Critical Thinking is Meta Thinking, is to thing about how you think, in order to find you own biases to try to eliminate them.
Critical thinking clarifies goals, examines assumptions, discerns hidden values, evaluates evidence, accomplishes actions, and assesses conclusions
I think Critical Thinking is different from Critical Spirit as it exist, on Wards Wiki around October Zero Five. To me Critical Thinking requires a few key conditions, and having a Critical Spirit could be one of these ingredients.
But what people call "critical thinking" differs widely. For example, I often use economic models to select one choice over another. But I often get flak for this for reasons that so far escape me, but appear to be a form of Argument By Elegance to me. My point is that an economic argument is not "critical thinking" to the other party. People start from a different base. Related: Common Sense Is An Illusion. --top
See original on c2.com 