This paper proposes an Afroepistemological reading of the Ifá system. The policies of Western academic epistemology have disdained the traditiona African knowledge. Ifá has not been an exception. However, through this method a great deal of the socio-cultural and epistemological codes of Yorùbá society. So, Ifá becomes more important than a divination rite, because it represents socio-political and epistemological cohesion of a great proportion of the peoples of West Africa. This work vindicates this role and try to show epistemological (...) complexity of the system. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt to situate Yorùbá proverbs, names, role-expectations, aspirations and consciousness towards building and contributing to the development of a national consciousness. The paper proceeds with a critical exposition of the general nature of Yorùbá proverbs, an exploration of the dialectical relationship between Yorùbá proverbs and names, and argues that this relationship instantiates a descriptivist theory of reference of names in the philosophy of language, with concluding particulars that critically espouses the values and virtues (...) embedded in selected Yorùbá proverbs and names. (shrink)

This paper is a reflection on the puzzle of life after death. It explores the meaning, types and causes of death so as to contemplate the purpose of life. Thus, the paper takes into consideration metaphysical, moral and epistemic issues in the belief in life after death (or life after life). This exploration is done considering the Yoruba philosophy of death (iku), life (iye) and life after death (aye atun wa). We note that, for the Yoruba, life as seen in (...) the body is ephemeral, whereas death (that is, the separation of the soul from the body—iku ara) is a transitory process of life to a renewed life. The paper shows that the Yoruba’s idea of death is not an end to life but a change in its form. It is argued, then, that the Yoruba ontology has the implications that: (a) life is a continuum and, (b) man is not his body, (c) hence, a theory of immortality of the soul is implied. The paper observes that, though certain contradictions exist in the Yoruba worldview, the ethos of the belief seems significant. The paper examines the notions of imo (knowledge) and igbabo (belief) in Yoruba epistemology and thus advances the thesis that their belief in life after death cannot be corroborated, though not unreasonable. (shrink)

Why do people create extra representations to help them make sense of situations, diagrams, illustrations, instructions and problems? The obvious explanation— external representations save internal memory and com- putation—is only part of the story. I discuss seven ways external representations enhance cognitive power: they change the cost structure of the inferential landscape; they provide a structure that can serve as a shareable object of thought; they create persistent referents; they facilitate re- representation; they are often a more natural representation of (...) structure than mental representations; they facilitate the computation of more explicit encoding of information; they enable the construction of arbitrarily complex structure; and they lower the cost of controlling thought—they help coordinate thought. Jointly, these functions allow people to think more powerfully with external representations than without. They allow us to think the previously unthinkable. (shrink)

Ezumezu, a prototype African logic, developed by Jonathan Chimakonam as a framework which mediates thought, theory and method in the African place, is according to him, extendable and applicable in places non-African too. This seems to underscore the universal character of the logic. I interrogate, in this piece, the logic to see if it truly mediates thought, theory and method in Yorùbá ontology on the one hand, and process ontology on the other hand. Through critical analysis, I discern that (...) each of these thought systems operate beyond the principles of classical logic and this is one of the factors that have vitiated their appreciation and comprehension. Upon critical reflection, however, these thought systems seem to follow the principles of Ezumezu logic hence my aim – to disclose how the logic undergirds theory and method for each of those systems. Keywords: African Philosophy, Ezumezu Logic, Jonathan Chimakonam, Process Ontology, Yorùbá Ontology. (shrink)

Traditional Yorùbá culture admits the hegemonic locus that humans rank above all else on the planet. The outlook received decisive ratification several millennia ago in one of the Odùs of their Ifá Corpus. Specifically, in Odù Ògúndá Otura, one of the numerous chapters of the Ifá Corpus, Ọ̀rúnmìlà, the founder and primordial deity of Ifá discloses his authorization, the use of non-human animals for sacrifice and other human ends interminably. In this study, we engage the Ifá chapter that upholds (...) this outlook. We riposte that the age long supercilious perspective among the Yorùbá that humans rank higher and over non-human animals, as documented in the said Odù is no longer tenable on biological and moral-legal grounds. If the biological and moral-legal thrusts are not invalid, what framework is plausible when the interest(s) of non-human animals clash with the interest(s) of Ifá tradition and Yorùbá culture? On what basis will it be appropriate to jettison the interest(s) of the one for the interest(s) of the other? In the light of these posers, we employ Kai Horsthemke’s ethical individualism as the suitable groundwork that considers the interest of animals recommended for sacrifice in Ifá obeisance. (shrink)

