Educational Philosophy之学术辩论：On Critical Thinking

imongUID: 140258

值得学习人家的文章行文~当然内容也有借鉴
比较长，分几次慢慢看:)
（另，后面3篇是对前面两篇文章给出的response-->Argument？呵呵。）

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/eps/PES-Yearbook/92_docs/McCarthy.HTM


WHY BE CRITICAL? (OR RATIONAL, OR MORAL?)
ON THE JUSTIFICATION OF CRITICAL THINKING
Christine McCarthy
The Ohio State University

I. INTRODUCTION
Since critical thinking is evidently more difficult, more troublesome, than ordinary, garden-variety thinking, the question that naturally arises is, why bother. Why not just say, “Forget it…I’ll think (and do, and be) what I want?” This kind of question is not anything new — Plato, for instance, has Socrates raise a similar question in the Republic, namely, “Why be just?”

In this paper I will consider several issues that I take to be related to the justification of critical thinking. The first issue is whether or not the common conceptualization of critical thinking as a dispositional trait possessed and displayed by the critical thinker is correct. The second issue is whether there is indeed some value to the critical thinker in thinking critically, and if so, what sort of value. The third issue is whether there is a relationship between critical thinking, rationality, and morality, and if so, what that might be.

I will argue, first, that while rationality is best construed as dispositional, critical thinking is not. Rather, critical thinking would be better understood as episodic. I shall argue, moreover, that this difference is an important one pedagogically, for while it is possible and desirable to teach, and to test for, an episodic critical thinking, it is neither possible nor desirable to attempt to do the same for the students’ dispositional rationality.

Second, I will argue that critical thinking does have a value, but that, contra Siegel, that value is an instrumental one. That is, one should think critically simply because that sort of thinking is efficacious.

Third, I will argue that, although critical thinking per se is episodic and justified instrumentally, it is to be hoped that a person ultimately will develop the disposition to regularly and habitually think critically, for that disposition is directly related to rationality. Moreover, the person’s disposition to think critically, that is, his or her rationality, is a necessary condition, and, for problems in the moral realm, a sufficient condition, for that person’s morality. Hence, if it is true a) that (episodic) critical thinking is necessary for rationality (the dispositional tendency to think critically), and b) that rationality is in turn necessary for morality, then critical thinking, and the teaching thereof, would be justified not only instrumentally, but would also be justified on moral grounds, provided that morality itself is justified. The question, then, returns to approximately that of Socrates, namely, “Why be moral?”


II. IS CRITICAL THINKING A DISPOSITIONAL TRAIT?
Despite their differences, many of the interpreters of critical thinking, for example, Ennis, Siegel, and McPeck, seem to accept that a full interpretation of critical thinking must recognize in the concept a dispositional element. Siegel, for instance, in Educating Reason, argues that critical thinking is not properly conceived as merely a set of proficiencies (which he terms “the pure skills conception”). Instead, he requires that the term critical thinking be understood to include both a set of proficiencies and the tendency to utilize those proficiencies, the tendency to be “appropriately moved by reasons.”1 Moreover, Siegel maintains that both components of critical thinking are to be considered equally important. Thus, critical thinking, properly interpreted, is on this account a dispositional trait possessed by critical thinkers.

Siegel terms this dispositional aspect the “critical attitude or critical spirit component of CT.”2 It is a “willingness, desire, and disposition to base one’s actions and beliefs on reasons, that is, to do reason assessment and to be guided by the results of such assessment.”3 Here Siegel brings in two different dispositions which for clarity should be distinguished. First, he requires a disposition to do reason assessment, that is, to engage in critical thinking; second, he requires the tendency to be guided by, to actually act upon, the results of that critical thinking. Thus, apparently, critical thinking must actually have issue in action (or belief), before it could be counted as truly critical. But clearly, both these dispositions would seem to be characteristics of the person, the thinker, not features of the thinking itself. Yet this is puzzling, since the question at hand is, what sort of thinking is critical thinking?

In keeping with the assumption that the term critical thinking refers to some sort of dispositional trait of persons, explications of critical thinking often proceed by setting out the required characteristics of critical thinkers. Pedagogically, given this assumption, considerable attention should be given to the problem of teaching persons to be critical thinkers. A course that would merely provide students with a performative knowledge, that would teach how to think critically, would thus be considered incomplete.

The requirement that certain traits of the thinker be included in the conception of critical thinking is sometimes rendered as a requirement for an attitude or disposition toward the activity of thinking. But, it makes a considerable difference conceptually whether it is an attitude that is required (which would be episodic) or a disposition (which of course would not be episodic). A requirement that critical thinking be interpreted as thinking with a particular attitude is compatible with an episodic interpretation of critical thinking. And it may well be true that in no case could one come to actually apply the norms of critical thinking, without having both an understanding of those norms and a willingness to apply them, that is, unless one has a certain attitude.

But the dispositional requirement is more problematic. While a disposition to act in certain ways can be considered a necessary condition of a person’s being a critical thinker, there are several reasons why such a disposition ought not to be taken as a necessary condition for critical thinking per se.


Conceptual Problems
There are conceptual problems with the dispositional account of critical thinking that make such an interpretation untenable. First, by interpreting critical thinking as dispositional, one creates an infinite regress. That is to say, if critical thinking is a disposition to engage in critical thinking, then it is the disposition to engage in… [a disposition to engage in…(a disposition…)], and so on, ad infinitum. To escape such a problem we must either specify something other than critical thinking as that which the critical thinker has a tendency to do, or restrict the meaning of the term critical thinking to the episodic sense, and recognize the disposition to think critically as being only associated with the actor, and not the action.

A second conceptual problem exists. When the term critical thinking is taken to include a reference to something dispositional, one cannot then logically conceive of a single, isolated and never to be repeated instance of critical thinking. There would thus be no point at which one could begin, for the first time, to think critically. Nor could one say of one’s students that they occasionally think critically, nor that they are capable of thinking critically but seldom to do so. Again, the episodic account is required to escape this consequence.

A third conceptual problem: Since a disposition is the sort of thing that can only be meaningfully attributed to a “being” of some sort, and since thinking simpliciter must be construed as an activity or process, and hence is not a being, neither thinking nor critical thinking can meaningfully be said to have any particular disposition. To make such an ascription would simply be to make a category mistake. Hence it would seem that clarity is not served by the assertion that critical thinking, whatever else it may be, is at least in part some sort of disposition. It does, however, make sense to understand the thinking being in the dispositional sense, to regard the person who frequently, consistently, or habitually under certain circumstances actually does engage in critical thinking as being a critical thinker.

Siegel notes this, describing the critical thinker as one who has “…a willingness to conform judgment and action to principle, not simply an ability to so conform,”4 who has “a rich emotional make-up of dispositions, habits of mind, values, character traits, and emotions which may be collectively referred to as the critical attitude”.5 But, Siegel then goes on to explicitly dissolve the distinction between, and hence to conflate, the dispositional traits of the thinker and the notion of critical thinking per se. “The conception of critical thinking being offered here is as much a conception of a certain sort of person as it is a conception of a certain set of activities and skills. When we take it upon ourselves to educate students so as to foster critical thinking, we are committing ourselves to nothing less than the development of a certain sort of person.”6 Siegel continues, the “reasons conception — as any fully developed conception of critical thinking must be — is a conception not only of a certain sort of activity, but of a certain sort of person.”7


Justificatory Problems
The dispositional interpretation creates some puzzles when we come to the question of the justification of critical thinking, since on this account it is a disposition, not an episodic act, that must be justified. For instance, when Siegel raises the question, “Why should critical thinkers have this tendency to think critically?” there are several ways to answer. First, one might simply say that on this account, far from being a mystery, this is an entirely analytical point. If what we mean by saying a person is “one of a particular kind”, is simply that the person does habitually perform the activity in question, usually with some degree of proficiency, then a critical thinker could be nothing else but a person who has that tendency.

It is likely, however, that the intended question is: why should some person, who is not at present a critical thinker, become one? But, given Siegel’s conception of critical thinking as “the tendency to be appropriately moved by reasons,” there is, again, an analytical answer. If, by the term appropriately moved, one simply means “moved in the way that one ought to be moved,” then again it is analytically and necessarily true that any person should be moved in precisely the way that he or she ought to be moved, that is, in just those ways that would be appropriate. So again, on this interpretation it is analytically true that one should be a critical thinker. But, this conclusion, while undeniable, is not particularly helpful, for one would, I take it, like a justification of an activity to be true by virtue of some reference to the real world, rather than merely be true analytically.

According to Siegel, critical thinking is coextensive with rationality, and hence is justified only if rationality is. But, rationality, it is claimed, is self-justifying. When Siegel asks, “Why be rational?” he sets up a problem to be solved, and he concludes, quite correctly, that should anyone take up this problem, the person will initiate a search for reasons, and in so doing reveal that he or she already accepts the force of reasons, or, in Siegel’s account, values rationality. But, Siegel begs the question here by assuming that some randomly chosen person will necessarily take up the problem. This sort of justification would have no force for the person who in fact does not already value rationality — for instance, the person who looks at the question, “Why be rational?” and says, “beats me,” or “who cares?” Yet it would seem that we would want the justification of rationality, and hence of critical thinking, to do more than just preach to the converted.

