11 Critical Thinking in the Armchair, the Classroom, and the Lab

Although it would be generally acknowledged that not all critical thinking is done about, or by means of, argument, people teaching how to identify and evaluate arguments continue to regard themselves as teaching critical thinking. Debates about disciplinary jurisdiction over ‘critical thinking’ persist as they did in the eighties, with psychology and neuroscience, English, rhetoric, sociology, and other disciplines competing with philosophy. Claiming the territories of formal and informal logic, as well as philosophy of science, philosophers seem to me to have stronger claims than do instructors in these other areas. Perhaps that stance reflects my disciplinary bias. Within philosophy, debates about logic and critical thinking persist although with diminished intensity: some formalists continue to defend their turf.

To be sure, the concept of critical thinking is a contested one, that being only one aspect contributing to debates about the proper academic location of critical thinking skills. How necessary is rigor? How much effort should be made to include debated social issues? How relevant (if at all) is knowledge about the brain? Are there ideological presumptions? Issues of discipline-specificity remain, with a general consensus that there are both general standards for cogent argument and considerations specific to particular disciplines.

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Over the past few years, numerous courses on critical thinking have appeared in colleges, universities, and schools. These courses have been inspired by the perception of educators that many students do not have the ability to reach independent, reasoned, critical judgments about material they read or study. That such abilities are desirable is not in question. There are, however, disputes about how, if at all, they can be developed or taught.¹

Very often, critical thinking courses are courses in informal or formal logic. To cultivate critical thinking, educators have by and large taught argument analysis and evaluation. We think when we argue, and we think critically when we evaluate an argument; hence, teaching argumentative skills would seem a natural way to teach critical thinking. And, indeed, texts on argument analysis are widely billed as ‘critical thinking’ texts. Many people teaching informal logic use the expressions ‘informal logic’ and ‘critical thinking’ as virtual synonyms.²

There are also the dissenters from this analysis, most prominent among them, John McPeck.³ McPeck sees critical thinking as a kind of reflective scepticism. A person thinks critically about a subject when he or she judiciously considers various claims and is not disposed to merely accept what is heard or read at face value. What makes a person capable of doing this, McPeck contends, is his knowledge of that particular subject. It is not his ability to manipulate the concepts and tools of formal and informal logic. It is not his knowledge of the nature of definitions, modus ponens, disjunction, induction, the logic of explanations, the ad hominem fallacy, and so on. Rather, it is substantive knowledge, not general logical knowledge. For instance, a person would be capable of critical thinking on the topic of MX missile development only if he knew something about nuclear strategy, and had mastered such concepts as ‘first strike’, ‘first use’, ‘vulnerability’, and so on. Being trained in logic – whether broadly or narrowly construed – would be of little use. McPeck contends that logicians have greatly over-estimated the role of general and logical considerations in the assessment of claims and the reasoning that supports them. At the same time they have under-estimated the significance of information.

McPeck’s analysis is both epistemological and pedagogical. Epistemologically, he offers an account of appraising claims and arguments in which nonformal, non-general, substantive considerations are of paramount importance. His pedagogical corollary is that separate courses on critical thinking should not be offered. He maintains that such courses will of necessity treat examples from an inadequately informed perspective, because they will lack the substantive disciplinary base that is pertinent to the subject matter of these examples. For instance, if the instructor has students analyze an example of analogical reasoning where the Viet Nam situation is used as a model for policy regarding El Salvador, he will typically have little but his own background knowledge or the prejudices of the day to call on when it comes to the crucial question as to whether the two situations are or are not relevantly similar. He is unlikely to know enough historical and political facts to really judge the strength of the inductive analogy. Where non-empirical issues such as the morality of intervention or the importance of preserving ‘free enterprise’ bear on the argument, there is still little help from informal logic, because these topics require substantive analysis from the perspective of moral and political theory. The critical thinking instructor who is committed to treating ‘real-life’ examples but must, in the context of his classroom, do so without simultaneously teaching the substance of history, ethics, or any other subject, will be left with a thin and perhaps misleading analysis. He can tell his students that if Viet Nam and El Salvador are relevantly similar, then the analogy from American experience in Viet Nam to non-intervention in El Salvador is a good one, and if they are not, it isn’t. The situation recalls John Wisdom’s lament that the whole of logic may be stated in the line: ‘He will buy you the yak or else he will not; I cannot be positive which.’⁴

McPeck believes that critical thinking courses cannot perform the important function of cultivating reflective scepticism in students. He does allow that critical thinking should be developed in the classroom, and his recommendation is for standard subjects, especially liberal arts and science subjects, to be taught in a critical and epistemically sensitive way. This would mean, probably, that history would be taught with an emphasis on questions about the reliability of testimony, the credibility of various sources, the feasibility of analogical reasoning from one situation to another, the necessity or non-necessity of laws in historical explanation, and other epistemically significant topics. The same would be true of biology, literature, physics, psychology, philosophy, and all the other subjects. Students taught in this way would be encouraged to think critically in a context where they had sufficient information to do so, and instructors could develop critical thinking skills without being restricted to thin generalities. McPeck’s view is that philosophers do not have as much to say as they think about arguments in other people’s subjects, and they have no monopoly either on the theory or the practice of critical thinking. Informed critical thinking should be a significant element of every academic subject.