How is what we believe related to how we act? That depends on what we mean by ‘believe’. On the one hand, there is what we're sure of: what our names are, where we were born, whether we are sitting in front of a screen. Surety, in this sense, is not uncommon — it does not imply Cartesian absolute certainty, from which no possible course of experience could dislodge us. But there are many things that we think that we are (...) not sure of. For example, you might think that it will rain sometime this month, but not be sure that it will. Both what we're sure of and what we think have important normative connections to action. But the connections are quite different. This paper explores these issues with respect to assertion, inquiry, and decision making. We conclude by arguing that there is no theoretically significant notion of ‘full belief’ intermediate in strength between thinking and being sure. (shrink)

Projects of human improvement take both individual and intergenerational forms. The biosciences provide many technologies, including prenatal screening and the latest gene editing techniques, such as CRISPR, that have been viewed as providing the means to human improvement across generations. But who is fit to furnish the next generation? Historically, eugenics epitomizes the science-based attempt to improve human society through distinguishing kinds of people and then implementing social policies—from immigration restriction to sexual sterilization and euthanasia—that influence and even direct what (...) sorts of people populate our future. Despite recognition of the horrors of the eugenic extremes of the past and of the subhumanizing of those sufficiently below appearance or ability norms to be viewed as “defective” or “unfit”, many people continue to be drawn to strands of eugenic thinking. (shrink)

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)

Critical thinking involves deliberate application of tests and standards to beliefs per se and to methods used to arrive at beliefs. Pedagogical license is authorization accorded to teachers permitting them to use otherwise illicit means in order to achieve pedagogical goals. Pedagogical license is thus analogous to poetic license or, more generally, to artistic license. Pedagogical license will be found to be pervasive in college teaching. This presentation suggests that critical thinking courses emphasize two topics: first, the nature (...) and usefulness of critical thinking; second, the nature and pervasiveness of pedagogical license. Awareness of pedagogical license alerts the student to the need for critical thinking. Indoctrination is done to students; education is done by students. (shrink)

This is the full version of the Delphi Report on critical thinking and critical thinking instruction at the post-secondary level.

In this essay, I draw on Henri Bergson and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to interrogate what philosophy is and how it can continue to think. Though my answer is not reducible to the views of either philosopher, what joins them is an attempt to elaborate philosophy as a different way of seeing. In this light, I propose a view of philosophy as prosthesis—as a means and a way for seeing differently. Rather than a simple tool, philosophy as prosthesis is a transformative supplement, (...) one that our bodily perception calls for and wherein that perception is recast. Rather than a fixed or assured view, this prosthesis holds open the interval in which thinking can take place. Philosophy, I argue, must wait. It sees and thinks hesitatingly, for the temporality it inscribes is not a foreseeable development but the unfolding of life as tendency, as that which creates its own possibility as it comes into existence. (shrink)

Paper presented at the Association for Informal Logic and Critical Thinking meeting in conjunction with the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association, Chicago, April 2004.

To explore the question of physical thinking – using the body as an instrument of cognition – we collected extensive video and interview data on the creative process of a noted choreographer and his company as they made a new dance. A striking case of physical thinking is found in the phenomenon of marking. Marking refers to dancing a phrase in a less than complete manner. Dancers mark to save energy. But they also mark to explore the tempo (...) of a phrase, or its movement sequence, or the intention behind it. Because of its representational nature, marking can serve as a vehicle for thought. Importantly, this vehicle is less complex than the version of the same phrase danced ‘full-out’. After providing evidence for distinguishing different types of marking, three ways of understanding marking as a form of thought are considered: marking as a gestural language for encoding aspects of a target movement, marking as a method of priming neural systems involved in the target movement, and marking as a method for improving the precision of mentally projecting aspects of the target. (shrink)

