Which of the following should you consider when thinking critically about an issue?

a. the facts
b. your feelings
c. the validity of your thought processes
d. all of the above

The answer is: all of the above.

Thinking critically is no easy feat. It requires the conjunction of all of the mind´s faculties, from sensibility and imagination, to the understanding and thought. For that reason, in order to properly engage in critical thinking, one should always attain to the facts under discussion, which entails an activity of discrimination or judgment; this can only be achieved by sticking to proper logical rules of judgement and analysis; and, finally, since this is a complex activity of the mind, invariably, feelings will be aroused as to the facts ascertained and analyzed, so that they should be incorporated to the thinking process in order to make it whole, but without letting feelings turn the process into a biased one (that is to say, feelings, which are subjective, can be, in fact, objectively incorporated into a critical thinking process).