philosophy and critical thinking pdf

An Introduction to Philosophy

(7 reviews)

Russ W. Payne

Publisher: BCcampus

Language: English

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Reviewed by Glenn Tiller, Professor of Philosophy, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi on 4/22/24

Comprehensiveness rating: 4 see less

The text is suitably comprehensive and has chapters on the main branches of philosophy: logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. The author does a good job of discussing some of the main philosophical issues in these areas, such as logical arguments, the nature of scientific inquiry, free will, and how we should live our lives. It does not have an index, but terms are easily searchable with an e-text, and the text has a mini glossary at the end of each chapter with key terms for review. The text also does a decent job of providing historical context and a sense of the development of Western philosophy. Some significant topics are omitted, such as personal identity. On the other hand, some topics that are often not discussed (e.g., metaethics) are discussed at length.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

The text engages with most of the standard philosophical issues and questions that students encounter in a typical Introduction to Philosophy course. The author seems to have no major biases or philosophical axes to grind. The author’s tone is teacherly, though not overly formal, and similar (at times, very similar) to many other introductions to philosophy in the analytic tradition. Broad in scope and short on detail, the text is meant to be supplemented, so it may be a useful basis for many teachers of first-year philosophy. The historical overview of philosophy is welcome, and the supplementary readings (e.g., Aristotle, Russell, and Chalmers) are well chosen. Some of the objections to traditional problems, such as Descartes’s Cogito argument, are somewhat narrow and do not plumb the depths of skepticism and the difficulties with Descartes's program of methodological doubt.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The author states in the introduction that "Philosophy has progressed dramatically as the sciences over the last century" (p.3). He also states that he aims to "remedy" the situation of a general lack of introductory texts that pay heed to recent developments in philosophy. However, the text is very much grounded in philosophy's history- in the Classic, Medieval, and Modern eras - and comparatively little attention to 20th and 21st C authors. This is not a fault of the text, but it is much more of a standard introduction to philosophy text than one that emphasizes current trends and philosophers. I believe this is a good pedagogical practice for a general introduction to philosophy.

Clarity rating: 5

Philosophy is often daunting to the newcomer, and it has its share of technical jargon, much of which must be explained so that issues can be inquired into. The text is written in a lucid, accessible manner that should appeal to newcomers to philosophy. Major terms (e.g., "Metaphysics") are put in bold and always defined (or at least given a working definition). Each chapter has a vocabulary section at the end, along with review and discussion questions and (in some chapters) "exercises." All of this is helpful. If supplementary definitions, instructors can easily link the text to, say, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy or the (more challenging) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

Consistency rating: 4

The book is internally consistent in its use of terminology and its organization of thematic chapters. The sequencing of the chapters is helpful, with a nice introduction to the nature of philosophy given first, followed by a primer on logical reasoning, a quick tour through some major eras in philosophy, and later chapters building on the preceding ideas and articulation of historical trends. I think it would have been helpful to have a more detailed section on the so-called "linguistic turn" in philosophy and note other 20th-century trends in philosophy, such as Existentialism. The latter would have been particularly helpful for the sections on, say, "Love and Happiness." Of course, the topics and themes can be easily added with an open-source text like this.

Modularity rating: 4

The text's "modularity" is fine. Major thematic chapters are divided into smaller sections, each with a subheading. At the start of each chapter, a summary of what's to follow is briefly outlined, sometimes using bullet points for concision. Overall, the reader is guided through the thicket of philosophy in a nicely organized manner. Chapters could, I think, be read individually, but the sequencing of the books is purposeful, and later chapters build on earlier chapters, so readers are rewarded if they follow the book from start to finish.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 4

The text is well organized, and the topics covered are given lucid overviews. The opening chapters are especially strong. It might have been more helpful to fully integrate the historical sections into the topics sections. As it is, the text is something of a hybrid. Again, the historical sections are welcome and will benefit students who often need a timeline of ideas to grasp the ongoing philosophical conversations and philosophy's perennial issues.

Interface rating: 5

The interface is excellent. There were no problems with external links, and the external readings and resources provided are top-notch (such as Early Modern Texts). Some chapters do not have links or as many as one might like, but again, these can be easily supplemented.

Grammatical Errors rating: 5

I found no significant grammar or prose problems, and the book appears to be generally well-edited.

Cultural Relevance rating: 4

Like most texts, it pays little attention to the philosophizing of women, minorities, and others who have generally been excluded from Western philosophy. The author rightly notes that "women in Descartes’ time were rarely given a thorough education or allowed to participate fully in intellectual life." To help correct persistent biases, it would have been beneficial to include more women philosophers, be they historically well-known figures such as Mary Wollstonecraft or contemporary philosophers such as Martha Nussbaum. The text also mentioned Hindus and Buddhists, but a few more words on the nature of Eastern philosophy - even if to point the reader in the right direction - would enhance the text (esp., say if there was a section on Personal Identity). In addition, sometimes a phrase here or there is a bit unnecessarily jarring. Spinoza is referred to as the “God intoxicated Jew,” for example, and there is a line stating that "Such was the influence of the outcast Jew of Amsterdam." I am not sure about the weight of emphasizing Spinoza being Jewish. Of course, it's a historical fact, but how does the last line, particularly, call for racial and/or cultural identification? Last, there is little to nothing discussing (or mentioning) current issues in philosophy and gender and sexuality.

Again, given that the book is open source and easily modifiable, all of the above criticisms can be remedied. The author has done many a philosophy professor a service by providing a free text that can at least be used as a helpful point of departure for teaching an introduction to philosophy course.

Reviewed by Sean Gould, Adjunct Professor, College of Western Idaho on 4/28/22

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

An Introduction to Philosophy provides a survey of central themes within the western, analytic tradition of philosophy. The book presents the fundamentals of logic and critical thinking, the Socratic method, and approaches to knowledge based in the Rationalist an Empiricist movements. Through following a historical approach, topics including Plato’s Forms, Cartesian Dualism, Pantheism, and Idealism are introduced in the context of their development. The chapter of Philosophy of Mind further discusses the Mind/Body, while the Philosophy of Science section rounds out the epistemological theme of the initial chapters. The final four chapters focus on Ethics, Metaethics, and Social Philosophy. Utilitarianism, Kantianism, Virtue Ethics, Relativism, Social Contract Theory, and Divine Command Theory are all discussed, either in these final chapters or at points fitting a historical appearance in the early chronologically based chapters. Payne provides a comprehensive introduction to the boarder topics of Epistemology, Metaphysics, Logic, and Ethics as they are studied in the western, analytic tradition.

The survey of western philosophy provided by An Introduction to Philosophy is quite brief. Even within the adopted bounds of this tradition, large jumps over time periods and movements are made for the sake of compactness. For example, discussion of Descartes follows quickly upon Aristotle after a brief 2-page transition glossing over the Roman and Medieval contributions to the story. Kant does not appear until his ethical theory is picked up in the chapters on Metaethics and Right Action. There is little or no discussion of Existentialism, Feminism, movements within a broadly Continental Eurocentric tradition, or of any non-western philosophical traditions.

There is no glossary to the text; however, when viewed electronically the “find” function serves as a proxy tool for locating key words.

In general, the text remains safely within the bounds of established scholarship in its presentation of material. There are a few points where the author interjects some personal commentary into the material, but these are generally presented in a transparent way and can be isolated and treated as one would wish. However, an exception to the safe presentation of ideas occurs in the Meta Ethics chapter. Here, the chapter takes a thinly veiled argumentative approach promoting metaethical realism against anti-realism and relativism. As an introductory text, this approach risks portraying the subject in an overly simplistic and decisive manner to introductory students.

The safe and roughly historical approach of the text ensures that the content will not be dated for some time. The material of the text is highly relevant within the field of philosophy it the perennial issues it addresses, although there is little explicit reference to contemporary and topical issues.

Clarity rating: 4

An Introduction to Philosophy proceeds with a clear and approachable tone. The ideas are presented in a language that does not require prior familiarity with philosophical study and should be appropriate to most first-year college students.

Consistency rating: 5

The text is consistent throughout in its style, difficulty, and presentation of content.

Modularity rating: 3

The text can easily be divided into modular units to be adopted or passed over at an instructor’s discretion without harming the value of any given section’s use. However, the first five chapters do flow together into a historical narrative of ideas that some might find beneficial insofar as it helps provide some added structure to the introduction to the concepts. This beneficial structure would be lost were these early chapters to be taken in isolation. The Philosophy of Mind chapter also utilizes some reference to the prior section on Descartes.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

The individual chapters of the text flow from chapter to chapter in a reasonable way. The presentation of material and tone of the text remains structurally consistent throughout. However, the text has detectable sections to its content.

An Introduction to Philosophy begins by providing a subject overview, while the second chapter on critical thinking supplies some methodological sideboards for the student. After this, the text moves through three phases. First, chapters 3-5 present a historical approach of Ancient Philosophy, Rationalism, and Empiricism. Concepts are organized by their association with a particular philosopher and that philosopher’s broad historical context. Chapters 6 and 7 roughly fit into the chronology established by presenting 20th C discussions of the Philosophy of Science and Mind.

Chapters 8-11 break this pattern and focus on ethics. Here, the ideas are presented thematically. Both in the focus ethic and the topical organization, the structure of the book changes. If one wanted to use the entire text for a course but did not want isolate discussion of ethics into one single block, then attempting to reintegrate these following, topic-centered chapters into a sequence parallel to the first would be challenging.

Interface rating: 4

An Introduction to Philosophy is all text. There are no images, figures, or other learning aids. The format of the text functions like a book. The table of contents does not contain internal links. There are some hyperlinks to further readings and materials, but these are often broken. When viewed through a web-browser, the browser’s page selection and “find” features can assist in navigating the material.

Grammatical Errors rating: 4

There are a few typos or grammatical errors in the text, but generally the text is clean and presented to professional standards.

Cultural Relevance rating: 3

With some exceptions, the text primarily presents the views of dead, white, male Europeans, and its cultural relevance suffers from faults of omission. As an introduction to philosophy, greater transparency regarding its limited content would have helped the text inform readers that this narrowness reflects a decision for the text rather than speaking to the scope of philosophy itself. There are no explicitly insensitive or offensive remarks in the text. When mentioned explicitly, the few acknowledgements of diversity from the narrow scope of the text are done appropriately, with one minor exception that warrants flagging. Elizabeth Simmern van Pallandt is given due attention for her critical correspondence with Descartes regarding the Mind/Body problem. At this point, Payne provides a well-intentioned interjection to identify and condemn the patronizing nature of some of Descartes’s communications with Pallandt. Payne also suggests that Pallandt, “provides a brilliant illustration of how to deal most effectively with patronizing behavior whether it is of sexist variety or some other kind: just be competent and this will show that you deserve to be taken seriously” (p 72). Rather than place full responsibility and condemnation for patronizing behavior on the perpetrator, some might worry that Payne’s interjection places some responsibility for patronizing behavior upon those who have yet to prove they deserve being taken seriously. This is an issue with the text that people might want to be aware of. I have had to interject on this passage for my students and have repeatedly received thankful comments from students for doing so. However, besides this gaffe and the narrowness of scope, An Introduction to Philosophy remains appropriate in what it does present.

Reviewed by Shalon van Tine, Adjunct Instructor, Thomas Nelson Community College on 4/9/21

Payne has written a solid introduction to philosophy for students with little to no background in the subject matter. His text covers the core ancient philosophers, basic logical reasoning, explorations in the philosophy of science and mind, and the main branches of ethics. It is a short text, so therefore Payne has left out some key branches of thought, such as aesthetics, structuralism, or critical theory. Additionally, there is no index or glossary with this text. Still, he does a good job introducing the basics within his limited space.

