In order for someone to become a fair-minded critical thinker they must be able to function in different states of mind and they must possess intellectual integrity, intellectual autonomy, intellectual empathy, intellectual courage, intellectual confidence in reason, intellectual fair-mindedness, intellectual perseverance, intellectual sense of justice and intellectual humility (Paul & Elder,
The person with a critical thinking attitude will actually be willing to reason well. (Some people have this attitude more than others.) We could generally say that a person with the critical thinking attitude wants to believe whatever is likely true and is interested in finding out which beliefs are best supported by the information currently available. A critical thinking attitude is related to the motivation to try to reason well, but it can also motivate an attempt to use various strategies to overcome personal limitations. For example, a person with the critical thinking attitude should also realize everyone suffers from cognitive biases that often make reasoning alone inadequate, so she should sometimes be willing to make her reasoning publically known to others who can help find errors in her reasoning process. (See “Cognitive Bias & Informal Fallacies” for more information.) Additionally, a person with the critical thinking attitude should often rely on the expertise of others rather than to try to assess all arguments on her own because expertise is often required to properly evaluate an argument. (A snake oil salesman might persuade many nonexperts that her medical product can cure various ills, but it is unlikely to persuade a medical
Query 2: The intellectual virtues that are necessary to develop fair-minded critical thinking skills, are integrity, autonomy, empathy, courage, confidence in reason, humility, sense of justice, perseverance. Fair- mindedness is to commence to practice and respect others viewpoints and willing to listen to others. Fair-minded people set their tone and views aside to give others respect and not using their thinking to control others. (Richard, 2012) Fair-minded treats all thinking by the same high standards and will commit to live a real and caring life. Often fair-minded people do not look at theirself but look at others to see how their behavior affects other people. There are times a fair-minded person question their purpose, evidence,
As citizens, it is essential to be “Critical thinkers who seek to draw intelligent conclusions” (pg. 3) whether as jurists, voters, parents, students, teachers, workers, managers, attorney. It is important to be able to discern between opinion, propaganda, facts, truth, error, and purposeful deceit. We elect people to speak for us at many levels. We need to be able to comprehend what we are hearing and be willing to utilize all the skills of critical
As indicated by Chitty & Black, there are many things involved with thinking critically. It isn’t an easy process that can be learned
As Paul and Elder point out, critical thinking is self-guided and self-disciplined thinking that assists us in reasoning in a fairminded way (FOCT, 2017). It allows us as humans to live a conscious and consistent life where rationality, reasonability and empathy and present when faced with problems. While I am actively learning how to become a better critical thinker, I have learned that the first step to successfully think critically, I needed to diminish my power to think egocentric. In my professional life, I find myself evaluating situations with more clarity and looking more closely for factual content in order to base my decisions with more
To consider an individual a critical thinker, they must have the ability to show cognitive skills and dispositions. Those two skills are considered to be of equal importance and both are required for
I believe I am the fair-minded critical thinker in both my personal and professional life. I believe a person needs to think logically and fairly to be successful. Fair-minded thinking involves being open-minded and presenting well thought out plans. Everyone might not agree with you but if you have done your research and provided sound explanations to support your decision others are more apt to support your rationale.
If I am to develop my personal critical thinking ability, I must first make a conscious choice to understand the basic concept of a premise and then make critical reflection of this basic concept by expanding my thinking approach. To achieve this, I must ask radical questions that will enhance the scope of analysis and judgment. I must move from the region of subconscious thinking to one of conscious thinking because in so doing, I become aware that I am actually thinking. This awareness will allow me to think beyond rudimentary concepts through critical reasoning and critical reflection to decipher underlying issues that are concealed in the concept under investigation. By understanding the predictable
Fairness - Effective critical thinkers ensure that their thinking is justified. Throughout our reasoning, we should take breaks to reflect on our reasoning to make sure we are being fair and unbiased.
Most of the people thoughts are filled with superficiality, prejudice, distortions, lies, deception, short sightedness, close-mindedness, righteousness, hypocrisy. These problems in thinking lead the peoples to untold negative implications such as anxiety, tension, angry, hopeless, sadness and fear. In my life I used think every problem and every situation logically and looking in to the problem with other side of the problem that makes me improving myself as a critical thinker. For making the decisions I am thinking practically and analyzing the problem in perfect manner so that my decisions can conflicts the problems. Thinking broadly with open-mindedness made my decisions accurate and acceptable by everyone who a rounded to me. These are my traits made me to rise in the critical
It also includes the ability for a person to engage in reflective and independent thinking. I also know that a person with critical thinking skills can understand the logical connections between ideas, identify, identify the relevance and emphasis of ideas, compose and evaluate arguments, detect discrepancies and familiar mistakes in reasoning, reflect upon the justifications of one's own beliefs as well as their values. I also know that solving problems consistently is the most effective part of being able to read and understand a person, and that Frank
Critical thinking is a vital task that must be done in our everyday lives. In “Becoming a Critic Of Your Thinking” found at criticalthinking.org, Dr. Linda Elder and Dr. Richard Paul explain critical thinking as “the disciplined art of ensuring that you use the best thinking you are capable of in any set of circumstances”. Even tough there are many different types of methods to achieve a better quality of critical thinking, Dr. Elder and Dr. Paul discuss four specific ones in the article. All strategies, however, force you to put yourself in an uncomfortable and difficult position to develop a better quality of thinking.
The intellectual standards for critical thinking are Clarity, Relevance, Logicalness, Accuracy, Depth, Significance, Precision, Breadth, and Fairness (Paul, Elder, Chartrand, Emery, Hall, Ishikawa, Maketa, & Gunther, 2012). This list is not all-inclusive and there are others that can be used, however, these would be considered the most fundamental. First, Clarity is thinking that is easy to follow and understand, while Relevance is using everything essential in making a difference because it is important. Second, Logicalness or logical is a step by step process that is consistently providing a reasonable conclusion based on the confirmation of data. In addition, Accuracy is error-free information, ensuring that thinking is reliable, while Depth
Becoming a fair-minded thinker takes a lot of practice and discipline, because one has to overcome their egocentric thoughts and bias to objectively understand all views of a situation. Paul and Elder (2012) describe it best:
The way we think or the lack of our thinking defines who we are. Weiseltier says “A democratic society, an open society, places extraordinary intellectual responsibility on ordinary men and women, because we are governed by what we think, we are governed by our opinions”. Our opinions are matter the most to us, and this goes back to when Linda Elder says that we are aware of the flawed human thinking. The mind is flawed and it will always have opinions even when facts are put in front of us. As humans we tend to be subjective in our thinking because our opinions matter most to us. Like Weiseltier says we are governed by what we think and we are governed by our opinions. Our opinions are what makes us who we are.