This paper describes and defends the “virtues of ingenuity”: detachment, lucidity, thoroughness. Philosophers traditionally praise these virtues for their role in the practice of using reasoning to solve problems and gather information. Yet, reasoning has other, no less important uses. Conviction is one of them. A recent revival of rhetoric and argumentative approaches to reasoning (in psychology, philosophy and science studies) has highlighted the virtues of persuasiveness and cast a new light on some of its apparent vices—bad faith, deluded confidence, (...) confirmation and myside biases. Those traits, it is often argued, will no longer look so detrimental once we grasp their proper function: arguing in order to persuade, rather than thinking in order to solve problems. Some of these biases may even have a positive impact on intellectual life. Seen in this light, the virtues of ingenuity may well seem redundant. Defending them, I argue that the vices of conviction are not innocuous. If generalized, they would destabilize argumentative practices. Argumentation is a common good that is threatened when every arguer pursues conviction at the expense of ingenuity. Bad faith, myside biases and delusions of all sorts are neither called for nor explained by argumentative practices. To avoid a collapse of argumentation, mere civil virtues (respect, humility or honesty) do not suffice: we need virtues that specifically attach to the practice of making conscious inferences. (shrink)

In their “Educating for Intellectual Virtue: A Critique from Action Guidance” Kotzee, Carter and Siegel (2019) argue against what they call the intellectual virtues (IV) approach to the primary epistemic aim of education and in favor of what they call the critical thinking (CT) approach. The IV approach says that educating for intellectual virtue is the primary epistemic aim of education. The CT approach says that it is educating for critical thinking. They argue that the exemplarist/role-modeling pedagogy of the IV (...) approach is not sufficiently action-guiding, because it does not teach students the know-how needed to think well. This they call the pedagogical challenge to the IV approach. We argue that their criticism of the IV approach fails. In general, possessing an intellectual virtue requires having a corresponding critical-thinking skill set. Also, for one to exercise critical-thinking skills well it is necessary that they possess dispositional components of corresponding intellectual virtues. Accordingly, intellectual virtues can be groomed in non-exemplarist ways that seem sufficiently action-guiding. Furthermore, the pedagogical challenge for the IV approach is a challenge for the CT approach as teaching for critical-thinking dispositions seems heavily reliant on an exemplarist pedagogy and so to this extent is non-action-guiding. (shrink)

Erotic Counter Education is the educational position of the late Ilan Gur- Ze'ev. In ECE Gur-Ze'ev combines two opposing positions in the philosophy of education, one teleological and anti-utopian, the other teleological and utopian. In light of this unique combination, I ask what mediates between these two poles and suggest that the answer lies in the concept of eros. Following a preliminary presentation of the concept of eros in ECE, I define it as a form of transcendental cognition that distinguishes (...) between ‘what is to be perceived’, conceptual and human, and ‘what is not to be perceived’, divine and absolute. I subsequently show how the ‘nature’ of this conception of eros permits the establishment of a normative meta-theory of education that gains its strength from critical theory and counter education. (shrink)

It is deemed that the effectiveness of teachers is highly entangled with psycho-emotional constructs, such as critical thinking (CT), emotion regulation (ER), and immunity. Despite the potential roles of CR, ER, and immunity, their possible relationships have remained unexplored in the higher education context of Iran. To fill in this lacuna, this study explored the potential role of CT and ER in university teachers' immunity in the Iranian higher education context. For this purpose, a total of 293 English university teachers (...) were selected using a convenience sampling method. They were invited to fill out the Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal-Form, Language Teacher Emotion Regulation Inventory, and Language Teacher Immunity Instrument. The findings of path analysis indicated that the university teachers with higher CT were more productively immunized. Moreover, the results revealed that ER could predict the university teachers' immunity. The findings of the study lead to this implication that higher order thinking skills, emotion regulatory strategies, and immune enhancement should be incorporated into educational programs of higher education. (shrink)

In the film and play Twelve Angry Men, Juror 8 confronts the prejudices and poor reasoning of his fellow jurors, exhibiting an unwavering capacity not just to formulate and challenge arguments, but to be open-minded, stay calm, tolerate uncertainty, and negotiate in the face of considerable group pressures. In a perceptive and detailed portrayal of a group deliberation a ‘wheel of virtue’ is presented by the characters of Twelve Angry Men that allows for critical thinking virtues and vices to be (...) analysed in context. This article makes the case for the film being an exceptional teaching resource, and, drawing primarily on the ideas of Martha Nussbaum concerning contextualised detail, emotional engagement, and aesthetic distance, its educational value being intimately related to its being a work of fiction. (shrink)

