Fundamental Elements Of Thinking And Intellectual Standards

There are Eight Fundamental Elements of Thinking and Nine Intellectual Standards. For an effective critical thinking and reasoning, we apply the Nine Intellectual Standards to the Eight Fundamental Elements of Thinking. The fundamental eight elements of thinking are: 1. Purpose: Why do we think? Why do we compare and contrast variable elements? Why do we dissect and analyze issues? It is all for a purpose. We are looking for goals and objectives. We want to solve problems. 2. Point of View or Perspective: In critical thinking and reasoning, we can make the following comments, "They seem to be handling this problem from a different perspective.", "Why should we choose this rather than the other point of view?", "Can anybody see this issue from another perspective?", and "Is there an alternative to it?" 3. Question: In critical thinking and reasoning, we can make statements such as: "How do you know that that is true?", "What is the implication of your statement?", "Is this question clear?", "Does anyone understand it?", Could you put this question in a different way?", Why is this question important?", and What does this question demand from us?" 4. Implication and Consequence: "If that happens, what else would happen as a result of that?", "What effect would that have on us?", and "What is the alternative?" 5. Assumption: "What exactly are they assuming?", "Why have you based your thinking on assumption instead of facts?", "You seem to be assuming that what they said is true.", and "Should I believe you?" 6. Concept: "What major thing do we need to consider in figuring out this concept?", "Is there a conflict between these two ideas, if so, how?", and "What idea is the writer of this book using in his thinking?" 7. Information: "Can we get an example of it?", "How do you know?", "How can we believe that?", "What do you think is the cause of his action?", "By what reasoning did you come to that conclusion?", and" Is there any reason to doubt that evidence?" 8. Interpretation: "Having heard everything from them, what is the best possible conclusion or inference?", and "On what information do we base our conclusion?" The nine intellectual standards are: 1. Clarity: "Please, I want you to illustrate what you mean?", "The director wants more clarifications on the matter.", and "The Human Resources Manager demands that you elaborate further." 2. Accuracy: "Can you find out if that is really true?", and "We need to verify that to be very sure of it!" 3. Precision: "We want you to be more exact.", and "Could they be more specific on this issue?" 4. Logic: "Does the ending of this book agree with the beginning part of it?", and "Does what she said agree with the evidence before us?" 5. Significance: "Which of these problems is more important than the others?" and "Which of these facts is better?" 6. Relevance: "How does your suggestion help this matter before us?" and "Does that have answer to the question?" 7. Depth: "What factors make this problem so difficult?" and "Are you able to tackle the complexities of this question?" 8. Breadth: "We ought to view this matter from another perspective.", "Are there other ways to critically look at the problems?", and I hope to come up with another point of view." 9. Fairness: "We need to consider the interests of others when making this decision!" and "We must consider other people's points of view when taking actions of this nature." From the above explanations, we can summarize that critical thinking and reasoning require the applications of the elements of thinking to the intellectual standards. So, our thinking and reasoning must be understandable. It must be free from errors. It must be exact to the level of details. Our thinking and reasoning must be related to the issues at hand. We must consider the complexities and interrelationships of the problems that we are trying to solve. We must look at multiple points of views. Critical thinking and reasoning must focus on only important matters, not trivial ones. Critical thinking must be justifiable, not selfish and discriminatory. It must be clearly logical. It must be useful to all people everywhere. Please, share it with your friends and loved ones.