Critical thinking is a mental process of objectively analysing and evaluating information, arguments, or data to reach a well-justified conclusion. It involves considering multiple perspectives and weighing different pieces of evidence and arguments to determine the most reasonable position or solution to a problem. It requires a person to be clear-headed, rational, and independent in their thinking, avoiding emotional reactions, preconceived notions, or personal biases. The goal of critical thinking is to make informed and well-reasoned decisions by thoroughly examining the information at hand and considering its accuracy, reliability, and relevance.

— ChatGPT, early 2023

The application of logical principles, rigorous standards of evidence, and careful reasoning.

— Wiktionary, early 2023

The process of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analysing, synthesizing, and evaluating information to reach an answer or conclusion. Disciplined thinking that is clear, rational, open-minded, and informed by evidence.

— Dictionary.com, 2016

Purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based.

Peter A. Facione, ‘Critical Thinking: What It is and Why It Counts’ (2013)

Includes a commitment to using reason in the formulation of our beliefs.

J. W. Mulnix, 2010, ‘Thinking critically about critical thinking’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 44 (5): 471

The skill and propensity to engage in an activity with reflective scepticism.

Ana M. Nieto and Carlos Saiz, ‘Critical Thinking: A Question of Aptitude and Attitude?’ (2010)

Critical thinking has seven critical features: being inquisitive and curious, being open-minded to different sides, being able to think systematically, being analytical, being persistent to truth, being confident about critical thinking itself, and lastly, being mature.

Peter A. Facione and Noreen C. Facione, ‘Profiling critical thinking dispositions’ (1993)

Critical thinking is a type of thinking pattern that requires people to be reflective, and pay attention to decision-making which guides their beliefs and actions. Critical thinking allows people to deduct with more logic, to process sophisticated information and look at various sides of an issue so they can produce more solid conclusions.

‘Book Reviews and Notes: Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice’, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 8 (1): 101 (1988)

Critical thinking is essentially a questioning, challenging approach to knowledge and perceived wisdom. It involves ideas and information from an objective position and then questioning this information in the light of our own values, attitudes and personal philosophy.

Judge, McCreery, and Jones (2009), 'Critical Thinking Skills for Education Students', p. 9

Although critical thinking could be defined in several different ways, there is a general agreement in its key component—the desire to reach for a satisfactory result, and this should be achieved by rational thinking and result-driven manner. Halpern thinks that critical thinking firstly involves learned abilities such as problem-solving, calculation and successful probability application. It also includes a tendency to engage the thinking process. In recent times, Stanovich believed that modern IQ testing could hardly measure the ability of critical thinking.

Diane F. Halpern, ‘The Nature and Nurture of Critical Thinking’, (2006)

The most important of…intellectual capabilities and the one most under attack in American universities is critical thinking: the ability to examine new information and competing ideas dispassionately, logically and without emotional or personal preconceptions.

Paul Monk, ‘Expert Knowledge and Scientific Thinking Under Siege’, Rationale, January 5, 2023 (reprinted from the Winter 2017 edition of Australian Rationalist)

With regard to the making of national security policy, [our mind-sets] can have such baneful consequences that it is more than usually important for both intelligence analysts and policy makers to have special sets of lenses to put on when they are considering critical matters. Such lenses are critical thinking lenses: the disciplined and principled willingness and capacity to do precisely what is hard and does not come naturally: re examine one’s convictions and opinions and open them to revision.

Paul Monk, ‘Learning to See’, Griffith Review, No. 5, August 2005

One aspect of critical thinking must be that we are metacognitive – which is to say that we are aware of some aspects, at least, of our own thinking, and that we have some intentionality behind that, so we can understand how we might arrive at certain decisions; we are aware of the inferential chains or pathways that we follow, to come to other decisions. So that’s a very important aspect of it; to be aware of our thinking. But it’s just as important, as we’re being aware of our thinking, to be evaluative of our thinking, and to make our thinking itself an object of study, even as we might be solving complex problems with it. And it is that evaluative component which says, well you know ‘Was that a good way to go?’ ‘Am I thinking in a way that is commensurate with getting the best answer regularly?’ Those kinds of questions, that kind of interrogation, I think, if you’re doing that to your thinking, then you are thinking critically.

Peter Ellerton, ‘Nutting it out’, The Philosopher’s Zone, ABC Radio National, April 14, 2019

Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments in order to form a judgement by the application of rational, skeptical, and unbiased analyses and evaluation. The application of critical thinking includes self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self corrective habits of mind, thus, a critical thinker is a person who practices the skills of critical thinking or has been trained and educated in its disciplines. Richard W. Paul said that the mind of a critical thinker engages the person's intellectual abilities and personality traits. Critical thinking presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use in effective communication and problem solving, and a commitment to overcome egocentrism and sociocentrism.

‘Critical Thinking’, Wikipedia (June 2023)

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analysing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. It involves the ability to think logically and make rational judgments, to draw reasonable inferences from facts and data, to recognize weaknesses and strengths in arguments, to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable conclusions, and to identify and analyse assumptions and biases.

You.com (early 2023)

[C]ritical thinking: the ability to examine new information and competing ideas dispassionately, logically and without emotional or personal preconceptions.

Thomas Nichols: The Death of Expertise: The Campaign against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, March 2017, Chapter 3 – ‘Higher Education: The Customer is Always Right’, p.72