What is Critical Thinking? Overcoming Creative Blocks in A Critical Thinking Career

Here’s how you can overcome creative blocks in a critical-thinking career. By continuing to think critically; exposing oneself to, and engaging in critical exchanges that help to utilize critical thought and the resources available to critical thinking. Critical Thinking is not static but is a dynamic process that is ongoing and ever open to change. It seeks the truth, as it understands that truth is impeded by the limitations of the varieties of human natures and circumstances. A career in critical thinking must continue to reflect on what is critical thinking. A career in critical thinking must continue to reflect on what is critical thinking and facilitate the freedom of thought through Socratic reflections and

What is Critical Thinking? 

Critical Thinking is a process of using and assessing reasons to evaluate statements, assumptions, and arguments in ordinary situations. It has intricate connections with philosophy, mainly because it originated from ancient philosophical teachings. At its core, the concept of critical thinking is rooted in the Socratic method of questioning, which emphasizes the importance of inquiry and rational thinking as a means to achieve knowledge. It is highly utilized with the dialogical exchange process. Dialogue serves as a fundamental form of socialization for human beings, particularly in Caribbean societies characterized by high verbosity or verbal engagement. It acts as a pivotal tool for fostering relationships, sharing ideas and emotions, and exchanging views. Through dialogue, individuals interact across various domains of activity and at different societal levels, encapsulating the context-driven, situation-based, and culture-specific impact.

In its simplistic and basic definition, critical thinking is thinking about Thinking and what was previously or is the current thought that builds on or debunks information that leads to new discoveries of thought and positions that improve life. It deliberately and intentionally reflects on truths and challenges oneself through introspective discourse or engagements with others. It deconstructs reality by scrutinizing current knowledge and truths we hold to about ourselves. Critical Thinking is usually within the realm of the postcolonial, postmodern skeptics or those fighting for better, leading to effectiveness and progress. It is not just philosophers or academics who must think deeply about everything to ascertain the truth, but those whose understanding of life is shaped by tainted narratives monopolized by the subjective.

However, we cannot escape the subjective, as this is how we make sense of our reality based on what we learn from Descartes in his phenomenology that leads to his reality within the totality of what is true and how one may come to affirm that truth of existence. For he had written, “cogito ergo sum,” translated to mean “I think therefore I am.”” Descartes was ambivalent and perplexed about the reality of existence and sought to abandon all things and start afresh from nothing. Nevertheless, he discovered the difficulty of doing so as he must acknowledge that something is thinking from the start to do what he is setting out to do. So, he concluded that the thing that is thinking is the mind; therefore, one cannot deny its very existence. On the other hand, his proof of existence does not go beyond one’s reality, for one cannot understand any existence outside of one’s mind and reality.

Therefore, it behooves us to engage in relationships facilitated by communication, which spurs life’s dynamic.

Critical Thinkers like Michel Foucault and Immanuel Kant were not born, for critical Thinking is a skill and vocation developed over time. Critical thinkers are “Iconoclasts” – “and Image Breakers” who, like Herodotus, Thucydides, Sapho/Pindar, and later Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, challenge current reflections of past knowledge of the day, for they had departed from Homer’s Illiad and Hesiod’s Theogony. The foundations of most major religions today stemmed from a break of a tradition, such as the reform and reformation of the Dark Ages leading to the period of enlightenment and free Thinking. This led to inventions, innovations, and the protestant church – which had broken ties with the Catholic church, especially on the basis that all men and not just the pope or the privileged had access to God. This allowed for the official translation of scriptures in a common tongue.

Regardless, the ability to read sacred writings in a particular language was given greater credence for those with such training or exposure to maintain a particular privilege over thought. With his Socratic School of thought, Machiavelli, and his Manichean society, Aristotle, and his new epistemology, Socrates led to various branches of modern thought that created a “civil society” based on rules and laws guided by the principles of “institutional religion” and science.

In his “Prison Notebooks,” Gramsci examines the privilege of thought within intellectualism, which he, like Foucault and other post-structuralists and post-modernist thinkers, had derided as a form of institutionalism that portends the privilege in society. The tension in our created societies gives rise to the dynamics in society between races and classes, which are said to be spaces for the dominant towards a particular constant. Karl Marx challenged society’s economic history concerning wealth accumulation within societies. He reimagined a utopic society of equal beings without class, status, or kin, which differs from Plato’s Republic and the Aristotelian view, which occupies much of the Western and, to a lesser degree, Eastern. Still, the East is suspicious of the West, and the West is suspicious of the East, as Edward Said and Ian Buruma had explained in “Orientalism” and Occidentalism,” respectively, exploring ethnocentrism.

