Socrates Critical Thinking Analysis

Critical thinking is said to have been around for as long as 2500 years, first introduced by Socrates who found that people could not rationally explain how and why they knew what they claimed to know. It was in this way that he determined how important it is to question ourselves about where our thoughts and knowledge come from before we accept them as the truth. He also emphasized seeking evidence, closely examining reasoning and assumptions, analyzing basic concepts, and tracing out implications not only of what is said but also of what is done. The method Socrates used to question things is now probably one of the best known critical thinking strategies, known today as “Socratic Questioning” (Bartell, Elder, & Paul, 1997). Robert Sternberg

(1885) defined critical thinking as “the mental processes, strategies and representations people use to solve problems, make decisions and learn new concepts.” As a more broad definition, Robert Ennis (1987) said critical thinking is “reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on what to believe and do.” Lastly, a more in depth definition from Matthew Lipman (1987) says that for thinking to be considered critical thinking, it has to have three characteristics: it is self-corrective, criteria oriented and sensitive to context. Self-corrective thinking is, according to Lipman, almost a step up from metacognitive thinking, in the way that metacognitive thinking is simply mental self-consciousness. Thinking about thinking is important, but it can be done uncritically, whereas self-corrective thinking is evaluating your thoughts, finding where you may be wrong, and learning new things in order to fix them.