- What is critical thinking?
- Advantages of critical thinking
- Questioning of the established
- Critical thinking requirements
We explain what critical thinking is and what are the steps to achieve it. Advantages and requirements. Questioning of the established.
Critical thinking is a rational and reflective cognitive process.What is critical thinking?
Critical thinking is a process that helps organize or order concepts, ideas and knowledge. This type of thought It is used to arrive at the correct position one should have on a subject in the most objective way.
The word I'll think, from Latin, means to think, and the Greek word krienin can be translated as separate. These two terms will be the ones that will help us with our definition of critical thinking, which is a rational and reflective cognitive process, and which involves analyzing reality separated from our feelings and prejudices, as for example happens with all those statements that the society (or we even label ourselves) as absolute truths, or those issues that are always up for debate, such as equal marriage or abortion.
Having critical thinking implies that we are objectives at the time of analyzing. The evaluation of the reality through critical thinking can be done by various methods such as observation, experience, scientific method, and so on.
As we have already said, it seeks to generate objective statements that, at the same time, are ethically correct and true. So, for that you have to gather evidence, information Accurate and be fair, leaving aside personal impressions, since these, lies and skepticism would nullify critical thinking.
Experts recommend that to reach this goal you should adopt a thinker stance:
- Identify the arguments for and against the issue
- Recognize which of them are prejudices,
- Evaluate and verify the sources of information and, finally,
- Start with analysis.
Advantages of critical thinking
We must stimulate this type of thinking, immersing ourselves in rich cultural environments, reading a variety of books, watching auteur films, informing ourselves, forming our own thought instead of simply accepting what society says. Critical thinking will allow us to open our minds, change how persons and make our brain grow.
At the same time it will allow the subject make the decisions correct and solve problems in situations that are considered extreme. Following this path, critical thinking helps to decide how to act at a given moment, where our moral Y ethics they torment us with thousands of questions.
Questioning of the established
One of the characteristics of someone who has a natural inclination toward critical thinking is questioning all that is established and curiosity. This is why a person begins to question everything and reflect on the results they obtain in their search for knowledge.
For a person to be curious, there must have been a stimulation since he was a child, where he is taught that it is not wrong to ask or have a character inquisitive, and is pushed to read and learn constantly.
Regarding the questioning of everything that is established, we can give as an example someone who seeks other solutions to what has already been resolved, as can happen with some policy of the Condition: This is done. But why couldn't it be done differently? Is there not a more complete or simpler solution?
This second named characteristic is what makes society progress like human thought, since it helps us to reflect on what has already been done and to see if, socially, it is a benefit or not. And why not, we could say that even for the technology critical thinking is beneficial as it turns out to be an analysis of the reality of each thing. We could bring up the case of an inventor who creates a software and year after year he reflects on his invention and makes modifications.
Critical thinking requirements
One could never affirm that casual thinking is critical, since it implies a time of maturation, reflection and it is not something that arises out of nowhere. On the other hand, a thought will not be considered critical if it does not meet the aforementioned characteristics: true, ethically fair and correct.
It is worth clarifying that for there to be critical thinking there must be clarity of thought, by this we mean that a person who has used drugs or alcohol in large quantities and claim to be on another level of consciousness you can argue all you want, but you will not get this type of thinking as a result, because there is no mental clarity, since these products they can alter the senses.