Barriers To Critical Thinking

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The primary principle of logical thinking is to raise consciousness in an individual of the environment around them. There are various barriers to logical thinking and this could prevent one from thinking critically. Whilst we cannot overcome all of these barriers, raising awareness of the importance of logical thinking can perhaps assist to avoid these barriers to some extent. The unavoidable barriers are our human limitations and thus cannot be completely overcome due to the nature of its context as our understanding of facts, perceptions and memories prevent us from seeing the world with total clarity. The attentional and memory capacity requires us to search for alternative methods such as use of external sources of machines and it restricts our ability to think critically because as human beings we aren’t equipped to function simultaneously. Similarly, age factors into being a barrier to logical thinking. Piaget illustrated that rational cognitive abilities develop during various stages of a child’s life and rationality is an prominent aspect to logical thinking. This however can only be resolved through the progression of age and the development of maturity. As human beings, we have the rational and irrational side to us. The irrational side of human being is based on motivational and emotional aspects and these forms of persuasion can conflict with scientific interests. We live in an unprecedented time of media, institutional, educational, and political self-interest that uses any means possible to achieve its objectives including deceptive techniques, propaganda, fallacious argument, and fraud. Hence we need to be conscious of these barriers as critical thinkers needs to be mindful of the value and necessity of discernment, and the need to distinguish the truth from the lie. Whilst these emotional aspects provides certain obstacles, the lack of

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