your answer to someone else using language and concepts they already understand, until they understand and agree why your idea would work. If you can’t do that, the idea isn’t structurally sound yet.
Question #2: “What would make that true?”
The second question is for a different kind of idea—the ones that are presented as statements or concepts:
This is how things are.
This is what’s happening.
This is the way the world works.
Here, “Why would that work?” isn’t the right test.
The better question is:
“What would make that true?”
Like the first question, it’s simple. And, like the first question, it does something very specific to reveal the rationale behind a statement or idea. It asks the speaker to go beyond personal opinion, isolated data points, or surface-level evidence and identify the deeper principle that would have to be at work for the statement to hold.
In argument theory, that underlying principle is what’s known as a warrant, a conceptual justification (think of it as experience-based evidence). Thankfully, you don’t need to know the term (unless you nerd out on those things like I do), you just need to know what you’re listening for: the deeper reason why someone actually believes in their idea.
Why these questions work
Neither of these questions requires advanced expertise to ask. And they don’t require advanced expertise to evaluate the answer, either, because we’re wired to notice when things don’t make sense, even if it’s just a feeling that they don’t.
These questions work because they align with how people already reason automatically and analytically: causally, based on principles they recognize, and locked in with their own experience of the world.
They also do something else that matters just as much: they make ideas earn their status, instead of borrowing it from authority, repetition, or confidence.
Use them as a habit
So the next time someone says:
We should do this because it will get us that…
Ask:
“Why would that work?”
Listen carefully to the answer. Telling you THAT it works, or how, isn’t enough. Keep asking until you understand why it even could or would work.
And when someone declares a concept or truth as if it needs no further thought, ask:
“What would make that true?”
Don’t be satisfied with any answer that equates to “it just is” or “because I [or someone else] said so. Keep asking until you hear something you already know to be true that explains this, too.
Two simple questions that quickly access some of the most complex aspects of why we do or don’t agree with an idea, or with each other—and point us quickly to where we could.