Blog - by Linda Elder with Richard Paul Archives

{"ops":[{"insert":"This blog relates to my May 6th, 2025 post, “"},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/blogPost.php?param=265"},"insert":"Develop Intellectual Courage"},{"insert":".”\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nWhen people are unwilling to examine their reasoning and beliefs, they lack intellectual courage and are instead displaying "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"intellectual cowardice"},{"insert":". This keeps them from seeing shortcomings in their thinking, thereby impeding the revision of unreasonable convictions and unhelpful concepts. Most people rarely, if ever, bring themselves to rationally assess the ideas and beliefs that they have accumulated through life, such as ideas from their childhood, from their peer groups, from broader society, etc. They fear having to admit they have been wrong, perhaps for years or even decades, and especially about concepts and “certainties” that they find integral to their worldviews, to themselves, or the groups they belong to. They are more comfortable holding onto inaccurate, frequently harmful notions and claims, avoiding the possibility that they have been wrong. Ironically, this feeds into their own sense of inadequacy – the very thing they attempt to avoid by not examining and assessing their beliefs.\n \nAnother aspect of intellectual cowardice is an unwillingness to present ideas to others for fear of rejection. This does not apply to situations where it is genuinely unsafe to present one’s ideas; rather, it happens when people are insecure in their beliefs, and are therefore unable or unwilling to discuss them publicly or even privately. They cannot abide the possibility that someone might contradict them, ask them to further explain their thoughts, or request examples of the reasoning in question.\n \nWhich of your beliefs and concepts are you afraid of examining? What keeps you from scrutinizing them? What precisely are you afraid of as you consider inspecting and questioning any part of your convictions? If you examine your marriage, might you see something you would rather not? If you examine your parenting patterns and habits, will you see something about your parenting that upsets you? If you ponder your career path, what unwelcome truths might you have to face? If you review what you said in the last argument you had with someone, what might you discover about yourself that you need to change?\n \nWhat pain and misery do you experience because you are unwilling to examine some ideas you have been harboring? What harm and suffering do you cause others because you are unwilling to reconsider your thinking? Why have you decided that refusing to reflect on your beliefs is worth these harms done to yourself and others? What about the current version of yourself is so beneficial that it outweighs the damage you are doing? Can you think of times when, despite your fears and concerns, you nevertheless spoke up about your views, and positive consequences resulted from your courage? What stops you from doing this in other contexts? Is it fear of rejection? Is it fear of having to face you are wrong? Is it the desire to always feel right in every situation?\n \n-----\nThis blog is adapted from page 181 in Linda Elder’s "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Critical Thinking Therapy: For Happiness & Self-Actualization"},{"insert":" (2025), available through the Foundation for Critical Thinking Press at "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://www.fctpress.org/"},"insert":"FCTPress.org"},{"insert":".\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"[Missed Part 5? "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/blogPost.php?param=283"},"insert":"Read It Here"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"]"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"italic":true,"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nThe most important place that knowledge has in any life is, in my view, that of shaping our concept of things overall, our system of values, meanings, and interpretive schemes. This is the domain in which critical thought is most important to us. We spend only a small percentage of our lives making judgments as specialists, and even then we typically give a broader meaning to those acts as persons and citizens.\n\nHence a business person may place a high value on professional acts as contributing to the social good, may interpret and assess the schools and education on the model of a business, may judge the political process in its relation to the business community and see business opportunities and freedom as conceptually interrelated, and may then unfavorably judge societies not organized so as to favor \"free investment of capital\" as dangerous threats to human well-being. Logical synthesis, cutting across categories, extracting metaphors from one domain and using them to organize others, arguing for or against the global metaphors of others, are intellectual acts ultimately grounded, not in the criteria and skills of specialists, not in some science or any combination thereof, but in the "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"art "},{"insert":"of rational-dialectical-critical thought, in the art of thinking of anything in its relationship to things overall.\n\nHence, to be rational agents, we must learn to think critically about how we totalize our experience and bring that total picture to bear on particular dimensions of our lives. We cannot, without forfeiting our autonomy, delegate the construction of those crucial acts to specialists or technicians. Students, teachers, and people in general need to maintain their critical autonomy even in, "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"especially "},{"insert":"in, the face of specialists and even with respect to claims made within specialized areas. If democracy is a viable form of government and way of life, then judgments not only of policy but of world view are the common task of all, not the prerogative of privileged groups of specialists. We need to pay special attention to those "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"general "},{"insert":"skills of critical cross-examination, for they are what enable us to maintain our autonomous judgment in the midst of experts. These pay-off skills of civic literacy and personal autonomy can be articulated best, not in procedures that read like a technical manual, but in "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"principles "},{"insert":"that will often sound platitudinous