Unit 3

Linda Elder’s writing and work on critical thinking provided to be hugely insightful for anyone interested in further exploring and understanding the concept. As human beings, we are inherently limited in our ability to understand and perceive the world partially due to our egocentric natures. We view the world through a subjective lens that’s tainted by our biases, self-interests, and irrationality which ultimately affect how we act towards others. Much of the darkness in human history stemmed from this pattern of thinking and were responsible for many of the historical atrocities you could list off the top of your head. The ones that come first to my mind are the witch hunts in the 17th century, the Lehman Brother’s role in the Great Recession, and the United States invasion in Afghanistan. Elder (2007) makes an important point that those who think critically seek to transcend our egocentric patterns of thinking by recognizing our inherent flaws and then improving the world by contributing to moral and just society. Another idea of hers that I found significant is that critical thinking is life-long skill that should constantly improved and that one should never be content in their ability to think critically . Contentment is a path towards reverting to egocentrism because when we begin to get over-confident in our abilities to think critically, it enacts the opposite effect because we then lose the ability to see things with an open mind. As we seek to improve our critical thinking skills, be wary of other possible traps that may regress your progress.

 

References

Elder, L. (2007, September). Our Concept and Definition of Critical Thinking. Retrieved October 13, 2018, from http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/our-concept-of-critical-thinking/411