This article focuses on the religious information inside Ghanaian and Nigerian video movies regarding Akan and Yoruba women. More specifically, it focuses on the indigenous religious, Christian, and Islamic messages inside these movies in relation to women. The article demonstrates that Akan and Yoruba filmmakers, who dominate the Ghanaian and Nigerian video movie industries, are part of networks of religious institutions, predominantly Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian and modest Islamic ones. These organizations sponsor filmmakers to spread religious messages that promote hierarchical gender relations (...) and the suppression of equal rights for women, e.g., economic independence. By providing an overview of Akan and Yoruba belief systems, in respect of indigenous, Christian, and Islamic gender-related positional concepts and ideological communication on what is appropriate behavior for women, the author will show and support the hypothesis that these movies contribute to women’s demonization and (economic) discrimination. (shrink)

Eugenic thinking involves distinguishing between sorts or kinds of people in terms of the perceived desirable or undesirable traits that those people are likely to transmit to future generations. While eugenics itself is often thought of as an ideology that generated a social movement of global influence from roughly 1900 to 1945, eugenic thinking both pre-dates this period and continues to inform a range of contemporary debates and social policies, including those concerning prenatal screening, transhumanism, population control, and (...) disability. Various sciences, including the then-nascent sciences of psychology and psychiatry, played important roles in early twentieth-century eugenics, and their legacy is reflected in contemporary eugenic thinking and policies. Understanding the history of eugenics and the role of these early sciences of cognition in that history is useful in reflecting further on ongoing forms of eugenic thinking to which the contemporary cognitive sciences are relevant. (shrink)

Inquiry, Volume 57, Issue 1, Page 55-96, February 2014.

Technology should be aligned with our values. We make the case that attempts to align emerging technologies with our values should reflect critically on these values. Critical thinking seems like a natural starting point for the critical assessment of our values. However, extant conceptualizations of critical thinking carve out no space for the critical scrutiny of values. We will argue that we need critical thinking that focuses on values instead of taking them as unexamined starting points. In (...) order to play a crucial role in helping to align values and technology, critical thinking needs to be modified and refocused on values. Here, we outline what value-centred critical thinking could look like. (shrink)

This paper defends the view, put roughly, that to think that p is to guess that p is the answer to the question at hand, and that to think that p rationally is for one’s guess to that question to be in a certain sense non-arbitrary. Some theses that will be argued for along the way include: that thinking is question-sensitive and, correspondingly, that ‘thinks’ is context-sensitive; that it can be rational to think that p while having arbitrarily low (...) credence that p; that, nonetheless, rational thinking is closed under entailment; that thinking does not supervene on credence; and that in many cases what one thinks on certain matters is, in a very literal sense, a choice. Finally, since there are strong reasons to believe that thinking just is believing, there are strong reasons to think that all this goes for belief as well. (shrink)

Math prospective teachers must be able to think creatively and solve problems. The study looked into preservice teachers’ creative thinking and problem-solving abilities in statistics. The investigation was guided by a correlational design in a public university in the Philippines. Stratified random sampling was used to select the 103 study participants from two teacher education programs. Through google forms, data were collected using Torrance et al. (2008)’s tests of creative thinking and researcher-made statistics problem test. The findings revealed (...) that preservice teachers have commendable creative thinking, particularly fluency, flexibility, and elaboration skills. Still, they lack problem-solving skills in statistics, specifically with central tendency, dispersion, and position measures. The correlational analysis revealed no link between creative thinking and problem-solving. Still, creative thinking and problem-solving courses are recommended to help preservice teachers develop their fundamental skills as mathematics educators. (shrink)