McPeck’s pedagogical recommendations are based on his epistemological theory about what goes into the critical appraisal of a claim or an argument in support of a claim. There are clearly important reminders in his account. When we theorize about arguments from the perspective either of formal or of informal logic, we are generalizing. This makes us concentrate on those features of arguments which are universal, universal within a subclass, or at least relatively common. Content-specific and context-specific aspects are apt to receive little attention, except insofar as they are amenable to generalization. This focus of attention does mean that in some cases, logic and the theory of argument will have little to offer to resolve key questions.⁵

Consider, for example, an argument along the following lines, about the MX missile.

1. The MX missile will intimidate the Russians and make nuclear war less likely.

2. Building the MX missile is possible, given current economics and technology.

3. Reducing the risk of nuclear war is of paramount importance.
   Therefore,

4. The MX missile should be built.

Much will depend here on the first premise. In the case of this argument, formal and informal logic, and the theory of argument can tell us little; we have to decide whether to accept this premise. Unless the premise itself contains some logical or general error (inconsistency, loaded terms, or some comparable flaw), this decision will be based on our judgment about substantive issues. To make it, we have to know something about what the missile is, how it will fit into the existing nuclear weapons systems, what intimidates Russians, and the relation between intimidating Russians and reducing the risk of nuclear war. In such a case there is no shortcut through logic to a verdict on the argument. Insofar as this would be McPeck’s point, he would be absolutely right.

Now in an obvious sense, neither formal nor informal logicians have ever denied this kind of point. No one has ever said that arguments can be evaluated without evaluating their premises, and no one has ever said that premises can be evaluated without subject-specific information. At one level, then, McPeck is reminding us of a truism. There are cases where the potential for purely logical confusion about an argument is minimal and virtually everything we need comes from outside logic. In such cases, the critical thinking instructor or logic instructor will have to direct students to either remain agnostic about the merits of the argument, due to premise content, or seek out enough information to make an informed judgment about the premises. McPeck regards such cases as very common, and cases where the merits of the argument depend on general logical points as quite rare.

In fact, McPeck’s account makes discipline-specific knowledge relevant to the appraisal of reasoning as well as to the appraisal of premises, because he insists that standards of reasoning are themselves contextually defined within the various disciplines.⁶ This view of reasoning is unorthodox and has been criticized elsewhere. However, the pertinence of substantive knowledge to premise assessment and interpretation will itself generate McPeck’s conclusion.

The MX missile example is not one that McPeck himself used, but it is, prima facie, a convincing one to illustrate his theory. Nuclear strategy and the psychology of nations are technical and confusing topics. It will be no easy matter to determine just whether the MX missile reduces or increases the risk of nuclear war. There are technical questions, strategic questions, and psychological-political questions. Students who seek ‘information’ to evaluate the premise will face a hard task. They will find technical terms, alternative sets of statistics about the nuclear balance of power, different theories about Russian society, appeals to Russian history using the same facts to argue competing conclusions, applications of technical decision theory in contexts where precise predictions are impossible, and many other epistemic delights. Thus, much thought will be required in order to reach a judgment on the crucial premise. Critical thinking itself will not provide this knowledge.

An aspect of this kind of situation that McPeck underestimates is that argument analysis and other aspects of critical thinking are often needed in order to obtain information. Faced with one set of statistics about the Russian forces from the U.S. Department of Defense, another from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and a third from the United Nations, one will have to ask about the credibility of these sources, in the context, and the relevance of statistical differences to the specific issue of the MX. The answers to these questions in turn will require some substantive information, but the structure and bearing on this information on them is a general matter on which the variety of topics treated in informal logic courses will have a bearing.

McPeck issues a plea for information in critical thinking. But the term ‘information’ is rather misleading in this context.⁷ It suggest that there are straightforward facts, perhaps statistics, that we can look up and that will resolve the relevant questions. Some techniques taught in critical thinking or informal logic courses are pertinent when students try to find needed ‘information’, as they surely will be in this case. Even the ‘thin’ advice to reflect on relevant differences when analogies are used may turn out to be of use. When we find predictions about the likely responses of nation states, we almost always find them to be based on assumptions about the psychology of individual agents. Composition and division issues arise here. (Threats will only make a paranoid behave more irrationally says anti-nuclear advocate Helen Caldicott; the only way to reform a person is to make him fearful of the consequences of bad behavior, say advocates of military build-up. On both sides the claims are then applied to nation states.) Being aware of the fallacies of composition and division, and of issues regarding the logical evaluation of analogies, will be highly relevant to the evaluation of competing sets of ‘information.’

Clearly, McPeck is correct in saying that for some arguments, the decisive evaluation issue is not logical, even when ‘logic’ is understood quite broadly. Even if we do not take his position that standards of reasoning are discipline-specific, it is clearly true that the substantive information needed to evaluate premises often comes from outside formal and informal logic. Furthermore – a point McPeck does not explicitly mention – such substantive information may also be needed in order to correctly interpret the argument. The other side of the story, though, is that for some arguments and claims, the decisive evaluation issue is logical. In response to the story of the critical thinking instructor left with a thin analysis of a substantive and rich example we can tell alternative stories about supposedly well-informed experts whose claims depend on elementary flaws in reasoning. A prominent biologist appeared on television to say that there would almost certainly be no important environmental effects if potato crops were exposed to an especially developed, genetically altered bacterium which would prevent freezing. His reason was that since the genetic change in the bacterium was small, any effects of the change would similarly be small. In this case, the man’s expertise and prominence did not prevent him from the elementary error of inferring the smallness of an effect from the smallness of a cause.