Critical thinking instructors are faced with an overwhelming number of textbooks to choose from for their courses. Many of these texts do not reflect an awareness of current scholarship in critical thinking and informal logic. I argue that instructors should only adopt textbooks that reflect a sound theoretical understanding of the topic by acknowledging the central role of critical thinking dispositions, offering a more nuanced approach to the teaching of fallacies and of inference, stressing dialectic and argument revision, focusing on (...) the analysis and evaluation of real arguments, and broadening the scope of critical thinking beyond argument analysis and evaluation. To support instructors in this regard, I critique one popular textbook now in its sixth edition that does not satisfy many of these criteria, Munson and Black (2012), and applaud one new textbook that I find does succeed on many of these fronts, Bailin and Battersby (2010). (shrink)

Theorists have hypothesized that skill in critical thinking is positively correlated with the consistent internal motivation to think and that specific critical thinking skills are matched with specific critical thinking dispositions. If true, these assumptions suggest that a skill-focused curriculum would lead persons to be both willing and able to think. This essay presents a researchbased expert consensus definition of critical thinking, argues that human dispositions are neither hidden nor unknowable, describes a scientific process of developing conventional testing tools to (...) measure cognitive skills and human dispositions, and summarizes recent empirical research findings that explore the possible relationship of critical thinking skill and the consistent internal motivation, or disposition, to use that skill. Empirical studies indicate that for all practical purposes the hypothesized correlations are not evident. It would appear that effective teaching must include strategies for building intellectual character rather than relying exclusively on strengthening cognitive skills. (shrink)

This paper attempts to respond to the critique that critical thinking courses may reflect a cultural bias. After elaborating a list of constitutive dispositions and abilities taught in the critical thinking curriculum (e.g. a direct approach to writing and speaking, care about the dignity and worth of every person, positions towards deductive reasoning, shared decision-making, etc.), the author considers arguments for why several of these might reflect Western, non-universal values. In each case, the author argues for the conclusion that these (...) values, though they could be applied in ways that reflect a cultural bias, are not inherently biased. Next, the author offers an outline of a more systematic examination of cultural bias. After reiterating the “tentative conclusion” that critical thinking is not culturally biased, the paper concludes by considering the various ways in which critical thinking might be promoted so as to ensure its sensitivity to cultural differences. (shrink)

What role, if any, does dialectic play in Aristotle’s epistemology in the Topics? In this paper I argue that it does play a role, but a role that is independent of endoxa. In the first section, I sketch the case for thinking that dialectic plays a distinctively epistemological role—not just a methodological role, or a merely instrumental role in getting episteme. In the second section, I consider three ways it could play that role, on two of which endoxa play at (...) least a co-starring role. But in the third section, I argue that endoxa don’t play that co-starring role, by arguing for a deflationary account of what endoxa are. For that reason, the third view emerges as the most plausible; but the third view is, I’ll suggest, Platonic. (shrink)

Zajęcia prowadzone przez Profesora Pelca niewątpliwie wpisywały się w tak szeroko zarysowaną koncepcję logiki ogólnej. Starał się on być nauczycielem myślenia i dobrej roboty – nie tylko w filozofii, lecz w humanistyce i cel ten osiągał, nie tylko poprzez dobór tematów, wysokie wymagania, różnorodne sposoby sprawdzania wiedzy słuchaczy, lecz także – przez przykład. Wielu rzeczy nie przekazywał przez wykład czy lektury, lecz bezpośrednio kierując wysił- kami podopiecznych – zwłaszcza tymi związanymi z przygotowaniem obligatoryjnych prac rocznych. Pouczający był sam proces – (...) konsultowanie kolejnych etapów prac nad esejem – ale także oczekiwania, np. że praca będzie opatrzona abstraktem i słowami kluczowymi w jednym z języków kongresowych. Profesor Pelc dał się poznać i pozostaje w pamięci jako wybitny naukowiec, twórca współczesnej semiotyki polskiej, organizator i dydaktyk. W tym artykule starałem się pokazać, że zwłaszcza ta ostatnia rola stawia go w jednym rzędzie z przedstawicielami SLW, gdyż wspólna im była troska o wykształcenie kultury logicznej słuchaczy, wierność postulatom jasności i krytycyzmu, preferencja dla logiki w szerokim sensie nieograniczającej się jedynie do logiki formalnej, lecz dziedziny prawdziwie interdyscyplinarnej, obejmującej m.in. elementy epistemologii, psychologii, prakseologii – i pełniącej rolę współczesnego trivium. Na koniec chciałbym wyrazić głębokie przekonanie, że koncepcja logiki ogólnej – szkolnej, pedagogicznej, pragmatycznej – zasługuje, by odkryć ją na nowo, zrekonstruować ją i spisać jej historię, a co ważniejsze – by twórczo ją rozwijać. (shrink)

