## 1. History



Use of the term 'critical thinking' to describe an
educational goal goes back to the American philosopher John Dewey
(1910), who more commonly called it 'reflective thinking'.
He defined it as



> 
> 
> 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)
> 
> 
> 



and identified a habit of such consideration with a scientific
attitude of mind. His lengthy quotations of Francis Bacon, John Locke,
and John Stuart Mill indicate that he was not the first person to
propose development of a scientific attitude of mind as an educational
goal.



In the 1930s, many of the schools that participated in the Eight-Year
Study of the Progressive Education Association (Aikin 1942) adopted
critical thinking as an educational goal, for whose achievement the
study's 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.



Since 1980, an annual international conference in California on
critical thinking and educational reform has attracted tens of
thousands of educators from all levels of education and from many
parts of the world. Also since 1980, the state university system in
California has required all undergraduate students to take a critical
thinking course. Since 1983, the Association for Informal Logic and
Critical Thinking has sponsored sessions in conjunction with the
divisional meetings of the American Philosophical Association (APA).
In 1987, the APA's Committee on Pre-College Philosophy
commissioned a consensus statement on critical thinking for purposes
of educational assessment and instruction (Facione 1990a). Researchers
have developed standardized tests of critical thinking abilities and
dispositions; for details, see the
 Supplement on Assessment.
 Educational jurisdictions around the world now include critical
thinking in guidelines for curriculum and assessment.



For details on this history, see the
 Supplement on History.


## 2. Examples and Non-Examples



Before considering the definition of critical thinking, it will be
helpful to have in mind some examples of critical thinking, as well as
some examples of kinds of thinking that would apparently not count as
critical thinking.


### 2.1 Dewey's Three Main Examples



Dewey (1910: 68-71; 1933: 91-94) takes as paradigms of
reflective thinking three class papers of students in which they
describe their thinking. The examples range from the everyday to the
scientific.



*Transit*: "The other day, when I was down town on 16th
Street, a clock caught my eye. I saw that the hands pointed to 12:20.
This suggested that I had an engagement at 124th Street, at one
o'clock. I reasoned that as it had taken me an hour to come down on a
surface car, I should probably be twenty minutes late if I returned
the same way. I might save twenty minutes by a subway express. But was
there a station near? If not, I might lose more than twenty minutes in
looking for one. Then I thought of the elevated, and I saw there was
such a line within two blocks. But where was the station? If it were
several blocks above or below the street I was on, I should lose time
instead of gaining it. My mind went back to the subway express as
quicker than the elevated; furthermore, I remembered that it went
nearer than the elevated to the part of 124th Street I wished to
reach, so that time would be saved at the end of the journey. I
concluded in favor of the subway, and reached my destination by one
o'clock." (Dewey 1910: 68-69; 1933: 91-92)



*Ferryboat*: "Projecting nearly horizontally from the
upper deck of the ferryboat on which I daily cross the river is a long
white pole, having a gilded ball at its tip. It suggested a flagpole
when I first saw it; its color, shape, and gilded ball agreed with
this idea, and these reasons seemed to justify me in this belief. But
soon difficulties presented themselves. The pole was nearly
horizontal, an unusual position for a flagpole; in the next place,
there was no pulley, ring, or cord by which to attach a flag; finally,
there were elsewhere on the boat two vertical staffs from which flags
were occasionally flown. It seemed probable that the pole was not
there for flag-flying.



"I then tried to imagine all possible purposes of the pole, and
to consider for which of these it was best suited: (a) Possibly it was
an ornament. But as all the ferryboats and even the tugboats carried
poles, this hypothesis was rejected. (b) Possibly it was the terminal
of a wireless telegraph. But the same considerations made this
improbable. Besides, the more natural place for such a terminal would
be the highest part of the boat, on top of the pilot house. (c) Its
purpose might be to point out the direction in which the boat is
moving.



