In what sense is critical thinking a "rational way of dealing with not-knowing"?

It is a reasoned response to questions that may have no definitive answer and for which you probably don't have all the information.

Critical thinking isn't only for problems with a clean solution. One framing presents it as rational thinking = the reasonable handling of ignorance: a disciplined response to questions that

• may never be answered definitively, and
• you likely lack complete information to answer.

This matters because real decisions are usually made under uncertainty. Being rational here doesn't mean reaching certainty; it means reasoning well about what you can't fully know — proportioning your confidence to your evidence rather than pretending the gap isn't there.