In this paper, I want to address once more the venerable problem of intentional identity, the problem of how different thoughts can be about the same thing even if this thing does not exist. First, I will try to show that antirealist approaches to this problem are doomed to fail. For they ultimately share a problematic assumption, namely that thinking about something involves identifying it. Second, I will claim that once one rejects this assumption and holds instead that thoughts (...) are constituted either by what they are about, their intentional objects, or by what determines their proposition-like intentional contents, one can address the problem of intentional identity in a different way. One can indeed provide a new solution to it that basically relies on two factors: a) what sort of metaphysical nature intentional objects effectively possess, once they are conceived as schematic objects à la Crane (2001, 2013); b) whether such objects really belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is. According to this solution, two thoughts are about the same nonexistent intentional object iff i) that object satisfies the identity criterion for objects of that metaphysical kind and ii) objects of that kind belong to the overall ontological inventory of what there is, independently of whether they exist (in a suitable first-order sense of existence). As such, this solution is neither realist nor antirealist: only if condition ii) is satisfied, different thoughts can be about the same nonexistent intentionale; otherwise, they are simply constituted by the same intentional content (provided that this content is not equated with that intentionale). Third, armed with this solution, I will hold that one can find a suitable treatment of the specific and related problem of whether different people may mock-think about the same thing, even if there really is no such thing. Finally, I will try to show that this treatment can be also applied to the case in which different thoughts are, according to phenomenology, about the same intentionale and yet this intentionale is of a kind such that there really are no things of that kind. For in this case, such thoughts are about the same intentionale only fictionally. (shrink)

The application of statistical methods and models both in the natural and social sciences is nowadays a trivial fact which nobody would deny. Bold analogies even suggest the application of the same statistical models to fields as different as statistical mechanics and economics, among them the case of the young and controversial discipline of Econophysics . Less trivial, however, is the answer to the philosophical question, which has been raised ever since the possibility of “commuting” statistical thinking and models (...) between natural and social sciences emerged: whether such a methodological kinship would imply some kind of more profound unity of the natural and the social domain. Starting with Adolphe Quetelet (1796-1874) and ending with the Vienna Circle (from the late 1920s until the 1940s), this paper offers a brief historical and philosophical reconstruction of some important stages in the development of statistics as “commuting” between the natural and the social sciences. This reconstruction is meant to highlight (with respect to the authors under consideration): (1) the existence of a significant correlation between the readiness to “transfer” statistical thinking from natural to social sciences and vice versa, on the one hand, and the standpoints on the issue of the unity/disunity of science, on the other; (2) the historical roots and the fortunes of the analogy between statistical models of society and statistical models of gases. (shrink)

The concept of population thinking was introduced by Ernst Mayr as the right way of thinking about the biological domain, but it is difficult to find an interpretation of this notion that is both unproblematic and does the theoretical work it was intended to do. I argue that, properly conceived, Mayr’s population thinking is a version of trope nominalism: the view that biological property-types do not exist or at least they play no explanatory role. Further, although population (...) thinking has been traditionally used to argue against essentialism about biological kinds, recently it has been suggested that it may be consistent with at least some forms of essentialism—ones that construe essential properties as relational. I argue that if population thinking is a version of trope nominalism, then, as Mayr originally claimed, it rules out any version of essentialism about biological kinds. (shrink)

This paper concentrates on the resurrection of the journey of analytic philosophy from the perspective of ‘critical thinking,’ a tool of proper thought and understanding. To define an era of philosophy as analytic seems indeed a difficult attempt. However, my attempt would be to look up a few positions from the monumental thoughts of Frege, Russell, Carnap, Wittgenstein, Quine, and Putnam on their ‘analysis’ minded outlooks that developed in different ways based on logic, scientific spirit, conceptual, language etc. Analytic (...) philosophers intend to intertwine between word and world in terms of mind and language guided by critical analysis that I think remarkably encompassed by clarity, truth, analysis, accuracy, and open-mindedness. My attempt would be to resurrect the philosophical development of analytic philosophy in different periods that were enormously nourished by the idea of ‘critical thinking’ and the analysis of natural language. (shrink)

In his 2009 monograph, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection, Peter Godfrey-Smith accuses biologists of demonstrating ‘Darwinian Paranoia’ when they engage in what he dubs ‘agential thinking’. But as Daniel Dennett points out, he offers neither an illuminating set of examples nor an extended argument for this assertion, deeming it to be a brilliant propaganda stroke against what is actually a useful way of thinking. Compared to the dangers of teleological thinking in biology, the dangers of agential (...) class='Hi'>thinking have unfortunately rarely been discussed. Drawing on recent work by Samir Okasha, I attempt to remedy this omission, through analyzing the nature of agential thinking, and providing a philosophical treatment of the unexamined dangers in this peculiar, yet tempting way of thinking. (shrink)

