What is Critical Thinking
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Utilizing your experiences and applying logic to draw your own conclusions. It contrasts with someone who doesnt think for themselves, or isn’t rational or analytical. It can also relate to “street smarts!” Someone with good critical thinking is able to read the room well and understand when they’re safe, threatened, mocked, or being hit on. If you’re a good critical thinker, it can mean you’re good at picking up social queues and analyzing them for rational patterns. Amongst other things of course!
People who mindlessly toe the party line in politics/religion/you name it, they are essentially the opposite of critical thinkers.
Utilizing your experiences and applying logic to draw your own conclusions. It contrasts with someone who doesnt think for themselves, or isn’t rational or analytical. It can also relate to “street smarts!” Someone with good critical thinking is able to read the room well and understand when they’re safe, threatened, mocked, or being hit on. If you’re a good critical thinker, it can mean you’re good at picking up social queues and analyzing them for rational patterns. Amongst other things of course!
People who mindlessly toe the party line in politics/religion/you name it, they are essentially the opposite of critical thinkers.
I got curious about hammering out the actual definition when I noticed other people were using it in a way I assumed was incorrect. But I started considering that there might be more to it than that. So I called a bunch of people and asked them to give me a very detailed explanation of the definition as they knew it. Nobody had the same definition. There were people I’ve known for 20 years whose definitions were not what I expected.
So I read a bunch of definitions online, none were the same. I found a website for an organization specifically dedicated to promoting critical thinking and read the definition on their website. This definition was an ESSAY.
One thing I noticed was that most of the people I talked to gave definitions that were connected to their fields of study/expertise. My scientist friend essentially defined it as applying the scientific method to things, my teacher friend defined it around having conversations with lots of different view points, my programmer friend said something about understanding systems, me (artist) defined it as methodically searching for the most appropriate framework to view a situation.
Anyways I bring this up because the answer is actually complex and a bit amorphous. It’s one of those concepts people tend to assume they have the right definition, or at least the one that everyone else means. But people don’t stop to define it often enough to make sure that that’s true.
I got curious about hammering out the actual definition when I noticed other people were using it in a way I assumed was incorrect. But I started considering that there might be more to it than that. So I called a bunch of people and asked them to give me a very detailed explanation of the definition as they knew it. Nobody had the same definition. There were people I’ve known for 20 years whose definitions were not what I expected.
So I read a bunch of definitions online, none were the same. I found a website for an organization specifically dedicated to promoting critical thinking and read the definition on their website. This definition was an ESSAY.
One thing I noticed was that most of the people I talked to gave definitions that were connected to their fields of study/expertise. My scientist friend essentially defined it as applying the scientific method to things, my teacher friend defined it around having conversations with lots of different view points, my programmer friend said something about understanding systems, me (artist) defined it as methodically searching for the most appropriate framework to view a situation.
Anyways I bring this up because the answer is actually complex and a bit amorphous. It’s one of those concepts people tend to assume they have the right definition, or at least the one that everyone else means. But people don’t stop to define it often enough to make sure that that’s true.
Critical thinking in its simplest form is just asking “why?”.
A lot of people are missing the “critical” part of critical thinking. In order to get closer to the truth, you need to challenge your ideas, which often requires to confront them with information or opinions that contradict them.
If your hypothesis can pass all these tests, then it becomes a strong candidate to what could be the objective truth (if such a thing exists).
A lot of people are missing the “critical” part of critical thinking. In order to get closer to the truth, you need to challenge your ideas, which often requires to confront them with information or opinions that contradict them.
If your hypothesis can pass all these tests, then it becomes a strong candidate to what could be the objective truth (if such a thing exists).
To take different logical info into consideration before doing something or having an opinion about something.
To take different logical info into consideration before doing something or having an opinion about something.
Wow so many bad top answers…
“Critical” means *critiquing* here. Critical thinking means you think about some conclusion, statement, method, mode of behavior, etc. in such a way as to “What could make this even better?” or “What are the limits of this?” or “What is particularly bad about this?”. It is very hard to do well, which is why critics are usually experts in the relevant field, and are the agents that drive/inspire new breakthroughs and/or discoveries in the end.
Critical thinking cannot be avoided if you seek improvement. Many however are afraid of it, they think its harsh or mean, so even privately they stop reflecting critically on themselves.
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