These unproductive, analytical, justificatory traps seem to be the result of attempting to justify the disposition to think critically without having previously justified the singular acts of thinking critically, that is, critical thinking understood episodically. It seems, then, that the initial question ought to be: should one, when given some particular problem, think about it in some particular way, namely, critically, rather than in some other way? And if so, why? The third question (and the one that is the most difficult to answer) would then be, which particular way (or ways) of thinking about any particular problem ought one to adopt? That is, what particular acts of thinking are to be counted as critical. It seems clear that we are not in a position to justify any proposed answers to the third question without having first answered the first and second.

In the discussion that follows I will be concerned with only the first two of these questions, which seem relatively simple, but which in fact turn out to be rather controversial. Stipulating that the one particular way of thinking we have in mind will be termed “critical” thinking, these questions can be rephrased, as, first: is there a value to critical thinking in any particular problem, and second, if so, what is that value? I address these questions next.


III. THE VALUE OF EPISODIC CRITICAL THINKING
When critical thinking is taken to be a dispositional trait, co-extensive with rationality, that is, neither more nor less than rationality itself, the justification of one’s commitment to critical thinking seems to rest on the fact that one is committed to rationality? But this claim, even if true, would only change the terms of the question, which then becomes, why be rational. And this seems a more difficult, not a less difficult question. I will take a different route to the justification of critical thinking, interpreting critical thinking as an episodic activity, and rationality as a dispositional trait of persons, specifically, the disposition to think critically. Critical thinking and rationality are thus held to be conceptually distinct, although related.

Consider an analogy. If thinking is indeed an activity, a difficult mental activity, then it might be considered analogous to any difficult physical activity, let us say, to rock-climbing. Suppose it were proposed that we add to the curriculum a required course in Careful Rock-Climbing. The question, “Why should one learn to rock-climb carefully?”, would probably not arise although the question, “Why should one learn to rock-climb at all?” very well might. In this respect the physical activity differs from the activity of thinking, since, in the case of thinking, it seems that it is the very basic question, “Why do it at all?” that would seldom arise. There are several possible reasons for this. First, thinking seems to be something we cannot help but to do (although sometimes, admittedly, to little effect). But second, and more importantly, it would seem that in most situations thinking is regarded as unquestionably useful — it helps one to solve existing problems, to predict and to avoid problems, to achieve one’s desires, and even to evaluate the merit of those desires, so as to predict and perhaps avoid any potentially catastrophic consequences that would follow on the achievement of those existing desires.

Still, the question “Why should one think critically?” evidently does arise, or at least would seem to, given the perceived need for a justification of critical thinking. Now, oddly enough, in the rock-climbing analogy, if one were to accept that one does indeed have a need for the basic activity, very few people would go on to ask, “Why do it carefully?” It would, I believe, be abundantly clear to any person at the base of a cliff, about to ascend, that some ways of proceeding must be superior to others. And one would actively, perhaps avidly, seek out generalizations that have in the past proven to be useful, that is, one would look for principles of rock-climbing, and one would work diligently to make one’s own practice conform to theory. For the person about to embark on a lifetime of rock-climbing, the disposition to climb carefully would not seem at all hard to acquire.

It seems odd, then, for there to be grave concern that our students, knowing that there is a need to think, and having acquired an understanding of the principles of critical thinking, might nevertheless fail to acquire the disposition to actually engage in critical thinking.

It seems unarguable that the ultimate aim that one has in teaching critical thinking is the dispositional aim. As would teachers in any field, we would like our students to appreciate the significance of what is learned, and to choose, regularly and habitually, to think critically. But, it would seem that teaching a disposition can best be achieved, if it is going to be achieved at all, by focusing one’s effort on thoroughly teaching the subject matter, the what and the how, while strong-mindedly ignoring the temptation to somehow directly teach the disposition. What seems to be lacking in persons who learn that which is valuable, but fail to develop the disposition to use what they’ve learned, is either an understanding of full import of the subject matter for their projects, interests, and desires, or a lack of concern for these.

Consider, for instance, the person who possesses a detailed knowledge of the principles of careful rock-climbing, who knows what the common pit-falls are and how to avoid them, who recognizes the potentially serious negative consequences of slipping-up — but who nevertheless habitually, regularly, and deliberately chooses not to actually employ this knowledge when climbing. What can be said to the person who says, “I fully understand all this, and I don’t care.”?

It would seem that there is nothing that the rock-climbing instructor, or the educator, could say to this person, no way — or at least no ethically acceptable way — to cause in him or her the appropriate disposition. It would seem that only “caring more about his or her own life”, or life-projects, would induce the person to actually take the steps that he or she understands to be necessary.

The teacher of critical thinking, despite having the dispositional goal in mind, should thus direct attention primarily to the advantages of critical thinking in particular problems, and to the real life consequences of failing to think critically, in order to achieve that dispositional goal.

Moreover, when one attempts to directly teach dispositions, certain ethical problems arise. Suppose, for instance, that one sets out to create in someone a tendency to act by repeatedly modeling the desired actions. Though demonstration would of course be a significant part of one’s teaching others how to think critically, when used as a means of imbuing the student with a disposition to act in a like fashion, it seems problematic. Is it necessary or desirable, in order to promote the students’ tendency to practice critical thinking, to ensure that the teacher of critical thinking is charismatic enough to inspire his or her students with the desire to be like that? It would seem, first, that this is not necessary, since if the student were to come independently, autonomously, to an awareness of the value in critical thinking, that by itself would be sufficient to establish a tendency to actually do critical thinking, regardless of the students’ positive or negative evaluations of the teacher’s virtues.

Second, though the charismatic teacher could certainly induce students to emulate his or her practice, and hence could create in them the disposition to think critically, it is equally true that the same could be done with virtually any sort of tendency to act, regardless of the value of that tendency. But, if a student acquires a disposition to act in a particular way for any reason other than his or her own recognition of the positive value of that way of acting, then that student has been indoctrinated. And this, it seems, would be unethical practice.

One should then eschew inspirational devices, and rely instead on the students’ appreciation of the significance of the subject matter to accomplish the dispositional goal. But that appreciation may be a long time in coming. That is, it may only be long after one’s course in critical thinking, after a considerable period of real life trial and error in thinking, that any particular student begins to actually recognize the value in thinking critically, as a result of occasionally using the skills that were learned. Thus, a student may not be rational after having completed a course in critical thinking, but, that course nevertheless should be considered successful if the student leaves in possession of the knowledge necessary for the later development of rationality. It would thus be neither necessary nor useful to attempt to design tests to measure the students’ improvement in rationality as a gauge of a course’s success.

In these observations much hinges on the maintenance of the conceptual distinction between rationality, understood as a dispositional trait, or the tendency to think critically, and critical thinking, understood as an episodic activity. In the next section I will discuss more fully the relationship between critical thinking, rationality, and the relationship of both these concepts to the concept of morality.


IV. THE RELATION OF CRITICAL THINKING, RATIONALITY, AND MORALITY
There are several interpretations extant of the relationship of critical thinking to rationality and to morality. For Siegel, critical thinking is coextensive with rationality. To understand critical thinking fully, then, one would need to understand rationality itself. And, since rationality is taken to be coextensive with the relevance of reasons, then to be rational, as well as to be critical, is simply to believe and act on the basis of reasons.

McPeck, on the other hand, maintains that critical thinking is a subset of rational thinking. Rational thinking, he writes, is “the intelligent use of all available evidence for the solution of some problem.”8 In contrast, critical thinking occurs only when one encounters a difficulties in using that available evidence. McPeck gives as examples of such problems, the need to decide what is to count as evidence, or the decision to disregard some portion of the available evidence. Critical thinking is simply the “disposition and skill to find such difficulties in the normal course of reasoning.”9

Neither of these positions recognizes any distinction between the dispositional sense of rationality and the episodic. In the dispositional sense, we speak of a person’s being rational, and we mean, I take it, that he or she habitually, generally acts in a way that is rational. But here, we have introduced an episodic sense of rational. Logically, we must be able to describe a particular instance of acting as being rational before we can attribute a dispositional rationality, that is, a tendency to so act, to a person.

I would suggest that critical thinking is best understood in the episodic sense, and that rational action is simply action taken upon critical thought. Rationality, in contrast, is a dispositional trait; it is the tendency of a person to act rationally, which is to say, the tendency to act upon critical thought. Critical thinking, then, is neither coextensive with rationality, nor is it a special class of rational thought; rather, critical thinking is a necessary condition of rationality.