or have the ring of \"general\" advice – the principles of clarity, accuracy, consistency, relevance, depth, breadth, precision, completeness, fairness. Platitudes however can become insights, and insights definitive of general skills when systematic, case-by-case practice is supported by careful argument for and against. It is a platitude to say, for example, that the press and the media of a nation tend to cover the news so as to foster or presuppose the correctness of the \"world view\" of that nation or its government. But this bit of \"common knowledge\" is a far cry from the very important general skill of reading a newspaper so as to note how, where, and when it is insinuating nationalistic biases. Or again, it is one thing to recognize that all \"news\" is news from a point of view. It is another to be able to read or hear news with the critical sensitivity to see one point of view presupposed and others ruled out. McPeck thinks otherwise:\n\n. . . where there is only common knowledge, there can only be common criticism – which is usually plain enough for one and all to see. This view not only represents a very shallow, or superficial, understanding of the cognitive ingredients of critical thinking, but it is also forced to underestimate and play down the real complexities that usually underlie even apparently \"common\" or \"everyday\" problems. The solutions to \"common,\" \"everyday\" problems, if they are in fact problems, are seldom common or everyday. In any event, the educational aspirations of our schools are (fortunately) set higher than the treatment of issues that could otherwise be solved by common sense. Where common sense can solve a problem there is hardly a need for special courses in critical thinking. And where common sense cannot solve a problem, one quickly finds the need for subject-specific information; hence, the traditional justification for subject-oriented courses. (pp. 156-157)"},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe principles may be \"common sense\" or platitudinous – \"consider all and only relevant facts\" – but "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"applying "},{"insert":"these principles when their application is not obvious, or when the life-long habit of applying them tendentiously interferes, goes beyond \"lowly\" common sense. It takes guidance, extended practice, and evaluation of that practice. Far from such work being too lowly for our schools to bother with at any length, it is difficult to imagine a more worthwhile task than developing such judgment to its highest degree in each student. If you believe in democracy, you must believe that citizens have the potential to judge. If you believe that one primary function of education is to prepare students for participation in democracy, you must agree that helping students refine their ability to judge social, political, and economic questions (and questions to which these subjects apply) as clear-mindedly, fairly, and rationally as possible is among the most important and useful functions of education. Use of \"common sense\" is not inborn, but developed.\n\nThe logics we use, and which we are daily constructing and reconstructing, are far more mutable, less discrete, more general, more open-textured and multi-textured, more social, more dialectical, and even more personal - and hence far less susceptible to domain-specific skills and concepts – than McPeck dares to imagine. We need to base our model of the critical thinker, not on the domain-bound individual with subject-specific skills, but on the disciplined generalist. This means that we ought to encourage the student as soon as possible to recognize that in virtually every area of our lives, cutting across categories every which way, there are multiple conflicting viewpoints and theories vying for our allegiance, virtually all of whose possible truth call for shifts in our global perspective. Discipline-specific approaches to everyday problems are often partial and one-sided and need to be balanced and \"corrected\" by other approaches. A critical thinker must not be the captive of the concepts, criteria, or traditions in any one subject or discipline.\n\nThe general skills necessary to finding our way about in this dialectical world are more appropriately captured in the work of an Ennis, a D'Angelo, or a Scriven than a McPeck. "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"General "},{"insert":"critical skills and dispositions cannot be learned without content, no doubt, but few would disagree with this point, certainly not Ennis, D'Angelo, or Scriven. The real and pressing question is not whether or not content is necessary to thought (it is), but whether \"content\" restricts us to thinking "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"within "},{"insert":"as against "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"across "},{"insert":"and "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"between "},{"insert":"and "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"beyond "},{"insert":"categories. If there is such a thing as having a global perspective, and if that perspective not only sets out categories but also implies their taxonomy, and if such a perspective can be assessed only by appeal to general dialectical skills, not domain or subject-specific ones, then McPeck's vision of critical thinking instruction is fundamentally flawed and the move to a greater emphasis on critical thinking in education is more challenging, and to some perhaps more threatening, than has generally been recognized until now.\"\n\n"},{"attributes":{"italic":true,"bold":true},"insert":"Footnotes"},{"insert":"\n\n[iv] Robert Ennis, \"A Concept of Critical Thinking.\" "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Harvard Educational Review, "},{"insert":"1962.\n\n[v] Something should be said in passing about McPeck's treatment of Edward de Bono to whose ideas he devotes a full chapter. This is odd, given the book's supposed focus on "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"critical "},{"insert":"thinking, for de Bono has no theory of critical thinking as such, unless his stereotype of critical thinking as uncreative fault-finding qualifies. Indeed, de Bono uses the concept of critical thinking merely as a foil for \"lateral\" or \"creative\" thinking, which he of course takes to be essentially different. He holds that we already put too great an emphasis on "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"critical "},{"insert":"thought. Perhaps McPeck includes him because of his celebrity. I find this inclusion inappropriate and the amount of attention devoted to him unjustified, if critical thinking is indeed McPeck's concern. Furthermore, de Bono is "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"clearly "},{"insert":"not in the same league theoretically as an Ennis, D'Angelo, or Scriven, whatever his celebrity, and his kaleidoscopic, helter-skelter development of metaphors, which merely "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"suggest "},{"insert":"rather than theoretically "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"probe "},{"insert":"the character of \"lateral\" thought, is an easy target for critique.