Stories about experts who reason poorly are as easy to tell as those of logicians and philosophers who lack information.⁸ McPeck might insist that even in these examples the causal and analogical errors are substantive, not formal. Sure enough, what is needed to see these errors is not formal logic, because the error involves non-deductive reasoning. This does not mean, though, that no training in logic is relevant to the detection of the error. What is relevant here is something quite elementary and yet elusive to many not encouraged to think about reasoning, argumentation, and the justification of claims. It is the sense that reasoning is going on, that there is an inference made from some propositions to others, and that this inference can be critically scrutinized. Virtually anyone who detected the inference from ‘the cause is small’ to ‘the effect is small’ would be able to see it as silly. Small factors can have big effects. People who consider themselves experts may focus so much on substance that they ignore the dependence of some substantive claims on others. Yet a careful consideration of their discourse will reveal such dependence and may show significant gaps in reasoning.

Is it better to reason well, using accurate and clear language, apt analogies, an acute sense of what counts as a good explanation, and the battery of techniques cultivated by formal and informal logicians, but starting from unacceptable premises? Or is it better to begin from accurate and substantively rich premises, but reason poorly, failing to recognize the issues disguised by emotionally loaded language, accepting facile explanations without recognizing the existence of alternatives, relying on ad hominems that are current in the ‘discipline’, and dotting one’s account with appeals to the latest disciplinary authorities? Obviously, the question as to which of these styles is better or worse is an absurd one. Neither alternative is desirable; both will lead to serious error. The first style will generate garbage from garbage. The second will generate garbage from non-garbage. So far as adequate beliefs are concerned, the difference between them is not very interesting. Epistemology and pedagogy have to recognize the importance both of substance and of reason. Reasoning without substantive content is empty, but substance without reasoned direction is blind.

Given that some errors stem from faulty reasoning and others from substantive misinformation, we might want to determine which of these two sources is the most common source of error. On this issue, McPeck is committed to the view that it is substantive defects that matter most. ⁹

Even the ‘everyday problems’ closer to home, such as the rights of minorities, affirmative action, nuclear power plants, tax proposals such as ‘Proposition 13’, product safety and the like require being in possession of, and comprehending, large amounts of complex information. There is simply no shortcut around this brute fact about the complexities of what are misleadingly called ‘everyday problems’. Moreover, ninety-eight percent of our mistakes (note my dazzling statistics again!) in rational judgment originate in this informational domain: either because we don’t have enough of it, or our sources are unreliable, or just as often as not because we do not understand the empirical foundations and therefore the meaning of the information we do have.

Such claims have been disputed by Robert Ennis, who defends the pedagogy and epistemology of formal and informal logic as means to critical thinking. Ennis points out that such logical considerations as credibility, authority, syllogistic reasoning, and criteria for explanations apply to widely differing subject matters. In all cases of causal reasoning, we cannot straightforwardly infer a cause from a correlation, because alternative explanations of the correlation need to be ruled out. This will always mean that causal inference is less than watertight, for the number of alternative explanations is always, in principle, indefinitely large, and there is always, therefore, a dependence on background knowledge. Whenever a reliance is made on the testimony or authority of a person, that person’s interests and moral character will be relevant. And so on; many comparable points can be made. In fact, McPeck does not really disagree with such points as these. He seems, rather, to think that these common elements are easily mastered and typically of little importance in the diagnosis of error or the quest for truth. Ennis suggests that whether errors result more from substantive lack of information or misinformation or from faults in reasoning, definition, and general logical operations is an empirical question.¹⁰

At some level this is clearly true. However, the question is empirical in a complicated way. To resolve it, we would first have to find a sample of errors that would constitute a representative sample of human error. We would have to find out the beliefs underlying the error and the reasoning that led to the erroneous judgment. That would be difficult. Even when this underlying reasoning was discovered, diagnosing the causes of the error would present further difficulties. What seemed to be substantive errors might themselves be the result of prior reasoning errors; what seemed reasoning errors might be the result of faulty substantive assumptions or of the adoption of a model of reasoning different from that used by the researcher. A large number of epistemic and interpretive norms would be presupposed in the construction of such experimental work.¹¹ To say that it would be empirical is slightly misleading, for the background interpretive, sampling, and logical assumptions would be highly philosophical. In fact, the body of such assumptions would be very controversial, considered all together. Any even moderately surprising result would be sure to lead to our looking back to question some of those assumptions. The issue is at best quasi-empirical.¹²

In any event, perhaps it does not matter so very much. Accurate beliefs clearly require both good evidence and good reasoning. Common experience, logical tradition, and any straightforward analysis of argumentative discourse all indicate that people make mistakes sometimes due to inadequate information, sometimes due to inadequate reasoning, and sometimes due to a complicated mixture of these. There is little point, epistemically, in asking which sort of error is more common, in general, and there is no real likelihood of getting a firm empirical answer to that question using social scientific methods.