The relation of rationality and critical thinking to morality is also of interest. Ennis, in 1979, suggested that morality is a necessary condition of rationality, so that an action cannot be rational and at the same time be really immoral. “To assert of an action that it is both unqualifiedly rational and immoral does not make sense, it seems.”10 To put the point a bit more formally,

Rational action — > moral action; or,
The rationality of an action — > the morality of an action.
Note that in this locution rationality must be episodic, a feature of a single action. A generally irrational person could, then, perform at least one rational action in this sense.
The implication in Ennis’s hypothesis is that an action must be morally correct in order to be a rational action. But suppose, for example, that the only rational action ever taken by an otherwise irrational and morally depraved person was to invest wisely in the stock-market. Would that investment be considered morally good, because rational? It would seem not. Rather, it would be considered morally neutral.

I will sketch out a somewhat different interpretation of the relation between morality and rationality. I would suggest that a morally good person is just the person who has the disposition to think critically, that is, who is rational, in problems in the moral realm. These are problems in which one’s actions will significantly affect the lives of others. This would be a dispositional sense of moral according to which a person is moral who is rational in the moral realm. A morally good action, similarly, would be any action taken with respect to a moral realm problem that is based upon critical thought with respect to the problem. This is the episodic sense of moral according to which the action is moral just in case it is taken pursuant to critical thought.

On this interpretation, morally good action would be, contra Ennis, a subset of the broader category of all rational action, since the moral realm is simply a particular set of problems with respect to which one could and should think critically. If this is so, then it would be rationality and critical thought that stand as necessary conditions for morality, in the dispositional and episodic senses respectively, rather than vice-versa. Again, more formally,

Morality of a person — > rationality of that person, and
Moral action — > critical thought.
However, within the set of moral problems, critical thought would be both necessary and sufficient for morally good action. And, hence, morally good action would be both necessary and sufficient for critical thought. In other words, one could not think critically about a moral problem without the resultant action being moral, nor could one act morally without thinking critically.
On this account it would not be correct to say that morality, in the dispositional sense, is a necessary condition of rationality, since not all problems are moral problems. One could be fully rational outside the moral realm, yet be fully irrational within that realm. One could also conceivably be rational only within the moral realm, that is, think critically only about moral problems, and be entirely irrational in other matters. Hence a generally irrational person could, logically, be a moral person, although this seems, empirically, an unlikely combination.

If this is correct, and if morality itself, that is, morally good action, is desirable, then the ability to think critically in moral problems would be justified as a necessary condition of morality. This is so because it is critical thinking that enables one to solve particular moral-realm problems.

Similarly, outside the moral realm, rationality can be justified pragmatically, in the Deweyan sense, as the tendency to employ the means by which one is able to solve problems, rather than merely self-justifying, as Siegel claims. And critical thinking would thus be justified as an instrumental value, the activity necessary to achieve desired ends, including the generally desired ends that such achievement not lead to disastrous consequences.


For responses to this essay, see McPeck, Siegel and Ennis.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Harvey Siegel, Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking and Education (New York: Routledge, 1988), 32.
2 Ibid., 23.

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid., 39.

5 Ibid., 40.

6 Ibid., 41.

7 Ibid., 42.

8 John E. McPeck, Critical Thinking and Education ( New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1981), 12.

9 Ibid.

10 Robert Ennis, “A Conception of Rational Thinking,” in Philosophy of Education 1979, ed. Jerrold Coombs (Normal, Illinois: Philosophy of Education Society, 1980), 3-30.

imongUID: 140258

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/eps/PES-Yearbook/92_docs/Norris.HTM


BACHELORS, BUCKYBALLS, AND GANDERS:
SEEKING ANALOGUES FOR DEFINITIONS OF
“CRITICAL THINKER”
Stephen P. Norris
Memorial University of Newfoundland



Several philosophers of education have offered definitions of “critical thinker.” In this paper1 I shall examine the definitions of three philosophers, Robert Ennis, John McPeck, and Harvey Siegel, with a view to evaluating the significance of those definitions in the promotion of critical thinking. My conclusion is that for definitions of “critical thinker” to be significant they must be capable of serving as the basis of empirical research on the nature and fostering of critical thinkers.

Before I look at the definitions at all I shall develop, in the first part of the paper, distinctions among types of nouns that help highlight the different stances taken by philosophers of education who offer definitions of “critical thinker.” The work of Schwartz2 on nominal and natural kind terms will guide this first section. In the second section, I shall explore the implications of taking “critical thinker” to be either a nominal or natural kind term. The third section examines how the three named philosophers of education regard their definitions of “critical thinker.” Finally, I shall argue for what I consider to be the best way to take definitions of “critical thinker,” and suggest what implications adopting my view would have for philosophers of education working in the area.


I. Types of Nouns
It has been advocated for at least three centuries, from Locke to Lewis to Copi, that the meaning of common nouns, exemplified by “bachelor,” “sister,” “table,” “triangle,” and “key,” is explained well by postulating that the nouns have associated with them an intension and an extension. The intension of a term, sometimes called the concept associated with it, contains a list of properties that determines the referents of the term. The set of referents makes up the extension. The properties listed in the intension of “bachelor,” for example, might include being male, being unmarried, and being of marriageable age. Having each of the properties in the list is severally necessary and jointly sufficient for being an entity in the extension of the term. Thus, intension determines extension; if Frank has all the properties listed in the intension of “bachelor,” then he is a bachelor.

Since the extension of a term is the set of entities that have the properties listed in the intension, the extension of a term is determined empirically through a procedure of matching the properties listed to entities in the world. The properties that constitute the intension of a term depend upon the conventional meaning of the term. Thus, the intension also is determined empirically by analyzing language use. The intension is semantically associated with the term. If a community of language users alters the properties listed in the intension of a term, then it has altered the term’s meaning, as appears to be happening with the meaning of “bachelor.”

One claimed attraction of this theory is that it explains how words acquire a purchase on the world: they do it via the reference relation, which is determined empirically by matching lists of properties to entities. Another touted attraction is that the theory allows us to distinguish between analytic and empirical truths associated with terms. “Bachelors are unmarried” is true analytically, that is, by definition, because “being unmarried” is a property listed in the intension of “bachelor.” “Bachelors earn greater than average-sized incomes” is, if true, true empirically, that is, according to whether or not it corresponds to what occurs in the world, because “earning greater than average-sized income” is not part of the intension of “bachelor.”

Because of its simplicity, explanatory power, and promise to clarify the grounds for the truth of various types of statements, this theory of the meaning of common nouns has received wide acceptance. I shall call the nouns for which the theory does seem to work well, “nominal kind terms.” Schwartz proposes that terms for artifacts (“chair,” “book,” “hammer”), distinctions of rank (“president,” “corporal,” “assistant professor”), relations between people (“sister,” “nephew,” “sibling”), and legal and ceremonial use (“contract,” “ordination,” “will”) are examples of nominal kind terms.3

Unfortunately, the acceptance has been too wide, because it has been applied to the meaning of all nouns but does not work well for all. Consider the proper name “Shakespeare.” Paralleling the analysis of “bachelor,” it is sometimes claimed that there is an intension and extension (in this case an extension containing one entity) associated with this term, and that the intension determines the extension. For example, we might associate with Shakespeare the property that he wrote the play Hamlet.

However, the parallel with common nouns breaks down when we consider the statement, “Shakespeare is the author of Hamlet,” and ask whether the statement is analytically or empirically true. If the theory outlined above for common nouns is the correct theory of the meaning of “Shakespeare,” then the statement must be analytically true, since being the author of Hamlet would be part of the concept associated with the term.

However, a theory of meaning that yields this result must be an incorrect theory of the meaning of proper names. We can well imagine, for instance, learning some day that Shakespeare (that very same person to whom we now refer) did not write Hamlet at all. We may learn that Francis Bacon wrote the play. Since this is a conceivable outcome, unlike the outcome of finding a married bachelor, being the author of Hamlet, if it is associated with the proper name “Shakespeare,” must be contingently associated with it. Furthermore, finding out that Bacon did write Hamlet would not change necessarily the referent of “Shakespeare.” The name might still refer to that English poet and dramatist who lived between 1564 and 1616.

Are these latter properties, then, part of the intension of “Shakespeare”? Again, they are not, since they are, if true, empirical truths, not truths by definition. We can imagine discovering that Shakespeare was born or died on different dates, or that he was not English but French, and moved to England from France as a child. Upon analysis, it can be seen that proper names do not have meanings in the sense of common nouns. That is, they do not have concepts associated with them; there are no analytic statements associated semantically with proper names that determine the entities that fall into their extensions. Proper names have associated with them, instead, a set of identifying descriptions that are empirically defeasible. We might say that these descriptions form a conception, rather than concept, of the entity named. The conception is used to help pick out the referent, but not to determine it. If, however, in a given case, enough of the identifying descriptions associated with a proper name are found to be false, then the referent of the name may be called into question. It is conceivable, for instance, that an historical analysis of the use of the name “Shakespeare” result in the conclusion that “Shakespeare” refers to Bacon.