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Distrust in Reason: The Opposite of Confidence in Reason"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\n[This blog relates to my June 10, 2025 post, “"},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/blogPost.php?param=269"},"insert":"Develop Confidence in Reason"},{"insert":".”]\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nWhen people are unwilling to follow evidence and fully consider the facts in a situation, and when they do not want to understand what beliefs and actions are advised by rational consideration of those facts, they embody distrust in reason. These persons value their own opinions or those of their group above the truth and above conclusions reached through high-quality reasoning. They do this however wrong their thinking might be, and whatever negative consequences may emerge from their willful ignorance.\n \nPeople who harbor mob mentality, for example, tend to distrust facts and logical reasoning — except where such facts and reasoning happen to align with their own views, in which cases their acceptance of reality is based not on demonstrable accuracy, but on validating their egos, emotions, and the groups to which they belong. Such individuals frequently whip up public emotions by distorting information and mislabeling falsehoods as “facts.” But facts are not determined by human preferences; they are determined by rational pursuit of the questions at issue embedded in situations and realities. These facts must be examined objectively as they relate to the questions at issue. When people are motivated to believe whatever they or their peers want to believe, if they feel self-righteous in their beliefs, and if they come to believe ideas that are dangerous, this is likely to lead to harmful actions.\n \nPeople who value ego-validation, group-validation, or emotional validation above rationality may or may not realize they are advancing irrational lines of reasoning. To the extent that they "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"are"},{"insert":" aware, they seek ways to rationalize the shortcomings in their thinking. This occurs at the unconscious level, at least to some degree.\n \nAre you willing to follow facts and sound reasoning wherever they take you, or do you fear doing so? What will happen if you open (or further open) your mind to truth and rational judgement instead of believing what you would prefer to believe? Can you tell the difference between fact and misinformation parading as fact? Do you know how to assess a line of reasoning by holding it to reasonable intellectual standards like clarity, logicality, precision, depth, fairmindedness, and so forth? How do you go about determining the relevant and important facts in a situation, or analyzing and evaluating an idea or claim? Do you rely on others to figure this out for you and trust their answers, or do you verify the facts and assess the reasoning for yourself?\n \nFor instance, imagine that in a therapy situation, your therapist suggests a technique for simulated “rebirthing” to deal with past emotional trauma. This technique involves rolling in a blanket that is bound tightly around your body, including your head, and you perceive that the process may cause you to suffocate. Do you go along with it on the assumption that your therapist is to be implicitly trusted, or do you question the sanity of such a practice? Or imagine that your therapist recommends that you and your partner use plastic bats to repeatedly hit each other in the “therapeutic” setting as a means of releasing your frustrations. Do you question this technique as potentially harmful and unlikely to improve your relationship? Or do you relish whacking your partner with a bat in what appears to be an authorized setting?\n \nOften you can see that what people say, or suggest, is irrational because evidenced facts and reasoned judgement would not support it. Do you trust yourself in these situations to question what is being suggested? If not, to what extent does your self-doubt result from legitimate insufficiencies in reasoning that can be improved through practice over time? At the same time, are there aspects of your self-doubt that might be irrational?\n \nCan you think of occasions where you voluntarily went along with something that didn’t make sense to you, and the consequences were harmful to your well-being or that of others? How could you have handled these situations differently in ways that might have improved the outcomes? Do these past experiences suggest to you certain principles or other ideas that will help you act more reasonably when you next encounter similar circumstances?\n \nCan you see how learning the tools of critical thinking are necessary to developing confidence in reason?\n \n-----\nThis blog is adapted from pages 185 and 186 in Linda Elder’s "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Critical Thinking Therapy: For Happiness & Self-Actualization"},{"insert":" (2025), available through the Foundation for Critical Thinking Press at "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://www.fctpress.org/"},"insert":"FCTPress.org"},{"insert":".\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"[Missed Part 4? "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/blogPost.php?param=281"},"insert":"Read It Here"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"]"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"italic":true,"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nMcPeck focuses his critique on Ennis's article, \"A Concept of Critical Thinking,” published in 1962, despite Ennis's subsequent published modifications. Furthermore, Ennis makes clear, even in this early article, that he does not take himself to be providing a definitive analysis of the concept; he offers but a \"truncated\" working definition. He describes his article as providing a \"range definition\" which has \"vague boundaries,\" based on an examination of \"the literature on the goals of the schools and the literature on the criterion of good thinking,\" and designed merely to \"select\" \"those aspects\" which come under the notion of critical thinking as \"the correct assessing of statements.