"In support of this conclusion, I discovered that the pole was
lower than the pilot house, so that the steersman could easily see it.
Moreover, the tip was enough higher than the base, so that, from the
pilot's position, it must appear to project far out in front of the
boat. Moreover, the pilot being near the front of the boat, he would
need some such guide as to its direction. Tugboats would also need
poles for such a purpose. This hypothesis was so much more probable
than the others that I accepted it. I formed the conclusion that the
pole was set up for the purpose of showing the pilot the direction in
which the boat pointed, to enable him to steer correctly."
(Dewey 1910: 69-70; 1933: 92-93)



*Bubbles*: "In washing tumblers in hot soapsuds and
placing them mouth downward on a plate, bubbles appeared on the
outside of the mouth of the tumblers and then went inside. Why? The
presence of bubbles suggests air, which I note must come from inside
the tumbler. I see that the soapy water on the plate prevents escape
of the air save as it may be caught in bubbles. But why should air
leave the tumbler? There was no substance entering to force it out. It
must have expanded. It expands by increase of heat, or by decrease of
pressure, or both. Could the air have become heated after the tumbler
was taken from the hot suds? Clearly not the air that was already
entangled in the water. If heated air was the cause, cold air must
have entered in transferring the tumblers from the suds to the plate.
I test to see if this supposition is true by taking several more
tumblers out. Some I shake so as to make sure of entrapping cold air
in them. Some I take out holding mouth downward in order to prevent
cold air from entering. Bubbles appear on the outside of every one of
the former and on none of the latter. I must be right in my inference.
Air from the outside must have been expanded by the heat of the
tumbler, which explains the appearance of the bubbles on the outside.
But why do they then go inside? Cold contracts. The tumbler cooled and
also the air inside it. Tension was removed, and hence bubbles
appeared inside. To be sure of this, I test by placing a cup of ice on
the tumbler while the bubbles are still forming outside. They soon
reverse" (Dewey 1910: 70-71; 1933: 93-94).


### 2.2 Dewey's Other Examples



Dewey (1910, 1933) sprinkles his book with other examples of critical
thinking. We will refer to the following.



*Weather*: A man on a walk notices that it has suddenly become
cool, thinks that it is probably going to rain, looks up and sees a
dark cloud obscuring the sun, and quickens his steps (1910:
6-10; 1933: 9-13).



*Disorder*: A man finds his rooms on his return to them in
disorder with his belongings thrown about, thinks at first of burglary
as an explanation, then thinks of mischievous children as being an
alternative explanation, then looks to see whether valuables are
missing, and discovers that they are (1910: 82-83; 1933:
166-168).



*Typhoid*: A physician diagnosing a patient whose conspicuous
symptoms suggest typhoid avoids drawing a conclusion until more data
are gathered by questioning the patient and by making tests (1910:
85-86; 1933: 170).



*Blur*: A moving blur catches our eye in the distance, we ask
ourselves whether it is a cloud of whirling dust or a tree moving its
branches or a man signaling to us, we think of other traits that
should be found on each of those possibilities, and we look and see if
those traits are found (1910: 102, 108; 1933: 121, 133).



*Suction pump*: In thinking about the suction pump, the
scientist first notes that it will draw water only to a maximum height
of 33 feet at sea level and to a lesser maximum height at higher
elevations, selects for attention the differing atmospheric pressure
at these elevations, sets up experiments in which the air is removed
from a vessel containing water (when suction no longer works) and in
which the weight of air at various levels is calculated, compares the
results of reasoning about the height to which a given weight of air
will allow a suction pump to raise water with the observed maximum
height at different elevations, and finally assimilates the suction
pump to such apparently different phenomena as the siphon and the
rising of a balloon (1910: 150-153; 1933: 195-198).


### 2.3 Further Examples



*Diamond*: A passenger in a car driving in a diamond lane
reserved for vehicles with at least one passenger notices that the
diamond marks on the pavement are far apart in some places and close
together in others. Why? The driver suggests that the reason may be
that the diamond marks are not needed where there is a solid double
line separating the diamond lane from the adjoining lane, but are
needed when there is a dotted single line permitting crossing into the
diamond lane. Further observation confirms that the diamonds are close
together when a dotted line separates the diamond lane from its
neighbour, but otherwise far apart.