There is also a set of common nouns, exemplified by “tiger,” “gold,” “water,” and “human,” whose meaning cannot be explained by the theory of meaning of nominal kind terms. Rather, these terms behave like proper names. Consider “gold,” and what properties might be in its intension. Plausible candidates are being yellow, malleable, metallic, electrically conductive, and valuable. However, contrary to the case of “bachelor” and the property of being unmarried, none of these properties are associated semantically with the term. It is conceivable that gold could be found or created that has none of these properties: this new gold may not be metallic, but rather some other structural form; we may someday be able to produce forms of gold that are not malleable or not electrically conductive; it is already known that, when finely divided, gold may be black, ruby, or purple. Therefore, yellowness, malleability, conductivity, and so on, are identifying descriptions of gold, as being the author of Hamlet is an identifying description of Shakespeare, and not part of the concept of gold. For something to be gold, it is not the case that it must, by definition, have these properties. The descriptions are used to pick out gold, but they do not define what it is. Hence, “gold is malleable” is not analytically true. If true, it is an empirical truth.

“Carbon” is a more interesting example. Carbon is very soft or very hard, black or colorless, opaque or transparent, electrically conductive or electrically insulative, depending upon its allotropic form — graphite or diamond. Having a set of disjunctive properties such as this does not fit the traditional theory of the meaning of nominal kind terms. The case of carbon shows that, for a particular class of entities, phenomenal properties can be misleading indicators of their nature. If “carbon is very soft” were analytically true, then it would be impossible to discover carbon that is very hard, just as it is impossible to discover a married bachelor. It would also have been impossible to have discovered recently (as has been done) a third allotropic form of carbon — buckminsterfullerene or buckyball — that has yet another set of phenomenal properties.

Rather than take “gold” or “carbon” to be terms with associated concepts that pick out their extensions, we might take them to be singular referring terms, as we take the proper name “Shakespeare.” But, to what do they refer? One plausible answer is that they refer to an underlying trait4, which it is the job of empirical research to identify. The current view is that gold is a substance composed of atoms of atomic number 79, and that such atoms are characterized by having particular numbers of electrons, protons, and neutrons. If gold, meaning the stuff to which the word “gold” refers, has this underlying trait (I say “if,” since the trait is defeasible), it is a trait that it must have out of empirical necessity, because with any other structure it would not be gold, but some other substance. Again, if gold has this trait, “gold” refers to it, and the extension of “gold” consists of those entities, and only those entities, that have the trait. This is why instances of graphite, diamond, and buckminsterfullerene all fall into the extension of “carbon”: they all have the same underlying trait — atoms of atomic number 6 — even though they have contradictory phenomenal properties. If current beliefs change about the phenomenal properties of gold and carbon or about the traits that underlie gold and carbon, the extensions of “gold” and “carbon” need not change, just as the extension of “Shakespeare” need not change if our beliefs about Shakespeare change. For instance, we may give up our belief in atoms, electrons, protons, and neutrons, and thus not say any more that carbon is that substance composed of atoms of atomic number 6, yet “carbon” may still refer to the same stuff it does now. I shall call common nouns whose extensions are determined by the presence or absence of underlying traits strict natural kind terms.

In addition to nouns that derive their extensions via semantically related properties and empirically related underlying traits, there are those that derive their extensions via both routes. An example is “gander.” Maleness is semantically associated with “gander,” so the statement “ganders are male” is analytically true. However, that ganders have webbed feet, bills, feathers, and a certain voice are identifying descriptions of ganders, and thus are empirically, but not semantically, related to “gander.” We could imagine ganders that do not have webbed feet, or any feet at all for that matter, do not have bills, do not have feathers, and have no voice. These imagined ganders may, for instance, be the offspring of geese that are exposed to radioactive fallout. However, once we identify the underlying species trait that makes ganders, maybe it is something about the structure of their DNA, then ganders have that trait out of empirical necessity. Common nouns whose extensions are determined by both semantically related properties and empirically related underlying traits shall be called non-strict natural kind terms.


II. Categorizing Critical Thinker”
Into which of the above categories might “critical thinker” be placed? Churchland5 has argued that “thinker” is “quite possibly, bordering on probably,” a strict natural kind term. He postulates further that thinkers are the same natural kind as are living things, and that the underlying trait of this kind is defined by the physics of non-equilibrium thermodynamics: “a living thing is a dissipative system, a semi-closed local entropic minimum, whose internal negative entropy filters out further negative entropy from the energy flowing through it.”6 While the precise meaning of this trait description may not be grasped by most of us (it basically says that living things maintain a structural order in a universe that tends to favor chaos; that life runs counter to the flow of time), the fact that someone has suggested an underlying trait for the entities that fall into the extension of “thinker” is what is important here.

Churchland, at least, should think it meaningful to ask whether the properties that are commonly associated with critical thinkers (open-mindedness, disposition to seek reasons, ability to judge credibility, and so on) are properties semantically related to a nominal kind term, identifying descriptions empirically related to a natural kind term, or underlying traits possessed by the entities to which a natural kind term refers. Maybe some of the properties are semantically related to “critical thinker,” others empirically related identifying descriptions, and maybe somewhere there is an underlying trait. Does “critical thinker” function in educational theorizing mostly like “bachelor,” mostly like “buckyball,” or mostly like “gander”? A possibly more important question concerns how it ought to function in our educational theorizing. These are non-trivial and theoretically important questions.

If “critical thinker” is a nominal kind term, then it makes sense for theorists to differ over its meaning according to their individual programmatic agendas. Under this scheme of things, the properties associated with “critical thinker” would be associated semantically with it; changing the list of properties would amount to changing the concept related to the term, and thus the class of individuals that comprises its extension; and deciding on the list of properties would be a matter of how theorists wanted language to be used in order to serve their educational agendas. This decision would be influenced primarily by the theorists’ values. Depending upon their values, theorists might make different recommendations about whom should be classified as critical thinkers.

If “critical thinker” is a strict natural kind term, assigning individuals to the class could not be solely a value issue. The extension of “critical thinker” would not be determined by a set of negotiable, semantically related properties. The extension would include only those individuals who had the trait that underlies critical thinkers. This trait would be non-arbitrary, and the task of empirical educational research to discover. The empirical research might begin from an ostension or description that fixes the referent of “critical thinker.” Reference fixing goes more or less like this:

A decision is taken that critical thinkers are the kind instantiated by almost all of such-and-such sample of individuals. From this point, empirical research would explore the underlying traits of the individuals in the sample. The possible outcomes of such research are several. On one possibility, a trait that underlies all the individuals is found. On another possibility, a trait is found to underlie a portion of the sample, and another trait to underlie another portion. A third possibility is that the individuals are found to have nothing that could be called a common underlying trait.
As the final option, it is possible that “thinker” is a strict natural kind, as Churchland has postulated, but that “critical thinker” refers to a negotiated division within that kind, much like “gander” refers to a negotiated division of geese. If “critical thinker” is a non-strict natural kind term of this sort, then there will be properties associated with “critical thinker” that are negotiable according to value orientations, but an underlying trait that is the task of empirical educational research to discover.

III. Three Outlooks on Definitions of "Critical Thinker”
Ennis provides a list of abilities and dispositions that, he proposes, critical thinkers have.7 Does saying that critical thinkers have these abilities and dispositions express a series of analytic truths according to Ennis? If so, and if for Ennis this is all there is to the meaning of “critical thinker,” then “critical thinker” would be a nominal kind term for Ennis. On the other hand, does his list provide a set of identifying descriptions of critical thinkers that, if true, are empirical truths? If so, and if Ennis believes these are not properties semantically related to “critical thinker,” then “critical thinker” would be a strict natural kind term for Ennis. Finally, does the list or some items on the list entail analytic truths about critical thinkers, while allowing that critical thinkers have some underlying trait that is their nature? If so, then “critical thinker” would be a non-strict natural kind term for Ennis.

I find it difficult to answer these questions about Ennis’s ideas. I am inclined to think he believes that “critical thinker” is a term over which we should try to reach agreement on conventional meaning. Ennis does not believe that he has provided a set of severally necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for being a critical thinker, but he intends the list to be comprehensive.8 Aiming for a complete list does not suit the task of choosing identifying descriptions for a natural kind term, because all that is needed is a set sufficiently discriminating to home in on the desired referent. A plausible possibility is that Ennis takes “critical thinker” to be a nonstrict natural kind term, and that his theorizing has been an attempt to influence the meaning of the conventional part, namely, “critical.” One reason for trying to influence what people take the conventional part to mean would be a belief that the identifying descriptions of critical thinkers can be a productive focus for educational interventions.

What about Siegel; how would he classify critical thinkers, whom he sees as persons “appropriately moved by reasons.”9 Unlike Ennis, Siegel does not provide long lists of abilities and dispositions held by critical thinkers. I believe that Siegel takes critical thinkers to be a strict natural kind. He claims that “a critical thinker is…a certain sort of person…. Just as sugar has the disposition to dissolve in water while still in the sugar bowl, so does the critical thinker have the dispositions, habits of mind and character traits we have considered while not engaged in reason assessment.”10 It seems fairly clear from this statement that Siegel believes that critical thinkers have underlying traits characteristic of them, and that only critical thinkers have those traits. Whether or not Siegel also believes that there are characteristics that are semantically related to “critical thinker” is unclear to me at this time. If he does, I would modify my assessment to conclude that he takes critical thinkers to be a non-strict natural kind.

