Critical Thinking as The Intellectual and Disciplined Process - Research Paper Example

The foregoing means that critical thinking forms the bedrock and foundation upon which human civilisation, existence and development are based or founded. The crux of the matter herein is that all facets of life and their multidisciplinary elements fundamentally rely on critical thinking so that without critical thinking, important and related elements such as problem-solving, innovation, investigations, reconnaissance, design, constructive arguments and counterarguments, yet these are the very elements that are essential for the realisation and actualisation of all disciplines relevant to men such as chemistry, biology, physics, accounting, banking and business innovations and management, political science, philosophy, administration, sociology, literature, psychology, theology and religious studies and criminology, among others.

This means that no civilisation can actualise its goals or stand the test of time outside critical thinking. No matter the extent of numerous and expensive resources expended in the war on poverty, however noble and expensive, all efforts remain fundamentally ineffective when they are not wrought and actualised through critical thinking. To understand the importance of critical thinking in eradicating poverty, it is important to appreciate the input that scholars have penned down in their scholarly sources.

The sources that have been chosen to illustrate and divulge on the relationship between critical thinking and poverty are: (1) Chabrak, Nihel and Craig, Russell’s Student imaginings, cognitive dissonance and critical thinking; (2) Vandsburger, Etty, Duncan-Daston, Rana, Akerson, Emily and Dillon, Tom’s The Effects of Poverty Simulation, an Experiential Learning Modality, on Students' Understanding of Life in Poverty; and (3) Ziarek, Krzysztof “Ceaseless Poverty”? Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy & Social Theory.  
In the peer-reviewed journal article Classless Poverty, Zierek makes a close connection between poverty and critical thinking. In this article, Zierek shows and maintains a close and clear link between relentless poverty and image. Zierek mentions Heidegger’s essays on works of poetry on poverty as a way of underscoring the grotesque effects of poverty. Zierek takes the argument that despite the ravaging effects of poverty, poverty has its strength on the dearth of conceptual comprehension on the nature of poverty, its causes and instruments against it. Zierek takes the standpoint that through critical thinking, man can appreciate how effectively the human world and being can be opened up simultaneously so that man can be acquainted with the best characteristic manner of inhabiting and dealing with the world, the environment.
     In the peer-reviewed journal by Nihel Chabrak and Craig Russell titled Student imaginings, cognitive dissonance and critical thinking, an argument is advanced that there is a serious need to have accounting educators and instructors to facilitate and encourage critical thinking and imaginings among accounting students.  Cabal and Craig refer to research study results in which French accounting students were challenged to assess the collapse of financial institutions, specifically Enron.
            Even though the learners displayed originality in the assignments they handed in, it was noted that they consistently showed significant instances of cognitive dissonance as some students failed to reconcile relations among the reality of capitalism and rhetoric and the extension of the socially bereft capitalist values in the entire accounting curriculum.
            Cabal and Craig divulge that the students' assignments also depicted a sense of discontentment among the learners with the current prevailing economic system and its ethical and moral values and precepts. Therefore, Cabal and Craig identify how students responded to the aforementioned cognitive dissonance before proposing pedagogic and curricula initiatives to bring major ameliorations in accounting and auditing education.
            Cabal and Craig continued that these initiatives demand the concerting of robust efforts to connect accounting topics with/to the social world. This is done as a way of demystifying the naturalness of capitalist systems, encouraging students to imagine alternative cultures and disclosures, and enabling learners to challenge all other prevailing ideologies. This article was written and published in 2013.