Cushman, Young, & Greene (2010) urge the consolidation of moral psychology around a dual-system consensus. On this view, a slow, often-overstretched rational system tends to produce consequentialist intuitions and action-tendencies, while a fast, affective system produces virtuous (or vicious) intuitions and action-tendencies that perform well in their habituated ecological niche but sometimes disastrously outside of it. This perspective suggests a habit-corrected-by-reason picture of moral behavior. Recent research, however, has raised questions about the adequacy of dual-process theories of cognition and behavior, (...) which tend to distinguish categorically between fast, affect-laden, automatic, sometimes-unconscious, nearly-incorrigible mental processes and slow, rational, effortful, conscious, corrigible mental processes. Processes of one alleged type often have properties associated with the contrary type. For instance, rational processes can be emotional, and fast thinking can perform logical operations. In addition, the fast-slow binary transforms a continuous temporal scale into a dichotomous one, losing potentially important information along the way. While these problems are beginning to be addressed in some subfields of psychology, moral psychology has yet to grapple with them. In this theoretical paper, we argue that moral psychology needs a framework that accounts for our knowledge of both temporal and spatial (anatomical) dimensions of the brain basis of moral cognition and virtuous decision-making. We argue that methodologies with very fine-grained temporal granularity, such as electroencephalography (EEG), should be used to complement more frequently used methodologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). We outline how this might be accomplished using generosity, gratitude, and integrity as a case study. (shrink)

When you think about a particular object, what makes your thought about that object? Roderick Chisholm, Ernest Sosa and Michael McKinsey have defended 'latitudinarian', 'descriptivist', or what I call 'liberal' answers to that question. In this paper I carefully consider the motivation for these liberal views and show how it extends in unanticipated ways to motivate views that are considerably more liberal.

Fichte’s ambitious project in the Foundations of Natural Right is to provide an a priori deduction of the concept of right independently from morality. So far, interpretations of Fichte’s deduction of the concept of right have persistently fallen into one of two rough categories: either they (re)interpret the normative necessity of right in terms of moral or quasi-moral normativity or they interpret right’s normative necessity in terms of hypothetical imperatives. However, each of these interpretations faces significant exegetical difficulties. By contrast, (...) I argue that we can understand the normative necessity of right in terms of conceptual necessity. On this view, right does not tell us what ought to be done, but instead tells us what we are doing and have done. Not only does this provide for a promising philosophical account of the non-moral normativity of right, but also provides a compelling reading of Fichte’s text in both the deduction of the concept of right in the Foundations of Natural Right as well as his discussion of the application of the concept of right and coercion. (shrink)

In this long-awaited compendium of new and newly revised essays, Alison Wylie explores how archaeologists know what they know. -/- Preprints available for download. Please see entry for specific article of interest.

A new method of adult and children mental development is investigated – the trilogy of mind, which basic operation is the logic operation of comparison. This method was created considering Aristotle's understanding of philosophy as “the science about the first reasons and origins” of cognition, the beginning of presocratic cognition of the surrounding world. This new method is an effective mean of mental thinking development that is oriented at the understanding of natural and social processes with the help of (...) general scientific comparative notions – kinds of opposition, worked out in ancient times. (shrink)

The study aimed to identify Design Thinking and its use in NGOs in Gaza Strip. In order to achieve the objectives of the study and to test its hypotheses, the analytical descriptive method was used, relying on the questionnaire as a main tool for data collection. The study society was one of the decision makers in the local NGOs in the Gaza Strip. The study population reached 78 local NGOs in Gaza Strip. The overall inventory of the possible study (...) community was based mainly on the use of the SPSS in processing and analyzing the data obtained through the survey tool. Smart-PLS was also used to construct the structural equation model (SEM) Analyzing the relationship between study variables. The study found that Design Thinking mediates the relationship between the management of process design and decision making with a holistic effect. The study showed the interest of local NGOs in creating a good mental image in the local community. And the ownership of local NGOs to the expertise and technical skills required to implement the projects, and showed the adoption of local NGOs in their activities to meet the needs of the beneficiaries and their wishes, and local NGOs analyze the problem, and causes, through data relevant to the decision, based on reference data for decision-making. The main recommendations of the study are: The need for senior management in the local NGOs in Gaza Strip to adopt the methodology of design thinking because of its impact on the sustainability of the projects, design the technical feasibility study and meet the wishes of the beneficiaries. (shrink)