How about McPeck? It seems clear that he takes “critical thinker” to be a nominal kind term. McPeck11 charges Norris,12 writing in the following passage about “reasoning” as a natural kind term, with confusing philosophical and scientific questions:

The first question [whether “reasoning” denotes a particular process, performance, or type of achievement] would concern the denotation of “reasoning,” which would involve the same sorts of exploration used to determine the denotation of any natural kind term. It would be necessary to carry out scientific investigations into the underlying nature of reasoning.13
While Norris clearly states his position that “reasoning” (and by implication “critical thinking,” since that was the context of the discussion) is a natural kind term, McPeck just as clearly states his position: “the denotation, qua denotation, of common terms like “reasoning” is a conceptual question par excellence, and has nothing whatsoever to do with scientific investigation.”14

IV. An Assessment of Definitional Approaches
It is not a matter of taste with no consequences for educational practice which position on the definition of “critical thinker” is adopted. One purported aim of critical thinking theorizing is to make school students better critical thinkers, that is, to effect change in the world. In this regard, we can expect some practices to work and others not to work, but, it seems to me, those that have the poorest chance of success are those that are based on inadequate theories of human learning. A minimal condition of adequacy for a theory of human learning is that its central terms refer. For instance, the adequacy of a theory of learning that used as a central term, “innate intelligence,” would be reduced if innate intelligence does not exist. A central term of many critical thinking learning theories is “thinking disposition.” The adequacy of these theories is reduced if thinking dispositions do not exist.

The strict nominalist stance, with its anti-empirical approach to determining denotation, seems to be the approach to defining “critical thinker” that is least likely to meet this minimal condition of a critical thinking learning theory. Virtually all major theories of meaning assume that empirical research is necessary for determining denotation. In 1892, Frege15 showed us that conceptualization alone would never have led to the truth that “the morning star” and “the evening star” denote the same entity. In 1905, Russell16 showed that determining the truth value of “The King of France is bald,” depends upon determining whether there is an entity that possesses the property of being the King of France. In 1966, Donnellan17 showed that the meaning of definite descriptions depends upon empirically checking whether the descriptions are attributing properties to entities or merely referring to entities. Thus, if we want the term “critical thinker” to denote, which is necessary if we want any theory that employs the term as a central concept to have anything to do with educating people, then its definition cannot be derived using solely conceptual analysis.

The demand for denotation by the central terms in a theory of critical thinking learning, in particular the term “critical thinker,” seems to point us, then, towards natural kind terms. But how is the denotation of such terms determined? The simple answer is by doing empirical research. I cannot hope to outline a full description of the nature of that research in this paper. However, if we consider for the moment the denotation of “critical thinker,” it would be a worthwhile approach first to study individuals who seem to exemplify most clearly and centrally our pre-scientific notion of critical thinkers. Such individuals might include some of the best artists, literary critics, scientists, medical doctors, engineers, nurses, politicians, and so on. The initial focus of the research might be on what, if anything, is common about the thinking of these individuals when they are engaged in thinking in their fields.

I cannot imagine how this research might turn out, and I do not have the space here to propose methods for conducting it. However, current theories of critical thinkers suggest some questions that might be explored. For instance, Ennis’s theory suggests asking whether the individuals identified as critical thinkers use in their thinking the principles of thought that are central to his theory. Siegel’s theory suggests asking whether the individuals identified as critical thinkers are disposed to, for instance, seek evidence for their beliefs more than individuals not identified as critical thinkers.

Thus, philosophers’ theorizing can be at the basis of empirical critical thinking research: it can provide hypotheses that empirical researchers test; it can provide explanations of findings that empirical work yields. In order to play this role, however, philosophers of education must frame their theories of critical thinking so that the empirical implications of them are made clear, or must work with empirical researchers in deriving such implications. This means taking seriously the sorts of evidence that would be relevant to testing their theories. For instance, if a theory of critical thinking includes a postulation of a disposition such as open-mindedness, then we need a clear account of what evidence would count for the presence or absence of that disposition. Such accounts are not available and, in part for this reason I believe, there has been virtually no empirical research on critical thinking dispositions. If a theory of critical thinking includes a postulate that critical thinking is generalizable from field to field, then specifications are needed of the type of evidence that would test the truth of this postulate. Ennis has begun to offer such specifications,18 and, in part as a consequence of Ennis’s efforts, we are beginning to see some empirical work on the generalizability issue.

At the same time, since “critical thinker” is a term that is intended for the prescription of educational goals and practices, it cannot be treated as a strict natural kind term. Philosophers must have some conceptual leeway to build into the concept of critical thinker features that are valuable to education. For instance, Ennis19 once proposed that thinking critically implies thinking morally, while Martin20 argues that too much critical thinking takes place that violates moral standards. It seems to me that this is not the sort of issue that can be settled by empirical research. It depends upon how we want the concept of critical thinker to operate in our educational prescriptions. Thus, my current thinking is that “critical thinker” is a non-strict natural kind term — one that is constrained by the psychology of human beings and also by educational values.

If “critical thinker” is a non-strict natural kind term, then the framers of critical thinking theories should play an active role in specifying what would count as evidence for or against those theories. Since many of the theorists of critical thinking are philosophers of education, the empirical scrutiny of such questions as what “critical thinker” denotes may be unappealing. I submit, however, that only by becoming more closely involved in empirical research will philosophers of education serve the educational goal of fostering critical thinking development. On the other hand, I hope that such an approach by philosophers of education will be welcomed by empirical researchers, because only if their work is founded on sound theory will it foster critical thinking development.


For responses to this essay, see McPeck, Siegel and Ennis.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 This paper is based on my chapter, “The Generalizability Question,” in The Generalizability of Critical Thinking, ed. Stephen P. Norris (New York: Teachers College Press, 1992), 1-15. I thank Ki Su Kim, Walter Okshevsky, and Linda Phillips for comments on a previous draft.
2 Stephen P. Schwartz, “Natural Kind Terms,” Cognition 7 (1979): 301-315.

3 Ibid., 311.

4 William K. Goosens, “Underlying Trait Terms,” in Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds, ed. Stephen P. Schwartz (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1977), 133-154.

5 Paul M. Churchland, “Is Thinker a Natural Kind?,” Dialogue 21 (1982): 236.

6 Ibid., 233.

7 Robert H. Ennis, “A Taxonomy of Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities,” in Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice, ed. Joan Boykoff Baron and Robert J. Sternberg (New York: W.H. Freeman & Co., 1987), 9-26.

8 Ibid., 25.

9 Harvey Siegal, Educating Reason (New York: Routledge, 1988), 32.

10 Ibid., 41.

11 John E. McPeck, Teaching Critical Thinking (New York: Routledge, 1990).

12 Stephen P. Norris, “Thinking about Critical Thinking: Philosophers Can’t Go It Alone,” in Teaching Critical Thinking, ed. John E. McPeck (New York: Routledge, 1990), 67-74.

13 Ibid., 71.

14 Ibid., 92.

15 Gottlob Frege, “On Sense and Reference,” in Readings in Semantics, ed. Farhang Zabeeh, E.D. Klemke, and Arthur Jacobson (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 1974), 117-140.

16 Bertrand Russell, “On Denoting,” in Logic and Knowledge, ed. Robert C. Marsh (New York: Capricorn Books, 1956), 41-56.

17 Keith S. Donnellan, “Reference and Definite Descriptions,” The Philosophical Review 75 (1966): 281-304.

18 Robert H. Ennis, “The Degree to which Critical Thinking is Subject Specific: Clarification and Needed Research,” in The Generalizability of Critical Thinking, ed. Stephen P. Norris (New York: Teachers College Press, 1992), 21-37.

19 Robert H. Ennis, “A Conception of Rational Thinking,” in Philosophy of Education 1979, ed. Jerrold R. Coombs (Normal, Illinois: Philosophy of Education Society, 1980), 3-30.

20 Jane Roland Martin, “Critical Thinking for a Humane World,” in The Generalizability of Critical Thinking, ed. Stephen P. Norris (New York: Teachers College Press, 1992), 163-180.

imongUID: 140258

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/eps/PES-Yearbook/92_docs/ENNIS.HTM

开始response，呵呵。

( This essay is a response to McCarthy and Norris. )

CRITICAL THINKING: WHAT IS IT?
Robert H. Ennis
University of Illinois, UC



In their interesting and stimulating papers Professors McCarthy and Norris analyze critical thinking from different standpoints. McCarthy attempts to justify the teaching, non-teaching, testing and non-testing of various aspects of critical thinking at various times. Norris urges the empirical study of critical thinking topics. Each paper has strengths and weaknesses. I shall elaborate.