In the paper, I have presented a portrait of Jerzy Pelc as a teacher. He followed in the footsteps of Kazimierz Twardowski and his direct disciples and tried to develop his students’ skills of critical thinking and clear speaking—the basics of good work in philosophy. These skills are connected with methodological postulates of criticism and precision which were shared by all the members of the Lvov-Warsaw School. Jerzy Pelc treated these postulates also as didactic postulates arising out of the conceptions (...) of logical culture and general logic. In my article, I have sketched a general picture of the relation between logic and didactics, I have presented the aforementioned postulates, the concepts of logical culture and general logic and its curriculum. (shrink)

This paper examines what constitute the virtues of argumentation or critical thinking and how these virtues might be developed. We argue first that the notion of virtue is more appropriate for characterizing this aspect than the notion of dispositions commonly employed by critical thinking theorists and, further, that it is more illuminating to speak of the virtues of inquiry rather than of argumentation. Our central argument is that learning to think critically is a matter of learning to participate knowledgeably and (...) competently in the practice of inquiry in its various forms and contexts. Acquiring the virtues of inquiry arises through getting on the inside of the practice and coming to appreciate the goods inherent in the practice. (shrink)

Virtue theories of argumentation (VTA) emphasize the roles arguers play in the conduct and evaluation of arguments, and lay particular stress on arguers’ acquired dispositions of character, that is, virtues and vices. The inspiration for VTA lies in virtue epistemology and virtue ethics, the latter being a modern revival of Aristotle’s ethics. Aristotle is also, of course, the father of Western logic and argumentation. This paper asks to what degree Aristotle may thereby be claimed as a forefather by VTA.

What should a virtue theory of argumentation say about fallacious reasoning? If good arguments are virtuous, then fallacies are vicious. Yet fallacies cannot just be identified with vices, since vices are dispositional properties of agents whereas fallacies are types of argument. Rather, if the normativity of good argumentation is explicable in terms of virtues, we should expect the wrongness of bad argumentation to be explicable in terms of vices. This approach is defended through analysis of several fallacies, with particular emphasis (...) on the ad misericordiam. (shrink)

This research project analyzes a strategy for teaching philosophy in secondary school inspired by Socratic dialogue, which aims at the creation and effective management of cognitive dissonance as a tool for promoting critical thinking, called Socratic Challenge (SC). The research originates from workshops held in the years 2016/2019 in a technical and vocational institute in the province of Varese, in which I participated as the creator and conductor, involving the voluntary participation of about 150 students. The research questions are: What (...) are the characteristics of the Socratic Challenge? Can it constitute a teaching methodology to be proposed? Under what conditions? Within what project framework? The empirical research is qualitative, naturalistic, and exploratory (Lumbelli, 1984), specifically a self-study (Hamilton & Pinnegar 2009), divided into two phases. In the first phase, data regarding motivation and perceptions of training impact were collected through in-depth interviews of students (16) and analyzed using the criteria of reflective thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke 2019). In the second phase, the workshops were repeated remotely in technical and vocational institutes in Milan and the province, involving 113 students who were surveyed with a qualitative questionnaire. The workshops were recorded and the discussion interactions were analyzed according to a qualitative inductive approach that refers to Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz, 2006). Results show how this dialogical instructional strategy in philosophy teaching can be considered an effective alternative to the historical-philosophical approach predominant in the Italian tradition (Illetterati 2007). (shrink)

