---
bibtex: @InCollection{sep-critical-thinking,
author = {Hitchcock, David},
title = {{Critical Thinking}},
booktitle = {The {Stanford} Encyclopedia of Philosophy},
editor = {Edward N. Zalta},
howpublished = {\url{https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/critical-thinking/}},
year = {2020},
edition = {{F}all 2020},
publisher = {Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}
}
---
A contested definition but they all point towards ... "careful thinking directed to a goal"
Examples ...
active, persistent and careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further conclusions to which it tends. (Dewey 1910: 6; 1933: 9)
- the Progressive Education Association (Aikin 1942) adopted critical thinking as an educational goal
- Evaluation Staff developed tests (Smith, Tyler, & Evaluation Staff 1942).
- Glaser (1941) showed experimentally that it was possible to improve the critical thinking of high school students.
- Bloom’s influential taxonomy of cognitive educational objectives (Bloom et al. 1956) incorporated critical thinking abilities.
- Ennis (1962) proposed 12 aspects of critical thinking as a basis for research on the teaching and evaluation of critical thinking ability.
- APA consensus statement on critical thinking for purposes of educational assessment and instruction (Facione 1990a)
Ennis maintains that the 17 definitions are different conceptions of the same concept
Bailin et al. (1999b) claims educators typically understand critical thinking to have at least three features:
- It is done for the purpose of making up one’s mind about what to believe or do.
- The person engaging in the thinking is trying to fulfill standards of adequacy and accuracy appropriate to the thinking.
- The thinking fulfills the relevant standards to some threshold level.
Conceptions of [critical thinking] can vary according to its presumed scope, its presumed goal, one’s criteria and threshold for being careful, and the thinking component on which one focuses.
** Flesh out topology of definitions ... **
Constructive scope
- Dewey 1910, 1933
- Ennis (1991) and Bailin et al. (1999b)
Appraisal scope
- Ennis 1962; Fisher & Scriven 1997; Johnson 1992
- Ennis (1991) and Bailin et al. (1999b)
Goal forming judgment
A model process of critical thinking ...
- suggestions, in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution;
- an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a problem to be solved, a question for which the answer must be sought;
- the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis, to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material;
- the mental elaboration of the idea or supposition as an idea or supposition (reasoning, in the sense on which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference); and
- testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative action. (Dewey 1933: 106–107; italics in original)
Perhaps the best way to conceptualize the critical thinking process is as a checklist whose component events can occur in a variety of orders, selectively, and more than once. These component events might include:
(1) noticing a difficulty,
(2) defining the problem,
(3) dividing the problem into manageable sub-problems,
(4) formulating a variety of possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem,
(5) determining what evidence is relevant to deciding among possible solutions to the problem or sub-problem,
(6) devising a plan of systematic observation or experiment that will uncover the relevant evidence,
(7) carrying out the plan of systematic observation or experimentation,
(8) noting the results of the systematic observation or experiment,
(9) gathering relevant testimony and information from others,
(10) judging the credibility of testimony and information gathered from others,
(11) drawing conclusions from gathered evidence and accepted testimony, and
(12) accepting a solution that the evidence adequately supports (cf. Hitchcock 2017: 485).
A randomish list of cognitive skills associated with critical thinking ...
- observing
- feeling
- wondering
- imagining
- inferring
- knowledge (knowing, remembering)
- experimenting
- consulting
- identifying
- analyzing
- judging
- deciding
It requires both willingness and ability to think critically, including willingness and ability to perform each of the mental acts that compose the process and to coordinate those acts in a sequence that is directed at resolving the initiating perplexity.
Dispositions and virtues of thinking
Educational researchers use the term ‘dispositions’ broadly for the habits of mind and attitudes that contribute causally to being a critical thinker. Some writers (e.g., Paul & Elder 2006; Hamby 2014; Bailin & Battersby 2016) propose to use the term ‘virtues’ for this dimension of a critical thinker.
Initiating dispositions
- attentiveness
- habit of inquiry
- self confidence
- courage
- open mindedness
- willingness to suspend judgement
- trust in reason
- seeking the truth
Thinking Skills
theorists of critical thinking have listed as general contributors to critical thinking what they variously call abilities (Glaser 1941; Ennis 1962, 1991), skills (Facione 1990a; Halpern 1998) or competencies (Fisher & Scriven 1997).
A ramdomish list of critical thinking abilitys (or skills)
- observation abilities ... seeing different distinctions and patterns
- emotional abilities ... curiosity, responses to puzzleness, not knowing
- questioning abilities ... to formate useful questions
- imaginative abilities ... creating hypotheses
- inferential abilities ... to know what entails and what doesn't
- Argument analysis abilities
- Experimenting abilities
- Judging skills and deciding skills
Major controversies ...
- is critical thinking generalisable?
- is there bias in critical thinking pedagogy?
- what is the relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking?
See also ...
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-thinking/assessment.html https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-thinking/history.html https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-thinking/dispositions.html