The elements of critical thinking divide into a few categories. What are they, and which two scopes do the virtues divide into?

Cognitive abilities, intellectual standards, and epistemic virtues — where "self-regarding" virtues concern your own thinking and "other-regarding" (dialogical) virtues concern shared knowledge with others.

The elements of critical thinking are organised into:

1. Cognitive abilities ("faculty-traits") — the underlying mental capacities.
2. Intellectual standards — the norms of "quality assurance" for thinking, including the theory of argument and logic.
3. Epistemic virtues — cultivated attitudes, split by scope:
   • self-regarding virtues: traits bearing on your own thinking and knowledge-acquisition (the focus here), with a tie to emotion and motivation;
   • other-regarding / dialogical virtues: traits bearing on collective knowledge-building with others (covered later).

Tip: The self/other split is the key organiser: am I improving how I reason, or how we reason together? Both are virtues; they just point at different targets.