This volume reflects the development and theoretical foundation of a new paradigm for critical thinking based on inquiry. The field of critical thinking, as manifested in the Informal Logic movement, developed primarily as a response to the inadequacies of formalism to represent actual argumentative practice and to provide useful argumentative skills to students. Because of this, the primary focus of the field has been on informal arguments rather than formal reasoning. Yet the formalist history of the field is still evident (...) in its emphasis, with respect to both theory and pedagogy, on the structure and evaluation of individual, de-contextualized arguments. It is our view that such a view of critical thinking is excessively narrow and limited, failing to provide an understanding of argumentation as largely a matter of comparative evaluation of a variety of contending positions and arguments with the goal of reaching a reasoned judgment on an issue. As a consequence, traditional critical thinking instruction is problematic in failing to provide the reasoning skills that students need in order to accomplish this goal. Instead, the goal of critical thinking instruction has been seen largely as a defensive one: of learning to not fall prey to invalid, inadequate, or fallacious arguments. (shrink)

This paper examines the views of Fogelin, Woods, Johnstone, etc., concerning deep disa-greements, force-five standoffs, philosophical controversies, etc. My approach is to reconstruct their views and critiques of them as meta-arguments, and to elaborate the meta-argumentative aspects of radical disa-greements. It turns out that deep disagreements are resolvable to a greater degree than usually thought, but only by using special principles and practices, such as meta-argumentation, ad hominem argumentation, Ramsey’s principle, etc.

This study investigates all available literature related to critical thinking in business education in a survey of publications in the field produced from 1990-2019. It conducts a thematic analysis of 787 articles found in Web of Science and Google Scholar, including a specific focus on 55 highly-cited articles. The aim is to investigate the importance of critical thinking in business education, how it is conceptualised in business education research, the business contexts in which critical thinking is situated, and the key (...) and more marginal themes related to critical thinking outlined in the business and business education literature. The paper outlines six key areas and topics associated with those areas. It suggests future directions for further scholarly work in the area of critical thinking in business education. (shrink)

Philosophy for Children is a school-based intervention currently implemented in more than 60 countries. This thesis examines the evidence regarding the effectiveness of Philosophy for Children for developing pupils’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills. Three different approaches were used. A systematic literature review was conducted of the evidence published in the last 40 years. A new comparative evaluation study was conducted with Year 5 pupils in 17 primary schools in England. The intervention lasted for an academic year, and a pre-test and (...) a post-test were given at the beginning and end of the school year to evaluate students’ critical thinking and creativity. Secondary data analysis of the National Pupil Database from the Department of Education was used to examine the long-term effect of P4C implementation on attainment. The results of 34 schools which implemented P4C during Key Stage 2 were compared with 14,791 mainstream schools in England which did not, and the same analysis was repeated based only on these pupils in both groups known to be eligible for Free School Meals during the last six years. The review results suggested that P4C generally has a positive impact on reasoning skills. In most studies, P4C also has a positive impact on literacy and some non-cognitive skills. However, the new comparative evaluation study found no evidence that P4C has a positive impact on Year 5 students’ critical thinking or creativity. This comparative study has some limitations in terms of design and inevitable attrition. The more robust secondary data analysis showed that students eligible for Free School Meals develop their reading and writing more after long-term P4C implementation than in non-P4C schools, during Key Stage 2. By combining all of the evidence from the review, comparative evaluation study and secondary data analysis, this study suggests that the implementation of P4C in primary schools is still worthwhile, both in its own terms and for its added benefits in terms of cognitive and perhaps non-cognitive outcomes. The programme is likely to help improve students’ reasoning skills. P4C can improve the literacy of disadvantaged students in the classrooms, relative to their peers, and so contribute towards closing the attainment gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. However, the new evaluation creates a caution about what can be expected from P4C and, if it used, the programme may need adjusting in order to provide opportunities for practicing a wider range of thinking skills. (shrink)

Critical thinking skills have associated critical thinking virtues, and the internal motivation to carefully examine an issue in an effort to reach a reasoned judgment, what I call the “willingness to inquire”, is the critical thinking virtue that stands behind all skilled and virtuous thinking that contributes to critical thinking. In this paper, I argue that the willingness to inquire is therefore a more primary critical thinking virtue than charity, open-mindedness, or valuing fallacious-free reasoning.