Theories Of Critical Thinking

1. What is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the ability to think clearly and rationally. It is a way of thinking to make reasoned judgements that are logical and where you don 't simply accept all arguments and conclusion you are exposed to but rather have an attitude involving questioning such arguments and conclusions. Critical thinking has been also described as an ability to acknowledge and test previously held assumptions. It includes the ability to engage in reflective and independent thinking. Therefore a person who with critical thinking skills are able to reflect on the justification of one 's own beliefs and values.

Critical thinking differs from people who are good at collecting information, a person with a good memory

Although critical thinking skills can be used in exposing misconceptions and bad reasoning, critical thinking can also play an important role in cooperative reasoning and constructive task.

Besides, critical thinking also known as "complex thinking" and "high-order thinking". The ability to think critically calls for a higher order thinking than simply the ability to recall information. Critical thinkers need to have knowledge of concepts to an application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation.

Central of critical thinking is the ability to think "outside" a piece of writing. Not only understanding the writer 's message but deciding whether the message is valid or not. Next you need to decide whether there is an evidence or any discussion given that supports the message. Then think about how the message fits into the broader context. Some people think that critical thinking obstruct creativity because it requires following the rules of logic and rationally. This is a misconception as critical thinking is quite compatible with "thinking out of the box", challenging public opinion and pursuing less popular

As we are human, none of us can act purely to be rational all the time. We indulge for our selfish act, validate our prior knowledge, vindicate our prior decision or to sustain our earlier beliefs, this is the process when we are trying to satisfy our ego. Most of the people decide to make changes in their daily lives based on stories from one person 's experience. They are the non-critical thinkers. As an example, many of them tend to consume paracetamol when they have a fever. So now people insist that paracetamol can kill bacteria that causes us to fever, just like paracetamol really bring back our body temperature when we are sick. Non-critical thinker hearing the story would just accept and think "Paracetamol do kill all the bacteria that make us fever." Although this type of logic is common, it lacks critical thinking skills. If people with critical thinking skills examine this anecdote carefully, they surely able to understand but not trust blindly. They will think how the paracetamol work and will found out that paracetamol reduces fever by affecting an area of the brain that regulates our body temperature which is the hypothalamic heat-regulating centre. So when our body temperature goes down, but the bacteria or infected virus still remain alive in our body as the normal temperature will never stop their activity