ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a critical review of the literature on critical thinking, discussing its different interpretations and misrepresentations. It highlights its contextual nature and suggests an epistemological approach through the concept of ‘epistemic cognition’. This proposed epistemological account of critical thinking is deepened through the critical realist triumvirate of ontological realism, epistemic relativism, and judgmental rationality, where, I argue, it is ontological realism that makes judgmental rationality possible, and epistemic relativism that renders it valuable and necessary. A critical realist account of critical thinking is proposed, where its exercise is defined as the expression of one’s commitment to judgmental rationality.
