ABSTRACT
This chapter considers some of the theoretical and practical implications of the concept of critical thinking. It is not possible to develop a coherent concept of critical thinking without developing a coherent concept of rationality, irrationality, education, socialization, the critical person, and the critical society, as they bear on and mutually illuminate one another. Robert Ennis defines critical thinking as “reasonable reflective thinking that is concerned with what to do or believe”. The sociocentrically critical person may use the vocabulary of critical thinking. He may develop facility in its microskills. A critical society will emerge only to the extent that it becomes socially unacceptable routinely to presuppose rather than explicitly identify and argue for one’s fundamental ideas and assumptions. It should be clear that strong sense critical thinking is embedded in a personal, social, and educational ideal. It is not simply a complex of atomistic cognitive skills.
