Critical thinking concepts

Brief history of the idea of critical al thinking: basic questions & conception of critical ’s definition of critical ch in critical al societies: thoughts from the ate this page from english... Machine translated pages not guaranteed for here for our professional concept and definition of critical critical thinking? But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or downright prejudiced. A definition critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. To analyze thinking identify its purpose, and question at issue, as well as its information, inferences(s), assumptions, implications, main concept(s), and point of view. To assess thinking check it for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, logic, and fairness. The result a well-cultivated critical thinker: raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as needs be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems the etymology & dictionary definition of "critical thinking" the concept of critical thinking we adhere to reflects a concept embedded not only in a core body of research over the last 30 to 50 years but also derived from roots in ancient greek. The word ’’critical’’ derives etymologically from two greek roots: "kriticos" (meaning discerning judgment) and "kriterion" (meaning standards). In webster’s new world dictionary, the relevant entry reads "characterized by careful analysis and judgment" and is followed by the gloss, "critical — in its strictest sense — implies an attempt at objective judgment so as to determine both merits and faults. Applied to thinking, then, we might provisionally define critical thinking as thinking that explicitly aims at well-founded judgment and hence utilizes appropriate evaluative standards in the attempt to determine the true worth, merit, or value of something. The tradition of research into critical thinking reflects the common perception that human thinking left to itself often gravitates toward prejudice, over-generalization, common fallacies, self-deception, rigidity, and narrowness. The critical thinking tradition seeks ways of understanding the mind and then training the intellect so that such "errors", "blunders", and "distortions" of thought are minimized.

The history of critical thinking documents the development of this insight in a variety of subject matter domains and in a variety of social situations. Each major dimension of critical thinking has been carved out in intellectual debate and dispute through 2400 years of intellectual history. That history allows us to distinguish two contradictory intellectual tendencies: a tendency on the part of the large majority to uncritically accept whatever was presently believed as more or less eternal truth and a conflicting tendency on the part of a small minority — those who thought critically — to systematically question what was commonly accepted and seek, as a result, to establish sounder, more reflective criteria and standards for judging what it does and does not make sense to accept as true. It involves getting into the habit of reflectively examining our impulsive and accustomed ways of thinking and acting in every dimension of our lives. As consumers we sometimes buy things impulsively and uncritically, without stopping to determine whether we really need what we are inclined to buy or whether we can afford it or whether it’s good for our health or whether the price is competitive. As parents we often respond to our children impulsively and uncritically, without stopping to determine whether our actions are consistent with how we want to act as parents or whether we are contributing to their self esteem or whether we are discouraging them from thinking or from taking responsibility for their own behavior. As citizens, too often we vote impulsively and uncritically, without taking the time to familiarize ourselves with the relevant issues and positions, without thinking about the long-run implications of what is being proposed, without paying attention to how politicians manipulate us by flattery or vague and empty promises. As husbands or wives, too often we think only of our own desires and points of view, uncritically ignoring the needs and perspectives of our mates, assuming that what we want and what we think is clearly justified and true, and that when they disagree with us they are being unreasonable and unfair. As patients, too often we allow ourselves to become passive and uncritical in our health care, not establishing good habits of eating and exercise, not questioning what our doctor says, not designing or following good plans for our own wellness. As teachers, too often we allow ourselves to uncritically teach as we have been taught, giving assignments that students can mindlessly do, inadvertently discouraging their initiative and independence, missing opportunities to cultivate their self-discipline and thoughtfulness. It is quite possible and, unfortunately, quite "natural" to live an unexamined life; to live in a more or less automated, uncritical way. On this view, as you can see, critical thinking is an eminently practical goal and value.

Of course, we are likely to make critical thinking a basic value in school only insofar as we make it a basic value in our own lives. Therefore, to become adept at teaching so as to foster critical thinking, we must become committed to thinking critically and reflectively about our own lives and the lives of those around us. We must regularly model for our students what it is to reflectively examine, critically assess, and effectively improve the way we live. Critical thinking is that mode of thinking — about any subject, content, or problem — in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it. Back to top   critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking. They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will always at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest. They embody the socratic principle: the unexamined life is not worth living, because they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world. Like all significant organizations, we require funding to continue our the way, we give gifts for t is thinking, thinking is al thinking in every domain of knowledge and intellectual standards to assess student le intellectual sal intellectual ng with analysis & assessment of ry of critical thinking guishing between inert information, activated ignorance, activated al thinking: identifying the guishing between inferences and al thinking development: a stage ng a critic of your nd russell on critical ate this page from english... Machine translated pages not guaranteed for here for our professional ng with our students on a journey to personal freedom concepts are to us like the air we breathe. If that same person asked us to say what it means to “know someone well,” we would respond by introducing yet further ideas or concepts.

To the uncritical mind, it is as if things are given to us with their “name” inherent in them. We then apply these concepts automatically, as if the names belonged to the things by nature, as if we had not created these concepts in our own minds. If we want to help students develop as critical thinkers, we must help them come to terms with this human power of mind, the power to create concepts through which we, and they, see and experience the world. For it is precisely this capacity they must take charge of if they are to take command of their thinking. To become a proficient critical thinker, they must become the master of their own conceptualizations. If students are trapped in one set of concepts (ideas, words) — as they often are — then they think of things in one rigid way. Command of concepts requires command of language use to gain command of concepts and ideas, it is important, first, to gain command of the established uses of words (as codified in a good dictionary). What follows is an activity which you can have students do to begin to test their understanding of basic concepts. Testing your understanding of basic concepts each word pair below illustrates an important distinction marked by our language. In learning to speak our native language, we can learn thousands of concepts which, when properly used, enable us to make legitimate inferences about the objects of our experience. Command of concepts requires insight into social conditioning unfortunately, overlaid on the logic of language is the logic of the social meanings into which we have been conditioned by the society by which we are raised and from which we take our identity (italian-american catholic father, for example). They learn to think beyond their culture by learning how to suspend some of the assumptions of thinking within it.

