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

Chapter 7. The Standards for Thinking

One of the fundamentals of critical thinking is the ability to assess one’s own reasoning. Being good at assessment requires that we consistently take apart our thinking and examine the parts in reference to standards of quality. We do this using criteria based on clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logicalness, and significance. Critical thinkers recognize that, whenever they are reasoning, they reason to some purpose (element of reasoning). Implicit goals are built into their thought processes. But their reasoning improves when they are clear (intellectual standard) about that purpose or goal. Similarly, to reason well, they need to know, consciously or unconsciously, that they are ...