McCarthy, using for the most part an ordinary language approach, distinguishes between episodic and dispositional terms, suggesting that ‘critical thinking’ is only an episodic term, while ‘critical thinker’ and ‘rationality’ incorporate dispositions (which are not episodes; they are tendencies to behave in certain ways in episodes). She attaches pedagogic significance to this distinction, holding that we can teach and test episodic critical thinking, but that we neither can nor should attempt to teach or test for dispositional rationality.

Although McCarthy is correct in identifying this episodic sense of ‘critical thinking,’ the word is also used as a label for an area of curricular concern — at least an ability or body of abilities that we attempt to teach. Abilities are not episodes. It is similar with the word ‘reading.’ The word ‘reading’ can be applied to a particular episode, as in “I am reading this paper,” but we do also try to teach reading in school, just as we try to teach critical thinking.

In fact her limitation interferes with one of her points. She wants to teach “the episodic ‘critical thinking,’” but that does not make sense. You do not teach episodes. You teach people how to do well, and to do well, in episodes. That is, you teach skills, abilities, dispositions, and the like.

McCarthy also deals with Harvey Siegel’s attempts to justify critical thinking. If I understand her correctly, I agree with her points, and made similar ones in an exchange with Siegel several years ago.1

Furthermore, McCarthy argues against the direct teaching of critical thinking dispositions. She holds that one approach, charismatic modeling, is indoctrination, and thus is inappropriate. The question, then, is that if this is indoctrination, what is the matter with indoctrination (of this sort)? The topic, indoctrination, has a long history in the annals of philosophy of education. McCarthy makes no use of this extended discussion of the topic. The topic needs elaboration here.

Another possible difficulty with her attack on the direct teaching of critical thinking is that one of her recommended methods seems to be direct teaching. This method is to point out to students the advantages of critical thinking — and the real life consequences of failing to think critically. This seems to me like direct teaching. Possibly McCarthy’s idea of direct teaching needs further examination.

McCarthy’s favored method of promoting critical thinking dispositions is to teach the subject matter well and deeply, pointing out consequences of failing to think critically. Then one waits, perhaps for years, trusting the student to realize the value of a disposition and to adopt it. Because of this developmental process, testing for dispositions would, she thinks, be useless; the students at the end of a course might not yet have developed their dispositions. For the efficacy of this extreme laissez-faire approach to teaching she offers no evidence. She just says, “It would seem that” to support her claim.

Even so, there are several problems. First of all one has to wonder which subject matter she wants taught. Many of my decisions that have real life consequences (and that called for the exercise of critical thinking dispositions) are not in any particular subject matter that I have ever studied. One example is my decision as a juror about the guilt of a defendant in a murder trial. This topic has been discussed elsewhere at some length by John McPeck and me.2 McCarthy only touches the surface.

A second problem resides in the obvious cases of people who are experts in their fields — who know their subject matter very well — but who are lacking some crucial critical thinking dispositions. Cyril Burt, the renowned psychologist who falsified data, is an example. He is only one of many people who are well informed but lack certain critical thinking dispositions. Thorough knowledge of the subject matter is not enough.

In her discussion of rationality McCarthy — without argument — claims that morality implies rationality. That is, if a person is moral, the person is rational. It would be interesting to know why she thinks this. I know someone quite well who is often not rational, but seems quite moral to me. Discussion of a case like this and an argument in support of the position would help to illuminate the topic.

McCarthy does offer an argument against the converse proposition she mistakenly attributes to me, the proposition that if an action is rational it is moral. Her case of the wise stock market investment seems to be an effective counterexample. However I did not state the proposition she challenged. What I said was that if an action is rational, it is not immoral. There is a significant difference between “moral” and “not immoral.” An action that is not immoral could be morally neutral, which incidentally is how she characterized the stock market investment. Her example is consistent with what I said.

In sum McCarthy discusses a number of topics, too many to do justice to any. Interestingly her failure to supply any evidence to support her empirical claim about teaching subject matter is in conflict with the spirit of the other presentation in this symposium, Stephen Norris’ paper, to which I now turn.

I am in strong general agreement with Norris’ emphasis on the need for empirical research in this field. But I am not happy with his treatment of the topic, the definition of critical thinking.

Norris provides us with three types of nouns, nominal-kind terms, strict natural kind terms, and non-strict natural kind terms. His examples in turn are “bachelor,” “buckyball,” and “gander.” He suggests that Harvey Siegel’s “critical thinking” is a strict natural kind term (like “buckyball”); that John Mcpeck’s “critical thinking” is a nominal-kind term (like “bachelor”); and that my “critical thinking” is a non-strict natural kind term (like “gander”).

He urges that empirical research is needed to find the denotation of ‘critical thinker,’ or the underlying traits of the critical thinker. He sees this research as the activity of a philosopher-empirical researcher partnership committed to identifying referents for the term, ‘critical thinker.’ A term that does not refer he believes to be useless in studies that attempt to improve education.

Since Siegel and McPeck are here to explain themselves, I shall concentrate on Norris’ classification system and its application to my definition of ‘critical thinking.’ However I suspect that my concerns apply to Norris’ handling of Siegel and McPeck as well.

My basic concern is that Norris focuses on descriptive terms (apparently assuming that all statements are either analytic or synthetic). However, ‘critical thinking’ is a value-laden theoretical term, an “essentially contested concept.” His examples are all low-level descriptive terms. Even though some folks would say that even low-level descriptive terms are also value-laden terms, they are not value-laden to the extent that empirical research cannot determine their denotation or the underlying traits — by Norris’ own account. But consider terms like ‘good’ and ‘justice.’ Can empirical research determine their denotations, or the associated underlying traits?

We need another category, which I shall name “concept-conception terms”3 to fit terms like `good,’ `justice,’ and `critical thinking.’ The meaning of the term `good’ is captured by the OED definition, “a term of general or indefinite commendation.”4 But empirical research will not tell us what is then denoted by that term. Rawls defines the concept justice roughly as fairness.5 But empirical research can not then tell us to what the word `justice’ refers — simply on the basis of its definition as fairness, because it cannot tell us what is fair. That is, empirical research cannot give us a conception of justice, a set of rules for identifying cases of justice. That is what Rawls tried to do in his book, Theory of Justice. Similarly I define the concept critical thinking as “reasonable reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do.”6 I attempt in this definition to reflect the central tendency of usage of this term in English-speaking North America, a project similar to those of the OED and John Rawls. But empirical research cannot then tell us who would be denoted by `critical thinking’ in accord with this definition. How can empirical research identify what is reasonable?

What I have tried to do with my extended list of abilities and dispositions7 (to which Norris referred) is to offer — with much guidance and help from others — a set of guidelines (that is, a conception) that I feel will help us reach reasonable decisions. The guidelines cannot be determined by empirical research. Furthermore they cannot be applied by empirical research. Experienced well-informed human beings must use their judgment in applying them.

Consider the guidelines for judging the credibility of a source: A source is credible roughly to the extent that is has expertise, has no conflict of interest, agrees with others equally qualified, has a good reputation, uses established procedures, knows that its reputation is at risk if the statement is refuted, is able to give reasons, and is careful. These guidelines are not necessary conditions and must be weighted in accord with the person’s appraisal of the situation. How can empirical research make these decisions in order to decide whether the person is to that extent a critical thinker? Not possible. So not even this conception, much less the concept, of critical thinking can be applied by empirical research.

Empirical research can do important things. It can count how many people do and do not satisfy the guidelines in various topic areas, given a judgment about each individual’s satisfaction of the guidelines (as Deanna Kuhn8 did, and as a number of social psychologists have done and are doing, described in part by Nisbett & Ross9) It can run correlations with other variables. It can get statistical summaries of test results (assuming that the test score is ultimately determined by human judgment applying a conception). But it cannot by itself identify the referents of either the concept or conception of critical thinking that I offered. It can only help to organize the judgments required for such identifications.

In sum, even though I have much sympathy for Norris’ general demand for more empirical research about critical thinking issues, I agree with John McPeck on this issue. Identifying the referent of the term, ‘critical thinker,’ is not the task of the empirical researcher in the way in which Norris wants.

McCarthy and Norris have each offered us stimulating provocative commentaries on the current critical thinking scene. But McCarthy’s work needs more elaboration and empirical backing, and Norris wants empirical research where it does not fit.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Robert H. Ennis, “The Rationality of Rationality: Why Think Critically?” in Philosophy of Education 1989, ed. Ralph Page (Bloomington, Illinois: Philosophy of Education Society, 1990), 402-405.
2 Robert H. Ennis, “Critical Thinking and Subject Specificity: Clarification and Needed Research,” Educational Researcher 18 no. 3 (1989): 4-10; John McPeck, “Critical Thinking and Subject Specificity: A Reply to Ennis,” Educational Researcher 19 no. 4 (1990): 10-12; Robert H. Ennis, “The Extent to Which Critical Thinking is Subject Specific: Further Clarification,” Educational Researcher 19 no. 4 (1990): 13-16.