To do Critical Thinking is to do analysis. It is metaphysically looking at things. It dissects and does surgery. It is a way of thinking that looks at patterns in action and explores thoughts. It does psychoanalysis, which Sigmund Freud and later Franz Fanon used to present the empowered self. Franz Fanon writes that “the Negro is Not. More than the white man” in Wretched of the Earth,” represents an empowered depiction of the black man from the unusually neutral approach that is not top-down. This pragmatically and succinctly critical Thinking at work where he, who is angry at his colonial masters in his ill state, does not justify man through a binary that puts him in jeopardy of his self-outside of no other. He does not say that the black man is not less than; instead, he writes that he is not more than, which challenges the usual narrative or language when comparing the postcolonial creature with that of his former master. It was a bold and dangerous thinking in his day, which threatened the status quo and led to banning his books such as “Black Skins White Masks” and “Wretched of The Earth.”

Homi Bhabha, the post-colonialist, was even intrigued by Fanon and V.S. Naipaul, whom Bhabha explained was off-center and the fringes (not part of the center or central and standard thought of the day, not part of intellectualism) due to their work in reimagining the colonial and postcolonial characters as “little but talawa” and unassumingly powerful with “magic” untold. These stories bring those at the back pages of life to life. This is critical Thinking at work. It examines and evaluates what is obvious and what is not. It does not take sides. It involves having trained ears and eyes that hear and see far and wide.

Critical Thinking is developed through training the mind to think in a certain way, as it is explorative Thinking. It challenges your Thinking and beliefs. It uses logic, common sense, and reason. It benefits from expansive thoughts and sequencing of present and past knowledge. It builds on past information.

Critical Thinking is coherent and clear. It follows the laws of logic and reason. However, all disrupts and challenges it using its own rules. It is fair and open. It is sharp and cuts. It goes deeper and deeper. However, it is focused and direct. It is honest and understands its bias. For example, one may conclude the Caribbean by saying that the Caribbean has been unable to chart its course since decolonization and realize absolute political independence and economic prosperity. What voice do you have as a Caribbean thinker, and what are the threats to that voice? Are Caribbean countries genuinely free of the external, and does this illusion of freedom come within competing worldviews? What is the issue of bias? We utilize Kenneth Clark’s “Dark Ghetto, Dilemmas of Social Power” to help us distill some concepts and explore the questions and our thoughts. We reference these in the book “Neoliberalism, Globalization, Income Inequality, Poverty And Resistance” to discuss these ideas. We delved into the issue of how identity presents an issue by looking at how things are viewed because of determinations based on analysis influenced by a brand that then led to a branded perspective. We explored the problem of study and the issue of position and hierarchy within studies, especially between the subject and the observer. We then begin to look at the issue of the “ghetto”.

Therefore, the postcolonial man must be a critical thinker who is a skeptic—one who is suspicious of history and its creation of the present. For Kant, we live in the reality of a history resulting from human nature and circumstances. Kant’s critique of pure reason and practical knowledge, including Newtonian physics, is the foundation of knowledge about everything unchanging and categories of the mind. He challenged any study of moral codes as the foundation for any knowledge outside of the varieties of human nature. Social intuitions represent traditions of knowledge steeped in hegemony and privilege.

Critical Thinking may seem to “hurt one’s brain.” However, such Thinking is left to those devoted to such discourse and vocation as they are ” philosopher kings/queens” working to pay their part and make their mark towards revolutionary improvements on the totality of life.

Critical Thinking involves deliberate reflection, challenging established truths, and scrutinizing existing knowledge. It encompasses analyzing patterns, exploring thoughts, and conducting psychoanalysis to present empowered perspectives. Critical thinkers like Michel Foucault and Franz Fanon challenge dominant ideologies and contribute to societal progress. Critical Thinking is developed through training the mind, utilizing logic and reason, and acknowledging bias. It requires coherence, fairness, and honesty.

 

References:

1. Foucault, Michel. Info. Publisher, Year.
2. Clark, Kenneth. Dark Ghetto, Dilemmas of Social Power. Publisher, Year.
3. Neoliberalism, Globalization, Income Inequality, Poverty And Resistance. Publisher, Year.

Additional Reading:

• Fanon, Franz. Wretched of the Earth. Publisher, Year.
• Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason. Publisher, Year.
• Marx, Karl. Selected Writings. Publisher, Year.

In conclusion, critical Thinking is essential for navigating complex issues and fostering societal improvement. It challenges established norms, encourages exploration, and promotes a deeper understanding of truth.

Submitted by Prof. Renaldo C. McKenzie as part of a Lecture at Jamaica Theological Seminary in Caribbean Thought.

Updated June 15th, 2024.