What do you understand by Critical Perspectives? Elucidate.

Critical Perspectives:-Taking a critical perspective involves adopting a viewpoint that asks questions about the rationale and legitimacy of something. The idea behind critical thinking is to remove normal biases from a point of view to determine whether a conclusion is the most valid one. To do this, a subject must be thoroughly analyzed.

According to the Foundation for Critical Thinking, a critical approach is both “self-guided” and “self disciplined.” Critical perspectives can be developed about virtually any subject, including art, economics, history, science and literature. Most essays that involve student research and analysis about a subject require students to present a critical perspective. 

The word “critical” is derived from the Greek “to judge.” The word “perspective” is from the Latin word for “optical.” Critical perspectives are the basis for modern philosophy. Greek philosophers laid the foundations of developing critical perspectives thousands of years ago. Over time, however, the field of philosophy has built upon the basic process for critical thinking. The postmodern field of critical thinking is based largely on developments in the field since the latter half of the 20th century.

There are now tests, classes and literature created specifically to help people develop their skills of critical analysis, and the Foundation for Critical Thinking even offers statistics on critical thinking research. It’s about looking a various sides or perspectives, instead of just one’s own, without judgement, but with the intent to gain and better and deeper understanding of something.

Sometimes it’s hard to do, but it’s well worth the effort. A simple example, and one I’m still kind of ashamed. Someone I knew adopted a baby. She had 2 kids of her own and I was not aware that after they came she had struggled to get pregnant again.  Thinking of my own 6 pregnancies and c-sections only, I made some stupid comment about her at least not having to go through 9 months of pregnancy.

Her response, even kind response was a smile and “we’ve been waiting for 3 years for this baby.” 3 years of hungering for a child had to be much harder than my pretty easy pregnancies of 9 months. This example really relates to empathy and better relationships. I apologized to her and she was really sweet about it.

But perspective taking is also related to determining validity and truth. When we hear different perspectives, with an open mind, regarding, for example a political issue – we can gain greater understanding and can either determine we can trust what we believe and support it more strongly, or determine that maybe we didn’t have the whole picture and need to change or even adjust what we thought before.

The critical perspective aims at empowerment and emancipation. It reinterprets the relationship between researcher and participants as one of collaboration, where participants define research questions that matter to them and where social action is the desired goal. Examples of critical research include feminist, radical educational, and participatory action research. 

Adopting the critical perspective would require that scholars in professional communication rethink their choices of research questions and sites, their views of the ownership of research results, and the types of funding they seek for research initiatives.

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