*Rash*: A woman suddenly develops a very itchy red rash on her
throat and upper chest. She recently noticed a mark on the back of her
right hand, but was not sure whether the mark was a rash or a scrape.
She lies down in bed and thinks about what might be causing the rash
and what to do about it. About two weeks before, she began taking
blood pressure medication that contained a sulfa drug, and the
pharmacist had warned her, in view of a previous allergic reaction to
a medication containing a sulfa drug, to be on the alert for an
allergic reaction; however, she had been taking the medication for two
weeks with no such effect. The day before, she began using a new cream
on her neck and upper chest; against the new cream as the cause was
mark on the back of her hand, which had not been exposed to the cream.
She began taking probiotics about a month before. She also recently
started new eye drops, but she supposed that manufacturers of eye
drops would be careful not to include allergy-causing components in
the medication. The rash might be a heat rash, since she recently was
sweating profusely from her upper body. Since she is about to go away
on a short vacation, where she would not have access to her usual
physician, she decides to keep taking the probiotics and using the new
eye drops but to discontinue the blood pressure medication and to
switch back to the old cream for her neck and upper chest. She forms a
plan to consult her regular physician on her return about the blood
pressure medication.



*Candidate*: Although Dewey included no examples of thinking
directed at appraising the arguments of others, such thinking has come
to be considered a kind of critical thinking. We find an example of
such thinking in the performance task on the Collegiate Learning
Assessment (CLA+), which its sponsoring organization describes as



> 
> 
> a performance-based assessment that provides a measure of an
> institution's contribution to the development of
> critical-thinking and written communication skills of its students.
> (Council for Aid to Education 2017)
> 
> 
> 



A sample task posted on its website requires the test-taker to write a
report for public distribution evaluating a fictional
candidate's policy proposals and their supporting arguments,
using supplied background documents, with a recommendation on whether
to endorse the candidate.


### 2.4 Non-examples



Immediate acceptance of an idea that suggests itself as a solution to
a problem (e.g., a possible explanation of an event or phenomenon, an
action that seems likely to produce a desired result) is
"uncritical thinking, the minimum of reflection" (Dewey
1910: 13). On-going suspension of judgment in the light of doubt about
a possible solution is not critical thinking (Dewey 1910: 108).
Critique driven by a dogmatically held political or religious ideology
is not critical thinking; thus Paulo Freire (1968 [1970]) is using the
term (e.g., at 1970: 71, 81, 100, 146) in a more politically freighted
sense that includes not only reflection but also revolutionary action
against oppression. Derivation of a conclusion from given data using
an algorithm is not critical thinking.


## 3. The Definition of Critical Thinking



What is critical thinking? There are many definitions. Ennis (2016)
lists 14 philosophically oriented scholarly definitions and three
dictionary definitions. Following Rawls (1971), who distinguished his
conception of justice from a utilitarian conception but regarded them
as rival conceptions of the same concept, Ennis maintains that the 17
definitions are different conceptions of the same concept. Rawls
articulated the shared concept of justice as



> 
> 
> a characteristic set of principles for assigning basic rights and
> duties and for determining... the proper distribution of the
> benefits and burdens of social cooperation. (Rawls 1971: 5)
> 
> 
> 



Bailin et al. (1999b) claim that, if one considers what sorts of
thinking an educator would take not to be critical thinking and what
sorts to be critical thinking, one can conclude that educators
typically understand critical thinking to have at least three
features.


1. It is done for the purpose of making up one's mind about
what to believe or do.
2. The person engaging in the thinking is trying to fulfill standards
of adequacy and accuracy appropriate to the thinking.
3. The thinking fulfills the relevant standards to some threshold
level.



One could sum up the core concept that involves these three features
by saying that critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking.
This core concept seems to apply to all the examples of critical
thinking described in the previous section. As for the non-examples,
their exclusion depends on construing careful thinking as excluding
jumping immediately to conclusions, suspending judgment no matter how
strong the evidence, reasoning from an unquestioned ideological or
religious perspective, and routinely using an algorithm to answer a
question.