As for the pedagogical issue, there are many courses that teach substance and relatively few that focus on reasoning or critical thinking. If substantive courses were critically focused in the ways McPeck suggests, some of the more elementary course discussion of argument, justification, definition, explanation, and related topics which we now seem to need in colleges, schools, and universities would not be necessary. No concerned and educated person would dispute McPeck’s recommendation that the whole spectrum of academic subjects offer scope for critical analysis, and that people would be better educated if instructors were willing to focus on this and cultivate independent judgment in their students. This commendable reform has not yet occurred, however. In the present situation, there is room for courses that focus particularly on argument, definition, the logic of argument and explanation, and related topics. Even in a vastly improved situation, there would still be scope for such courses, although they could usefully be more advanced and interesting than some are now.

A major reason for having courses on critical thinking is the tension between substantive and methodological focus. For instance, in a course on Hume’s philosophy, one might study his essay on miracles. In the course of doing so, one may consider the general subject of credibility and the strength of evidence for testimony. The discussion relates to issues that are also raised by ad hominem and authority arguments. However, in a course specifically focused on Hume, the latter cannot be a major topic, or else other aspects of Hume’s philosophy will be neglected. On the other hand, a course on informal logic might well include a study of Hume’s essay on miracles during the course of work on credibility. The focus here would not be on Hume’s epistemology and philosophy of religion, but rather on general epistemic issues about our reliance on other persons for knowledge. Given that resources in any single course are finite, and that subject matter has to be delineated in a coherent and responsible way, separate courses in which the primary focus is on topics from logic and informal logic seem entirely appropriate.

McPeck’s account is useful in reminding us that courses on critical thinking and argument analysis should not claim too much. We have to accept the need for substantive information and judgment as relevant both to the interpretation of discourse and to the evaluation of premises. Neither formal logic, nor informal logic, nor the theory of argument provide this. None, therefore, offer everything we need to be critical thinkers. All offer something we need and are worth pursuing for that reason. In critical thinking courses oriented toward argument construction and appraisal, we can teach some things needed to evaluate arguments on any subject. We can also explore many further topics needed to evaluate arguments. But we cannot teach everything needed to evaluate every argument.¹³

Argument analysis is not merely a matter of appraising for deductive validity, as McPeck sometimes implies.¹⁴ It incorporates the proper interpretation and classification of arguments, the application of the appropriate standard (inductive, deductive, conductive, analogy, or other), an evaluation of the premises, and much else. McPeck sometimes writes as though assessments of deductive validity are all that logicians and philosophers can provide. That’s not correct. With an enriched account of what argument appraisal involves, we can go a long way to answering his objections.

It is surely true that formal logic cannot provide all that is necessary for the appraisal of substantive argumentation. Despite their greater breadth, neither can informal logic and the theory of argument. Even if we could reduce critical thinking to argument evaluation, it would be incorrect to see it as encompassed by informal logic, because informal logic does not include the substantive knowledge that is very often needed to appraise premises. At the very least, argument analysis must encompass premise evaluation, and typically premise evaluation will require extra-logical knowledge. Furthermore, despite some misleading advertising, no one really denies this conclusion.¹⁵ Even if we were to grant that critical thinking amounts to constructing and/or appraising arguments, we could not claim that philosophical courses in logic and argument analysis give everything that we need for critical thinking. They cannot give us everything we need for argument analysis itself, because that requires substantive information. Such courses omit substantive information as such, but they do provide much that is needed to assess claims put forward as providing substantive information.

It might seem that argument analysis, when fully understood, does constitute critical thinking. A number of people do, in effect, identify critical thinking with argument analysis. There seems to be something natural about this. Consider, for instance, McPeck’s shorter definition of critical thinking as reflective scepticism. Suppose that a person is reflectively sceptical about some claim, theory, or argument. If he is reflectively sceptical about an argument, then that is just to say that he is engaging in argument analysis; he has located some point at which he thinks the argument goes wrong. If he is reflectively sceptical about a claim, he has some reasons to think the claim might not be true. That is to say that he has his own argument that he has constructed, against the claim, and he is considering the merits of his own argument. If he is reflectively sceptical about a theory, he has data that he thinks the theory cannot accommodate; that is to say, he has an argument from the existence of this data to the improbability of the theory’s being true. It might seem, accordingly, that critical thinking has to be about arguing and evaluating arguments and cannot be about anything else, because whenever we think critically we are, explicitly or tacitly, arguing or criticizing arguments.

This view was once stated by J.A. Blair.

A problematic claim worthy of acceptance is made so by evidence or other sorts of consideration which show it is plausible, that objections to it may be rejected, and that alternatives are less plausible. In short, (problematic) claims worthy of assent are those which are supported by good arguments. Argument is the tool of reasoned critical appraisal – or our own and others’ claims and actions – and the vehicle of reasoned advocacy of claims and conduct. Good reasons mean good arguments; good reasoning means good argumentation.¹⁶

A critical thinker judges for himself or herself in a probing reflective way. Critical thinking, then, involves reflection, deliberation, respect for the critical judgment of others, and the avoidance of manipulative nonrational techniques of persuasion. Teaching the identification, understanding, evaluation, and construction of arguments is a basic and obvious way to cultivate critical thinking. Indeed, provided we are happy with the notion of tacit arguings-to-oneself, we may even wish to say that thinking critically about something entails arguing or evaluating an argument about it. To improve critical thinking, we offer courses on the construction and analysis of arguments.