As far as accuracy is concerned, there were no glaring mistakes, although sometimes the author’s personal views are embedded within the text.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 3

There are some instances within the book that are dated, such as examples that point to public figures at the time the book was written. Additionally, Payne’s lack of Marxist or sociological analysis in his section on social justice is a stark oversight. This omission leaves him struggling to explain atrocities like racism or genocide in individualistic ethical terms, as if these social problems are the cause of individuals with personal bad ethics rather than products of larger-scale structural realities. In light of recent world events and uprisings, this text would be more relevant if it took societal analyses into consideration.

A benefit of Payne’s book is its conversational tone. Too often students new to philosophy can get lost in the jargon. Payne does a good job using natural, easy-to-understand language.

The text is consistent with its organization. Payne keeps most chapters to a reasonable and readable length.

At times, the author refers to his own life as examples. While this tactic works well in a classroom setting, it does not work as well in a textbook that other professors will use. Shifting the textbook to a third-person narrative would solve this issue.

Regardless, Payne has organized his text well, and readers can easily navigate it.

Interface rating: 2

One major problem with this book, however, is its lack of images, charts, etc. Rather than revise charts to fit his text, Payne has included hyperlinks to outside web sources for information. Unfortunately, about half of all links included were either non-secure websites or dead links. The information he linked to could have been easily rewritten into his own book rather than linking outside the text to questionable sites.

While there are some minor grammatical errors, they do not interfere with the overall readability of the text.

Payne makes some references outside of Western philosophy, such as a brief exploration into Confucianism, but mainly this book sticks to the classics of the Western canon. As stated earlier, a main problem is his lack of philosophers who deal with social and cultural problems. Students interested in real-life issues, especially those that deal with race, gender, or class, will not find many solutions in this textbook.

Overall, Payne has written a useable introduction to the basic ideas in philosophy for 100-level students. The book is not organized like a traditional textbook and is lacking some core ideas that should be explored in an introductory philosophy class. Including more real-life examples and illustrations would help students grasp the concepts presented better.

Reviewed by Sally Parker-Ryan, Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Texas at Arlington on 12/13/20

Comprehensiveness rating: 5 see less

Every introduction to philosophy is a reflection of the author’s opinionated view about what the most important topics are that should serve as a student’s first taste of college level philosophy. As this is often a student’s first taste of philosophy simpliciter, it is an important decision to make. W. Russ Payne’s choices are at once careful to appeal to the interests of students, and comprehensive enough to cover a wide swathe of philosophical landscape. It should be said that the approach is definitely historical; and indeed the progression through philosophical topics follows a roughly chronological order (and often referring back to the ancients for the locus classicus of a particular philosophical view or problem). For some, like me, this works well. I like to give philosophical problems an historical context, and I like to introduce students to the writing of past thinkers. Other teachers, however, might find the historical bent a bit tedious and frustrating, perhaps preferring to introduce problems through more contemporary writers and treatments. At any rate, Payne’s text covers all of the major branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind and ethics (normative and meta), and socio-political philosophy, and the main philosophical problems that each branch treats of. The classic problems are presented through the classic texts (but you will not find, for example, much on contemporary epistemology such as the Gettier issues, nor more modern philosophical questions in mereology or personal identity etc.) However, I think that as an introduction to the discipline, the topics covered offer the right level and the right emphasis to furnish the student new to it with a range of philosophical concepts, views and questions that they may move on to more advanced, contemporary topics well prepared. As with any Introduction, it curates topics according to the author's editorial and pedagogical decisions, so it doesn't cover every topic one might be interested in teaching. Nor does it have an index or glossary (but I find these are available everywhere on the web, and can be added to one's class materials separately). I should also mention that the book approaches philosophy from within the analytic tradition, and thus has limited reference to the more 'continental' texts, authors and issues. Many will find this disappointing (but not surprising, as this distinction is unfortunately fairly standard within the discipline itself). Everything I say below about supplementing this basic textbook with the instructors' own choice of topics and materials applies here, of course.

Content Accuracy rating: 5

As far as I can see, the content is quite accurate; at least I did not notice any glaring errors. The content is also unbiased; there appears to be nothing in the language or ideas that takes anything but a neutral, inclusive line.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 5

This book will be relevant for some time, as it does take an historical approach and does not pretend to be offering the latest, most cutting-edge views on things. As a solid historical introduction, it has a fairly long shelf-life. As with all textbooks, one should regularly ensure that the material reflects current thought, where it does mention contemporary authors, approaches or views. It is especially important to update with breakthrough work, when it happens. This text is pretty well up to date on the latter, and I would imagine it to stay so for at least 5 - 10 years, at the current pace of philosophical development.

Written very clearly, with a conversational style that is sensitive to the requirement to explain jargon and technical terms, when they arise. The tone is direct and simple, and aimed at the curious and intelligent freshman (so, not overly difficult and not unchallenging or condescending).

The book is consistent, and maintains a sense of flow and direction, and all the parts hang together as a whole.

Modularity rating: 5

The chapters, and certain subsections, of the book are easily used as separate modules. There is some self-reference - to a certain degree, this book is written as a course to follow in order. But it is possible to treat each section separately, to mix and match with other topics and materials, and to rearrange the order of presentation of the chapters if one wanted. Some editing or re-writing may be need for this, but not a lot.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 5

I find the topic organization quite logical. Again, the order of topics and philosophical problems and text is ordered along roughly historical lines, and I personally find this arrangement a good one, for introductory purposes. For example, the course begins with a general introduction to to the discipline; then turns to some issues in argumentation and logic, followed by the ancients, rationalism and empiricism, philosophy of science (which connects back to the earlier topics), philosophy of mind; and then it turns to the more normative philosophical topics: philosophy of love and happiness, meta-ethics and normative ethical theories, and finally, to some social and political issues. Of interest here is the inclusion of the chapter on the philosophy of science, and the breadth of normative topics included in the last chapters. Firstly, I have found it rare to find an introduction to philosophy that includes topics in the philosophy of science. This part of philosophy might be passed over in introduction because it is thought too difficult for freshman, or those new to philosophy, or at least that it presupposes a lot of other philosophy before it can be approached. This can be true, but it is also true that this topic is foundational, and it can be introduced in a way as not to confuse students or to have them lose interest. Particularly if it is introduced in the context, as Payne does, of historical empiricism. It is also an area that gestures to more contemporary philosophical issues, and provides a good basis for moving on to those for future students. Secondly, the wide choice of topics in the normative branches of philosophy is a positive, in my view. There are students who are more attracted to these topics, but they are often treated in a very perfunctory fashion i.e. often just he meta-ethics part, or just some quick treatment of normative ethical theories. The four chapters here go together quite well, and give a more complete exploration of the issue that can arise in these parts of philosophy.

Interface rating: 3

The pdf version is not 'clickable' throughout, meaning that one has to scroll through to find parts of the text. Of course, it could be printed and used simply as a traditional book. There are links in the text to other open-source materials and texts, which is very helpful (although the links should always be checked regularly). It might have helped to make at least the table of contents clickable, to navigate directly to chapters.

No grammatical errors that I detected, although there are a few typos throughout.

The text is not culturally insensitive or offensive in any way that I could detect. I found the examples used were culturally diverse, as well as gender-neutral and appropriate. Here is probably the place to mention that this textbook fails to include many examples of female or other minority philosophers or texts. As a discipline, we all need to do more to undermine this view of the philosophical canon as white, western, male and privileged. I would be supplementing this textbook with readings from female philosophers, and I would consider introducing a topic from a non-traditional perspective such as asian or african philosophy. No textbook can include everything, but introductions to a discipline need to be at the forefront in making sure students don't think the subject is only for white, male people and interests.

This textbook takes an interesting introductory route through philosophy. It is both fairly traditional in terms of its topic range, and yet also a bit fresher in its inclusion of the philosophy of science, and a more extensive than usual treatment of the normative areas of philosophy. In my view, this is a solid, reliable introductory text for freshman philosophy. As a CC license, one can use this as one prefers, which might mean editing in or out certain topics and rearranging the order etc. I would definitely supplement it with topics I think need to be included. Dealing as it does with historical texts might require the teacher to create more readable excerpts of the longer, difficult texts. It might also be supplemented with a choice of further readings, or even other kinds of media like podcasts ( at least one is mentioned, and linked, by Payne), discussions, interviews, videos, blogs etc. But overall, this textbook is terrific and if it means a student can have access to the materials need for a class without being sent broke, then it is a great choice.

Reviewed by Kyle Hirsch, Adjunct Instructor, Community College of Aurora on 6/28/20

Please see overall review below. read more

Please see overall review below.

Cultural Relevance rating: 2

This is a highly usable and economical introduction to philosophy textbook. It covers the definition, branches and application of philosophy as well as the major theories and issues of epistemology, metaphysics and ethics in the history of Western philosophy from the Ancient Greeks to Rawlsian theories of justice and Chalmers’ contributions to the philosophy of mind. Such a textbook always requires making difficult decisions regarding topical inclusion, and the author does an excellent job tracing the evolution of major philosophical thought to help students see the connections and influences between prominent thinkers as well as the relevant differences and departures. The chapters are succinct, clear, while rigorously dense which both novice and intermediate students will appreciate. While the author employs college-level vocabulary and subject-specific terminology throughout, he often will present numerous relevant examples to help contextualize the more abstract concepts. A great example of this is in the section on critical thinking and logical argumentation. The author provides ample homework exercises as well as an external link to a great resource on learning logical fallacies replete with everyday examples. Indeed, each chapter contains external links to primary readings and supplemental resources for students to access and dig deeper into content. Instructors would be wise to preview all of the externally linked resources and determine which they would like to feature in their course. For example, there are links to entire Socratic dialogues and essays when assigning only a particular section might be sufficient for the needs of the course. Additionally, there are links to encyclopedic biographies of particular thinkers that may have particular sections worth reading; one suggestion for the author is to be more consistent in linking thinkers’ biographies as there doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason why some are included and others aren’t. Overall, the inclusion of external links provides flexibility that is a tremendous asset of this textbook since it allows for instructors to curate content to fit their syllabus. Furthermore, a few of these links are currently broken, and the author has asked readers to let him know which ones need repair so that he can fix them (which I will do) The discussion questions and possible quiz questions found at the end of each chapter are excellent tools for both instructor and student. . Moreover, I would recommend that instructors who wish to supplement these chapters with additional resources do so to enrich the experience for their students and add their personality and particular areas of expertise and interest to the curriculum.

Some other feedback for the author is that the text lacks significant inclusion of minoritized and culturally relevant thinkers. There are several female philosophers, including an excellent section on Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia are her devastating critiques of Descartes’ substance dualism. However, the text would benefit from an inclusion of more female philosophers, thinkers of color and from the eastern hemisphere. Also, the text lacked visual aids aside from those included in the external links. Including more pictures

It is an excellent foundational source that when combined with other OER material is sufficient for an introductory philosophy course.

Reviewed by Ivan Guajardo, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Virginia Western Community College on 4/1/19

There are different ways of introducing philosophy to newcomers, one is to present it as a living discipline defined by problems made more intelligible and relevant by tracing their historical roots. W. Russ Payne’s An Introduction to Philosophy takes this approach and does a good job at it. The first two chapters describe the nature of philosophy and the place of logic and concepts like ‘truth’, while subsequent chapters focus on two key periods in the history of philosophy (Ancient Greece and Early Modernity), and core themes in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, love, happiness, metaethics, and the question of social justice in political philosophy. Although exclusively from an Analytic perspective, the textbook does provide a fairly comprehensive and sound overview of what it does covers. It does not have a glossary or an index. The first chapter lists some undefined key terms, but this convention is abandoned thereafter. The book does provide review and discussion questions at the end of each chapter, which can be used in a variety of different ways.