If the core of critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking,
conceptions of it 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. As to its scope, some
conceptions (e.g., Dewey 1910, 1933) restrict it to constructive
thinking on the basis of one's own observations and experiments,
others (e.g., Ennis 1962; Fisher & Scriven 1997; Johnson 1992) to
appraisal of the products of such thinking. Ennis (1991) and Bailin et
al. (1999b) take it to cover both construction and appraisal. As to
its goal, some conceptions restrict it to forming a judgment (Dewey
1910, 1933; Lipman 1987; Facione 1990a). Others allow for actions as
well as beliefs as the end point of a process of critical thinking
(Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b). As to the criteria and threshold
for being careful, definitions vary in the term used to indicate that
critical thinking satisfies certain norms: "intellectually
disciplined" (Scriven & Paul 1987), "reasonable"
(Ennis 1991), "skillful" (Lipman 1987),
"skilled" (Fisher & Scriven 1997),
"careful" (Bailin & Battersby 2009). Some definitions
specify these norms, referring variously to "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, 1933); "the methods of logical inquiry and
reasoning" (Glaser 1941); "conceptualizing, applying,
analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from,
or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or
communication" (Scriven & Paul 1987); the requirement that
"it is sensitive to context, relies on criteria, and is
self-correcting" (Lipman 1987); "evidential, conceptual,
methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations"
(Facione 1990a); and "plus-minus considerations of the product
in terms of appropriate standards (or criteria)" (Johnson 1992).
Stanovich and Stanovich (2010) propose to ground the concept of
critical thinking in the concept of rationality, which they understand
as combining epistemic rationality (fitting one's beliefs to the
world) and instrumental rationality (optimizing goal fulfillment); a
critical thinker, in their view, is someone with "a propensity
to override suboptimal responses from the autonomous mind"
(2010: 227). These variant specifications of norms for critical
thinking are not necessarily incompatible with one another, and in any
case presuppose the core notion of thinking carefully. As to the
thinking component singled out, some definitions focus on suspension
of judgment during the thinking (Dewey 1910; McPeck 1981), others on
inquiry while judgment is suspended (Bailin & Battersby 2009,
2021), others on the resulting judgment (Facione 1990a), and still
others on responsiveness to reasons (Siegel 1988). Kuhn (2019) takes
critical thinking to be more a dialogic practice of advancing and
responding to arguments than an individual ability.



In educational contexts, a definition of critical thinking is a
"programmatic definition" (Scheffler 1960: 19). It
expresses a practical program for achieving an educational goal. For
this purpose, a one-sentence formulaic definition is much less useful
than articulation of a critical thinking process, with criteria and
standards for the kinds of thinking that the process may involve. The
real educational goal is recognition, adoption and implementation by
students of those criteria and standards. That adoption and
implementation in turn consists in acquiring the knowledge, abilities
and dispositions of a critical thinker.



Conceptions of critical thinking generally do not include moral
integrity as part of the concept. Dewey, for example, took critical
thinking to be the ultimate intellectual goal of education, but
distinguished it from the development of social cooperation among
school children, which he took to be the central moral goal. Ennis
(1996, 2011) added to his previous list of critical thinking
dispositions a group of dispositions to care about the dignity and
worth of every person, which he described as a
"correlative" (1996) disposition without which critical
thinking would be less valuable and perhaps harmful. An educational
program that aimed at developing critical thinking but not the
correlative disposition to care about the dignity and worth of every
person, he asserted, "would be deficient and perhaps
dangerous" (Ennis 1996: 172).