Nevertheless, there is something peculiar about the full identification of critical thinking with argument analysis. There are two underlying reasons for this, one having to do with the less fully articulated nature of critical thinking, the other stemming from the typically atomistic and finite nature of argument analysis. Richard Paul emphasized this second point.¹⁷ Consider first that thinking is more chaotic, less directed, and less fully articulated than arguing or evaluating arguments. Thinking, whether critical or creative, is very often private and subjective.

Argument may result from critical thinking, but need not. Argument construction and analysis are nearly always in the public domain, since a major purpose of argumentation is the rational persuasion of others. Theorists have long distinguished reasoning from arguing on grounds similar to these.¹⁸ We often reason without arguing – following through possible consequences of a line of action, assessing pros and cons, trying to determine consistency, and so on. Similarly, we often think – constructively, creatively, or critically – without arguing. Since critical thinking necessarily involves thought and reflection, but does not necessarily involve the articulation of an argument, critical thinking should not be identified with argument. Thinking includes wondering, wishing, deliberating, questioning, contemplating, synthesizing, comparing, simplifying, hypothesizing, and much else. It may, but need not, involve arguing.

Of course, not all thinking is critical thinking. Critical thinking is thinking about another product of thought (an argument, claim, theory, definition, hypothesis, question, creative product or problem) in a special sceptically deliberative, evaluative way. A recent author put it this way:

Critical thinking involves a reflective attitude. As a critical thinker, one does not just let situations and claims slip by. Rather, one focuses upon and assesses beliefs, claims, events, discoveries, etc. This focusing is not adventitious, but results from a conscious decision to think about or think through the things one encounters, and to develop habits which promote the implementation of such a decision.¹⁹

In an exchange in Teaching Philosophy, the following account appeared:

On those occasions when a mental act is called into question, there is typically a need for some basis beyond the act itself for judging it. Here is where critical thinking comes to life: critical thought consists of the evaluation of mental acts, and concern about critical thinking involves identifying proper basis for evaluation and means for doing so.²⁰

But just as reasoning is not the same as the argument it may produce, so critical thinking is not the same as the analysis it may produce.

In fact, critical thinking is not strictly speaking a necessary condition of good constructive argumentation. It is, of course, prudent to apply some critical thinking to the products of our constructive and creative thinking. Reflecting may reveal errors or inauspicious aspects of presentation, and it is worth checking. Argument construction always requires thinking – constructive and creative thinking – but is not always accompanied by critical thinking.

Argument evaluation, on the other hand, will always require critical thinking. This makes it understandable that courses devoted to argument analysis and evaluation should bill themselves as courses on critical thinking. To analyze an argument, we must reflect critically on the meaning of the discourse in which it is presented and the context in which it appears; we must reflect critically on the structure of that discourse; we must critically determine whether the premises are acceptable, using pertinent substantive information; and we must critically scrutinize the reasoning used. Doing argument analysis will surely mean doing considerable critical thinking. It would be surprising if the activity did not cultivate habits central to critical thinking, such as not taking authorities’ statements for granted, looking for good reasons for accepting beliefs, identifying and examining your own assumptions and generally being on the alert at every stage. There is no dishonesty in representing courses on argument analysis and evaluation as courses that cultivate one important dimension of a fundamental kind of critical thinking.²¹ Because substantive information is also needed for argument evaluation, general logical considerations, whether formal or informal, are not sufficient for good critical thinking, and no effort to publicize critical thinking should imply that they are.

The product of critical thinking is often argument or argument analysis. Such products virtually always require the process of critical thinking. However, this approach makes too little of the fact that critical thinking is a process, typically interior, distinguishable from this product. Furthermore, except in an attenuated sense, the analysis of an argument is not the sole product of critical thinking. There are other important products too.

Some of these other products require kinds of critical thinking that are not greatly demanded by the process of argument analysis. For instance, writing a piece on nineteenth century Canadian social history would require critical thinking in which a capacity for synthesis was important. A person would have to put together various accounts of the same event, and accounts of different events and also, themes from different disciplines. To do this would require critical thinking, but a kind of critical thinking that would not be likely to be emphasized in an informal logic course. This example is still within the articulate, intellectual domain. The point becomes still more obvious if we consider what kinds of critical thinking might be needed by a good mechanic, a fashion designer, or a visual artist. The product of critical thinking may be a well-formulated question, an improved definition, a second version of a poem, a new fashion design, or a better disposable diaper. It need not be the analysis of an argument. That is one highly intellectual such product – not the only one and not, perhaps, the most important one.