Much research into why and how critical thinking can be taught is directed towards traditional educational contexts and students. But how can those who are already in the workforce--or who would like to be--obtain needed preparation, as adults, for gaining crucial skills in critical thinking, innovation, and problem solving? Mastery in such skills cannot be learned just by mechanical training techniques, delivered online or otherwise, and many adult-oriented materials for enhancing creativity and problem-solving seem best suited for already-prepared (...) minds. The paper invites researchers to inquire how less well-prepared adults can also succeed in bridging this gap. (shrink)

Studies of the professional travelling theatre in Nigeria have always focused on theatre troupes owned by men, thereby giving the impression that there were no troupes owned by women. The main objective of this paper is to identify factors responsible for the exclusion of women from Nigerian theatre studies, especially the female troupe leaders such as Adunni Oluwole, Funmilayo Ranco, and Mojishola Martins. This will be done through a comparative evaluation of their theatre works with that of their male counterparts (...) with a view to establishing gender issues in the modus operandi of men and women theatre. The study reveals a dichotomy in men and women’s theatre and how women challenged those dichotomies with different levels of success. Though the focus of this paper is on female travelling theatre leaders, other categories of women who worked in the theatre of that period will also be covered. The study of the various roles and status of these women demonstrates what it means to live and work as a theatre practitioner in a man’s world. The paper ultimately challenges the exclusion of these women from theatre studies in Nigeria. (shrink)

The paper briefly summarises and critiques Tomasello’s A Natural History of Human Thinking. After offering an overview of the book, the paper focusses on one particular part of Tomasello’s proposal on the evolution of uniquely human thinking and raises two points of criticism against it. One of them concerns his notion of thinking. The other pertains to empirical findings on egocentric biases in communication.

This paper argues that the transcendence (most obviously theological) has skewed much of Western thinking by forcing material complexity to be interpreted as the intervention of something immaterial. Contemporary terms in the anglophone world that can play this role are: intentionality (privatised teleology), representation and semantics. Deleuze launches a powerful critique of residually theological reasoning that has wide application in both philosophy and science. This critique converges with and deepens, perhaps surprisingly for a French philosopher, similar critiques that are (...) being offered today in evolutionary biology, cognitive science and robotics. (shrink)

Mathematical thinking skills are very important in mathematics, both to learn math or as learning goals. Thinking skills can be seen from the description given answers in solving mathematical problems faced. Mathematical thinking skills can be seen from the types, levels, and process. Proportionally questions given to students at universities in Indonesia (semester I, III, V, and VII). These questions are a matter of description that belong to the higher-level thinking. Students choose 5 of 8 given (...) problem. Qualitatively, the answers were analyzed by descriptive to see the tendency to think mathematically used in completing the test. The results show that students tend to choose the issues relating to the calculation. They are more use cases, examples and not an example, to evaluate the conjecture and prove to belong to the numeric argumentation. Used mathematical thinking students are very personal (intelligence, interest, and experience), and the situation (problems encountered). Thus, the level of half of the students are not guaranteed and shows the level of mathematical thinking. (shrink)

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)

Counterfactual thinking—the capacity to reflect on what would, could, or should have been if events had transpired differently—is a pervasive, yet seemingly paradoxical human tendency. On the one hand, counterfactual thoughts can be comforting and inspiring (Carroll & Shepperd, Chapter 28), but on the other they can be anxiety provoking and depressing (Zeelenberg & Pieters, Chapter 27). Likewise, such thoughts can illuminate pathways toward better future outcomes (Wong, Galinsky, & Kray, Chapter 11), yet they can also promote confusion and (...) lead us astray (Sanna, Schwarz, & Kennedy, Chapter 13). The first part of this chapter focuses on work that supports the prevailing Zeitgeist in the counterfactual thinking literature: Counterfactual thinking is beneficial. The second part of the chapter, however, strikes a more cautionary tone by reviewing work that describes some deleterious consequences of counterfactual thinking. We conclude by offering a tentative reconciliation of these conflicting perspectives and suggesting directions for future research. (shrink)

