Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Professional and Personal Life, Second Edition

Chapter 6. The Parts of Thinking

One of the most important sets of skills in thinking develops through one’s understanding of the parts of thinking. In other words, we are better able to find problems in our thinking when we are able to take our thinking apart. In this chapter, we focus on these parts. In the next chapter, we focus on intellectual standards, the key to assessing thinking.

As you work through this chapter and the next, you will begin to understand some of the most fundamental concepts critical thinkers use on a daily basis, for it is through analyzing and assessing thinking that critical thinking occurs. To analyze thinking we must be able to take thinking apart and scrutinize how we are using each part. Once we have done this, ...