\" He makes it clear that he is leaving out at least one crucial element (\"the judging of value statements is deliberately excluded\"). He makes clear that his working definition does not settle the question as to how best to teach critical thinking, for example, whether as a separate subject or within subject areas. Finally, it is clear that he is concerned with critical thinking as an open-ended and complicated set of processes that can be set out in analyzed form only for the purpose of theoretical convenience, a list of \"aspects\" and \"dimensions\" that can be learned \"at various levels.\"\n \nMcPeck's motive for critiquing Ennis's concept is clearly the fact that Ennis does not define critical thinking so as to link it \"conceptually with particular activities and special fields of knowledge.\" (p. 56) And because McPeck sees this conceptual link as necessary, as given "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"in "},{"insert":"the concept, it is, to him, \"impossible to conceive of critical thinking as a generalized skill.” (p. 56) In other words, Ennis conceives of critical thinking in an \"impossible\" and therefore incoherent, muddled, and contradictory way. If we are not persuaded of this conceptual link and we read Ennis to be making more modest claims than McPeck attributes to him, most of McPeck's criticisms fall by the wayside.\n \nLet us look more closely, then, at McPeck's model and its implications. It depends upon the plausibility of placing any line of thought into a \"category,\" \"domain,\" \"subject area,\" or \"field,\" which placement provides, implicitly or explicitly, criteria for judging that line of thought. It tacitly assumes that all thinking is in one and only one category, that we can, without appealing to an expert on experts, tell what the appropriate category is, and thus what specialized information or skills are unique to it. Each discrete category requires specialized concepts, experience, skills, etc. Thus, only some limited set of people can develop the necessary wherewithal to think critically within it. Since there are many logical domains and we can be trained only in a few of them, it follows that we must use our critical judgment mainly to suspend judgment and defer to experts when we ourselves lack expertise. It leaves little room for the classical concept of the liberally educated person as having skills of learning that are general and not domain specific. It is worthwhile therefore to set out more particularly, if somewhat abstractly, why"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"it is unacceptable.\n \nFirst, the world is not given to us sliced up into logical categories, and there is not one, but an indefinite number of ways to \"divide\" it, that is, experience, perceive, or think about the world, and no \"detached\" point of view from the supreme perspective of which we can decide on the appropriate taxonomy for the \"multiple realities\" of our lives. Conceptual schemes create logical domains and it is human thought, not nature, that creates them.\n \nSecond, our conceptual schemes themselves can be classified in an indefinite number of ways. To place a line of reasoning into a category and so to identify it by its \"type\" is heuristic, not ontological – a useful tool, not descriptive of its nature. Even concepts and lines of reasoning "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"clearly "},{"insert":"within one category are also simultaneously within others. Most of what we say and think, to put it another way, is not only open-textured but "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"multi"},{"insert":"-textured as well. For example, in what logical domain does the (technical?) concept of alcoholism solely belong: disease, addiction, crime, moral failing, cultural pattern, lifestyle choice, defect of socialization, self-comforting behavior, psychological escape, personal weakness, ... ? How many points of view can be used to illuminate it? Then, is it "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"in "},{"insert":"one or many categories? Or consider the question, \"How can society ameliorate the problem of alcoholism?\" It cannot be adequately addressed from "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"one "},{"insert":"domain. Nor can the problem be adequately addressed by parsing out its elements and addressing each in isolation from the rest. The light shed by the experts must be synthesized.\n \nNot only conceptualizing \"things,\" but most especially classifying what we have conceptualized, are not matters about which we should give the final word to experts and specialists. To place something said or thought into a category, from the perspective of which we intend to judge it, is to take a potentially contentious position with respect to it. There are no specialists who have the definitive taxonomy or undebatable means for so deciding. The category a thing is in logically depends upon what it is "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"like, "},{"insert":"but all things (including conceptual schemes) are like any number of other things (other conceptual schemes, for example) in any number of ways and so are "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"in "},{"insert":"any number of logical domains, depending on our purposes.\n \nConsider for example Copernicus' statements about the earth in relation to the sun. These are, you may be tempted to say, astronomical statements and nothing else. But if they become a part of concepts and lines of thought that have radically reoriented philosophical, social, religious, economic, and personal thought, as indeed they have, are they "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"merely in "},{"insert":"that one category? When we begin to think in a cross-categorical way, as the intellectual heirs of Copernicus, Darwin, Freud, and Marx"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":", "},{"insert":"are there category-specific skills and specialists to interpret that thought and tell us what the correct synthesis of these ingredients is and how it ought to color or guide our interpretation or critical assessment of statements \"within\" some particular domain or other?