When someone says she believes that God exists, is she expressing the same kind of mental state as when she says she thinks that a lake bigger than Lake Michigan exists⎯i.e., does she refer to the same kind of cognitive attitude in both cases? Using evidence from linguistic corpora (Study 1) and behavioral experiments (Studies 2-4), the current work provides evidence that individuals typically use the word “believe” more in conjunction with statements about religious credences and “think” more in conjunction (...) with factual statements, pointing to two different understandings of claims made with these two terms. These patterns do not appear to reflect low-level differences based on the amount of consensus surrounding a particular claim, the extent to which the truth of a particular claim is known to the participant, or linguistic differences between religious and factual statements. We discuss implications of these findings for religious cognition (e.g., as supporting the theory that religious credences are qualitatively distinct from factual beliefs) as well as cognitive processes more broadly. Finally, we relate the present findings to prior theoretical work on differences between factual belief and religious credence. (shrink)

The article aims to determine how university professors critically perceive and evaluate information when interacting with the media sphere. The study's relevance is due to the insufficient elaboration of Russian teachers' attitude to the information in the media sphere, which is significant in developing students' critical thinking. The study analyzes theoretical sources and documents on critical thinking in the media sphere and the results of processing empirical data obtained from questioning teachers. The main measuring instrument is a questionnaire (...) survey of university professors with various lengths of service. The study involved 76 teachers from Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin. Ural State Pedagogical University (Ekaterinburg, Russia). Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod (Nizhny Novgorod, Russia). The data obtained from the study of the teachers' attitude to the information content of the media sphere show a predominant critical attitude in assessing the reliability and availability of information on social networking platforms. This conclusion is important for personality traits that develop students' critical thinking. (shrink)

[File is the introduction to the monograph] -/- Abstract to monograph -/- How and whether thinking affects perceiving is a deeply important question. Of course it is of scientific interest: to understand the human mind is to understand how we best distinguish its processes, how those processes interact, and what this implies for how and what we may know about the world. And so in the philosopher’s terms, this book is one on both mental architecture and the epistemology of (...) perception. But there is a more human interest. How we make contact with the world, and with one another, is of the most basic of importance. We can make both sensory contact and cognitive contact with the world. The first is traditionally supposed to be determined by the biological nature of our sensory systems, while the second is at least partly determined by us, what we have learned, our experiences, and so on. The most basic claim of the book is that this is mistaken and importantly so. Our sensory contact with the world can also change and in a way that is importantly affected by the cognitive contact that we have, or have had, with the world. Thinking does not just affect perceiving, thinking improves perceiving. If this is true, it changes not only how we should theorize the mind, it changes how we should understand, as individuals, our place in and contact with the world. (shrink)

Suppose that you're lying in bed. You just woke up. But you're alert. Your mind is clear and you have no distractions. As you lie there, you think to yourself, ‘2 + 2 = 4.’ The thought just pops into your head. But, wanting to be sure of your mathematical insight, you once again think ‘2 + 2 = 4’, this time really meditating on your thought. Now suppose that you're sitting in an empty movie theatre. The lighting is normal (...) and the screen in front of you is blank. Then at some point an image of a peach is flashed on the screen. The image isn't up there for long. In fact, it's only on the screen for what seems like an instant—just long enough for you to see it. These two scenarios are a bit mundane. But, as I will show, reflection on them can yield significant results concerning the nature of persons and their persistence through time. First I will show that thought and perception have temporal constraints whereby your thinking or perceiving in the above scenarios implies that you exist through a temporally.. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Max Deutscher’s recent accounts of thinking, willing and judging, derived from his reading of Hannah Arendt’s 'The Life of the Mind', as set out in his book 'Judgment After Arendt'. Against Deutscher I argue that thinking does not presuppose thoughtfulness, that being willing is compatible with willing reluctantly, and that actor and spectator judgments are distinct types of judgments.