The journey to personal freedom to move toward personal freedom we must develop the ability to distinguish the concepts and ideas implicit in our social conditioning from the concepts and ideas implicit in the natural language we speak. By and large they implicitly share (to the extent to which they are proficient in the language) a similar set of basic concepts (that are codified in the 23 volumes of the oxford english dictionary). They fail to see, therefore, that natural languages — french, german, english, swahili, or hindi — are repositories of concepts that, by and large, are not “ideological. They are not to be equated with the concepts implicit in the social indoctrination fostered by particular social or cultural groups. Indeed, we can use concepts from our native language to critique social indoctrination, just as this article is doing. Raised in the united states, we internalize different concepts, beliefs, and assumptions about ourselves and the world than we would had we been raised in china or iran (for example). Command of concepts cannot be separated, then, from recognition of when they are, and when they are not, ideologically biased. The challenge we face if we are committed to helping students think well with concepts, we must teach them how to strip off surface language and consider alternative ways to talk and think about things. This includes teaching them how to closely examine the concepts they have personally formed as well as those into which they have been socially indoctrinated. Thinking sociocentrically we are trapped in the world-view of our peer group and that of the broader society. They learn how to identify and evaluate concepts based in natural languages, on the one hand, and those implicit in social rituals and taboos, on the other. Crazy and superficial ideas exist in our society because crazy and superficial thinking has created them.

We may begin in modest ways for example, with the proper use of the dictionary or how to identify the mores and taboos of one’s peer group — but begin we must, for the quality of the thinking of the students of today determines the quality of the world they shall create tomorrow. Adapted from the book, critical thinking: tools for taking charge of your learning and your life, by richard paul and linda elder. Back to ng with concepts sublinks:Content is thinking, thinking is al thinking in every domain of knowledge and intellectual standards to assess student le intellectual sal intellectual ng with analysis & assessment of ry of critical thinking guishing between inert information, activated ignorance, activated al thinking: identifying the guishing between inferences and al thinking development: a stage ng a critic of your nd russell on critical viewing articles in our online library, please contribute to our work. Like all significant organizations, we require funding to continue our the way, we give gifts for al thinking concepts everyone should know  under: philosophy — jw gray @ 1:19 am tags: concepts, critical thinking, definition, education, language, logic, reasoning, is a great deal of critical thinking concepts that can be both convenient to use and help improve our critical thinking skills. However, some critical thinking concepts should be considered to be indispensable to being a human being because it’s a requirement of having a minimal capacity to reason and argue properly. The list of critical thinking terminology listed here are used to refer to concepts that everyone should know about—and yet many people either haven’t been informed about them or they don’t understand them properly:Ad hominem – a latin phrase that literally means “to the person. We offer here overlapping definitions, together which form a substantive, transdisciplinary conception of critical thinking. Critical thinking as defined by the national council for excellence in critical thinking, 1987 a statement by michael scriven & richard paul, presented at the 8th annual international conference on critical thinking and education reform, summer 1987. Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. It entails the examination of those structures or elements of thought implicit in all reasoning: purpose, problem, or question-at-issue; assumptions; concepts; empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions; implications and consequences; objections from alternative viewpoints; and frame of reference. Critical thinking — in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking. Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior.

Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on, among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor. Another brief conceptualization of critical thinking critical thinking is self-guided, self-disciplined thinking which attempts to reason at the highest level of quality in a fair-minded way. They are keenly aware of the inherently flawed nature of human thinking when left unchecked. They use the intellectual tools that critical thinking offers – concepts and principles that enable them to analyze, assess, and improve thinking. They realize that no matter how skilled they are as thinkers, they can always improve their reasoning abilities and they will at times fall prey to mistakes in reasoning, human irrationality, prejudices, biases, distortions, uncritically accepted social rules and taboos, self-interest, and vested interest. They avoid thinking simplistically about complicated issues and strive to appropriately consider the rights and needs of relevant others. They embody the socratic principle:   the unexamined life is not worth living , because they realize that many unexamined lives together result in an uncritical, unjust, dangerous world. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. A definition critical thinking is that mode of thinking - about any subject, content, or problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully taking charge of the structures inherent in thinking and imposing intellectual standards upon them.

The result a well cultivated critical thinker: raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely; gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it effectively comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against relevant criteria and standards; thinks openmindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences; and communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems. Taken from richard paul and linda elder, the miniature guide to critical thinking concepts and tools, foundation for critical thinking press, 2008) critical thinking defined by edward glaser in a seminal study on critical thinking and education in 1941, edward glaser defines critical thinking as follows “the ability to think critically, as conceived in this volume, involves three things: ( 1 ) an attitude of being disposed to consider in a thoughtful way the problems and subjects that come within the range of one's experiences, (2) knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning, and (3) some skill in applying those methods. Critical thinking calls for a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends. Glaser, an experiment in the development of critical thinking, teacher’s college, columbia university, 1941) back to viewing articles in our online library, please contribute to our work.