The textbook is fairly accurate in its presentation and definition of key issues, concepts, and themes, but again, it strictly follows an analytic approach to the discipline, which means that Continental thinkers, feminist perspectives, and non-European traditions are excluded. Unless it is complemented with material from these non-Analytic traditions, this textbook by itself will be of little use to someone planning to teach philosophy in a more global or pluralistic manner.

The textbook presents classic theories, arguments, and examples that should stand the test of time. Its content shouldn't require much updating. The book’s format and organization allows for easy incorporation of revisions and updates.

Explanations are clear and concise. The author uses technical jargon sparingly and defines technical terms well. Adding a glossary would help, however.

The textbook's narrative flows consistently. It moves from historical roots to the present in ways that helps readers see the historical and contemporary relevance of the issues being covered.

The textbook is divided into chapters and sections that stand on their own, and thus lend themselves to easy revision, reorganization, remixing, and so on. It can be used as a whole or only in part. Chapters can be read in different orders and still be understood.

The textbook is well organized. Key concepts are explained and material is appropriately divided into easily digestible units. The examples given in each chapter illustrate well their concepts. Transitions are easy to follow and allow the reader to make important connections within and between chapters.

Students have access to PDF copies. Printed copies of the whole or parts can be made easily. The textbook is published under a CC By license, which permits the greatest freedom to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute its contents. Most chapters contain links to readings, but they must be checked to avoid broken hyperlinks.

No recognizable grammatical errors, but typographical errors were found throughout the text. For example, page 6 says, “the reality” rather than “reality”.

The author does not use offensive or culturally insensitive language. However, the exclusion of continental, feminist, and non-European approaches can arguably be construed as insensitive to these traditions.

Overall this is a good textbook and may be combined with other sources to deal with its limitations.

Reviewed by Bassam Romaya, Philosophy Instructor , Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania on 3/7/19

As with most disciplines, philosophy comes with its own vast array of key terms, concepts, and vocabulary, which introductory students must learn in order to make sense of the discipline’s contributions and key debates (both past and present). The text does not contain an index or glossary. The reader must sort through the chapter/s in order to find the relevant definitions or explanations. In Chapter 1, four vocabulary words are listed at the end of the chapter (which is helpful), but that convention is not repeated in other chapters, which introduce additional vocabulary.

The content that is covered is represented accurately. However, it should be noted that the text does not contain the entire breadth or history of the discipline. For instance, one will not find coverage of global or world traditions in philosophy, feminist philosophy (apart from very brief mention of care ethics in Chapter 10), or contributions of the continental tradition in philosophy. The treatment of the text (and themes) is predominately representative of the analytic tradition in philosophy. Of course, this does not mean that an introductory text must cover everything, but merely that the reader should be aware of its approach.

The text is up-to-date, and may easily be updated as needed.

The text is written in a clear and accessible style geared toward introductory students; the use of any relevant jargon (when present) is commonly followed by a definition and/or explanation of the key term, movement, or theory.

The text is internally consistent, in its terminology/ies and framework/s.

The book’s individual chapters may easily be assigned individually and out of order, without reliance on referential material that might come before or after any specific chapter. It is thus possible to both build on knowledge base acquired within a specific chapter (by covering supplementary chapters from this text or another), as well as covering one or more standalone chapters without assigning the entire text.

To some readers, it might seem confusing that the text features four chapters devoted to ethical issues (Chapters 8-11), while one chapter might more clearly and succinctly address the leading range of problems and questions in moral philosophy. There is also the concern that since they come at the end of the book, a beginning student might get the impression that the content in those chapters is less significant or less central to the study of philosophy, which would certainly not be the case. Additionally, Chapter 11 might be better titled “Political Philosophy” or “Social and Political Philosophy,” as the range of issues covered there are not exclusively social justice topics.

No interface issues recognized; although it might be a good idea to check the hyperlinks that refer the reader to live websites (to avoid sending the reader to a broken/outdated link).

No recognizable grammatical errors; however, typographical errors may be found in the text. For example, in Chapter 9, the spelling of “Divine” shifts to “Devine” throughout the chapter, and on page 104, one finds both spellings in that section. Another example, see page 93 for “mght” and “constrasting.” Also, in the book’s description, there’s an extra “first” (“Students are first invited first”).

The text is not culturally insensitive. The text does make use of examples that are inclusive to gender (this may be observed by reviewing examples and exercises used in Chapter 2).

Terrific text! Its versatility allows for coverage of standalone chapters as well as building on knowledge acquired in previous chapters. The embedded links to online primary source texts provide the reader with a valuable opportunity to explore the original texts that frame the discussion and background material to the topics and themes of the book.

Introduction
Chapter 1: What Philosophy Is
Chapter 2: Critical Thinking I, Being Reasonable
Chapter 3: Critical Thinking II: Logic
Chapter 4: Ancient Philosophy
Chapter 5: Rationalism
Chapter 6: Empiricism
Chapter 7: Philosophy of Science
Chapter 8: Philosophy of Mind
Chapter 9: Love and Happiness
Chapter 10: Meta Ethics
Chapter 11: Right Action
Chapter 12: Social Justice

Ancillary Material

About the book.

The goal of this text is to present philosophy to newcomers as a living discipline with historical roots. While a few early chapters are historically organized, the goal in the historical chapters is to trace a developmental progression of thought that introduces basic philosophical methods and frames issues that remain relevant today. Later chapters are topically organized. These include philosophy of science and philosophy of mind, areas where philosophy has shown dramatic recent progress. This text concludes with four chapters on ethics, broadly construed. Traditional theories of right action is covered in a third of these. Students are first invited first to think about what is good for themselves and their relationships in a chapter of love and happiness. Next a few meta-ethical issues are considered; namely, whether they are moral truths and if so what makes them so. The end of the ethics sequence addresses social justice, what it is for one's community to be good. Our sphere of concern expands progressively through these chapters. Our inquiry recapitulates the course of development into moral maturity. Over the course of the text, the author has tried to outline the continuity of thought that leads from the historical roots of philosophy to a few of the diverse areas of inquiry that continue to make significant contributions to our understanding of ourselves and the world we live in.

About the Contributors

W. Russ Payne, Bellevue College

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Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking

Educational Philosophy and Theory

As a philosophy professor, one of my central goals is to teach students to think critically. However, one difficulty with determining whether critical thinking can be taught, or even measured, is that there is widespread disagreement over what critical thinking actually is. Here, I reflect on several conceptions of critical thinking, subjecting them to critical scrutiny. I also distinguish critical thinking from other forms of mental processes with which it is often conflated. Next, I present my own conception of critical thinking, wherein it fundamentally consists in acquiring, developing, and exercising the ability to grasp inferential connections holding between statements. Finally, given this account of critical thinking, and given recent studies in cognitive science, I suggest the most effective means for teaching students to think critically.

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Matthew H. Bowker (M.H. Bowker) , K. Patrick Fazioli

Contemporary discussions of critical thinking lack serious consideration of students’ thinking-processes as phenomena embedded within the contexts of psychological and interpersonal relationships. This paper departs from past and present approaches to critical thinking pedagogy by analogizing thinking and critical thinking with forms of relating: to self, to others, to objects of thought, and to what we describe as “thinking-relationships.” The analogy of thinking with relating permits us to examine more closely the connections between self, psyche, student, teacher, and learning institution, and to apply valuable insights from the fields of social philosophy and psychoanalytic theory to critical thinking pedagogy and practice. This paper introduces the metaphor of critical thinking as relating to one’s thinking-relationships, explores the contexts in which such critical thinking-relationships are embedded, identifies hidden desires, defenses, and fantasies that may hinder the development of critical thinking, and concludes by reflecting upon the link between the ethical development of the person and the ideal of critical thinking.

Roland Case

practice” (1991, p. 354). Research in the U.S. supports these observations. For example, Su’s (1990) study, based on interviews with 112 educators, found that although teachers stated that they valued critical thinking they did not implement it in their classrooms. Similarly, in her study of a three-year project to foster critical thinking in social studies, McKee (1988) found that teachers spent only four percent of class time on reasoning activities.

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Higher education institutions are responsible for preparing and equipping undergraduate students with the skills required by the labor market, such as critical thinking. However, academics should consider students’ pre-existing ideas before designing and implementing an instructional intervention regarding critical thinking. Drawing on the literature for conceptual change, the current study aimed to map students’ conceptualization of critical thinking and their ideas regarding the acquisition of critical thinking. In total, 243 first-year social sciences students participated in the study. To explore students’ ideas, the authors constructed an instrument with 20 scientific and non-scientific statements about critical thinking. The instrument was a two-tier questionnaire, and participants indicated their level of agreement with each statement using a 5-point Likert scale as well as their confidence in their answers. Students’ ideas were categorized into six groups depending on their ...

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A rehearsal of a new way of teaching critical thinking by means of computer-aided argument mapping and a procedural method by which to do so.

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Cognitive bias presents as a pressing challenge to critical thinking education. While many have focused on how to eliminate or mitigate cognitive bias, others have argued that these biases are better understood as result from adaptive reasoning heuristics which are, in the right conditions, rational modes of reasoning about the world. This approach presents a new challenge to critical thinking education: if these heuristics are rational under the right conditions, does teaching critical thinking undermine student abilities to reason effectively in real life reasoning scenarios? I argue that this challenge calls for a reconception of the goals of critical thinking education to focus on how rational ideals are best achieved or approximated in human reasoners. Critical thinking educators should focus on developing the metacognitive skill to recognize when different cognitive strategies (including the heuristics) should be used.

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Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal. Its definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. Conceptions differ with respect to the scope of such thinking, the type of goal, the criteria and norms for thinking carefully, and the thinking components on which they focus. Its adoption as an educational goal has been recommended on the basis of respect for students’ autonomy and preparing students for success in life and for democratic citizenship. “Critical thinkers” have the dispositions and abilities that lead them to think critically when appropriate. The abilities can be identified directly; the dispositions indirectly, by considering what factors contribute to or impede exercise of the abilities. Standardized tests have been developed to assess the degree to which a person possesses such dispositions and abilities. Educational intervention has been shown experimentally to improve them, particularly when it includes dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring. Controversies have arisen over the generalizability of critical thinking across domains, over alleged bias in critical thinking theories and instruction, and over the relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking.

2.1 Dewey’s Three Main Examples

2.2 dewey’s other examples, 2.3 further examples, 2.4 non-examples, 3. the definition of critical thinking, 4. its value, 5. the process of thinking critically, 6. components of the process, 7. contributory dispositions and abilities, 8.1 initiating dispositions, 8.2 internal dispositions, 9. critical thinking abilities, 10. required knowledge, 11. educational methods, 12.1 the generalizability of critical thinking, 12.2 bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, 12.3 relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking, other internet resources, related entries.

Use of the term ‘critical thinking’ to describe an educational goal goes back to the American philosopher John Dewey (1910), who more commonly called it ‘reflective thinking’. He defined it as

active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends. (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9)

and identified a habit of such consideration with a scientific attitude of mind. His lengthy quotations of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and John Stuart Mill indicate that he was not the first person to propose development of a scientific attitude of mind as an educational goal.

