Unlike most texts in critical thinking, _Reason in the Balance_ focuses broadly on the practice of critical inquiry, the process of carefully examining an issue in order to come to a reasoned judgment. Although analysis and critique of individual arguments have an important role to play, this text goes beyond that dimension to emphasize the various aspects that go into the practice of inquiry, including identifying issues and relevant contexts, understanding competing cases, and making a comparative judgment._ Distinctive Features of (...) the Text:_ Emphasis on applying critical thinking to complex issues with competing arguments Inclusion of chapters on inquiry in specific contexts Attention to the dialogical aspects of inquiry, including sample dialogues Emphasis on the spirit of inquiry _The Second Edition Features:_ Updated examples and items of current interest New dialogues on vaccination, prostitution, and climate change New material on biases in reasoning, including emotional, psychological, social, and cognitive _The _Reason in the Balance_ Website includes:_ An Appendix on Logic Exercises Quizzes. (shrink)

THINK Currency. THINK Relevancy. THINK Critically. THINK Critically is a cutting-edge, self-reflective guide for improving critical thinking skills through careful analysis, reasoned inference, and thoughtful evaluation of contemporary culture and ideas. An engaging visual design developed with extensive student feedback and 15-page chapters makesTHINK Critically the textbook your students will actually read. It delivers the core concepts of critical thinking in a way they can easily understand. Additionally, engaging examples and masterful exercises help students learn to clarify ideas, analyze arguments, (...) and evaluate reasoning. (shrink)

This text meets the requirements of the OCR AS specification for critical thinking. Alec Fisher shows students how they can develop a range of creative and critical thinking skills that are transferable to other subjects and contexts.

There are empirical grounds to doubt the effectiveness of a common and intuitive approach to teaching debiasing strategies in critical thinking courses. We summarize some of the grounds before suggesting a broader taxonomy of debiasing strategies. This four-level taxonomy enables a useful diagnosis of biasing factors and situations, and illuminates more strategies for more effective bias mitigation located in the shaping of situational factors and reasoning infrastructure—sometimes called “nudges” in the literature. The question, we contend, then becomes how best to (...) teach the construction and use of such infrastructures. (shrink)

Selections from the notebooks of the distinguished philosopher discuss subjects such as music, religion, thinking, science, architecture, and civilization.

The subject of this paper, Excuses, is one not to be treated, but only to be introduced, within such limits. It is, or might be, the name of a whole branch, even a ramiculated branch, of philosophy, or at least of one fashion of philosophy. I shall try, therefore, first to state what the subject is, why it is worth studying, and how it may be studied, all this at a regrettably lofty level: and then I shall illustrate, in more (...) congenial but desultory detail, some of the methods to be used, together with their limitations, and some of the unexpected results to be expected and lessons to be learned. Much, of course, of the amusement, and of the instruction, comes in drawing the coverts of the microglot, in hounding down the minutiae, and to this I can do no more here than incite you. But I owe it to the subject to say, that it has long afforded me what philosophy is so often thought, and made, barren of -- the fun of discovery, the pleasures of co-operation, and the satisfaction of reaching agreement. (shrink)

We are pleased to release this edition of Ralph Johnson’s The Rise of Informal Logic as Volume 2 in the series Windsor Studies in Argumentation. This edition is a reprint of the previous Vale Press edition with some typographical errors and other minor mistakes corrected. The prime motive for gathering Ralph H. Johnson’s essays under one cover is their clear articulation of the goals, concerns and problems of the discipline of informal logic. To my knowledge all of the published articles, (...) even of the 1980s, are still in print. But some are obtainable only by special request of a journal back issue. Their availability, even their existence, is not nearly widely enough known, and this volume is dedicated to remedying that disservice to those currently working in the field of informal logic, critical thinking, argumentation, and practical reasoning. Three of these sixteen pieces appear here in print for the first time. The previously published pieces have appeared from 1980 to 1992 as chapters in collective works or as articles in journals, and these in turn published in Canada, USA, The Netherlands and Belgium. It is hoped that gathering this hitherto scattered material under one cover will contribute to a greater understanding of what informal logic is, and to an enhanced sense of the impact of Johnson’s ideas. A discipline of informal logic might exist today without the writings of Johnson and his frequent co-author, J. Anthony Blair. But it would almost certainly be quite different from what it actually is. (shrink)

Beginning with a discussion of the Informal Logic Movement and the renewed interest in critical thinking in education, this book critically assesses the work of Robert Ennis, Richard Paul and John McPeck.