What makes it particularly tempting to identify thinking critically with constructing and appraising arguments about the object of one’s thoughts is that the thought that goes into the creation of products other than arguments can so easily and naturally be recast as articulate argument. If a person revises a fashion design, and thus has a product of critical thinking other than an argument or argument analysis, she has, in some way, tacitly argued against the original thought product and for the specifics of her revision. Suppose that a designer looks critically at a design and sees that the skirt would give greater freedom of movement and look better with low heels if it were just two inches shorter and an inch larger around the bottom. We can insist that, tacitly at least, she is arguing. The new design emerges from the old one because the designer has, in effect, constructed and endorsed the following argument:

1. In the old design, the skirt is just a little too narrow to be comfortable for walking.

2. In the old design, the skirt is just long enough that it will look nice only with high-heeled shoes, whereas a walking skirt should look nice with low-heeled shoes.

3. The skirt would still be attractive if it were a little wider and shorter.
   Therefore,

4. The skirt should be a little wider and shorter.

By such recasting techniques, we can represent all critical thinking as argumentation. The argument represented is considered to be implicit and tacit, as necessary. This move seems right in some ways, though it is misleading in others.

Arguments are public entities; they are articulated pieces, set out so that specific reasons appear, offered as support for conclusions. Arguments are couched in just so many words. Critical thinking, however, may be less articulate, especially in some contexts. The recast argument for the fashion design necessarily omits exactly what would be crucial in the successful revision of a design: the deliberative, experiential basis for the aesthetic judgment that the skirt would look all right, or even better, when altered. This is alluded to in the third premise of the stated argument, but the words cannot fully express the sense of balance, symmetry, and appropriateness on which the judgment would have been founded.

Those hard or impossible to articulate suspicions, perceptions, impressions, and judgments may very well be a central part of critical thinking, however. We may follow an inchoate suspicion, a vague sense that somewhere something is wrong and by doing so, come up with the crucial question that reveals the faulty assumption, or the flaw in the design. Critical thinking as process is not only argument construction and argument analysis. It is more haphazard and far less articulate than that. These aspects are central to its very nature. A model of critical thinking through argumentation is very likely to underestimate the importance of those aspects. For that reason, it is to be resisted. In short, argument construction and analysis are too narrow to fully encompass what is involved in critical thinking.

The same conclusion may be drawn from the work of Richard Paul. In an influential article exploring the nature and impact of courses on informal logic, argumentation, and critical thinking, Paul expressed the concern that many students would not receive sufficient impetus to reexamine their own interests, preconceptions, and biases but would rather use the apparatus of atomistically construed argument analysis to secure their views against searching criticism. Seeing arguments as presupposing other beliefs, and constituent concepts founded upon interests and cultural assumptions, Paul urged that real critical thinking would require far more than an appraisal of premises and conclusion and the relation between them. ²²

Students, much as we might sometimes wish it, do not come to us as ‘blank tableaux’, upon which we can enscribe the inference-drawing patterns, analytic skills, and truthfacing motivations that we value. Any student studying critical thinking at the university level has a highly developed belief system buttressed by deep-seated uncritical, egocentric and sociocentric habits of thought by which he interprets and processes his or her experience, whether academic or not, and places it into some larger perspective. The practical result is that most students find it easy to question just and only those beliefs, assumptions, and inferences that they have already ‘rejected’ and very difficult, in some cases, traumatic, to question those in which they have a personal, egocentric investment.

Paul claims that our conceptualizations and beliefs rest upon our interests. An appreciation of this and of the fact that other people can have other interests, or that our interests might change, should lead to a greater willingness to scrutinize fundamental beliefs so that we can transcend our egocentric and sociocentric prejudices. Genuine critical thinking, Paul urges, will include a willingness to question our background beliefs and assumptions, to probe for the influence of interests, and sometimes to revise the very concepts in which we have posed our questions and problems. In the fullest sense, critical thinking would encompass a kind of epistemological psychiatry and metaphysics – psychiatry in its understanding of how our desires and interests led us to think the way we do, and metaphysics in its appreciation for radically alternative conceptual frameworks for understanding the world. This activity will clearly be more sweeping than atomistic argument analysis.

The pedagogic implications of Paul’s view seem to be that critical thinking should be taught by teaching the rest of philosophy (at least). Surely its pedagogy will be broadly based, for a scrutiny of arguments is to include a study of why the questions posed are taken seriously; what competing interests bear on the problem; what alternative concepts might be used to formulate the problem; how our own beliefs, used to appraise the arguments, are founded; and much else.

This sounds like an unmanageably large curriculum, and one in which a philosophy teacher would be frequently tempted to fall back on his own ‘egocentric’ and ‘sociocentric’ prejudices in offering accounts of interests and alternatives. For instance, arguments about abortion appear in North American in a much different guise than they do in China. Which of our interests and background beliefs result in this? There are many possible hypotheses about individualism, Catholicism, Marxism, and poverty: which is or are correct is a vastly complex issue of history and sociology. (It would take a lot of high powered information and critical thinking to figure this out, granting that it is possible at all.) An infinite regress is implied here.

We may acknowledge Paul’s point about the expansive scope of critical thinking without feeling entirely comfortable about the pedagogical implications of his account. A reasonable compromise would be to recognize the narrower scope of argument construction and analysis as pedagogically more manageable and responsible, while acknowledging the analytic point that argument analysis cannot exhaust the scope of critical thinking. We would thus stay away from broad psychiatric and metaphysical hypotheses while teaching argument analysis. At the same time we may acknowledge the truth of Paul’s account by our recognition that argument analysis cannot be said to be all that is involved in critical thinking.