Intersectionality has become the primary analytic tool that feminist and anti-racist scholars deploy for theorizing identity and oppression. This paper exposes and critically interrogates the assumptions underpinning intersectionality by focusing on four tensions within intersectionality scholarship: the lack of a defined intersectional methodology; the use of black women as quintessential intersectional subjects; the vague definition of intersectionality; and the empirical validity of intersectionality. Ultimately, my project does not seek to undermine intersectionality; instead, I encourage both feminist and anti-racist scholars to (...) grapple with intersectionality's theoretical, political, and methodological murkiness to construct a more complex way of theorizing identity and oppression. (shrink)

In this article, I intend to underscore the importance of critical thinking in rendering invaluable positive contributions and impact within professional organizations in the developing world. I argue that critical thinking treated as a normative principle and balanced with a pragmatic orientation provides a rational framework for resolving conflicts that oftentimes ensue from the incoherence between Western-based organizational theories and the actual circumstances of a developing country. In order to optimize the benefits of critical thinking, I also (...) argue that it should not be expected only among leaders and managers, but also and more importantly, among organizational members and associates. It is for this reason that I introduce Matthew Lipman’s Community of Inquiry as a model for cultivating critical thinking within professional environments. (shrink)

I argue that on Aristotle’s account practical thinking is thinking whose origin (archē) is a desire that has as its object the very thing that one reasons about how to promote. This feature distinguishes practical from productive reasoning since in the latter the desire that initiates it is not (unless incidentally) a desire for the object that one productively reasons about. The feature has several interesting consequences: (a) there is only a contingent relationship between the desire that one (...) practically reasons about how to satisfy and the action one decides on; (b) practical thinking and action cannot be separated from the agent, whereas productive thinking and production can be outsourced to someone else. The view has consequences also for the distinction between action and production. Finally, I illustrate the usefulness and correctness of my account of practical thinking by using it to shed new light on Aristotle’s claim that the virtuous agent must decide on her virtuous actions ‘for themselves’. (shrink)

Two connected questions that arise for anyone interested in inner speech are whether we tell ourselves something that we have already thought; and, if so, why we would tell ourselves something that we have already thought. In this contribution I focus on the first question, which is about the nature and the production of inner speech. While it is usually assumed that the content of what we tell ourselves is exactly the content of a non-linguistic thought, I argue that there (...) can be a lot of transformation in the process of converting a thought into words. Thus, the content of what we tell ourselves, being intrinsically linguistic, is different from the content of the thought our speech transmits. Fleshing out this kind of approach implies dealing with complicated questions which we lack enough knowledge about: the nature of non-linguistic thinking, and how speech (inner and overt) is produced; i.e. how the speaker goes from format a (format of thought) to format b (language). I show that these are pressing issues for any other position, but also suggest ways in which we could tackle such complicated issues. (shrink)

The potential benefits of cognitive skills in enhancing mathematics ability have been claimed by numerous researchers. Since mathematics requires a complete understanding and grasp of abstract concepts, it is essential to explore how learning with metacognitive skills affects mathematics learning. Thus, the study investigates the students' metacognitive awareness and conceptual understanding of integers. A descriptive-correlational method approach was utilized, and it was carried out on 303 seventh-grade students. The data were obtained using a metacognitive awareness inventory and achievement test on (...) integers. It was further revealed that the students have average metacognitive awareness and performed well in the fundamental operation of integers. Follow-up qualitative analysis revealed that students who were high achievers had the best understanding, average achievers had corrected or incomplete understanding, and low achievers had a functional misconception of integers. Moreover, the student's metacognitive awareness was significantly related to their conceptual understanding of integers. This indicates that student's higher-order thinking skills, such as metacognition, are essential since they are associated with building conceptual skills. Thus, teachers should encourage students' metacognitive awareness to improve students' conceptual understanding of integers. The study provides relevant information for educational managers on the potential factors to be considered in improving mathematics education practices, particularly in promoting metacognition among high school students. (shrink)