In the 1930s, many of the schools that participated in the Eight-Year Study of the Progressive Education Association (Aikin 1942) adopted critical thinking as an educational goal, for whose achievement the study’s Evaluation Staff developed tests (Smith, Tyler, & Evaluation Staff 1942). Glaser (1941) showed experimentally that it was possible to improve the critical thinking of high school students. Bloom’s influential taxonomy of cognitive educational objectives (Bloom et al. 1956) incorporated critical thinking abilities. Ennis (1962) proposed 12 aspects of critical thinking as a basis for research on the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking ability.

Since 1980, an annual international conference in California on critical thinking and educational reform has attracted tens of thousands of educators from all levels of education and from many parts of the world. Also since 1980, the state university system in California has required all undergraduate students to take a critical thinking course. Since 1983, the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking has sponsored sessions in conjunction with the divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association (APA). In 1987, the APA’s Committee on Pre-College Philosophy commissioned a consensus statement on critical thinking for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (Facione 1990a). Researchers have developed standardized tests of critical thinking abilities and dispositions; for details, see the Supplement on Assessment . Educational jurisdictions around the world now include critical thinking in guidelines for curriculum and assessment. Political and business leaders endorse its importance.

For details on this history, see the Supplement on History .

2. Examples and Non-Examples

Before considering the definition of critical thinking, it will be helpful to have in mind some examples of critical thinking, as well as some examples of kinds of thinking that would apparently not count as critical thinking.

Dewey (1910: 68–71; 1933: 91–94) takes as paradigms of reflective thinking three class papers of students in which they describe their thinking. The examples range from the everyday to the scientific.

Transit : “The other day, when I was down town on 16th Street, a clock caught my eye. I saw that the hands pointed to 12:20. This suggested that I had an engagement at 124th Street, at one o'clock. I reasoned that as it had taken me an hour to come down on a surface car, I should probably be twenty minutes late if I returned the same way. I might save twenty minutes by a subway express. But was there a station near? If not, I might lose more than twenty minutes in looking for one. Then I thought of the elevated, and I saw there was such a line within two blocks. But where was the station? If it were several blocks above or below the street I was on, I should lose time instead of gaining it. My mind went back to the subway express as quicker than the elevated; furthermore, I remembered that it went nearer than the elevated to the part of 124th Street I wished to reach, so that time would be saved at the end of the journey. I concluded in favor of the subway, and reached my destination by one o’clock.” (Dewey 1910: 68-69; 1933: 91-92)

Ferryboat : “Projecting nearly horizontally from the upper deck of the ferryboat on which I daily cross the river is a long white pole, having a gilded ball at its tip. It suggested a flagpole when I first saw it; its color, shape, and gilded ball agreed with this idea, and these reasons seemed to justify me in this belief. But soon difficulties presented themselves. The pole was nearly horizontal, an unusual position for a flagpole; in the next place, there was no pulley, ring, or cord by which to attach a flag; finally, there were elsewhere on the boat two vertical staffs from which flags were occasionally flown. It seemed probable that the pole was not there for flag-flying.

“I then tried to imagine all possible purposes of the pole, and to consider for which of these it was best suited: (a) Possibly it was an ornament. But as all the ferryboats and even the tugboats carried poles, this hypothesis was rejected. (b) Possibly it was the terminal of a wireless telegraph. But the same considerations made this improbable. Besides, the more natural place for such a terminal would be the highest part of the boat, on top of the pilot house. (c) Its purpose might be to point out the direction in which the boat is moving.

“In support of this conclusion, I discovered that the pole was lower than the pilot house, so that the steersman could easily see it. Moreover, the tip was enough higher than the base, so that, from the pilot's position, it must appear to project far out in front of the boat. Morevoer, the pilot being near the front of the boat, he would need some such guide as to its direction. Tugboats would also need poles for such a purpose. This hypothesis was so much more probable than the others that I accepted it. I formed the conclusion that the pole was set up for the purpose of showing the pilot the direction in which the boat pointed, to enable him to steer correctly.” (Dewey 1910: 69-70; 1933: 92-93)

Bubbles : “In washing tumblers in hot soapsuds and placing them mouth downward on a plate, bubbles appeared on the outside of the mouth of the tumblers and then went inside. Why? The presence of bubbles suggests air, which I note must come from inside the tumbler. I see that the soapy water on the plate prevents escape of the air save as it may be caught in bubbles. But why should air leave the tumbler? There was no substance entering to force it out. It must have expanded. It expands by increase of heat, or by decrease of pressure, or both. Could the air have become heated after the tumbler was taken from the hot suds? Clearly not the air that was already entangled in the water. If heated air was the cause, cold air must have entered in transferring the tumblers from the suds to the plate. I test to see if this supposition is true by taking several more tumblers out. Some I shake so as to make sure of entrapping cold air in them. Some I take out holding mouth downward in order to prevent cold air from entering. Bubbles appear on the outside of every one of the former and on none of the latter. I must be right in my inference. Air from the outside must have been expanded by the heat of the tumbler, which explains the appearance of the bubbles on the outside. But why do they then go inside? Cold contracts. The tumbler cooled and also the air inside it. Tension was removed, and hence bubbles appeared inside. To be sure of this, I test by placing a cup of ice on the tumbler while the bubbles are still forming outside. They soon reverse” (Dewey 1910: 70–71; 1933: 93–94).

Dewey (1910, 1933) sprinkles his book with other examples of critical thinking. We will refer to the following.

Weather : A man on a walk notices that it has suddenly become cool, thinks that it is probably going to rain, looks up and sees a dark cloud obscuring the sun, and quickens his steps (1910: 6–10; 1933: 9–13).

Disorder : A man finds his rooms on his return to them in disorder with his belongings thrown about, thinks at first of burglary as an explanation, then thinks of mischievous children as being an alternative explanation, then looks to see whether valuables are missing, and discovers that they are (1910: 82–83; 1933: 166–168).

Typhoid : A physician diagnosing a patient whose conspicuous symptoms suggest typhoid avoids drawing a conclusion until more data are gathered by questioning the patient and by making tests (1910: 85–86; 1933: 170).

Blur : A moving blur catches our eye in the distance, we ask ourselves whether it is a cloud of whirling dust or a tree moving its branches or a man signaling to us, we think of other traits that should be found on each of those possibilities, and we look and see if those traits are found (1910: 102, 108; 1933: 121, 133).

Suction pump : In thinking about the suction pump, the scientist first notes that it will draw water only to a maximum height of 33 feet at sea level and to a lesser maximum height at higher elevations, selects for attention the differing atmospheric pressure at these elevations, sets up experiments in which the air is removed from a vessel containing water (when suction no longer works) and in which the weight of air at various levels is calculated, compares the results of reasoning about the height to which a given weight of air will allow a suction pump to raise water with the observed maximum height at different elevations, and finally assimilates the suction pump to such apparently different phenomena as the siphon and the rising of a balloon (1910: 150–153; 1933: 195–198).

Diamond : A passenger in a car driving in a diamond lane reserved for vehicles with at least one passenger notices that the diamond marks on the pavement are far apart in some places and close together in others. Why? The driver suggests that the reason may be that the diamond marks are not needed where there is a solid double line separating the diamond line from the adjoining lane, but are needed when there is a dotted single line permitting crossing into the diamond lane. Further observation confirms that the diamonds are close together when a dotted line separates the diamond lane from its neighbour, but otherwise far apart.

Rash : A woman suddenly develops a very itchy red rash on her throat and upper chest. She recently noticed a mark on the back of her right hand, but was not sure whether the mark was a rash or a scrape. She lies down in bed and thinks about what might be causing the rash and what to do about it. About two weeks before, she began taking blood pressure medication that contained a sulfa drug, and the pharmacist had warned her, in view of a previous allergic reaction to a medication containing a sulfa drug, to be on the alert for an allergic reaction; however, she had been taking the medication for two weeks with no such effect. The day before, she began using a new cream on her neck and upper chest; against the new cream as the cause was mark on the back of her hand, which had not been exposed to the cream. She began taking probiotics about a month before. She also recently started new eye drops, but she supposed that manufacturers of eye drops would be careful not to include allergy-causing components in the medication. The rash might be a heat rash, since she recently was sweating profusely from her upper body. Since she is about to go away on a short vacation, where she would not have access to her usual physician, she decides to keep taking the probiotics and using the new eye drops but to discontinue the blood pressure medication and to switch back to the old cream for her neck and upper chest. She forms a plan to consult her regular physician on her return about the blood pressure medication.

Candidate : Although Dewey included no examples of thinking directed at appraising the arguments of others, such thinking has come to be considered a kind of critical thinking. We find an example of such thinking in the performance task on the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA+), which its sponsoring organization describes as

a performance-based assessment that provides a measure of an institution’s contribution to the development of critical-thinking and written communication skills of its students. (Council for Aid to Education 2017)

A sample task posted on its website requires the test-taker to write a report for public distribution evaluating a fictional candidate’s policy proposals and their supporting arguments, using supplied background documents, with a recommendation on whether to endorse the candidate.

Immediate acceptance of an idea that suggests itself as a solution to a problem (e.g., a possible explanation of an event or phenomenon, an action that seems likely to produce a desired result) is “uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection” (Dewey 1910: 13). On-going suspension of judgment in the light of doubt about a possible solution is not critical thinking (Dewey 1910: 108). Critique driven by a dogmatically held political or religious ideology is not critical thinking; thus Paulo Freire (1968 [1970]) is using the term (e.g., at 1970: 71, 81, 100, 146) in a more politically freighted sense that includes not only reflection but also revolutionary action against oppression. Derivation of a conclusion from given data using an algorithm is not critical thinking.

What is critical thinking? There are many definitions. Ennis (2016) lists 14 philosophically oriented scholarly definitions and three dictionary definitions. Following Rawls (1971), who distinguished his conception of justice from a utilitarian conception but regarded them as rival conceptions of the same concept, Ennis maintains that the 17 definitions are different conceptions of the same concept. Rawls articulated the shared concept of justice as

a characteristic set of principles for assigning basic rights and duties and for determining… the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation. (Rawls 1971: 5)

Bailin et al. (1999b) claim that, if one considers what sorts of thinking an educator would take not to be critical thinking and what sorts to be critical thinking, one can conclude that educators typically understand critical thinking to have at least three features.

It is done for the purpose of making up one’s mind about what to believe or do.
The person engaging in the thinking is trying to fulfill standards of adequacy and accuracy appropriate to the thinking.
The thinking fulfills the relevant standards to some threshold level.

One could sum up the core concept that involves these three features by saying that critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking. This core concept seems to apply to all the examples of critical thinking described in the previous section. As for the non-examples, their exclusion depends on construing careful thinking as excluding jumping immediately to conclusions, suspending judgment no matter how strong the evidence, reasoning from an unquestioned ideological or religious perspective, and routinely using an algorithm to answer a question.

