Critical thinking: A western guise or a thinking, cultural, and pedagogical fatigue

Abstract

The argument that non-western countries lack or do not have critical thinking has ushered in a strong scholarly debate. Several scholars perceived this statement as ‘Othering’ lacking evidence and mired in ethnocentric dogma. Indeed, this paper is to redefine CT, indicating it is not culture-specific and is not necessarily a western legacy. CT has evolved and developed across different civilizations, even long before the Greeks. This study interprets CT as critical intelligence, learnable and transformable, with emphasize on its linguistics determinism; meaning that any language with a question structure enables its people to activate this critical intelligence and master it through practice. However, culture still plays a potent role in shaping the CT style.