\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Critical thinking standards ultimately derive from the nature of thought itself and what we characteristically need thinking to do. Failure to internalize and regularly use these standards frequently leads to irrational thoughts, or in other words, to defeating the very purposes of reasoning. For instance, failing to focus on what is significant in human life can lead you to a life of superficiality, marked by performing for others and constantly needing their approval instead of cultivating your unique capacities. Failing to be logical or to think fairly in your relationships may lead those relationships to suffer or collapse. Thus:\n\nThe intellectual standard of clarity derives from the fact that we want or need to communicate a certain meaning to others, or to ourselves reach a higher level of understanding, and unclear language undermines or defeats those purposes."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe intellectual standard of accuracy derives from the fact that we are trying to understand or communicate things as they actually are, without any distortions. Inaccurate thought defeats that purpose."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe intellectual standard of precision derives from the fact that we often need details and specifics to accomplish our goals. Imprecision, or the failure to provide details and specifics, undermines that purpose."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe intellectual standard of relevance derives from the fact that some information—however true it might be—does not bear upon a question to which we need an answer. Irrelevant information, thrust into the thinking process, diverts us from the information, viewpoints, and other elements of reasoning that are pertinent to answering the question at hand."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe intellectual standard of depth derives from the fact that questions and issues entail various levels of complexity, and thinking that ignores that complexity is necessarily inadequate."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe intellectual standard of breadth derives from the fact that some issues can be dealt with only by reasoning within multiple points of view. One-sided thinking cannot be adequate when multi-sidedness is called for."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe intellectual standard of logic derives from the fact that reasoning that is inconsistent and self-contradictory necessarily lacks intelligibility."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe intellectual standard of fairness derives from the fact that humans commonly ignore or twist relevant facts and insights when they are not in line with one’s interests or agenda."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe intellectual standard of sufficiency derives from the fact that it is possible to gather detailed and vast information that is relevant and accurate, but that is still not sufficient to answer the question at issue or solve the problem at hand."},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nTo generalize, it would be unintelligible to say, “I want to reason well, but I am indifferent as to whether my reasoning is clear, precise, accurate, relevant, logical, broad, deep, consistent, fair, or sufficient.”\n \n-----\nThis blog is adapted from page 199 in Linda Elder’s "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Critical Thinking Therapy: For Happiness & Self-Actualization"},{"insert":" (2025), available through the Foundation for Critical Thinking Press at "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://www.fctpress.org/"},"insert":"FCTPress.org"},{"insert":".\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"[Missed Part 3? "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/blogPost.php?param=279"},"insert":"Read It Here"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"]"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"italic":true,"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nMcPeck assumes that for one person to rationally address a multi-categorical problem, he or she would need to be an expert in"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"every pertinent field, an obvious impossibility. Such universal expertise, however, is far from necessary. What "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"is "},{"insert":"necessary is that the individual has a firm grasp of the basic concepts and principles of the pertinent fields, experience thinking within them, and the ability to learn new details and assess relevant details the subjects contribute to understanding the problem. One need not know everything when one takes up a question or problem. One merely needs enough background knowledge and skills to begin to gather and analyze relevant discipline information and insight.\n\nMcPeck identifies the bogey man in critical thinking in a variety of ways – \"the logic approach,\" \"formalism,\" \"informal logic,\" \"naive logical positivism,\" \"logic simpliciter,\" and so forth – but the bulk of his book is spent in attacking scholars associated with the informal logic movement (Ennis, Johnson, Blair, D'Angelo, and Scriven). The general charge against them is, predictably, that they have failed to grasp what follows from the logic of the concept of critical thinking – that it is \"muddled nonsense\" to base it on general skills – and that such misguided attempts necessarily result in \"the knee-jerk application of skills\" and \"superficial opinion masquerading as profound insight,\" and are thus bound to run aground.\n\nSince McPeck rests so much on his conceptual analysis, it is appropriate to note what he leaves out of it. He does not consider the full range of uses of the word “critical” as they relate to various everyday senses of the predicate “thinks critically.” He does not consider the history of critical thought, the various theories of it implicit in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Weber, Sartre, Habermas, and so forth. He does not consider the implications of such classic exemplars as Socrates, Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, Henry David Thoreau, or even of an H. L. Mencken, or Ivan Illich, to mention a few that come to mind. He fails to ask whether their critical thinking can or cannot be explained by, or reduced to, specialized knowledge or domain-specific skills. He neglects the rich range of programs that have recently been developed in the field (he has it in mind that in principle there "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"cannot "},{"insert":"be a field of research here). He ignores the possibility that, given the rich variety of programs, reflecting somewhat different emphases, interests, and priorities, it may be premature to attempt to pin down in a few words \"the concept of critical thinking.