Module 1: What Is Critical Thinking?

Fair-Mindedness

characterized by fair judgment; impartial; unprejudiced

stereotype

A fixed or oversimplified conception of a person, group, or idea.

second-order thinking

Another term for critical thinking. It is first-order thinking (or ordinary thinking) that is consciously realized (i.e., analyzed, assessed, and improved).

Intellectual Cowardice

Fear of ideas or viewpoints that do not conform to one's own.

intellectual humility

Openness to the possibility that one's beliefs are mistaken and a willingness to reevaluate them in the face of new evidence or persuasive counterarguments.

first-order thinking

Ordinary thinking.

sophistry

The ability to win an argument regardless of flaws in the reasoning for it.

intellectual empathy

The act of routinely inhabiting the perspectives of others in order to genuinely understand them.

intellectual perserverance

The act of working one's way through intellectual complexities despite frustrations inherent in doing so

sociocentrism

The assumption that one's own social group is inherently superior to all others.

weak-sense critical thinking

Thinking that does not consider counter viewpoints, that lacks fair-mindedness and that uses critical thinking skills simply to defend current beliefs.

strong-sense critical thinking

Thinking that uses critical thinking skills to evaluate all beliefs, especially one's own, and that pursues what is intellectually fair and just.

Fallacies

a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument.

Egocentrism

the inability to differentiate between self and other. More specifically, it is the inability to untangle subjective schemas from objective reality; an inability to understand or assume any perspective other than their own.