Making good judgments is an important and complex matter. There are bad judgments, good judgments, and better judgments. To make better judgments requires many kinds of knowledge, skills, and character traits all working together.
Our schools and colleges are beginning to teach these things but it is an effort that is just beginning and it is a difficult one to accomplish.
Just to give you an idea of what CT is about I have copied the following info from the Internet:
This info was taken from workbooks for classes K-12. This list is found in the following handbooks: Critical Thinking Handbook: k-3, Critical Thinking Handbook: 4-6, Critical Thinking Handbook: 6-9, Critical Thinking Handbook: High School.
A. Affective Strategies
S-1 thinking independently
Thru
S-9 developing confidence in reason
B. Cognitive Strategies - Macro-Abilities
S-10 refining generalizations and avoiding oversimplifications
Thru
S-26 reasoning dialectically: evaluating perspectives, interpretations, or theories
C. Cognitive Strategies - Micro-Skills
S-27 comparing and contrasting ideals with actual practice
Thru
S-35 exploring implications and consequences
S-1 Thinking Independently
Principle: Critical thinking is independent thinking, thinking for oneself. Many of our beliefs are acquired at an early age, when we have a strong tendency to form beliefs for irrational reasons (because we want to believe, because we are praised or rewarded for believing). Critical thinkers use critical skills and insights to reveal and reject beliefs that are irrational.
S-2 Developing Insight Into Egocentricity or Sociocentricity
Principle: Egocentricity means confusing what we see and think with reality. When under the influence of egocentricity, we think that the way we see things is exactly the way things are. Egocentricity manifests itself as an inability or unwillingness to consider others' points of view, a refusal to accept ideas or facts which would prevent us from getting what we want (or think we want).
S-3 Exercising Fairmindedness
Principle: To think critically, we must be able to consider the strengths and weaknesses of opposing points of view; to imaginatively put ourselves in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them; to overcome our egocentric tendency to identify truth with our immediate perceptions or long-standing thought or belief.
S-4 Exploring Thoughts Underlying Feelings and Feelings Underlying Thoughts
Principle: Although it is common to separate thought and feeling as though they were independent, opposing forces in the human mind, the truth is that virtually all human feelings are based on some level of thought and virtually all thought generative of some level of feeling. To think with self-understanding and insight, we must come to terms with the intimate connections between thought and feeling, reason and emotion.
S-5 Developing Intellectual Humility and Suspending Judgment
Principle: Critical thinkers recognize the limits of their knowledge. They are sensitive to circumstances in which their native egocentricity is likely to function self-deceptively; they are sensitive to bias, prejudice, and limitations of their views. Intellectual humility is based on the recognition that one should not claim more than one actually knows. It does not imply spinelessness or submissiveness.
S-6 Developing Intellectual Courage
Principle: To think independently and fairly, one must feel the need to face and fairly deal with unpopular ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints. The courage to do so arises when we see that ideas considered dangerous or absurd are sometimes rationally justified (in whole or in part) and that conclusions or beliefs inculcated in us are sometimes false or misleading.
S-7 Developing Intellectual Good Faith or Integrity
Principle: Critical thinkers recognize the need to be true to their own thought, to be consistent in the intellectual standards they apply, to hold themselves to the same rigorous standards of evidence and proof to which they hold others, to practice what they advocate for others, and to honestly admit discrepancies and inconsistencies in their own thought and action. They believe most strongly what has been justified by their own thought and analyzed experience.
S-8 Developing Intellectual Perseverance
Principle: Becoming a more critical thinker is not easy. It takes time and effort. Critical thinking is reflective and recursive; that is, we often think back to previous problems to re-consider or re-analyze them. Critical thinkers are willing to pursue intellectual insights and truths in spite of difficulties, obstacles, and frustrations.
S-9 Developing Confidence in Reason
Principle: The rational person recognizes the power of reason and the value of disciplining thinking in accordance with rational standards. Virtually all of the progress that has been made in science and human knowledge testifies to this power, and so to the reasonability of having confidence in reason.
S-10 Refining Generalizations and Avoiding Oversimplifications
Principle: It is natural to seek to simplify problems and experiences to make them easier to deal with. Everyone does this. However, the uncritical thinker often oversimplifies and as a result misrepresents problems and experiences.
S-11 Comparing Analogous Situations: Transferring Insights to New Contexts
Principle: An ideas power is limited by our ability to use it. Critical thinkers' ability to use ideas mindfully enhances their ability to transfer ideas critically. They practice using ideas and insights by appropriately applying them to new situations. This allows them to organize materials and experiences in different ways, to compare and contrast alternative labels, to integrate their understanding of different situations, and to find useful ways to think about new situations.
S-12 Developing One's Perspective: Creating or Exploring Beliefs, Arguments, or Theories
Principle: The world is not given to us sliced up into categories with pre-assigned labels on them. There are always many ways to "divide up" and so experience the world. How we do so is essential to our thinking and behavior. Uncritical thinkers assume that their perspective on things is the only correct one. Selfish critical thinkers manipulate the perspectives of others to gain advantage for themselves.
S-13 Clarifying Issues, Conclusions, or Beliefs
Principle: The more completely, clearly, and accurately an issue or statement is formulated, the easier and more helpful the discussion of its settlement or verification. Given a clear statement of an issue, and prior to evaluating conclusions or solutions, it is important to recognize what is required to settle it. And before we can agree or disagree with a claim, we must understand it clearly.
S-14 Clarifying and Analyzing the Meanings of Words or Phrases
Principle: Critical, independent thinking requires clarity of thought. A clear thinker understands concepts and knows what kind of evidence is required to justify applying a word or phrase to a situation. The ability to supply a definition is not proof of understanding. One must be able to supply clear, obvious examples and use the concept appropriately. In contrast, for an unclear thinker, words float through the mind unattached to clear, specific, concrete cases. Distinct concepts are confused.
And so on
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S-33 Giving Reasons and Evaluating Evidence and Alleged Facts
Principle: Critical thinkers can take their reasoning apart in order to examine and evaluate its components. They know on what evidence they base their conclusions. They realize that un-stated, unknown reasons can be neither communicated nor critiqued. They are comfortable being asked to give reasons; they don't find requests for reasons intimidating, confusing, or insulting.
S-34 Recognizing Contradictions
Principle: Consistency is a fundamental-some would say the defining-ideal of critical thinkers. They strive to remove contradictions from their beliefs, and are wary of contradictions in others. As would-be fairminded thinkers they strive to judge like cases in a like manner.
S-35 Exploring Implications and Consequences
Principle: Critical thinkers can take statements, recognize their implications-what follows from them-and develop a fuller, more complete understanding of their meaning. They realize that to accept a statement one must also accept its implications. They can explore both implications and consequences at length. When considering beliefs that relate to actions or policies, critical thinkers assess the consequences of acting on those beliefs.
{This list is found in the following handbooks: Critical Thinking Handbook: k-3, Critical Thinking Handbook: 4-6, Critical Thinking Handbook: 6-9, Critical Thinking Handbook: High School.}
http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/areas/issues/envrnmnt/drugfree/sa3crit.htm
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