Even those disposed to use ‘informal logic’ and ‘critical thinking’ as virtual synonyms have recognized in one way or another that the term ‘critical thinking’ is too broad to be captured even by the broadened sense of logic that characterizes the informal logic movement. As we have seen, critical thinking requires information, and has status as a pre-articulate process that makes a full identification here inappropriate. What is sometimes proposed is, in effect, an operational definition of ‘critical thinking’ that would identify it with a battery of skills involving deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning, identification of fallacies, location of assumptions, spotting of poor definitions, finding of conclusions, and much else from the standard array of topics in informal logic courses.²³ Critical thinking would be defined by reference to such traditionally logical operations as finding ambiguities and fallacies, determining the deductive validity or cogency of arguments, distinguishing value judgments from factual judgments, understanding the distinction between deduction and induction, and so on.²⁴ Such a stipulative definition will, in effect, give philosophers professional status as society’s experts on critical thinking, with many possible fringe benefits for employment and prestige.

There are, however, significant objections to this approach. First of all, it is misleading to the potential audience. Suppose that we admit that the concept of critical thinking is broad, and includes not only information but pre-articulate awareness of mechanical or aesthetic factors, and synthetic or hypothesizing abilities. Then we have, in effect, conceded that what we treat in a philosophical course on critical thinking is only an important and central part of critical thinking. It is not all of it. Even argument evaluation cannot be fully taught in formal or informal logic courses, since such courses cannot, by their very nature, provide all of what is needed in the way of substantive knowledge. However rich, careful, imaginative, and useful they may be, courses that teach argument construction, analysis, and evaluation cannot cover all aspects of critical thinking. We should not adopt definitions that imply that they do.

To do so will be to encourage others and ourselves to forget what falls outside the definition. The situation may be compared with the temptation, irresistible to some psychometricians, to identify intelligence with I.Q. It will not do to operationalize intelligence as I.Q., because there are aspects of intelligence – the intelligent handling of emotionally distraught people, for instance – not covered by I.Q.²⁵ The prevalence of this operationalization reinforces society’s tendency to think of intelligence in terms of verbal and mathematical ability of certain kinds, and to neglect other dimensions.

It can demoralize people with a low I.Q. and lead them to think that they are in no sense intelligent. We should learn from this experience and not encourage analogous errors for critical thinking.

Many people every day engage in critical thinking without ever having had a course on formal logic, informal logic, or philosophy. They engage in critical thinking without ever thinking to themselves that they are doing so. In this respect, critical thinking is like speaking in prose. When there are courses and ‘experts’ on critical thinking, such people might well be led to think that they cannot do it because they have never been taught. This kind of inference would be disempowering to say the least. The operationalization of ‘critical thinking’ into a list of informal logic capabilities that form a discrete academic subject that can be taught and marked is objectionable for this reason in addition to others.

Operationally defining ‘critical thinking’ in terms of informal logic skills, we can then teach informal logic and discover that, judging by tests based on our operationalization, students have improved their critical thinking. If we are trying to show that informal logic will improve and cultivate critical thinking, such a procedure is obviously question-begging. Alternatively, we can seek to show that a course on informal logic improves students’ abilities to do informal logic. (This is likely, but not certain. A course might fail so totally that it did not even convey the information directly taught.) If we show we have taught informal logic in an informal logic course, that’s fine, and will count towards establishing that we have taught critical thinking. Since informal logic and critical thinking are semantically and psychologically distinct, the first conclusion is not identical with the second. We may seek to show that a course on informal logic improves students’ abilities at critical thinking, more generally defined. This seems likely, though testing it will be more difficult. What we must not do is confuse the first conclusion with the second one. This is what operational definitions of ‘critical thinking’ in terms of informal logic skills invite us to do.

Pedagogically the danger of too closely identifying critical thinking with argumentation skills is that other aspects of critical thinking may be neglected. A critical thinker may, in certain contexts, require synthetic, aesthetic, mechanical, or other skills that will be needed only rarely when the product of critical thought is to be an articulated argument or argument evaluation.

This is no objection to learning to do argument analysis, because doing this is useful and important in many ways. However, the construction and critical evaluation of arguments does not encompass every dimension of critical thinking. Neither students, nor teachers, nor the public at large should be encouraged to think that it does.

Notes

This chapter has profited from discussion on an occasion when it was presented at Trent University and also from comments by John McPeck, Ralph Johnson, Tony Blair, and David Hitchcock.

 

1. Not quite. John McPeck has argued that it is wrong to think of abilities in this context, because there is too little transfer from one area to another. For some discussion of this point, see ‘Critical Thinking about Critical Thinking Tests’, below.

2. Including my own. The market potential of this move is hard to resist.

3. For McPeck’s views. I am relying on his book, Critical Thinking and Education (Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1981); and on selected papers: ‘Critical Thinking without Logic: Restoring Dignity to Information’ (Proceedings of the Philosophy of Education Society, Vol. 37 (1981), pp. 219-227; ‘Stalking Beasts but Swatting Flies: the Teaching of Critical Thinking’, The Canadian Journal of Education, January 1984, and ‘Critical Thinking and the ‘Trivial Pursuit’ Theory of Knowledge’ (unpublished paper presented at the University of Chicago in November, 1984). I am grateful to John McPeck for his cooperation in supplying me with copies of these and other works.