\" He fails to consider the possibility that the scholars he criticizes may be using the term in an "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"inductive "},{"insert":"sense, hence not presupposing or claiming a definitive analysis of the concept, but restricting their focus rather to some of its necessary, not sufficient, conditions (for example: aiding students in developing greater skill in identifying and formulating questions at issue, distinguishing evidence from conclusion, isolating conceptual problems, identifying problems of credibility, recognizing common fallacies, and coming to a clearer sense of what a claim or an assumption or an inference or an implication is, and so forth).\n\nOne result is that his analysis of \"the concept of critical thinking” is in all essentials completed in the first thirteen pages of the book with his foundational inference in place by page four. Another is that he gives a most unsympathetic and at times highly misleading representation of most of those he criticizes (Ennis, Glaser, D'Angelo, Johnson, Blair, and Scriven).\n\nIn order to have space to develop the broader implications of McPeck's analysis, I will illustrate this latter tendency solely with respect to Robert Ennis, who is at the center of most of his critical remarks in Chapter Three, \"The Prevailing View of the Concept of Critical Thinking.\" McPeck introduces this chapter with three interrelated general charges about the \"theoretical foundation\" of the prevailing concept: that those who hold it subscribe \"to the verifiability criterion of meaning,\" are \"marked by a naive form of logical positivism,\" and have \"an unquestioned faith in the efficacy of science and its methods to settle every significant controversy requiring critical thought.\" However, nowhere in the chapter does he back up these charges. And I myself do not find anything in the work of Ennis (or of D'Angelo for that matter) that suggest such theoretical commitments.\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"When thinking is relevant, it focuses on the primary task at hand. It selects what is germane, pertinent, and related. It is on the alert for everything that connects to the issue. It sets aside what is immaterial, inappropriate, extraneous, or beside the point. \n \nThat which directly bears upon the problem you are trying to solve is relevant to that problem. When thinking drifts away from what is relevant, it should be brought back to what truly makes a difference. Undisciplined thinking is often guided by associations (“this reminds me of that, that reminds me of this other thing”) rather than what is logically connected (“if he said this, he might also mean…”) Disciplined thinking intervenes when thoughts wander, concentrating the mind on matters that help it figure out what it needs to figure out.\n \nIf you find your thinking digresses, try to determine why. Is your mind simply wandering? If so, you probably need to intervene to get it back on track. Or perhaps you realize that you need to deal with a different issue before you can address the one you were originally focusing on. If so, by all means, address the issue your mind has uncovered. But most importantly, know precisely, at any given moment, the issue you are addressing; then stick to that issue until you have either reached resolution, or made an active decision to revisit it later. Do not allow your mind to wander aimlessly from idea to idea, from issue to issue, without direction or discipline.\n \nAsk these questions regularly to make sure your thinking is focused on what is relevant:\n \nAm I focused on the main problem or task?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nHow are these two issues connected, or are they?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nHow is the problem raised intertwined with the issue at hand?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nDoes the information I am considering directly relate to the problem or task?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nWhere do I need to focus my attention?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nAm I being diverted to unrelated matters?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nAm I failing to consider relevant viewpoints?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nHow is my point relevant to the issue I am addressing?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nWhat facts will actually help me answer the question? What considerations should be set aside?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nDoes this truly bear on the question? How does it connect?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \n-----\nThis blog is adapted from page 208 in "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Critical Thinking Therapy: For Happiness & Self-Actualization"},{"insert":" (2025), available through the Foundation for Critical Thinking Press at "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://www.fctpress.org/"},"insert":"FCTPress.org"},{"insert":".\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"[Missed Part 2? "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/blogPost.php?param=277"},"insert":"Read It Here"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"]"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"italic":true,"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nIf nothing else, the reader is bound to feel something of the attraction – in this technological, specialists' world of ours – of McPeck's placing critical thought squarely in the center of an atomistic, information-centered model of knowledge. We are already comfortable with the notion that to learn is to amass large quantities of specialized or erudite facts and we know that facts are of different "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"types. "},{"insert":"In other words, we tend to think of knowledge on the model of the computers we are so enamored of: on the one hand, a huge mass of atomic facts (our data bank), and on the other a specific set of categories, McPeck's logical domains, which organize them into higher-order generalizations by formulas and decision-procedures of various kinds. To change one of the formulas or decision-procedures requires technical information about the facts to be manipulated. Critical thought in this context requires understanding of both the data bank and the established procedures.