3 I owe this distinction to John Rawls in his Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971), 5.

4 Oxford Universal English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1937), 811.

5 More precisely he says, “Institutions are just when no arbitrary distinctions are made between persons in the assigning of basic rights and duties and when the rules determine a proper balance between competing claims to the advantages of social life.” Rawls, 5. How can empirical research decide whether rules are “arbitrary” and whether we have achieved a “proper balance?”

6 “A Taxonomy of Critical Thinking Abilities and Dispositions,” in Teaching for Thinking: Theory and Practice, ed. Joan B. Baron and Robert J. Sternberg (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1987), 10. Also “A Streamlined Conception of Critical Thinking,” Teaching Philosophy, 14 no. 1 (1991), 6.

7 In the items mentioned in previous footnote.

8 Deanna Kuhn, The Skills of Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

9 Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross, Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1980).

imongUID: 140258

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/eps/PES-Yearbook/92_docs/Siegel.HTM

( This essay is a response to McCarthy and Norris. )

ON DEFINING “CRITICAL THINKER”
AND JUSTIFYING CRITICAL THINKING
Harvey Siegel
University of Miami



I am grateful for the opportunity to comment on these two fine papers. I cannot address the many challenging points raised by Christine McCarthy and Stephen P. Norris in the brief space available to me. Instead, I shall concentrate on two fundamental questions raised by their discussions.


I. How Should “Critical Thinking” be Defined?
After explaining the differences between nominal kind, strict natural kind, and non-strict natural kind terms, Norris asks which sort of term “critical thinker” might be. His answer is that “critical thinker” should be taken to be a non-strict natural kind term, one “whose extension…[is] determined by the presence or absence of underlying traits,” but which is “constrained by… educational values.” This is lucky for me, since I regard “critical thinker” as just such a term: the skills of reason assessment and the attitudes, dispositions and character traits constitutive of the “critical spirit” are the real, underlying traits whose presence or absence determine the extension of the term; they also reflect fundamental educational values, some of which (namely those connected with “reason,” “reasonableness” and “rationality”) are semantically related to the definiendum.1

But I am not completely persuaded by Norris’ argument for this position. The argument is that taking “critical thinker” to be any other sort of term will hamper both educational research and the educational effort to foster the development of critical thinking in students. He insists that an adequate definition of “critical thinker” must be capable of informing empirical research, and that philosophical theories of critical thinking should form “the basis of empirical critical thinking research” by providing hypotheses to test and explanations of the results of such tests. Indeed, he suggests “that for definitions of ‘critical thinker’ to be significant they must be capable of serving as the basis of empirical research on the nature and fostering of critical thinkers.” I see four problems here.

First, Norris’ necessary condition is too strong. A definition of “critical thinker” can be significant even if it is incapable of serving as the basis of empirical research. Such a definition can serve a variety of philosophical purposes — articulating an ideal, clarifying an underlying concept, relating “critical thinker” to other relevant notions, providing a basis for justificatory arguments, etc. — and in this sense be perfectly “significant” — without having the connection to empirical research which Norris wants. (Compare the definitions of other philosophical terms, such as “knowledge” or “justice”, on this score.) I am not suggesting that that connection is a bad thing, but only that failing to have it does not force us to regard a proposed definition of “critical thinker” as insignificant.

Second, Norris slides between two claims: that definitions of “critical thinker” must meet his necessary condition, and that philosophical theories of critical thinking must do so. If the relevant issue is not what sort of term “critical thinker” is, but rather what properties a conception or theory of critical thinking must attribute to such a thinker, then Norris’ concentration on definition and the philosophy of language might profitably be replaced by more epistemological or meta-theoretical concerns. The theorists Norris discusses are more concerned with the latter than the former; he himself writes that it is “philosophers’ theorizing” (rather than their definitions) which should form the basis of critical thinking research. If so, then what sort of term “critical thinker” is is rather less important than he suggests.

Third, “critical thinker” is not an ordinary noun; unlike most nouns, it refers to an educational ideal. Consequently, it may be that no one falls within its extension. Further, realizing the ideal, and so falling within the term’s extension, is (unlike most nouns) a matter of degree. That “critical thinker” fails to denote (if it does), or denotes only to some degree, is not necessarily a defect. It is quite legitimate to regard a conception of “critical thinker” as a conception of an ideal, which no one fully meets — in which case the term does not denote, or denotes only to some degree — but which is nevertheless capable of guiding educational affairs in so far as they are intended to bring about a fuller realization of the ideal. If so, then Norris has not established that it is necessary that “critical thinker” in fact denote “if we want any theory that employs the term as a central concept to have anything to do with educating people.”

Fourth: none of this suggests that the sort of empirical research Norris is calling for is misconceived or unimportant. He is right that it would be a good thing, given our desire to foster critical thinking, for philosophers to think about the empirical implications of their theories of critical thinking. But, contra Norris, it is not necessary for them to do so. It would be so only if the only aim of philosophy of education is the guiding or informing of educational research, and the concomitant improvement of educational practice. But this is not the only aim of philosophy of education or of critical thinking theorizing. Other aims include the further articulation of educational ideals like “critical thinker,” the development of philosophically more adequate theories of critical thinking, and the achievement of a more refined understanding of the nature of educational aims and the philosophical constraints on them. For these aims, it is not clear that Norris’ call to “go empirical” is correct.

McCarthy’s paper introduces an important distinction which promises to shed considerable light on the definitions of “critical thinker” and “critical thinking” and on the nature of critical thinking. She distinguishes between “episodic” and “dispositional” accounts of critical thinking; she criticizes the latter, and argues for the former. She rightly notes that the dispositions I and others associate with critical thinking are “characteristics of the person, the thinker, not features of the thinking itself.” But the aim of an account of critical thinking, she claims, is the specification of the characteristics of “the thinking itself.” Since the thinking itself does not have the relevant dispositions, a dispositional account of critical thinking must, she argues, be mistaken: “While a ‘disposition to act’ in certain ways can be considered a necessary condition of a person’s being a critical thinker, there are several reasons why such a disposition ought not to be taken as a necessary condition for ‘critical thinking’ per se.”

If one assumes, as McCarthy does, that an account of critical thinking must be confined to “the thinking itself,” and so must not be concerned with the characteristics of critical thinkers or with the necessary conditions “of a person’s being a critical thinker,” then McCarthy’s conclusion follows unproblematically, for the dispositions under consideration are indeed dispositions of persons, not of episodes of thinking. But this assumption is contentious, since most theorists of critical thinking do not restrict their accounts to “the thinking itself.” Those accounts include as well treatment of what is involved in a person’s being a critical thinker. The reason they do — at least in my own case — is that an account which so restricts itself will be unable to do justice to critical thinking as an educational ideal. This is because critical thinking is an ideal of persons, not of episodes of thinking. My account, in its emphasis on the reason assessment component of critical thinking, recognizes the episodic nature of critical thinking: an episode of thinking qualifies as critical if it appropriately reflects the evidential force of reasons. But it also recognizes that, from the point of view of philosophy of education, it is important to be clear on what is involved in a person’s being a critical thinker. It is to this issue that dispositions speak. McCarthy agrees that the dispositional account is relevant here. So there is less disagreement between McCarthy and advocates of a dispositional account of critical thinking than she suggests. She claims that I “conflate the dispositional traits of the thinker and the notion of critical thinking per se.” But, as the passages of Educating Reason which she cites makes clear, I do not conflate these; rather, I argue that both are necessary for an account of critical thinking to account fully for its status as an educational ideal. For this, an episodic account of “the thinking itself” is insufficient.


II. How Should Critical Thinking be Justified?
Here I must, regretfully, limit myself to three brief remarks, which fail to do justice to McCarthy’s stimulating discussion.

First, McCarthy argues that critical thinking, conceived episodically, should be justified instrumentally: “one should ‘think critically’ simply because that sort of thinking is efficacious.” She eschews what she regards as “unproductive analytical justificatory traps” aimed at justifying a dispositional account of critical thinking, and criticizes my attempts to lay such traps. My reply has three parts: (a) If my argument above is adequate, then justifying critical thinking conceived episodically is not enough. The ideal has an ineliminable dispositional component, and justifying the ideal as an ideal requires more than the justification of critical thinking conceived episodically. (b) In Educating Reason I make clear that I do not deny the importance of such instrumental justifications as McCarthy articulates. But instrumental considerations do not by themselves constitute a philosophical justification of the ideal. (c) McCarthy claims that my “trap” “begs the question by assuming that some randomly chosen person will necessarily take up the problem” of justifying critical thinking or rationality. This is false; I make no such assumption. I am content to note that a person who does not take up the problem does not engage the relevant philosophical issue.

Second, McCarthy’s distinction between critical thinking and rationality is problematic. On her view, critical thinking is episodic, while rationality is a dispositional trait. But she does not notice that the episodic/dispositional distinction is straightforwardly applied both to critical thinking and to rationality: both can (and should) be understood both episodically and dispositionally. (I argued for this, with respect to critical thinking, above. Those remarks apply, mutatis mutandis, to rationality.) Thus McCarthy’s argument against my view that critical thinking and rationality are coextensive fails.

