Editing Thought (section)

===Critical thinking===
[[Critical thinking]] is a form of thinking that is [[reason]]able, reflective, and focused on determining what to believe or how to act.<ref name="Ennis">{{cite book |last1=Ennis |first1=Robert H. |title=The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education |date=2015 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US |isbn=978-1-137-37805-7 |pages=31–47 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137378057_2 |language=en |chapter=Critical Thinking: A Streamlined Conception|doi=10.1057/9781137378057_2 }}</ref><ref name="Davies">{{cite book |last1=Davies |first1=Martin |last2=Barnett |first2=Ronald |title=The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education |date=2015 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US |isbn=978-1-137-37805-7 |pages=1–25 |chapter-url=https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137378057_1 |language=en |chapter=Introduction|doi=10.1057/9781137378057_1 }}</ref><ref name="Hitchcock">{{cite web |last1=Hitchcock |first1=David |title=Critical Thinking |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-thinking/ |website=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=1 November 2021 |date=2020}}</ref> It holds itself to various standards, like clarity and rationality. In this sense, it involves not just cognitive processes trying to solve the issue at hand but at the same time [[Meta-cognition|meta-cognitive]] processes ensuring that it lives up to its own standards.<ref name="Davies"/> This includes assessing both that the reasoning itself is sound and that the [[evidence]] it rests on is reliable.<ref name="Davies"/> This means that [[logic]] plays an important role in critical thinking. It concerns not just [[formal logic]], but also [[informal logic]], specifically to avoid various [[informal fallacies]] due to vague or ambiguous expressions in natural language.<ref name="Davies"/><ref name="philpapers.org"/><ref name="John Benjamins"/> No generally accepted standard definition of "critical thinking" exists but there is significant overlap between the proposed definitions in their characterization of critical thinking as careful and goal-directed.<ref name="Hitchcock"/> According to some versions, only the thinker's own observations and experiments are accepted as evidence in critical thinking. Some restrict it to the formation of judgments but exclude action as its goal.<ref name="Hitchcock"/>

A concrete everyday example of critical thinking, due to [[John Dewey]], involves observing foam bubbles moving in a direction that is contrary to one's initial expectations. The critical thinker tries to come up with various possible explanations of this behavior and then slightly modifies the original situation in order to determine which one is the right explanation.<ref name="Hitchcock"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Dewey |first1=John |title=How We Think |date=1910 |url=https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/Dewey/Dewey_1910a/Dewey_1910_f.html |chapter=6: The Analysis of a Complete Act of Thought}}</ref> But not all forms of cognitively valuable processes involve critical thinking. Arriving at the correct solution to a problem by blindly following the steps of an algorithm does not qualify as critical thinking. The same is true if the solution is presented to the thinker in a sudden flash of insight and accepted straight away.<ref name="Hitchcock"/>

Critical thinking plays an important role in education: fostering the student's ability to think critically is often seen as an important educational goal.<ref name="Hitchcock"/><ref name="Davies"/><ref name="Siegel">{{cite book |last1=Siegel |first1=Harvey |title=Macmillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd Edition |date=2006 |publisher=Macmillan |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/philosophy-education-epistemological-issues |chapter=Philosophy if Education, Epistemological Issues In }}</ref> In this sense, it is important to convey not just a set of true beliefs to the student but also the ability to draw one's own conclusions and to question pre-existing beliefs.<ref name="Siegel"/> The abilities and dispositions learned this way may profit not just the individual but also society at large.<ref name="Davies"/> Critics of the emphasis on critical thinking in education have argued that there is no universal form of correct thinking. Instead, they contend that different subject matters rely on different standards and education should focus on imparting these subject-specific skills instead of trying to teach universal methods of thinking.<ref name="Hitchcock"/><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Monteiro |first1=Sandra |last2=Sherbino |first2=Jonathan |last3=Sibbald |first3=Matthew |last4=Norman |first4=Geoff |title=Critical thinking, biases and dual processing: The enduring myth of generalisable skills |journal=Medical Education |date=2020 |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=66–73 |doi=10.1111/medu.13872 |pmid=31468581 |s2cid=201674464 |language=en |issn=1365-2923|doi-access=free }}</ref> Other objections are based on the idea that critical thinking and the attitude underlying it involve various unjustified biases, like egocentrism, distanced objectivity, indifference, and an overemphasis of the theoretical in contrast to the practical.<ref name="Hitchcock"/>