This Week in Business Skills - Critical Thinking

Critical thinking does not mean "disapproval" or "negative." There are many positive aspects of critical thinking, for example formulating a workable solution to a complex personal problem, working out as a group about what course of action to take. Using strong critical thinking we might evaluate an argument. Critical thinking may occur whenever one judges, decides, or solves a problem; in general, whenever one must figure out what to believe or what not and what to do and what not? Reading, writing, speaking, and listening can all be done critically or uncritically. Critical thinking is "a way of taking up the problems of life.

Critical thinking skills include observation, interpretation, analysis, inference, evaluation, explanation, and meta-cognition. Critical thinking gives space not only to logic, but also to intellectual criteria, such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, and fairness. For critical thinking we need the ability to recognize problems, to find workable means for meeting those problems. We need to understand the importance of prioritization and order of precedence in problem solving. We need to gather relevant information. We need to recognize unstated assumptions and values. We need to comprehend and use language with accuracy, clarity, and discernment. We also need to interpret data, to appraise evidence and evaluate arguments.

In critical thinking we need to recognize the existence or non-existence of logical relationships between propositions. We are also required to put to test the conclusions and generalizations at which one arrives. In critical thinking we need to re construct our patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider experience and render accurate judgments about specific things and qualities in everyday life. In short critical thinking is "A persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends."