Critical Thinking Thesis

What is ‘critical thinking’ and why is it so difficult?

Introduction: Thesis and Argument

In this paper, the concept critical thinking will be defined as well as explain from two different perspectives on what they have written about the concept. After defining critical thinking, we will be explaining why it is difficult meaning why is it so difficult for people to think critically. Within the next section I will explain how the readers should understand critical thinking, define and state how both I and the authors understand about the concept. Sections three and four there will be an in-depth description of two perspectives, the first perspective is on cognitive processes system 1 and 2 and the second on misconceptions of critical thinking.

It is like being a high schooler forced to do a research paper where the research topic is usually chosen by the teacher and is mandatory to do or else expect a drop-in grade level. In other words, one mainly does critical thinking when they are forced to. Other authors have thought about critical thinking as a two system cognitive process where system 1 thinking is about intuition and system two about patience. Another school of thought perspective on this subject is the analyzation of the three widely-held conceptions of critical thinking.

Perspective One

What are the two systems? How does it relate to critical thinking?

Aside from my understanding of the concept critical thinking, other authors have viewed this concept as a cognitive process divided into two systems. System 1 representing the side of our brain that makes us rely on instincts and habits when making quick or insignificant decisions. Whereas system 2, which is where critical thinking is expressed the most, is the deliberate type of thinking that requires our full attention, for example in problem solving situations. Another way of understanding

Which focuses on analyzing the three widely-held conceptions of critical thinking. These three conceptions include critical thinking as one or more skills, as mental processes and as a set of procedures. The concept of skills in referring to critical thinking means an individual proficiency in performing a task. For example, an individual that is a skilled reasoner means that they are able to reason, look at both sides without any biases and other relevant criteria pertaining to the skill. Overall, being skilled means more than just restating the dictionary definition verbatim. Which also an important idea to understand about critical thinking that it is not about restating the definition along with not citing it ad hominem. However, there are some problems with conceiving critical thinking as a skill because it can be viewed as generic. By generic the article means that those skills can be applied to other contexts regardless of background knowledge. Which is contradicting the definition of critical thinking and as said, “Background knowledge in the particular area is a precondition for critical thinking to take place”. As the article mention, it is like a person analyzing a chemical compound but has no background knowledge of chemistry. One cannot analyze anything without having at least the minimum amount of background required. But there is a necessity to understand that a