Third, McCarthy’s remarks about “teaching a disposition” are on target — we shouldn’t strive “to somehow directly teach the disposition,” at least in a way which prevents the student from critically examining it. The danger of indoctrination she points to is real. But her discussion acknowledges nonetheless that “the ultimate aim that one has in teaching critical thinking is the dispositional aim.” Moreover, my discussion in “The Indoctrination Objection” makes the very same point about critical thinking and indoctrination that hers does. So, contrary to appearances, there is no substantive disagreement between us here.

These brief critical remarks do not adequately engage McCarthy’s excellent discussion. While it does not, I think, do the work she wants it to, her distinction between episodic and dispositional accounts of critical thinking is nevertheless an important and instructive addition to our understanding of critical thinking.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 In his response to these papers, Robert H. Ennis urges that Norris broaden his categories to include a fourth kind of term, one which denotes educational (or philosophical) ideals. As the following discussion indicates, I agree with Ennis on this point. I concur with Norris in regarding “critical thinker” as a non-strict natural kind term, but only on the understanding that such terms can, in virtue of their non-strictness, reflect values and ideals. Otherwise, Ennis is right that a fourth category is needed.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

yifengUID: 159612

thx imong!
不过没时间看了
考试完再说！

imongUID: 140258

http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/eps/PES-Y ... eck_to_McCarthy.HTM

( This essay is a response to McCarthy. )

THE JUSTIFICATION OF CRITICAL THINKING:
A RESPONSE TO MCCARTHY
John McPeck
University of Western Ontario





I
Christine McCarthy is correct to distinguish between the “episodic” and “dispositional” senses of the phrase “critical thinking”. Moreover, she is correct to point out that Siegel and myself run together these two senses of the phrase in our respective definitions of “critical thinking” (CT). We are both guilty as charged. What our stated definitions have run together is a description of the critical thinker qua person, and a description of critical thinking qua cognitive process.

I do, in fact, collapse this distinction far too often, and I apologize for the confusion this sloppiness has caused some readers, especially Dr. McCarthy. In the end, however, I do not think that this amounts to much more than a stylistic slip, of sorts, because more often than not, throughout the text, I, too, distinguish between the person (with dispositions), and the knowledge and skills which make up critical thinking. In addition, my general position on the subject-specific character of CT, and its non-generalizability, rests upon this distinction. In this regard, Anthony Flew criticized my book for having made the distinction between dispositions and skills too sharp, saying that it was a bit like “teaching someone what good table manners are, and then allowing them to eat like Henry the VIII.”1

Thus, I share Dr. McCarthy’s concern for distinguishing between the disposition for CT and episodic acts of CT. Moreover, I agree with many of the points she goes on to make in relation to the consequences of failing to make this distinction, particularly her point about the danger of “indoctrination” when a disposition is our pedagogical desideratum. This is an important and interesting point because who would have thought that our endeavour to promote CT might come dangerously close to indoctrination — of all things.


II
There are a few points in McCarthy’s paper about which I am less sanguine, however. One minor point concerns her critique of Siegel’s analytic or “self-justifying” argument, which he employs for the justification of CT. McCarthy argues that, contra Siegel, CT can and should be justified on straightforward instrumental grounds, and not on analytic or conceptual grounds. I see no real tension here, however. McCarthy’s instrumental justification of CT does not gainsay Siegel’s more analytical justification. There are many things that can be justified in several different ways. For example, health, and a clean environment, could each be justified on conceptual or analytic grounds as well as instrumental ones. Similarly, CT could be justified in either or both of these ways.


III
One of the major criticisms that I have of McCarthy’s paper, however, is that it actually fails in its endeavour to provide the promised “instrumental justification” for critical thinking. While her argument for an instrumental justification is anything but straightforward, winding as it does through many pages with several other points thrown in, I will try to recapture the logic of her argument as succinctly and as fairly as I can.

You will recall that her attempted instrumental justification of CT employs an analogy with “Careful Rock-Climbing.” Briefly, the analogy is as follows: there is rock-climbing; there is thinking; and as there is careful rock-climbing, there is critical thinking. She continues:

Suppose that it were proposed to add to one’s curriculum a required course in Careful Rock-Climbing. The question, “Why should one learn to rock-climb carefully?” would probably not arise, although the question, “Why should one learn to rock-climb at all?” very will might.2
Thus, the argument continues, if one accepts that rock-climbing is worthwhile (one of course, need not), then it becomes easy to justify “careful rock-climbing”. But, alas, as McCarthy correctly points out, it remains a contingent proposition whether one should “get into” rock-climbing in the first place. But here, McCarthy argues, is where “thinking” is crucially different from rock-climbing. She goes on:
First, thinking seems to be something we cannot help but to do (although sometimes, admittedly, to little effect.) But second, and more importantly, it would seem that in most situations thinking is regarded as unquestionably useful — it helps one to solve existing problems, to predict and avoid problems….3
Thus, her argument suggests, while one might easily reject rock-climbing as useful or worthwhile, one cannot so easily reject thinking as useful or worthwhile. Hence, we have the (putative!) “instrumental justification” of thinking; and later, by extension, critical thinking.
If this is a fair sketch or interpretation of the argument given let us look at it more carefully. In particular, consider the two reasons given to show how thinking is different from rock-climbing. “First, thinking seems to be something we cannot help but to do….” If this is, indeed, true, namely that we cannot help but think, then it is true by virtue of the kinds of beings that we are, but not for any contingent reasons. That is, “thinking” would not be merely “efficacious” or “instrumental” but rather necessary, because that is what humans most do. The necessity here is like that which is embedded in the proposition “humans think.” This is arguably an analytic proposition. In any case, the nature of the connection between us (humans) and thinking is not simply an “instrumental” one. Thus, while thinking is crucially different from rock-climbing, its difference does not preserve the instrumental connection required by McCarthy’s argument.

Consider the second reason, or second difference from rock-climbing: “[S]econd, and more importantly, it would seem that in most situations thinking is regarded as unquestionably useful — it helps one to solve existing problems….” (Italics are mine) Notice, however, that it is simply not true that all thinking is “useful.” Some thinking, in fact, can be harmful to us, such as thinking about having a smoke, or taking drugs; or suicide; excessive worrying; paranoid thoughts (“The Mafia is after me!”); thinking during your back-swing in golf — not to mention false thinking, vague thinking, and the like.

To be fair, however, McCarthy does not actually say that all thinking is useful, rather, she has a “hedge” qualification here which claims instead that thinking is unquestionably useful in “most situations.” Well, one might ask, which situations are these? One might also point out that while it is not always useful to rock-climb, similarly, sometimes it is. Thus, we might equally ask of rock-climbing: which situations are these? The most general answer to both of these questions is “These things are unquestionably useful when the situation calls for it.” No one, presumably, could know, or possibly anticipate, what all these situations might be. In effect, then, they turn out to be useful in just those situations where they are, or would be, useful. Contrary to appearances, this is not an “instrumental justification” of thinking, but rather a tautological one. The putative usefulness of thinking, construed in this way, is no longer contingent but necessary.


IV
Finally, I should also comment upon Dr. McCarthy’s view that “[C]ritical thinking is a necessary condition of rationality.”4 This view, at least, has the virtue of being different from Siegel’s, which contends that CT and rationality are co-extensive; and it is also different from my view which holds that these necessary conditions are in exactly the reverse order (i.e., I claim that rationality is a necessary condition of CT.). I would point out that to hold the view that “CT is a necessary condition of rationality”, as McCarthy does, issues in two very awkward consequences. The first is this. Since CT would include rationality as a logical sub-set of CT, there must be cases of critical thinking which are not rational. But such cases, I must confess, are impossible for me to imagine. I simply cannot conceive of cases of bona fide critical thinking which are not also rational. I take it that this is precisely the reason why Siegel opts for viewing the two as co-extensive — and why this awkward consequence does not arise for him.

The second awkward consequence of McCarthy’s view is one which Siegel must, alas, also live with, namely: both are forced to deny that there are cases of rationality which do not employ critical thinking. I call this an “awkward consequence” of their view because it seems to me to be “patently false.” Since I have argued this point before with Siegel, I won’t retrace all these steps again except to point to some examples which I think show that not all rational acts employ critical thinking. Such rational acts would include relying on a calculator, brushing one’s teeth, following a stranger’s street directions when lost in a city, etc. Such examples clearly show that critical thinking is not a necessary condition of rationality.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Anthony Flew, “Review of ‘Critical Thinking and Education’,” British Journal of Educational Studies 30, no. 3 (1982): 352-353.
2 Christine McCarthy, “Why be Critical? (or Rational or Moral?) The Justification of Critical Thinking,” in Philosophy of Education 1992, ed. H.A. Alexander (Champaign, Ill.: Philosophy of Education Society, 1993).

3 Ibid.

4 Ibid.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------