CRITICAL THINKING BETWEEN ESSENTIALISM AND PERENNIALISM

The intention of the author of this text is to explore deeply the meaning of the concept of critical thinking from the perspective of teaching philosophy. For the purpose, he concludes that the best point for developing critical thinking in the field of philosophy is actually between essentialism and perennialism. Starting from the assumption that philosophy, by teaching critical thinking, teaches students to be ‘rational judges’ and on the other hand ‘sensitive to context’, the author concludes that having skills and a developed attitude are equally important for such education. Educational essentialism will be observed from the point of view of the development of pre-reflective intentionality, by teaching logical and methodological structuring of problems, and educational perennialism as directing to the most important concepts of solving certain problems.