If the core of critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking, conceptions of it can vary according to its presumed scope, its presumed goal, one’s criteria and threshold for being careful, and the thinking component on which one focuses As to its scope, some conceptions (e.g., Dewey 1910, 1933) restrict it to constructive thinking on the basis of one’s own observations and experiments, others (e.g., Ennis 1962; Fisher & Scriven 1997; Johnson 1992) to appraisal of the products of such thinking. Ennis (1991) and Bailin et al. (1999b) take it to cover both construction and appraisal. As to its goal, some conceptions restrict it to forming a judgment (Dewey 1910, 1933; Lipman 1987; Facione 1990a). Others allow for actions as well as beliefs as the end point of a process of critical thinking (Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b). As to the criteria and threshold for being careful, definitions vary in the term used to indicate that critical thinking satisfies certain norms: “intellectually disciplined” (Scriven & Paul 1987), “reasonable” (Ennis 1991), “skillful” (Lipman 1987), “skilled” (Fisher & Scriven 1997), “careful” (Bailin & Battersby 2009). Some definitions specify these norms, referring variously to “consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends” (Dewey 1910, 1933); “the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning” (Glaser 1941); “conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication” (Scriven & Paul 1987); the requirement that “it is sensitive to context, relies on criteria, and is self-correcting” (Lipman 1987); “evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations” (Facione 1990a); and “plus-minus considerations of the product in terms of appropriate standards (or criteria)” (Johnson 1992). Stanovich and Stanovich (2010) propose to ground the concept of critical thinking in the concept of rationality, which they understand as combining epistemic rationality (fitting one’s beliefs to the world) and instrumental rationality (optimizing goal fulfillment); a critical thinker, in their view, is someone with “a propensity to override suboptimal responses from the autonomous mind” (2010: 227). These variant specifications of norms for critical thinking are not necessarily incompatible with one another, and in any case presuppose the core notion of thinking carefully. As to the thinking component singled out, some definitions focus on suspension of judgment during the thinking (Dewey 1910; McPeck 1981), others on inquiry while judgment is suspended (Bailin & Battersby 2009), others on the resulting judgment (Facione 1990a), and still others on the subsequent emotive response (Siegel 1988).

In educational contexts, a definition of critical thinking is a “programmatic definition” (Scheffler 1960: 19). It expresses a practical program for achieving an educational goal. For this purpose, a one-sentence formulaic definition is much less useful than articulation of a critical thinking process, with criteria and standards for the kinds of thinking that the process may involve. The real educational goal is recognition, adoption and implementation by students of those criteria and standards. That adoption and implementation in turn consists in acquiring the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker.

Conceptions of critical thinking generally do not include moral integrity as part of the concept. Dewey, for example, took critical thinking to be the ultimate intellectual goal of education, but distinguished it from the development of social cooperation among school children, which he took to be the central moral goal. Ennis (1996, 2011) added to his previous list of critical thinking dispositions a group of dispositions to care about the dignity and worth of every person, which he described as a “correlative” (1996) disposition without which critical thinking would be less valuable and perhaps harmful. An educational program that aimed at developing critical thinking but not the correlative disposition to care about the dignity and worth of every person, he asserted, “would be deficient and perhaps dangerous” (Ennis 1996: 172).

Dewey thought that education for reflective thinking would be of value to both the individual and society; recognition in educational practice of the kinship to the scientific attitude of children’s native curiosity, fertile imagination and love of experimental inquiry “would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social waste” (Dewey 1910: iii). Schools participating in the Eight-Year Study took development of the habit of reflective thinking and skill in solving problems as a means to leading young people to understand, appreciate and live the democratic way of life characteristic of the United States (Aikin 1942: 17–18, 81). Harvey Siegel (1988: 55–61) has offered four considerations in support of adopting critical thinking as an educational ideal. (1) Respect for persons requires that schools and teachers honour students’ demands for reasons and explanations, deal with students honestly, and recognize the need to confront students’ independent judgment; these requirements concern the manner in which teachers treat students. (2) Education has the task of preparing children to be successful adults, a task that requires development of their self-sufficiency. (3) Education should initiate children into the rational traditions in such fields as history, science and mathematics. (4) Education should prepare children to become democratic citizens, which requires reasoned procedures and critical talents and attitudes. To supplement these considerations, Siegel (1988: 62–90) responds to two objections: the ideology objection that adoption of any educational ideal requires a prior ideological commitment and the indoctrination objection that cultivation of critical thinking cannot escape being a form of indoctrination.

Despite the diversity of our 11 examples, one can recognize a common pattern. Dewey analyzed it as consisting of five phases:

suggestions , in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution;
an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a problem to be solved, a question for which the answer must be sought;
the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis , to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material;
the mental elaboration of the idea or supposition as an idea or supposition ( reasoning , in the sense on which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference); and
testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative action. (Dewey 1933: 106–107; italics in original)

The process of reflective thinking consisting of these phases would be preceded by a perplexed, troubled or confused situation and followed by a cleared-up, unified, resolved situation (Dewey 1933: 106). The term ‘phases’ replaced the term ‘steps’ (Dewey 1910: 72), thus removing the earlier suggestion of an invariant sequence. Variants of the above analysis appeared in (Dewey 1916: 177) and (Dewey 1938: 101–119).

The variant formulations indicate the difficulty of giving a single logical analysis of such a varied process. The process of critical thinking may have a spiral pattern, with the problem being redefined in the light of obstacles to solving it as originally formulated. For example, the person in Transit might have concluded that getting to the appointment at the scheduled time was impossible and have reformulated the problem as that of rescheduling the appointment for a mutually convenient time. Further, defining a problem does not always follow after or lead immediately to an idea of a suggested solution. Nor should it do so, as Dewey himself recognized in describing the physician in Typhoid as avoiding any strong preference for this or that conclusion before getting further information (Dewey 1910: 85; 1933: 170). People with a hypothesis in mind, even one to which they have a very weak commitment, have a so-called “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998): they are likely to pay attention to evidence that confirms the hypothesis and to ignore evidence that counts against it or for some competing hypothesis. Detectives, intelligence agencies, and investigators of airplane accidents are well advised to gather relevant evidence systematically and to postpone even tentative adoption of an explanatory hypothesis until the collected evidence rules out with the appropriate degree of certainty all but one explanation. Dewey’s analysis of the critical thinking process can be faulted as well for requiring acceptance or rejection of a possible solution to a defined problem, with no allowance for deciding in the light of the available evidence to suspend judgment. Further, given the great variety of kinds of problems for which reflection is appropriate, there is likely to be variation in its component events. Perhaps the best way to conceptualize the critical thinking process is as a checklist whose component events can occur in a variety of orders, selectively, and more than once. These component events might include (1) noticing a difficulty, (2) defining the problem, (3) dividing the problem into manageable sub-problems, (4) formulating a variety of possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (5) determining what evidence is relevant to deciding among possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem, (6) devising a plan of systematic observation or experiment that will uncover the relevant evidence, (7) carrying out the plan of systematic observation or experimentation, (8) noting the results of the systematic observation or experiment, (9) gathering relevant testimony and information from others, (10) judging the credibility of testimony and information gathered from others, (11) drawing conclusions from gathered evidence and accepted testimony, and (12) accepting a solution that the evidence adequately supports (cf. Hitchcock 2017: 485).

Checklist conceptions of the process of critical thinking are open to the objection that they are too mechanical and procedural to fit the multi-dimensional and emotionally charged issues for which critical thinking is urgently needed (Paul 1984). For such issues, a more dialectical process is advocated, in which competing relevant world views are identified, their implications explored, and some sort of creative synthesis attempted.

If one considers the critical thinking process illustrated by the 11 examples, one can identify distinct kinds of mental acts and mental states that form part of it. To distinguish, label and briefly characterize these components is a useful preliminary to identifying abilities, skills, dispositions, attitudes, habits and the like that contribute causally to thinking critically. Identifying such abilities and habits is in turn a useful preliminary to setting educational goals. Setting the goals is in its turn a useful preliminary to designing strategies for helping learners to achieve the goals and to designing ways of measuring the extent to which learners have done so. Such measures provide both feedback to learners on their achievement and a basis for experimental research on the effectiveness of various strategies for educating people to think critically. Let us begin, then, by distinguishing the kinds of mental acts and mental events that can occur in a critical thinking process.

Observing : One notices something in one’s immediate environment (sudden cooling of temperature in Weather , bubbles forming outside a glass and then going inside in Bubbles , a moving blur in the distance in Blur , a rash in Rash ). Or one notes the results of an experiment or systematic observation (valuables missing in Disorder , no suction without air pressure in Suction pump )
Feeling : One feels puzzled or uncertain about something (how to get to an appointment on time in Transit , why the diamonds vary in frequency in Diamond ). One wants to resolve this perplexity. One feels satisfaction once one has worked out an answer (to take the subway express in Transit , diamonds closer when needed as a warning in Diamond ).
Wondering : One formulates a question to be addressed (why bubbles form outside a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , how suction pumps work in Suction pump , what caused the rash in Rash ).
Imagining : One thinks of possible answers (bus or subway or elevated in Transit , flagpole or ornament or wireless communication aid or direction indicator in Ferryboat , allergic reaction or heat rash in Rash ).
Inferring : One works out what would be the case if a possible answer were assumed (valuables missing if there has been a burglary in Disorder , earlier start to the rash if it is an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug in Rash ). Or one draws a conclusion once sufficient relevant evidence is gathered (take the subway in Transit , burglary in Disorder , discontinue blood pressure medication and new cream in Rash ).
Knowledge : One uses stored knowledge of the subject-matter to generate possible answers or to infer what would be expected on the assumption of a particular answer (knowledge of a city’s public transit system in Transit , of the requirements for a flagpole in Ferryboat , of Boyle’s law in Bubbles , of allergic reactions in Rash ).
Experimenting : One designs and carries out an experiment or a systematic observation to find out whether the results deduced from a possible answer will occur (looking at the location of the flagpole in relation to the pilot’s position in Ferryboat , putting an ice cube on top of a tumbler taken from hot water in Bubbles , measuring the height to which a suction pump will draw water at different elevations in Suction pump , noticing the frequency of diamonds when movement to or from a diamond lane is allowed in Diamond ).
Consulting : One finds a source of information, gets the information from the source, and makes a judgment on whether to accept it. None of our 11 examples include searching for sources of information. In this respect they are unrepresentative, since most people nowadays have almost instant access to information relevant to answering any question, including many of those illustrated by the examples. However, Candidate includes the activities of extracting information from sources and evaluating its credibility.
Identifying and analyzing arguments : One notices an argument and works out its structure and content as a preliminary to evaluating its strength. This activity is central to Candidate . It is an important part of a critical thinking process in which one surveys arguments for various positions on an issue.
Judging : One makes a judgment on the basis of accumulated evidence and reasoning, such as the judgment in Ferryboat that the purpose of the pole is to provide direction to the pilot.
Deciding : One makes a decision on what to do or on what policy to adopt, as in the decision in Transit to take the subway.

By definition, a person who does something voluntarily is both willing and able to do that thing at that time. Both the willingness and the ability contribute causally to the person’s action, in the sense that the voluntary action would not occur if either (or both) of these were lacking. For example, suppose that one is standing with one’s arms at one’s sides and one voluntarily lifts one’s right arm to an extended horizontal position. One would not do so if one were unable to lift one’s arm, if for example one’s right side was paralyzed as the result of a stroke. Nor would one do so if one were unwilling to lift one’s arm, if for example one were participating in a street demonstration at which a white supremacist was urging the crowd to lift their right arm in a Nazi salute and one were unwilling to express support in this way for the racist Nazi ideology. The same analysis applies to a voluntary mental process of thinking critically. It requires both willingness and ability to think critically, including willingness and ability to perform each of the mental acts that compose the process and to coordinate those acts in a sequence that is directed at resolving the initiating perplexity.

Consider willingness first. We can identify causal contributors to willingness to think critically by considering factors that would cause a person who was able to think critically about an issue nevertheless not to do so (Hamby 2014). For each factor, the opposite condition thus contributes causally to willingness to think critically on a particular occasion. For example, people who habitually jump to conclusions without considering alternatives will not think critically about issues that arise, even if they have the required abilities. The contrary condition of willingness to suspend judgment is thus a causal contributor to thinking critically.