Charles Stevenson introduced the term 'persuasive definition’ to describe a suspect form of moral argument 'which gives a new conceptual meaning to a familiar word without substantially changing its emotive meaning’. However, as Stevenson acknowledges, such a move can be employed legitimately. If persuasive definition is to be a useful notion, we shall need a criterion for identifying specifically illegitimate usage. I criticize a recent proposed criterion from Keith Burgess-Jackson and offer an alternative.

If we [women] have not stopped rape, we have redefined it, we have faced it, and we have set up the structures to deal with it for ourselves.[T]he definition of rape, which has in the past always been understood to mean the use of violence or the threat of it to force sex upon an unwilling woman, is now being broadened to include a whole range of sexual relations that have never before in all of human experience been regarded as (...) rape.In 1989 the philosopher and self-described feminist Christina Sommers published a short essay — ‘an opinion piece,’ she called it — that was eventually developed into and published as a philosophical article. In this essay Sommers criticized ‘feminist philosophers’ for being ‘oddly unsympathetic to the women whom they claim to represent.’ Specifically, Sommers accused these philosophers of ignoring the ‘values of the average woman’ and of being caught up in an ‘ideological fervor.’ To emphasize her point that the so-called feminist philosophers have lost touch with ‘the average woman,’ Sommers wrote that ‘One must nevertheless expect that many women will continue to swoon at the sight of Rhett Butler carrying Scarlett O'Hara up the stairs to a fate undreamt of in feminist philosophy.’. (shrink)

In Educating Reason, Harvey Siegel presented the case regarding rationality and critical thinking as fundamental education ideals. In Rationality Redeemed? , a collection of essays written since that time, he develops this view, responds to major criticisms raised against it, and engages those critics in dialogue. In developing his ideas and responding to critics, Siegel addresses main currents in contemporary thought, including feminism, postmodernism and multiculturalism.

Providing a balance of reference to theoretical and practical information on critical thinking, this annotated bibliography of 930 selected items from 1980 through 1991 covers the fields of philosophy, psychology, and education. It is geared especially to teachers, administrators, and researchers in elementary, secondary, and higher education. Representing past and current trends in the concepts, research, and teaching of critical thinking, the eight chapters include literature references to the history of critical thinking, the Critical Thinking Movement, the wide range of (...) views on the definition and concept of critical thinking, testing and evaluating, professional development and teacher training, research studies on learning transfer and effective teaching techniques, theory of teaching critical thinking, and instructional methods. Author and subject indexes. (shrink)

In the current study we compared academic locus of control (ALoC) and perceived quality of academic life (PQAL) across three groups of university students: those without disabilities, those with attention deficit disorder or learning disabilities (ADD-LD), and those with other disabilities. Results showed no significant differences in ALoC scores, with each group reporting an internal ALoC. However, students with other disabilities (e.g., sensory, motor, chronic health, and/or mental health) reported significantly lower satisfaction with their overall quality of academic life than (...) students without disabilities. Applied implications are discussed along with recommendations for further research. (shrink)

He further argues that it is necessary to rethink traditional conceptions of argument, and to find a position that avoids the limitations of both the highly abstract approach of formal logic and the highly contextualized approaches of rhetoric and communication theory.".

This autobiographical piece is in response to Frank Fair’s kind invitation to write a reflective piece on my involvement over the last 30 years in the critical thinking movement, with special attention given to 18 years of assessment data as I assessed students’ critical thinking outcomes at Baker University. The first section of the paper deals with my intellectual history and how I came to a specific understanding of CT. The second deals with the Baker Experiment in combining instruction in (...) CT with written composition, with a special focus on Deductive Reconstruction. The third section goes over our attempts at assessment and what we discovered by using three separate tests. The final section of the paper presents my conclusions about the challenges of teaching CT based on the Baker Experiment. (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)

Teaching Critical Thinking in the "Strong" Sense: A Focus On Self-Deception, World Views, and a Dialectical Mode of Analysis.

The book also comes with an exhaustive array of study aids that enable the reader to monitor and enhance the learning process.

In this inspirational book Bryan Magee tells the story of his discovery of philosophy, and in doing so introduces the subject to his reader. Experiences of everyday life provide discussion of philosophers and explain why certain philosophical questions persistently exercise our minds. With great fluency Magee untangles philosophy, making it seem part of everyone's life. Intensely personal and brimming with infectious enthusiasm, this is a wonderful introduction to philosophy by one of the most elegant and accessible writers on the subject.