 Critical thinking is a form of what we call metacognition. It involves the analysis of the process of thought through which we or others reason. A central tenet of critical thinking would be that an opinion, idea or belief can only ever be as good as the process of reasoning that went into creating it. None of us were born with a superior form of truth. No one has a privileged experience on reality without earning it. With critical thinking, we're seeking objective knowledge and that is achieved by adhering to certain standards in our reasoning to ensure a quality in the process and thus a quality in the outcome. In this section, we'll be exploring this process of reasoning, its different elements and the standards of thinking we can use to help us reason better. Standards such as clarity or accuracy, knowledge that is clear or accurate, is always going to be better than knowledge that is unclear or inaccurate. These are examples of universal standards that will help us to create knowledge that is relevant, sound and accurate. And it's these standards of reasoning that helps us think better that we'll be talking about in this section to the course.