\n \nBut it is well to remember that we cannot ask computers multi-categorical questions"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"*"},{"insert":", especially those kinds that cut across the disciplines in such a way as to require reasoned perspective on the data from a \"global\" point of view. Such questions, structuring the very warp and woof of everyday life, are typically dialectical, settled, that is, by "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"general "},{"insert":"cannons of argument, by objection (from one point of view) and reply (from another), by case and counter-case, by debate not only about the answer to the question, but also about the question itself. Most social and world problems are of this nature, as are those that presuppose the subject's world view"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"."},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nFor example, consider those social problems that call for judgments on the equity of the distribution of wealth and power, of the causes of poverty, of the justification and limits of welfare, of the nature or existence of the military-industrial complex, of the value or danger of capitalism, of the character of racism and sexism or their history and manifestations, of the nature of communism or socialism, .... The position we take on any one of these issues is likely to reflect the position we take on the others and they are all likely to reflect our conception of human nature (the extent of human equality and what follows from it as so conceived, the nature and causes of human \"laziness\" and \"ambition\"), the need for \"social change,\" or \"conservatism,\" even the character of the \"cosmos\" and \"nature.\"\n \nThis point was brought home to me recently when I got into a lengthy disagreement with an acquaintance on the putative justification of the U.S. invasion of Grenada. Before long we were discussing questions of morality, the appropriate interpretation of international law, supposed rights of countries to defend their interests, spheres of influence, the character of U.S. and Soviet foreign policies, the history of the two countries, the nature and history of the C.I.A., the nature of democracy, whether it can exist without elections, who has credibility and how to judge it, the nature of the media and how to assess it, whether it reflects an \"American\" party line, sociocentrism, our own personalities, consistency, etc. Especially illuminating and instructive was the distinctive pattern that this discussion took. It was eminently clear that we disagreed in our respective world views, our global perspectives. Because we each conceived of the world with something like an integrated point of view, we conceptualized the problem and its elements differently. Specialized information was differently interpreted by us. There were no discipline-specific skills to save the day.\n \nMcPeck avoids commenting on such problems except insofar as they presuppose specialized information, which he then focuses on (or dismisses them as belonging to the realm of \"common sense\"). From a logical atomist's point of view (with everything carefully placed in an appropriate logical category of its own, and there settled by appropriate specialists), dialectical, multi-categorical questions are anomalous, they do not fit in. When they notice them, they tend to try to fabricate specialized categories for them or to break them down into a summary complex of mono-categorical elements. Hence the problem of peace in relation to the military-industrial complex would be broken down by atomists into discrete sets of economic, social, ethical, historical, and psychological problems, or what have you, each to be analyzed and settled separately. This neat and tidy picture of the world of knowledge as a specialist's world is the Procrustean Bed that McPeck has prepared for critical thought. To aspire to critical thought, on this view, is to recognize that it can be achieved only within narrow confines of one's life: \" . . . there are no Renaissance men in this age of specialized knowledge.\" (p. 7) It is possible only in those dimensions where one can function as a \"properly trained physicist, historian, . . . [or) art critic . . . \" (p. 150), and so learn specialized knowledge and unique skills.\n \n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"*Editor’s Note:"},{"insert":" Some may reply that since this paper was written, generative AI has enabled computers to begin answering multi-categorical questions. However:\n\nPaul’s point is not what "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"computers themselves"},{"insert":" cannot do, but rather what "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"discipline-specific, logically atomistic reasoning"},{"insert":" – whether performed by humans or simulated by computers – cannot do."},{"attributes":{"list":"ordered"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"To the extent that computers can simulate multi-categorical reasoning, the products thereof must still be analyzed, assessed, and, wherever significant shortcomings appear, corrected or otherwise improved by human thinking, "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"if"},{"insert":" generative AI is to be a reliable tool in how humans approach multi-categorical questions and problems."},{"attributes":{"list":"ordered"},"insert":"\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"insert":"Our own thinking usually seems clear to us, even when it is not. Vague, ambiguous, muddled, deceptive, or misleading thinking are significant problems in human life. If you are to develop as a thinker, you must learn the art of clarifying your thinking—of pinning it down, spelling it out, and giving it a specific meaning.\n \nHere’s what you can do to begin: When people explain things to you, summarize in your own words what you think they said. When you cannot do this to their satisfaction, you don’t truly understand what they said. When they cannot summarize to your satisfaction what you have said, they don’t truly understand what you said.\n \nTo improve your ability to clarify your thinking (in your own mind, when speaking to others, or when writing, for example), use the following strategy. "},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Practice this now"},{"insert":", focusing on an upcoming discussion of importance to you:\n \nI think… [State your main point.]"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nIn other words… [Elaborate on your main point.]"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nFor example… [Give an example of your main point.]"