Critical thinking: reasoned decision making

Making decisions in today's world, a world increasing in complexity, with broad changes and uncertainty, creates the need of approaches that allow us to discern the real problems and the causes that create them. Identifying these problems, in most cases, requires challenging the assumptions on which we base our judgments, regarding the world and its realities.

Critical thinking could be defined, as "that way of thinking - on any subject, content or problem - in which the thinker improves the quality of his thinking by seizing the inherent structures of the act of thinking and by subjecting them to intellectual standards". Critical thinking helps making decisions within a company, selecting the best action for the organization.

In this course of critical thinking the students will learn the tendencies, approximations and assumptions on which their reflections are based, and the conditions and the outcomes derived from their ways of thinking. This reflective thought is the active, careful and persistent examination of all beliefs in the light of the fundamentals that support them and their conclusions.

The reasoned decisions that the world requires, occur in many different areas, especially in business decisions, related to strategies, in the solution of problems in organizations, in the solution of social problems and in corporations’ social and ethical responsibility. In this online course the approaches will be oriented to analyze the critical thinking required in these areas.

• Identify the theories that support critical thinking
• Employ a methodology for the application of critical thinking
• Relate the elements that make up the stages of critical thinking
• Analyze the standards of critical thinking practice
• Assess the responsibility of perpetuating the intellectual values of the resolution analysis
• Distinguish the vices of thought in decision making
• Apply critical thinking to groups

1. Thinking according to our times

1.1 Why critical thinking?

1.2 The exciting world of thinking and criticism

2. Evaluating our modes of thought

2.1 Intellectual values of a good thinker

2.2 Evaluating our critical thinking skills. Avoiding vices and biased thinking

3. Elements and standards of critical thinking* __ *

3.1 Elements of a critical thinking process

3.2 Standards to apply to our thinking modes

4. Articulating our decisions making process* __ *

4.1 The logic of our decisions and the behavior derived from them

4.2 How to improve our critical thinking skills and become a fair-minded thinker