Now consider ability. In contrast to the ability to move one’s arm, which can be completely absent because a stroke has left the arm paralyzed, the ability to think critically is a developed ability, whose absence is not a complete absence of ability to think but absence of ability to think well. We can identify the ability to think well directly, in terms of the norms and standards for good thinking. In general, to be able do well the thinking activities that can be components of a critical thinking process, one needs to know the concepts and principles that characterize their good performance, to recognize in particular cases that the concepts and principles apply, and to apply them. The knowledge, recognition and application may be procedural rather than declarative. It may be domain-specific rather than widely applicable, and in either case may need subject-matter knowledge, sometimes of a deep kind.

Reflections of the sort illustrated by the previous two paragraphs have led scholars to identify the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a “critical thinker”, i.e., someone who thinks critically whenever it is appropriate to do so. We turn now to these three types of causal contributors to thinking critically. We start with dispositions, since arguably these are the most powerful contributors to being a critical thinker, can be fostered at an early stage of a child’s development, and are susceptible to general improvement (Glaser 1941: 175)

8. Critical Thinking Dispositions

Educational researchers use the term ‘dispositions’ broadly for the habits of mind and attitudes that contribute causally to being a critical thinker. Some writers (e.g., Paul & Elder 2006; Hamby 2014; Bailin & Battersby 2016) propose to use the term ‘virtues’ for this dimension of a critical thinker. The virtues in question, although they are virtues of character, concern the person’s ways of thinking rather than the person’s ways of behaving towards others. They are not moral virtues but intellectual virtues, of the sort articulated by Zagzebski (1996) and discussed by Turri, Alfano, and Greco (2017).

On a realistic conception, thinking dispositions or intellectual virtues are real properties of thinkers. They are general tendencies, propensities, or inclinations to think in particular ways in particular circumstances, and can be genuinely explanatory (Siegel 1999). Sceptics argue that there is no evidence for a specific mental basis for the habits of mind that contribute to thinking critically, and that it is pedagogically misleading to posit such a basis (Bailin et al. 1999a). Whatever their status, critical thinking dispositions need motivation for their initial formation in a child—motivation that may be external or internal. As children develop, the force of habit will gradually become important in sustaining the disposition (Nieto & Valenzuela 2012). Mere force of habit, however, is unlikely to sustain critical thinking dispositions. Critical thinkers must value and enjoy using their knowledge and abilities to think things through for themselves. They must be committed to, and lovers of, inquiry.

A person may have a critical thinking disposition with respect to only some kinds of issues. For example, one could be open-minded about scientific issues but not about religious issues. Similarly, one could be confident in one’s ability to reason about the theological implications of the existence of evil in the world but not in one’s ability to reason about the best design for a guided ballistic missile.

Critical thinking dispositions can usefully be divided into initiating dispositions (those that contribute causally to starting to think critically about an issue) and internal dispositions (those that contribute causally to doing a good job of thinking critically once one has started) (Facione 1990a: 25). The two categories are not mutually exclusive. For example, open-mindedness, in the sense of willingness to consider alternative points of view to one’s own, is both an initiating and an internal disposition.

Using the strategy of considering factors that would block people with the ability to think critically from doing so, we can identify as initiating dispositions for thinking critically attentiveness, a habit of inquiry, self-confidence, courage, open-mindedness, willingness to suspend judgment, trust in reason, wanting evidence for one’s beliefs, and seeking the truth. We consider briefly what each of these dispositions amounts to, in each case citing sources that acknowledge them.

Attentiveness : One will not think critically if one fails to recognize an issue that needs to be thought through. For example, the pedestrian in Weather would not have looked up if he had not noticed that the air was suddenly cooler. To be a critical thinker, then, one needs to be habitually attentive to one’s surroundings, noticing not only what one senses but also sources of perplexity in messages received and in one’s own beliefs and attitudes (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
Habit of inquiry : Inquiry is effortful, and one needs an internal push to engage in it. For example, the student in Bubbles could easily have stopped at idle wondering about the cause of the bubbles rather than reasoning to a hypothesis, then designing and executing an experiment to test it. Thus willingness to think critically needs mental energy and initiative. What can supply that energy? Love of inquiry, or perhaps just a habit of inquiry. Hamby (2015) has argued that willingness to inquire is the central critical thinking virtue, one that encompasses all the others. It is recognized as a critical thinking disposition by Dewey (1910: 29; 1933: 35), Glaser (1941: 5), Ennis (1987: 12; 1991: 8), Facione (1990a: 25), Bailin et al. (1999b: 294), Halpern (1998: 452), and Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo (2001).
Self-confidence : Lack of confidence in one’s abilities can block critical thinking. For example, if the woman in Rash lacked confidence in her ability to figure things out for herself, she might just have assumed that the rash on her chest was the allergic reaction to her medication against which the pharmacist had warned her. Thus willingness to think critically requires confidence in one’s ability to inquire (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
Courage : Fear of thinking for oneself can stop one from doing it. Thus willingness to think critically requires intellectual courage (Paul & Elder 2006: 16).
Open-mindedness : A dogmatic attitude will impede thinking critically. For example, a person who adheres rigidly to a “pro-choice” position on the issue of the legal status of induced abortion is likely to be unwilling to consider seriously the issue of when in its development an unborn child acquires a moral right to life. Thus willingness to think critically requires open-mindedness, in the sense of a willingness to examine questions to which one already accepts an answer but which further evidence or reasoning might cause one to answer differently (Dewey 1933; Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b; Halpern 1998, Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). Paul (1981) emphasizes open-mindedness about alternative world-views, and recommends a dialectical approach to integrating such views as central to what he calls “strong sense” critical thinking.
Willingness to suspend judgment : Premature closure on an initial solution will block critical thinking. Thus willingness to think critically requires a willingness to suspend judgment while alternatives are explored (Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Halpern 1998).
Trust in reason : Since distrust in the processes of reasoned inquiry will dissuade one from engaging in it, trust in them is an initiating critical thinking disposition (Facione 1990a, 25; Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001; Paul & Elder 2006). In reaction to an allegedly exclusive emphasis on reason in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, Thayer-Bacon (2000) argues that intuition, imagination, and emotion have important roles to play in an adequate conception of critical thinking that she calls “constructive thinking”. From her point of view, critical thinking requires trust not only in reason but also in intuition, imagination, and emotion.
Seeking the truth : If one does not care about the truth but is content to stick with one’s initial bias on an issue, then one will not think critically about it. Seeking the truth is thus an initiating critical thinking disposition (Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). A disposition to seek the truth is implicit in more specific critical thinking dispositions, such as trying to be well-informed, considering seriously points of view other than one’s own, looking for alternatives, suspending judgment when the evidence is insufficient, and adopting a position when the evidence supporting it is sufficient.

Some of the initiating dispositions, such as open-mindedness and willingness to suspend judgment, are also internal critical thinking dispositions, in the sense of mental habits or attitudes that contribute causally to doing a good job of critical thinking once one starts the process. But there are many other internal critical thinking dispositions. Some of them are parasitic on one’s conception of good thinking. For example, it is constitutive of good thinking about an issue to formulate the issue clearly and to maintain focus on it. For this purpose, one needs not only the corresponding ability but also the corresponding disposition. Ennis (1991: 8) describes it as the disposition “to determine and maintain focus on the conclusion or question”, Facione (1990a: 25) as “clarity in stating the question or concern”. Other internal dispositions are motivators to continue or adjust the critical thinking process, such as willingness to persist in a complex task and willingness to abandon nonproductive strategies in an attempt to self-correct (Halpern 1998: 452). For a list of identified internal critical thinking dispositions, see the Supplement on Internal Critical Thinking Dispositions .

Some theorists postulate skills, i.e., acquired abilities, as operative in critical thinking. It is not obvious, however, that a good mental act is the exercise of a generic acquired skill. Inferring an expected time of arrival, as in Transit , has some generic components but also uses non-generic subject-matter knowledge. Bailin et al. (1999a) argue against viewing critical thinking skills as generic and discrete, on the ground that skilled performance at a critical thinking task cannot be separated from knowledge of concepts and from domain-specific principles of good thinking. Talk of skills, they concede, is unproblematic if it means merely that a person with critical thinking skills is capable of intelligent performance.

Despite such scepticism, theorists of critical thinking have listed as general contributors to critical thinking what they variously call abilities (Glaser 1941; Ennis 1962, 1991), skills (Facione 1990a; Halpern 1998) or competencies (Fisher & Scriven 1997). Amalgamating these lists would produce a confusing and chaotic cornucopia of more than 50 possible educational objectives, with only partial overlap among them. It makes sense instead to try to understand the reasons for the multiplicity and diversity, and to make a selection according to one’s own reasons for singling out abilities to be developed in a critical thinking curriculum. Two reasons for diversity among lists of critical thinking abilities are the underlying conception of critical thinking and the envisaged educational level. Appraisal-only conceptions, for example, involve a different suite of abilities than constructive-only conceptions. Some lists, such as those in (Glaser 1941), are put forward as educational objectives for secondary school students, whereas others are proposed as objectives for college students (e.g., Facione 1990a).

The abilities described in the remaining paragraphs of this section emerge from reflection on the general abilities needed to do well the thinking activities identified in section 6 as components of the critical thinking process described in section 5 . The derivation of each collection of abilities is accompanied by citation of sources that list such abilities and of standardized tests that claim to test them.

Observational abilities : Careful and accurate observation sometimes requires specialist expertise and practice, as in the case of observing birds and observing accident scenes. However, there are general abilities of noticing what one’s senses are picking up from one’s environment and of being able to articulate clearly and accurately to oneself and others what one has observed. It helps in exercising them to be able to recognize and take into account factors that make one’s observation less trustworthy, such as prior framing of the situation, inadequate time, deficient senses, poor observation conditions, and the like. It helps as well to be skilled at taking steps to make one’s observation more trustworthy, such as moving closer to get a better look, measuring something three times and taking the average, and checking what one thinks one is observing with someone else who is in a good position to observe it. It also helps to be skilled at recognizing respects in which one’s report of one’s observation involves inference rather than direct observation, so that one can then consider whether the inference is justified. These abilities come into play as well when one thinks about whether and with what degree of confidence to accept an observation report, for example in the study of history or in a criminal investigation or in assessing news reports. Observational abilities show up in some lists of critical thinking abilities (Ennis 1962: 90; Facione 1990a: 16; Ennis 1991: 9). There are items testing a person’s ability to judge the credibility of observation reports in the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests, Levels X and Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). Norris and King (1983, 1985, 1990a, 1990b) is a test of ability to appraise observation reports.

Emotional abilities : The emotions that drive a critical thinking process are perplexity or puzzlement, a wish to resolve it, and satisfaction at achieving the desired resolution. Children experience these emotions at an early age, without being trained to do so. Education that takes critical thinking as a goal needs only to channel these emotions and to make sure not to stifle them. Collaborative critical thinking benefits from ability to recognize one’s own and others’ emotional commitments and reactions.

Questioning abilities : A critical thinking process needs transformation of an inchoate sense of perplexity into a clear question. Formulating a question well requires not building in questionable assumptions, not prejudging the issue, and using language that in context is unambiguous and precise enough (Ennis 1962: 97; 1991: 9).