4. John Wisdom. in the Virginia Lectures. (Unpublished manuscript in private circulation.)

5.Nothing here is intended to rule out the possibility of generalizing over contexts, which is, indeed, implied by some of my discussions elsewhere.

6. Compare the discussion of the Discipline-Specific theory of argument in ‘Is a Theory of Argument Possible?’.

7. In ‘Critical Thinking and the Trivial Pursuit Theory of Knowledge’, McPeck makes it clear that he does not regard knowledge as a conglomeration of discrete, easy-to-look-up facts. I agree. However, he and I draw different conclusions from this position. I think that it implies that analytical critical skills are needed sometimes in order to find ‘information’.

8. The biologist was interviewed on the CBC’s background news show, The Journal, in March, 1984. He repeated the argument several times and rested his whole case upon it.

9. ‘Stalking Beasts, but Swatting Flies’.

10. See Robert Ennis, ‘Logic and Critical Thinking’, Proceedings of the Philosophy of Education Society, Vol. 37 (1981), pp. 228-232.

11. The kinds of problems that arise are well illustrated in L.J. Cohen’s criticisms of Nisbett, Ross, Kahneman, Tversky, and others who have done experimental work on inductive reasoning. See, for example, L. J. Cohen, ‘On the Psychology of Prediction: Whose is the Fallacy?’ (Cognition 7, pp. 385-407) and ‘Are People Programmed to Commit Fallacies: Further Thoughts about the Interpretation of Experimental Data on Probability Judgments’, (Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 12, pp. 251-274).

12. I do not mean to imply that experimental work should not be done on reasoning error and substantive error; my point is merely that any result would be heavily theory-dependent and not in any plain sense just ’empirical’.

13. I have argued for a similar conclusion in my review of McPeck’s book. See Dialogue Vol. XXII. No. I, pp. 170-175.

14. Argument analysis integrates interpretive and substantive work with inference appraisal, thus including at least two stages that are not logical in any traditional sense of that term.

15. I think McPeck’s concern is that people who do not seriously deny this nevertheless imply a denial of it through the way in which they and others market courses and textbooks.

16. J.A. Blair, ‘Teaching Argument in Critical Thinking’, The Community College Humanities Review, Winter 1983-4, No.5, pp. 12-29, p. 21.

17. See Richard Paul, ‘Teaching Critical Thinking in the ‘Strong’ Sense’, Informal Logic Newsletter, Vol. IV, no. 2 (May, 1982), pp. 2-6.

18. This is not the only such purpose. We also construct and analyze arguments for private inquiry, but this is much less common.

19. Harry Reeder, ‘The Nature of Critical Thinking’, Informal Logic. (Vol. VI, no. 2. pp. 17-22),p.19.

20. Fred Oscanyan, ‘Critical Thinking: Response to Moore’, (Teaching Philosophy 7, no. 3 (July, 1984), pp. 241-6), p. 244. In ‘What is Critical Thinking About?’ (CT. News. Vol. 2, no. 7) Perry Weddle also argues that the object of critical thinking is not always argumentation.

21. This claim is, of course, testable. Compare ‘Critical Thinking about Critical Thinking Tests’, below.

22. Richard Paul, ‘Teaching Critical Thinking in the ‘Strong’ Sense’, p. 3. See also his ‘Critical Thinking in the ‘Strong’ Sense: a Focus on World Views and a Dialectical Mode of Analysis’, (Informal Logic Newsletter iv, no. 2 (June 1983), pp. 2-7.)

23. Brooke Moore argues that the California Educational Order (338), requiring students in the California State University system to take instruction in critical thinking, does this, in effect. See her ‘Critical Thinking in California’, (Teaching Philosophy 6, no. 4, pp. 321-330).

24. In October, 1984, the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association adopted the following statement: ‘The Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association notes that teachers and educational authorities across the country have become increasingly interested in critical thinking as an educational objective. Since philosophy provides resources essential both for the development of the techniques and for education in the disciplines and habits of mind necessary to critical thinking, it is important that professional philosophers be consulted in the development of curricula and tests in critical thinking. The American Philosophical Association urges its members to participate in such endeavours and offers to help boards of education and testing agencies identify philosophy departments, graduate programs in philosophy, and individual philosophers who can assist them in framing new tests and organizing new curricula in this area.’This statement is reprinted in the Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 58, number 3 (February, 1985), p. 484. The report comments: ‘The increased emphasis on development of basic skills in education, including reasoning skills, offers an ideal opportunity for philosophers to assist in the creation of innovative and effective programs in the schools.’

25. This point is increasingly acknowledged by psychologists. Howard Gardner’s recent Frames of Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1983) argues for at least seven distinct human intelligences. only three of which are covered by I.Q. tests. This book has been well received and won the 1984 National Psychology Award for Excellence in the Media in the United States. Gardner distinguishes linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and personal intelligences. In the personal area, he distinguishes responsiveness to others from self-awareness and self-direction.