Critical Thinking

Jonathan Haber

12 annotations Oct 2023 data

c12081-0006

  • The first, Socrates, questioned fixed beliefs and strove to live an "examined life," activities that earned him the title of father of Western philosophy as well as a death sentence from his annoyed fellow Athenians.
  • One of these was René Descartes, a philosopher and mathematician who made major contributions to algebra and geometry, both cornerstones of mathematics and science today, as well as kicking off modern philosophy through his mental experiments based on "radical doubt."
  • Other philosophers, such as Francis Bacon and David Hume, took a different approach, stressing empirical evidence over abstract reasoning as the source of genuine knowledge.
  • Critical-thinking researcher Emily R. Lai, citing the work of R. J. Stenberg, contrasted the role of psychology in the development of models of critical thinking with roles played by philosophy and science, pointing out that psychologists "tend to focus on how people actually think versus how they could or should think under ideal conditions."
  • France's Pierre Janet played a similar role in the use of scientific methods to study the mind. One of his major contributions was a hierarchy of mental "tendencies" that ranged from lower-level cognitive activities common to both lower animals and man to higher-order faculties possessed only by humans, such as language and symbolic reasoning.
  • Pragmatism holds that things are defined by their practical effects rather than their empirical or metaphysical properties. A knife is sharp, for example, not because of the width of its cutting edge or participation in some Platonic form of sharpness. Rather, it is our practical use of the knife (to cut something, for example)—and that alone—that defines it as sharp.
  • One is an a priori method, which simply requires believing or continuing to believe things that make you comfortable.
  • Alternatively, one's beliefs can be established by an authority, such as a priesthood or norms of a society, that establishes what thoughts and ideas are allowed and forbidden.
  • Such authority is often challenged by free spirits, many of whom come to their beliefs through tenacity, which involves settling onto a belief system and boldly holding on to it at all costs regardless of whether it is right or wrong.
  • The desire to rid oneself of doubt explains the behavior and incomparable learning ability of infants and toddlers whose natural curiosity leads them to use any available faculty—touch, movement, language—to make sense of the world around them.
  • But, as Peirce noted in "The Fixation of Belief," doubt can be dissipated in numerous ways, some less constructive than others. For example, doubt can be eliminated by believing the first explanation one receives, by embracing ideas one is already comfortable with, or by accepting answers provided by authority figures.
  • Dewey's problem with the factory model of education of his (and our) day, where teachers provide answers and ensure students learn them and only them through drill and examination, was that this form of learning stifled discovery, which he believed should be facilitated through "overt and exertive" student learning activities.