Imaginative abilities : Thinking directed at finding the correct causal explanation of a general phenomenon or particular event requires an ability to imagine possible explanations. Thinking about what policy or plan of action to adopt requires generation of options and consideration of possible consequences of each option. Domain knowledge is required for such creative activity, but a general ability to imagine alternatives is helpful and can be nurtured so as to become easier, quicker, more extensive, and deeper (Dewey 1910: 34–39; 1933: 40–47). Facione (1990a) and Halpern (1998) include the ability to imagine alternatives as a critical thinking ability.

Inferential abilities : The ability to draw conclusions from given information, and to recognize with what degree of certainty one’s own or others’ conclusions follow, is universally recognized as a general critical thinking ability. All 11 examples in section 2 of this article include inferences, some from hypotheses or options (as in Transit , Ferryboat and Disorder ), others from something observed (as in Weather and Rash ). None of these inferences is formally valid. Rather, they are licensed by general, sometimes qualified substantive rules of inference (Toulmin 1958) that rest on domain knowledge—that a bus trip takes about the same time in each direction, that the terminal of a wireless telegraph would be located on the highest possible place, that sudden cooling is often followed by rain, that an allergic reaction to a sulfa drug generally shows up soon after one starts taking it. It is a matter of controversy to what extent the specialized ability to deduce conclusions from premisses using formal rules of inference is needed for critical thinking. Dewey (1933) locates logical forms in setting out the products of reflection rather than in the process of reflection. Ennis (1981a), on the other hand, maintains that a liberally-educated person should have the following abilities: to translate natural-language statements into statements using the standard logical operators, to use appropriately the language of necessary and sufficient conditions, to deal with argument forms and arguments containing symbols, to determine whether in virtue of an argument’s form its conclusion follows necessarily from its premisses, to reason with logically complex propositions, and to apply the rules and procedures of deductive logic. Inferential abilities are recognized as critical thinking abilities by Glaser (1941: 6), Facione (1990a: 9), Ennis (1991: 9), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 99, 111), and Halpern (1998: 452). Items testing inferential abilities constitute two of the five subtests of the Watson Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser 1980a, 1980b, 1994), two of the four sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), three of the seven sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005), 11 of the 34 items on Forms A and B of the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992), and a high but variable proportion of the 25 selected-response questions in the Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Experimenting abilities : Knowing how to design and execute an experiment is important not just in scientific research but also in everyday life, as in Rash . Dewey devoted a whole chapter of his How We Think (1910: 145–156; 1933: 190–202) to the superiority of experimentation over observation in advancing knowledge. Experimenting abilities come into play at one remove in appraising reports of scientific studies. Skill in designing and executing experiments includes the acknowledged abilities to appraise evidence (Glaser 1941: 6), to carry out experiments and to apply appropriate statistical inference techniques (Facione 1990a: 9), to judge inductions to an explanatory hypothesis (Ennis 1991: 9), and to recognize the need for an adequately large sample size (Halpern 1998). The Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) includes four items (out of 52) on experimental design. The Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) makes room for appraisal of study design in both its performance task and its selected-response questions.

Consulting abilities : Skill at consulting sources of information comes into play when one seeks information to help resolve a problem, as in Candidate . Ability to find and appraise information includes ability to gather and marshal pertinent information (Glaser 1941: 6), to judge whether a statement made by an alleged authority is acceptable (Ennis 1962: 84), to plan a search for desired information (Facione 1990a: 9), and to judge the credibility of a source (Ennis 1991: 9). Ability to judge the credibility of statements is tested by 24 items (out of 76) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) and by four items (out of 52) in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). The College Learning Assessment’s performance task requires evaluation of whether information in documents is credible or unreliable (Council for Aid to Education 2017).

Argument analysis abilities : The ability to identify and analyze arguments contributes to the process of surveying arguments on an issue in order to form one’s own reasoned judgment, as in Candidate . The ability to detect and analyze arguments is recognized as a critical thinking skill by Facione (1990a: 7–8), Ennis (1991: 9) and Halpern (1998). Five items (out of 34) on the California Critical Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992) test skill at argument analysis. The College Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017) incorporates argument analysis in its selected-response tests of critical reading and evaluation and of critiquing an argument.

Judging skills and deciding skills : Skill at judging and deciding is skill at recognizing what judgment or decision the available evidence and argument supports, and with what degree of confidence. It is thus a component of the inferential skills already discussed.

Lists and tests of critical thinking abilities often include two more abilities: identifying assumptions and constructing and evaluating definitions.

In addition to dispositions and abilities, critical thinking needs knowledge: of critical thinking concepts, of critical thinking principles, and of the subject-matter of the thinking.

We can derive a short list of concepts whose understanding contributes to critical thinking from the critical thinking abilities described in the preceding section. Observational abilities require an understanding of the difference between observation and inference. Questioning abilities require an understanding of the concepts of ambiguity and vagueness. Inferential abilities require an understanding of the difference between conclusive and defeasible inference (traditionally, between deduction and induction), as well as of the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. Experimenting abilities require an understanding of the concepts of hypothesis, null hypothesis, assumption and prediction, as well as of the concept of statistical significance and of its difference from importance. They also require an understanding of the difference between an experiment and an observational study, and in particular of the difference between a randomized controlled trial, a prospective correlational study and a retrospective (case-control) study. Argument analysis abilities require an understanding of the concepts of argument, premiss, assumption, conclusion and counter-consideration. Additional critical thinking concepts are proposed by Bailin et al. (1999b: 293), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 105–106), and Black (2012).

According to Glaser (1941: 25), ability to think critically requires knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning. If we review the list of abilities in the preceding section, however, we can see that some of them can be acquired and exercised merely through practice, possibly guided in an educational setting, followed by feedback. Searching intelligently for a causal explanation of some phenomenon or event requires that one consider a full range of possible causal contributors, but it seems more important that one implements this principle in one’s practice than that one is able to articulate it. What is important is “operational knowledge” of the standards and principles of good thinking (Bailin et al. 1999b: 291–293). But the development of such critical thinking abilities as designing an experiment or constructing an operational definition can benefit from learning their underlying theory. Further, explicit knowledge of quirks of human thinking seems useful as a cautionary guide. Human memory is not just fallible about details, as people learn from their own experiences of misremembering, but is so malleable that a detailed, clear and vivid recollection of an event can be a total fabrication (Loftus 2017). People seek or interpret evidence in ways that are partial to their existing beliefs and expectations, often unconscious of their “confirmation bias” (Nickerson 1998). Not only are people subject to this and other cognitive biases (Kahneman 2011), of which they are typically unaware, but it may be counter-productive for one to make oneself aware of them and try consciously to counteract them or to counteract social biases such as racial or sexual stereotypes (Kenyon & Beaulac 2014). It is helpful to be aware of these facts and of the superior effectiveness of blocking the operation of biases—for example, by making an immediate record of one’s observations, refraining from forming a preliminary explanatory hypothesis, blind refereeing, double-blind randomized trials, and blind grading of students’ work.

Critical thinking about an issue requires substantive knowledge of the domain to which the issue belongs. Critical thinking abilities are not a magic elixir that can be applied to any issue whatever by somebody who has no knowledge of the facts relevant to exploring that issue. For example, the student in Bubbles needed to know that gases do not penetrate solid objects like a glass, that air expands when heated, that the volume of an enclosed gas varies directly with its temperature and inversely with its pressure, and that hot objects will spontaneously cool down to the ambient temperature of their surroundings unless kept hot by insulation or a source of heat. Critical thinkers thus need a rich fund of subject-matter knowledge relevant to the variety of situations they encounter. This fact is recognized in the inclusion among critical thinking dispositions of a concern to become and remain generally well informed.

Experimental educational interventions, with control groups, have shown that education can improve critical thinking skills and dispositions, as measured by standardized tests. For information about these tests, see the Supplement on Assessment .

What educational methods are most effective at developing the dispositions, abilities and knowledge of a critical thinker? Abrami et al. (2015) found that in the experimental and quasi-experimental studies that they analyzed dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring each increased the effectiveness of the educational intervention, and that they were most effective when combined. They also found that in these studies a combination of separate instruction in critical thinking with subject-matter instruction in which students are encouraged to think critically was more effective than either by itself. However, the difference was not statistically significant; that is, it might have arisen by chance.

Most of these studies lack the longitudinal follow-up required to determine whether the observed differential improvements in critical thinking abilities or dispositions continue over time, for example until high school or college graduation. For details on studies of methods of developing critical thinking skills and dispositions, see the Supplement on Educational Methods .

12. Controversies

Scholars have denied the generalizability of critical thinking abilities across subject domains, have alleged bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, and have investigated the relationship of critical thinking to other kinds of thinking.

McPeck (1981) attacked the thinking skills movement of the 1970s, including the critical thinking movement. He argued that there are no general thinking skills, since thinking is always thinking about some subject-matter. It is futile, he claimed, for schools and colleges to teach thinking as if it were a separate subject. Rather, teachers should lead their pupils to become autonomous thinkers by teaching school subjects in a way that brings out their cognitive structure and that encourages and rewards discussion and argument. As some of his critics (e.g., Paul 1985; Siegel 1985) pointed out, McPeck’s central argument needs elaboration, since it has obvious counter-examples in writing and speaking, for which (up to a certain level of complexity) there are teachable general abilities even though they are always about some subject-matter. To make his argument convincing, McPeck needs to explain how thinking differs from writing and speaking in a way that does not permit useful abstraction of its components from the subject-matters with which it deals. He has not done so. Nevertheless, his position that the dispositions and abilities of a critical thinker are best developed in the context of subject-matter instruction is shared by many theorists of critical thinking, including Dewey (1910, 1933), Glaser (1941), Passmore (1980), Weinstein (1990), and Bailin et al. (1999b).

McPeck’s challenge prompted reflection on the extent to which critical thinking is subject-specific. McPeck argued for a strong subject-specificity thesis, according to which it is a conceptual truth that all critical thinking abilities are specific to a subject. (He did not however extend his subject-specificity thesis to critical thinking dispositions. In particular, he took the disposition to suspend judgment in situations of cognitive dissonance to be a general disposition.) Conceptual subject-specificity is subject to obvious counter-examples, such as the general ability to recognize confusion of necessary and sufficient conditions. A more modest thesis, also endorsed by McPeck, is epistemological subject-specificity, according to which the norms of good thinking vary from one field to another. Epistemological subject-specificity clearly holds to a certain extent; for example, the principles in accordance with which one solves a differential equation are quite different from the principles in accordance with which one determines whether a painting is a genuine Picasso. But the thesis suffers, as Ennis (1989) points out, from vagueness of the concept of a field or subject and from the obvious existence of inter-field principles, however broadly the concept of a field is construed. For example, the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning hold for all the varied fields in which such reasoning occurs. A third kind of subject-specificity is empirical subject-specificity, according to which as a matter of empirically observable fact a person with the abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker in one area of investigation will not necessarily have them in another area of investigation.

The thesis of empirical subject-specificity raises the general problem of transfer. If critical thinking abilities and dispositions have to be developed independently in each school subject, how are they of any use in dealing with the problems of everyday life and the political and social issues of contemporary society, most of which do not fit into the framework of a traditional school subject? Proponents of empirical subject-specificity tend to argue that transfer is more likely to occur if there is critical thinking instruction in a variety of domains, with explicit attention to dispositions and abilities that cut across domains. But evidence for this claim is scanty. There is a need for well-designed empirical studies that investigate the conditions that make transfer more likely.

It is common ground in debates about the generality or subject-specificity of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that critical thinking about any topic requires background knowledge about the topic. For example, the most sophisticated understanding of the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is of no help unless accompanied by some knowledge of what might be plausible explanations of some phenomenon under investigation.

