Critical Thinking
Posted on October 13th, 2008
The concept of critical thinking dates back at least to Socrates in ancient Greece. Critical thinking has been defined and described by many scholars as a multifaceted and involves a combination of logical, rhetorical, and philosophical skills and attitudes that promote the ability to determine what we should believe and do.
Thinking is quite simply the action of the mind to produce thought. Critical has several connotations. Critical, for example, can be understood as an inclination to find fault, as a time or state on which something depends, as a point at which a crisis or change may occur, as an important or essential element, or as a careful analysis of a problem. What then is critical thinking? What images do these words, when combined, bring to mind? Do you visualize a person who finds fault with everyone and everything? Or do you imagine someone who ponders esoteric and weighty matters in ivory tower aloofness? You may see it as only the least buzzword in Business, one that was added to the tiresome emphasis on the business process.
The proliferation of journal articles, monographs, essays, conference papers, and books devoted to exploring critical thinking in testifies to the current interest but also suggests that a closer look at the term is warranted. We generally recognize that the professional practice situations that entrepreneurs encounter daily are characteristically complex, rapidly changeable, ambiguous, particular, and rife with conflict. We increasingly accept the fact that customers are dynamic systems within an energy field that includes family, workplace, environment, culture, and life history. We know that entrpreneurs base their decisions on a broad pool of knowledge derived from a variety of disciplines. One may then surmise that critical thinking is a special type of thinking essential for delivering holistic entreprenerial activity.
