Thought piece

Ronel M. Bayon-on

The reading is basically talking about the Russell’s idea of critical thinking.
Indeed, this reading helps me a lot to gain ideas about critical thinking skills.
Critical thinking is very necessary for studying and for education, especially when
you are studying Philosophy. For me, as a student, it serves as a very important
tool for learning. This critical thinking, for me, is a skill of the mind in order to
critique, examine, and swallow gradually the lessons in order to search and find the
truth. We are living in modern period and wherever we go, we can see many fake
news that are spreading. So, being critical in mind is essential to fight this kind of
spreading. Somehow, this kind of skill of the mind helps a person to become
independent to which he/she stands for. This critical thinking skill is very helpful
for us lays, seminarians, priests, and those people studying their beliefs because
quarrels and debates may happen from time to time.
In my own experience, during my college years, we were trained and taught
to be critical thinkers because they said that in the future we will encounter some
arguments opposed to our own stand and opinion, and some unreliable resources.
We could encounter the members of Iglesia ni Cristo, Jehova’s Witnesses, and
some other religions. Critical thinking is a logic, the logic of the mind, wherein you
exercise your mind to see and determine fallacies. In fact, critical thinking may
develop building one’s idea, improving self-confidence, and being dependent. You
can make opinions on the other hand, find an impartial solution to a problem, and
identify and assumed questions as what the reading tells. That is why we must to
practice critical thinking and make it a habit so that at the end of time, we may
learn to stand in our decisions in life. We must to reason out and train ourselves to
be critical thinkers.
From this time, I am still asking myself, what is truth? What is reality? All I
have to do is to follow this idea of Russell in order to help myself find out the
truth.