Critics have objected to bias in the theory, pedagogy and practice of critical thinking. Commentators (e.g., Alston 1995; Ennis 1998) have noted that anyone who takes a position has a bias in the neutral sense of being inclined in one direction rather than others. The critics, however, are objecting to bias in the pejorative sense of an unjustified favoring of certain ways of knowing over others, frequently alleging that the unjustly favoured ways are those of a dominant sex or culture (Bailin 1995). These ways favour:

reinforcement of egocentric and sociocentric biases over dialectical engagement with opposing world-views (Paul 1981, 1984; Warren 1998)
distancing from the object of inquiry over closeness to it (Martin 1992; Thayer-Bacon 1992)
indifference to the situation of others over care for them (Martin 1992)
orientation to thought over orientation to action (Martin 1992)
being reasonable over caring to understand people’s ideas (Thayer-Bacon 1993)
being neutral and objective over being embodied and situated (Thayer-Bacon 1995a)
doubting over believing (Thayer-Bacon 1995b)
reason over emotion, imagination and intuition (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
solitary thinking over collaborative thinking (Thayer-Bacon 2000)
written and spoken assignments over other forms of expression (Alston 2001)
attention to written and spoken communications over attention to human problems (Alston 2001)
winning debates in the public sphere over making and understanding meaning (Alston 2001)

A common thread in this smorgasbord of accusations is dissatisfaction with focusing on the logical analysis and evaluation of reasoning and arguments. While these authors acknowledge that such analysis and evaluation is part of critical thinking and should be part of its conceptualization and pedagogy, they insist that it is only a part. Paul (1981), for example, bemoans the tendency of atomistic teaching of methods of analyzing and evaluating arguments to turn students into more able sophists, adept at finding fault with positions and arguments with which they disagree but even more entrenched in the egocentric and sociocentric biases with which they began. Martin (1992) and Thayer-Bacon (1992) cite with approval the self-reported intimacy with their subject-matter of leading researchers in biology and medicine, an intimacy that conflicts with the distancing allegedly recommended in standard conceptions and pedagogy of critical thinking. Thayer-Bacon (2000) contrasts the embodied and socially embedded learning of her elementary school students in a Montessori school, who used their imagination, intuition and emotions as well as their reason, with conceptions of critical thinking as

thinking that is used to critique arguments, offer justifications, and make judgments about what are the good reasons, or the right answers. (Thayer-Bacon 2000: 127–128)

Alston (2001) reports that her students in a women’s studies class were able to see the flaws in the Cinderella myth that pervades much romantic fiction but in their own romantic relationships still acted as if all failures were the woman’s fault and still accepted the notions of love at first sight and living happily ever after. Students, she writes, should

be able to connect their intellectual critique to a more affective, somatic, and ethical account of making risky choices that have sexist, racist, classist, familial, sexual, or other consequences for themselves and those both near and far… critical thinking that reads arguments, texts, or practices merely on the surface without connections to feeling/desiring/doing or action lacks an ethical depth that should infuse the difference between mere cognitive activity and something we want to call critical thinking. (Alston 2001: 34)

Some critics portray such biases as unfair to women. Thayer-Bacon (1992), for example, has charged modern critical thinking theory with being sexist, on the ground that it separates the self from the object and causes one to lose touch with one’s inner voice, and thus stigmatizes women, who (she asserts) link self to object and listen to their inner voice. Her charge does not imply that women as a group are on average less able than men to analyze and evaluate arguments. Facione (1990c) found no difference by sex in performance on his California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Kuhn (1991: 280–281) found no difference by sex in either the disposition or the competence to engage in argumentative thinking.

The critics propose a variety of remedies for the biases that they allege. In general, they do not propose to eliminate or downplay critical thinking as an educational goal. Rather, they propose to conceptualize critical thinking differently and to change its pedagogy accordingly. Their pedagogical proposals arise logically from their objections. They can be summarized as follows:

Focus on argument networks with dialectical exchanges reflecting contesting points of view rather than on atomic arguments, so as to develop “strong sense” critical thinking that transcends egocentric and sociocentric biases (Paul 1981, 1984).
Foster closeness to the subject-matter and feeling connected to others in order to inform a humane democracy (Martin 1992).
Develop “constructive thinking” as a social activity in a community of physically embodied and socially embedded inquirers with personal voices who value not only reason but also imagination, intuition and emotion (Thayer-Bacon 2000).
In developing critical thinking in school subjects, treat as important neither skills nor dispositions but opening worlds of meaning (Alston 2001).
Attend to the development of critical thinking dispositions as well as skills, and adopt the “critical pedagogy” practised and advocated by Freire (1968 [1970]) and hooks (1994) (Dalgleish, Girard, & Davies 2017).

A common thread in these proposals is treatment of critical thinking as a social, interactive, personally engaged activity like that of a quilting bee or a barn-raising (Thayer-Bacon 2000) rather than as an individual, solitary, distanced activity symbolized by Rodin’s The Thinker . One can get a vivid description of education with the former type of goal from the writings of bell hooks (1994, 2010). Critical thinking for her is open-minded dialectical exchange across opposing standpoints and from multiple perspectives, a conception similar to Paul’s “strong sense” critical thinking (Paul 1981). She abandons the structure of domination in the traditional classroom. In an introductory course on black women writers, for example, she assigns students to write an autobiographical paragraph about an early racial memory, then to read it aloud as the others listen, thus affirming the uniqueness and value of each voice and creating a communal awareness of the diversity of the group’s experiences (hooks 1994: 84). Her “engaged pedagogy” is thus similar to the “freedom under guidance” implemented in John Dewey’s Laboratory School of Chicago in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It incorporates the dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring that Abrami (2015) found to be most effective in improving critical thinking skills and dispositions.

What is the relationship of critical thinking to problem solving, decision-making, higher-order thinking, creative thinking, and other recognized types of thinking? One’s answer to this question obviously depends on how one defines the terms used in the question. If critical thinking is conceived broadly to cover any careful thinking about any topic for any purpose, then problem solving and decision making will be kinds of critical thinking, if they are done carefully. Historically, ‘critical thinking’ and ‘problem solving’ were two names for the same thing. If critical thinking is conceived more narrowly as consisting solely of appraisal of intellectual products, then it will be disjoint with problem solving and decision making, which are constructive.

Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives used the phrase “intellectual abilities and skills” for what had been labeled “critical thinking” by some, “reflective thinking” by Dewey and others, and “problem solving” by still others (Bloom et al. 1956: 38). Thus, the so-called “higher-order thinking skills” at the taxonomy’s top levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation are just critical thinking skills, although they do not come with general criteria for their assessment (Ennis 1981b). The revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001) likewise treats critical thinking as cutting across those types of cognitive process that involve more than remembering (Anderson et al. 2001: 269–270). For details, see the Supplement on History .

As to creative thinking, it overlaps with critical thinking (Bailin 1987, 1988). Thinking about the explanation of some phenomenon or event, as in Ferryboat , requires creative imagination in constructing plausible explanatory hypotheses. Likewise, thinking about a policy question, as in Candidate , requires creativity in coming up with options. Conversely, creativity in any field needs to be balanced by critical appraisal of the draft painting or novel or mathematical theory.

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Introduction to Logic and Critical Thinking 2e (van Cleave)
26799. Matthew Van Cleave. Lansing Community College. This is an introductory textbook in logic and critical thinking. The goal of the textbook is to provide the reader with a set of tools and skills that will enable them to identify and evaluate arguments. The book is intended for an introductory course that covers both formal and informal logic.
PDF Critical Thinking
A book that teaches critical thinking skills explicitly and directly, with examples and exercises. Learn how to identify, understand and evaluate reasons, conclusions, sources, inferences, causal explanations and decisions.
Critical thinking : the basics : Hanscomb, Stuart, author : Free
"Critical Thinking: The Basics is an accessible and engaging introduction to the field of critical thinking, drawing on philosophy, communication and psychology. Emphasizing its relevance to decision making (in personal, professional and civic life), academic literacy and personal development, this book supports the reader in understanding and ...
PDF Claudia María Álvarez Ortiz
This thesis makes a first attempt to subject the assumption that studying philosophy improves critical thinking skills to rigorous investigation. The first task, in Chapter 2, is to clarify what the assumption amounts to, i.e., the meaning of the sentence "studying philosophy improves critical thinking." This requires us to determine the
PDF A Practical Guide to Critical Thinking
1 The Nature and Value of Critical Thinking . 1.1 The Nature of Critical Thinking, 2 Exercise 1.1, 6 1.2 Critical Thinking and Knowledge, 6 Exercise 1.2, 7 1.2.1 Truth, 7 1.2.1.1 Realism, Relativism, and Nihilism, 8 1.2.1.2 Relativism and the Argument from Disagreement, 10 1.2.2 Belief 13 , 1.2.3 Justification, 15
PDF Chapter 1: Basic Critical Thinking
Philosophy translates from Greek as "lover of wisdom." Clearly knowledge and wisdom are different things, but using reason to acquire knowledge and apply it can lead to the growth of wisdom itself, which is what philosophy is all about. Some philosophers have created webpages with justifications for studying philosophy.2 One of the ...
PDF THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY and the PHENOMENON OF MIND
§ 5.2 Theme II: Mind is a Thinking Substance 16 § 5.3 Francis Bacon and the Dawn of the Age of Reason 17 § 5.4 Rationalism and Mind as Substance 19 Descartes 20 ... Kant's Critical Philosophy 60 § 6.2 Theme VII: Mind as the Totality of Mental Processes and the Principle of Meaningful and Purposive Behavior 62
(PDF) PHILOSOPHY OF CRITICAL THOUGHT
S uch a system of critical. thinking allows the society to reflectively question its ideals that are reasonable and logical. from those th at are the result of egocentric whims. The ability of the ...
PDF Richard Paul and the Philosophical Foundations of Critical Thinking
critical thinking owe to his amazing scholarly and organizational skills, e.g., the 36 years of the Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform, his in-service work for hundreds of faculties, his distribution of over one million "Thinkers Guides," and his successful efforts to make critical thinking the core concept in education.
An Introduction to Philosophy
A free online textbook that covers the basics of philosophy, from critical thinking to ethics. Download the PDF or MS Word format and access the ancillary materials and reviews.
(PDF) Thinking Critically about Critical Thinking
Keywords: critical thinking, critical reasoning, scholarship of teaching, teaching critical thinking, philosophy of education Introduction As a philosophy professor, one of my central goals, especially in lower-level courses, is to teach students to think critically.To this end, I undertook a research project to figure out whether a student's ...
PDF The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking Concepts and Tools
A Definition: Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thought processes with a view to improving them. Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self- corrective thinking. It requires rigorous standards of excellence and mindful command of their use.
(PDF) An Introduction to Logic, Critical Thinking and Arguments in
Critical Thinking is closely related to the field of logic, an integral part of philosophy and can be seen as a tool to distinguish between valid and invalid statements (Wogu, 2010). One ...
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Philosophy and Critical Thinking. ABOUT THE COURSE: This course will give an overview of the major classical Western and Indian philosophical viewpoints to bring the significance of human thoughts to the fore. The goal of this course is to develop critical thinking skills. This course's content is arranged so that anyone can comprehend it easily.
Critical Thinking
Critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal. Its definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. Conceptions differ with respect to the scope of such thinking, the type of goal, the criteria and norms for thinking ...
(PDF) Critical thinking: Definition and Structure
Critical thinking is a vital skill for the 21st century, involving using rational standards to analyze and evaluate information, thoughts and situations. It aims to create new knowledge ...