Contributions of critical thinking as a form of participation and political deliberation

Abstract

Critical thinking is an attribute of consciousness that can be manifested in all human activities where it is required, as a condition of possibility, in the use of critical reason and deliberation. Consequently, it is in the domains of politics that critical thinking is used more frequently, to discuss the scope and concrete significance of the discourses and practices that, from the exercise of public powers, are deployed on intelligent citizenship and with the minimum necessary of information for peer deliberation. The objective of this article is to deconstruct the most common contributions of critical thinking as a form of participation and political deliberation. Methodologically it is a research of documentary design developed in the coordinates of the philosophical essay, next to the Latin American philosopher and the revision of the most popular political theory. Among the main findings, the idea that critical thinking is not the exclusive patrimony of certain self-defined political and ideological tendencies as progressive in the region stands out. It is concluded that, this way of thinking is uncomfortable per se for all the paradigms that serve as the basis for the status quo, in politics and society.