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nAn illustration of this would be… [Use an analogy or metaphor to help draw a mental picture of your point.]"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nTo clarify other people’s thinking, ask any of the following questions (in a meeting, in a disagreement, and in any discussion where you are unclear): \n \nCan you restate that in other words? "},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nCan you give an example of what you mean by that? "},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nCan you elaborate on your point?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nLet me tell you what I understand you to be saying. Do I understand you correctly?"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nAs you begin to use these strategies, as basic as they seem, note how seldom others use them. Notice how often people assume that others understand them when what they have said is, in fact, unintelligible, muddy, or confusing. Note how, very often, the simple intellectual moves are the most powerful. (For example, saying to someone: “I don’t understand what you are saying. Can you say that in other words?”) Be aware that mentally healthy people openly and clearly communicate their views when it is possible and reasonable to do so, and they want to understand the views of others.\n \n-----\nThis blog is adapted from page 207 in Linda Elder’s "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Critical Thinking Therapy: For Happiness & Self-Actualization"},{"insert":" (2025), available through the Foundation for Critical Thinking Press at "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://www.fctpress.org/"},"insert":"FCTPress.org"},{"insert":".\n"}]}

{"ops":[{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"[Missed Part 1? "},{"attributes":{"bold":true,"link":"https://community.criticalthinking.org/blogPost.php?param=275"},"insert":"Read It Here"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"]"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"italic":true,"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nMcPeck's mistakes are, from one vantage point, glaring and fundamental; from another they are seductive, and, as I have suggested above, quite natural. They bear examination from a number of points of view. Certainly most can see the fallacy in inferring that, because one cannot write without writing about something, some specific subject or other, it is therefore unintelligible \"muddled nonsense\" to maintain general composition courses or to talk about general, as against subject-specific, writing skills. Likewise most would think bizarre someone who argued that, because speech requires something spoken about, it therefore is senseless to set up general courses in speech, and incoherent to talk of "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"general "},{"insert":"speaking skills.\n \nYet McPeck's keystone inference, logically parallel and equally fallacious in my view, is likely to be seductively attractive to many teachers and administrators in the form in which McPeck articulates it:\n \nIt is a matter of conceptual truth that thinking is always thinking about X, and that X can never be \"everything in general\" but must always be something in particular. Thus the claim \"I teach my students to think\" is at worst false and at best misleading."},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" "},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Thinking, then, is logically connected to an X. Since this fundamental point is reasonably easy to grasp, it is surprising that critical thinking should have become reified into a curriculum subject and the teaching of it an area of expertise of its own. . . ."},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" "},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"In isolation it neither refers to nor denotes any particular skill. It follows from this that it makes no sense to talk about critical thinking as a distinct subject and that it therefore cannot profitably be taught as such. To the extent that critical thinking is not about a specific subject X, it is both conceptually and practically empty. The statement \"I teach critical thinking,\" simpliciter, is vacuous because there is no generalized skill properly called critical thinking. (pp. 4 & 5)"},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nMany would, I suspect, find it equally attractive to conclude with McPeck that \"the real problem with uncritical students is not a deficiency in a general skill, such as logical ability, but rather a general lack of education in the traditional sense\" and that \" . . . elementary schools are fully occupied with their efforts to impart the three R's, together with the most elementary information about the world around them\" and hence have no "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"time "},{"insert":"to teach critical thinking as well. They might not be as comfortable with his notion that \"there is nothing in the logic of education that requires that schools should engage in education\" and \"nothing contradictory in saying, 'This is a fine school, and I recommend it to others, even though it does not engage in education.\"'\n \nStill, this latter point is mentioned only once, not endlessly repeated in an array of different forms as is his major refrain that \"thinking of any kind is always about X.\""},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"The ''X\""},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"of this refrain, that to which McPeck believes the logic of all thought is to be relativized, is itself characterized in a litany of synonyms (\"the question at issue,\" \"the subject matter,\" \"the parent field,\" \"the field of research,\" \"the specific performance,\" \"the discipline,\" \"the cognitive domain,\" and so forth) as are the various criteria (the need for \"specialized and technical language,\" \"technical information,\" \"field-dependent concepts,\" \"unique logic,\" \"unique skills,\" \"intra-field considerations,\" \"subject-specific information,\" and so forth) imposed on the critical thinker by the X"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"in question. The hypnotic effect of the continual reiteration of the truism implicit in his major refrain, alongside of a variety of formulations of his major conclusion is such that readers not used to slippery "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"non-sequiturs"},{"insert":" are apt to miss the logical gap from premise to conclusion.\n"}]}