## 4. Its Value



Dewey thought that education for reflective thinking would be of value
to both the individual and society; recognition in educational
practice of the kinship to the scientific attitude of children's
native curiosity, fertile imagination and love of experimental inquiry
"would make for individual happiness and the reduction of social
waste" (Dewey 1910: iii). Schools participating in the
Eight-Year Study took development of the habit of reflective thinking
and skill in solving problems as a means to leading young people to
understand, appreciate and live the democratic way of life
characteristic of the United States (Aikin 1942: 17-18, 81).
Harvey Siegel (1988: 55-61) has offered four considerations in
support of adopting critical thinking as an educational ideal. (1)
Respect for persons requires that schools and teachers honour
students' demands for reasons and explanations, deal with
students honestly, and recognize the need to confront students'
independent judgment; these requirements concern the manner in which
teachers treat students. (2) Education has the task of preparing
children to be successful adults, a task that requires development of
their self-sufficiency. (3) Education should initiate children into
the rational traditions in such fields as history, science and
mathematics. (4) Education should prepare children to become
democratic citizens, which requires reasoned procedures and critical
talents and attitudes. To supplement these considerations, Siegel
(1988: 62-90) responds to two objections: the ideology objection
that adoption of any educational ideal requires a prior ideological
commitment and the indoctrination objection that cultivation of
critical thinking cannot escape being a form of indoctrination.


## 5. The Process of Thinking Critically



Despite the diversity of our 11 examples, one can recognize a common
pattern. Dewey analyzed it as consisting of five phases:


1. *suggestions*, in which the mind leaps forward to a
possible solution;
2. an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a
*problem* to be solved, a question for which the answer must be
sought;
3. 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;
4. 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
5. testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative action. (Dewey
1933: 106-107; italics in original)



The process of reflective thinking consisting of these phases would be
preceded by a perplexed, troubled or confused situation and followed
by a cleared-up, unified, resolved situation (Dewey 1933: 106). The
term 'phases' replaced the term 'steps' (Dewey
1910: 72), thus removing the earlier suggestion of an invariant
sequence. Variants of the above analysis appeared in (Dewey 1916: 177)
and (Dewey 1938: 101-119).



The variant formulations indicate the difficulty of giving a single
logical analysis of such a varied process. The process of critical
thinking may have a spiral pattern, with the problem being redefined
in the light of obstacles to solving it as originally formulated. For
example, the person in
 *Transit*
 might have concluded that getting to the appointment at the scheduled
time was impossible and have reformulated the problem as that of
rescheduling the appointment for a mutually convenient time. Further,
defining a problem does not always follow after or lead immediately to
an idea of a suggested solution. Nor should it do so, as Dewey himself
recognized in describing the physician in
 *Typhoid*
 as avoiding any strong preference for this or that conclusion before
getting further information (Dewey 1910: 85; 1933: 170). People with a
hypothesis in mind, even one to which they have a very weak
commitment, have a so-called "confirmation bias"
(Nickerson 1998): they are likely to pay attention to evidence that
confirms the hypothesis and to ignore evidence that counts against it
or for some competing hypothesis. Detectives, intelligence agencies,
and investigators of airplane accidents are well advised to gather
relevant evidence systematically and to postpone even tentative
adoption of an explanatory hypothesis until the collected evidence
rules out with the appropriate degree of certainty all but one
explanation. Dewey's analysis of the critical thinking process
can be faulted as well for requiring acceptance or rejection of a
possible solution to a defined problem, with no allowance for deciding
in the light of the available evidence to suspend judgment. Further,
given the great variety of kinds of problems for which reflection is
appropriate, there is likely to be variation in its component events.
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).



Checklist conceptions of the process of critical thinking are open to
the objection that they are too mechanical and procedural to fit the
multi-dimensional and emotionally charged issues for which critical
thinking is urgently needed (Paul 1984). For such issues, a more
dialectical process is advocated, in which competing relevant world
views are identified, their implications explored, and some sort of
creative synthesis attempted.


