Critical Thinking From a Philosophic Application
It is often said that critical thinking is a way we humans think but not specifically what we humans are thinking about. Philosophers and Psychologists all seem to concur on the fact that we take the critical thinking process and utilize it as an ongoing progression that may stem from a simple observation or some unanswered question. In other words, the process of critical thinking is something that never truly ends, yet it often creates additional or more questions or provides an avenue for new levels of curiosity, open-mindedness, skepticism, or persistent reasoning.
This report aims to present more insights into the process of critical thinking from a philosophic point-of-view. The report tries to answer various questions like what is the importance of critical thinking, what elements of the process are essential, what tactics do people use to guide the complete thinking process. Critical thinking over the historical testimony of man has been a phenomenon that has changed and will continue to change. Critical thinking has evolved as man has evolved. "The movement of the information age has focused attention on good thinking as an important element of life success. These changing conditions require new outcomes, such as critical thinking, to be included as a focus of schooling." (Huitt, W., 1998)
With these new insights, the question is -- has man and his thinking process changed enough to contend with a world that has become extremely competitive, technologically motivated and driven by a global economic persistence that may have us as a species jeopardizing all other species. Will critical thinking in some way help us or hurt us deal with the twenty-first century and beyond?
Importance
Man has become the dominant species on the planet and this may be because we have been the best at adjusting to what the planet has to offer. One of the ways man has done this is by utilizing the thinking and logical aspects of the brain in such a way that we have surpassed all other species. Our brains offer a plethora of options for the various stimuli outside each of us and the process of critical thinking is one of those options.
People often assume that that the sole purpose of thinking critically is to find all possible faults in something and then systematically eliminate those faults. But the process of critical thinking is more than fault finding. Critical thinking has provided man with an important way of thinking about all that life and nature have to offer and allows each individual an opportunity to increase his or her understanding of any and all phenomenon. Critical thinking allows for something encouraging to be accomplished or that something negative can be seen from different perspective. The bottom line in regard to the process of critical thinking is that man is on a path of continuous learning.
Definition
As pointed out by William Huitt, a true definition of critical thinking is a moving target. The process has been defined and redefined over time as new philosophies and sciences took over the lead in our past. Consider that a definition of the thinking process was originally presented by the Pre-Freud thinkers and then later by the cognitive psychologists and philosophers and later again by the behaviorally oriented psychologists. Each spectrum offered new insights and each was not totally wrong but more important not totally right.
Critical thinking has been called "an ability to analyze facts, generate and organize ideas, defend opinions, make comparisons, draw inferences, evaluate arguments and solve problems," (Chance, 1986, p. 6), "a way of reasoning that demands adequate support for one's beliefs and an unwillingness to be persuaded unless support is forthcoming" (Tama, 1989, p. 64); "involving analytical thinking for the purpose of evaluating what is read" (Hickey, 1990, p. 175); "a conscious and deliberate process which is used to interpret or evaluate information and experiences with a set of reflective attitudes and abilities that guide thoughtful beliefs and actions" (Mertes,1991, p.24); "...active, systematic process of understanding and evaluating arguments. An argument provides an assertion about the properties of some object or the relationship between two or more objects and evidence to support or refute the assertion. Critical thinkers acknowledge that there is no single correct way to understand and evaluate arguments and that all attempts are not necessarily successful" (Mayer & Goodchild, 1990, p. 4); and " ... reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do (Ennis, 1992).
Elements
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