1. INTRODUCTION TO CRITICAL THINKING BY DR MIKE KURIA DAYSTAR UNIVERSITY FOR THE CLASS GRA 613: INTRODUCTION TO GRADUATE STUDIES

2. What is critical thinking? The Critical Mind is A Questioning Mind

3. INTRODUCTION http://www.criticalthinking.org/ Critical thinking is a desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate, slowness to assert, readiness to consider, carefulness to dispose and set in order; and hatred for every kind of imposture. (Francis Bacon, 1605) It is not enough to have a good mind, rather the main thing is to apply it well (Rene Descartes in Discourse on Method)

4. The difference between school teachers and philosophers is that school-teachers think they know a lot of stuff that they try force down our throats. Philosophers try to figure things out together with the pupils. Jostein Gaarder in Sophie’s World: A Novel about the History of Philosophy.(71)

5. DESCARTES’S RATIONALIST METHOD 1.Never accept anything as true unless it is recognized to be certainly and evidently such and unless it presents itself so clearly and distinctly that there can be no reason for doubting its truth; 2. Divide each complex problem into its component parts; 3.Proceed in an orderly fashion from what is known and proved to what is not known and not proved; 4.Allow for no omissions in the logical chain of reasoning.

6. TRAITS OF THE DISCIPLINLINED MIND INTELLECTUAL INTEGRITY INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY INTELLECTUAL PERSEVERANCE INTELLECTUAL SENSE OF JUSTICE INTELLECTUAL CONFIDENCE IN REASON INTELLECTUAL FAIR-MINDEDNESS INTELLECTUAL COURAGE INTELLECTUAL EMPATHY INTELLECTUAL AUTONOMY