Critical Thinking

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a way, style, path, or movement of thought in which an individual uses to find deeper meanings to everyday events or situations. Critical thinking straddles and revolves around philosophy and when asked to define critical thinking is, then philosophy plays a role. To attempt to define critical thinking, the phrase must be divided into separate words. The word “critical” can pose two analytical meanings. One meaning of “critical” exposes urgency and a sense of aporia. One cannot expect to know the unknown, however we still possess an unclear sense or impasse of thought. And that the events have to unfold and unravel on its own. The second part of the word displays a reflexive aspect. It is hard to remain unbiased when the thought is centered around one’s own mind. For example, a movie critic can also submit his or her own movies to a producer, however may become biased when criticizing the producer’s other

films. The second word “thinking” can be seen as questioning a question. So together critical thinking may be seen as an unknown answer to questioning a question.

Critical thinking involves the ability to weigh evidence, examine arguments, and construct rational bases for generally accepted beliefs. In order to establish a theoretical basis for studying critical thinking, a great quantity of research has been done. Critical thinking is not only the ability to reason and construct arguments, but also the ability to examine the reasoning processes involved and being able to evaluate their appropriateness and effectiveness. This “judgment” aspect is what makes critical thinking more than just problem solving. It is not sufficient to be able to apply problem-solving strategies to a particular problem; a true critical thinker must be able to choose appropriate strategies and even create new ones when necessary. Critical thinking allows one to understand difficult concepts in a manner that is clearer and more defined. One can more readily understand those concepts if they employ critical thinking. In all portions of everyday life, a person is expected to make independent judgments. Those judgments are based on experience and knowledge. Without the ability to think critically, every situation that a person comes across would have to be considered in isolation from all other situations. When a person encounters a problem that is a new one, he or she may be able to use critical thinking to solve those problems. One manner in which a person can develop critical thinking skills is through using them in all situations. By doing this, a person can discern when to use certain skills. One way of using critical thinking is to review material and analyze that material.

Before information can be processed, however, it must be put into some type of order. This may not seem necessary when there is very little information, but the need becomes evident as problems increase in complexity or the amount of data increases in magnitude.

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