Three interlinking dimension of Critical Thinking - ✔Analyzing one's own thinking
-breaking it down into its component parts.
- identifying its
... [Show More] weaknesses while recognizing its strengths
Improving one's own thinking- reconstructing it to make it better.
Goal of Critical Thinking - ✔bring one's best thinking to bear in every realm of one's life and in any set of circumstances one faces
Critical thinking is characteristically - ✔self-directed
self-disciplined
self-monitored
self-corrective
Two barriers native to everyone: - ✔egocentrism-or the tendency to view everything in relationship to oneself; and
sociocentrism-or the assumption that one's own social group is inherently superior to all others
Impediments to Sound Thinking - ✔Generalizations, stereotyping, false beliefs, fixed views, dismissing or attacking conflicting views, deceptive thinking.
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 open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical consequences
- communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex problems.
First-order thinking - ✔Spontaneous and non-reflective
Contains insight, prejudice, good and bad reasoning
Indiscriminately combined
Second-order thinking - ✔First-order thinking that is consciously realized (i.e., analyzed, assessed, and reconstructed)
Strong-Sense Critical Thinking - ✔• Consistent pursuit of what is fair and just
• Strives to be ethical
• Empathizes with other's viewpoints
• Will entertain arguments with which they do not agree
• Change views when confronted with superior reasoning
• Employ thinking reasonably rather than manipulatively
• Requires fair-mindedness & learning of basic critical
thinking skills
Weak-sense critical thinking - ✔Ignores Flow in own thinking
Argument winning-through deceit
Lacks fair-mindedness
Rhetorical, emotional
intellectual virtues - ✔Humility, courage, empathy, integrity, perseverance, confidence in reason and intellectual autonomy
Virtue of Intellectual Humility - ✔Admitting one's own ignorance
Awareness of ones's biases
Aware of egocentrism
Fairmindedness
(vice= intellectual ignorance)
Virtue of Intellectual Courage - ✔Ability to confront new ideas and beliefs even if painful
Considering beliefs, do not go with the flow
Ability to challenge popular opinion
Being fair to all view including minority views
(vice = intellectual cowardice)
Virtue of Intellectual Empathy - ✔Listening to other points of view in a sincere attempt to understand them
Follow the line of reasoning that other might be employing
Willingness to agree when there is good reason for doing so
Related to Fair-mindedness
Strawman Fallacy
(vice = Intellectual self centeredness)
Virtue of Intellectual Integrity - ✔Imposing the same intellectual standards on all
Admitting flaws in our own thinking
A desire for the truth, not to win an argument
Think in a consistent and compatible way
(vice=intellectual dishonesty) [Show Less]