## 6. Components of the Process



If one considers the critical thinking process illustrated by the 11
examples, one can identify distinct kinds of mental acts and mental
states that form part of it. To distinguish, label and briefly
characterize these components is a useful preliminary to identifying
abilities, skills, dispositions, attitudes, habits and the like that
contribute causally to thinking critically. Identifying such abilities
and habits is in turn a useful preliminary to setting educational
goals. Setting the goals is in its turn a useful preliminary to
designing strategies for helping learners to achieve the goals and to
designing ways of measuring the extent to which learners have done so.
Such measures provide both feedback to learners on their achievement
and a basis for experimental research on the effectiveness of various
strategies for educating people to think critically. Let us begin,
then, by distinguishing the kinds of mental acts and mental events
that can occur in a critical thinking process.


* *Observing*: One notices something in one's immediate
environment (sudden cooling of temperature in
 *Weather*,
 bubbles forming outside a glass and then going inside in
 *Bubbles*,
 a moving blur in the distance in
 *Blur*,
 a rash in
 *Rash*).
 Or one notes the results of an experiment or systematic observation
(valuables missing in
 *Disorder*,
 no suction without air pressure in
 *Suction pump*)
* *Feeling*: One feels puzzled or uncertain about something
(how to get to an appointment on time in
 *Transit*,
 why the diamonds vary in spacing in
 *Diamond*).
 One wants to resolve this perplexity. One feels satisfaction once one
has worked out an answer (to take the subway express in
*Transit*, diamonds closer when needed as a warning in
*Diamond*).
* *Wondering*: One formulates a question to be addressed (why
bubbles form outside a tumbler taken from hot water in
 *Bubbles*,
 how suction pumps work in
 *Suction pump*,
 what caused the rash in
 *Rash*).
* *Imagining*: One thinks of possible answers (bus or subway
or elevated in
 *Transit*,
 flagpole or ornament or wireless communication aid or direction
indicator in
 *Ferryboat*,
 allergic reaction or heat rash in
 *Rash*).
* *Inferring*: One works out what would be the case if a
possible answer were assumed (valuables missing if there has been a
burglary in
 *Disorder*,
 earlier start to the rash if it is an allergic reaction to a sulfa
drug in
 *Rash*).
 Or one draws a conclusion once sufficient relevant evidence is
gathered (take the subway in
 *Transit*,
 burglary in
 *Disorder*,
 discontinue blood pressure medication and new cream in
 *Rash*).
* *Knowledge*: One uses stored knowledge of the
subject-matter to generate possible answers or to infer what would be
expected on the assumption of a particular answer (knowledge of a
city's public transit system in
 *Transit*,
 of the requirements for a flagpole in
 *Ferryboat*,
 of Boyle's law in
 *Bubbles*,
 of allergic reactions in
 *Rash*).
* *Experimenting*: One designs and carries out an experiment
or a systematic observation to find out whether the results deduced
from a possible answer will occur (looking at the location of the
flagpole in relation to the pilot's position in
 *Ferryboat*,
 putting an ice cube on top of a tumbler taken from hot water in
 *Bubbles*,
 measuring the height to which a suction pump will draw water at
different elevations in
 *Suction pump*,
 noticing the spacing of diamonds when movement to or from a diamond
lane is allowed in
 *Diamond*).
* *Consulting*: One finds a source of information, gets the
information from the source, and makes a judgment on whether to accept
it. None of our 11 examples include searching for sources of
information. In this respect they are unrepresentative, since most
people nowadays have almost instant access to information relevant to
answering any question, including many of those illustrated by the
examples. However,
 *Candidate*
 includes the activities of extracting information from sources and
evaluating its credibility.
* *Identifying and analyzing arguments*: One notices an
argument and works out its structure and content as a preliminary to
evaluating its strength. This activity is central to
 *Candidate*.
 It is an important part of a critical thinking process in which one
surveys arguments for various positions on an issue.
* *Judging*: One makes a judgment on the basis of accumulated
evidence and reasoning, such as the judgment in
 *Ferryboat*
 that the purpose of the pole is to provide direction to the
pilot.
* *Deciding*: One makes a decision on what to do or on what
policy to adopt, as in the decision in
 *Transit*
 to take the subway.


## 7. Contributory Dispositions and Abilities



By definition, a person who does something voluntarily is both willing
and able to do that thing at that time. Both the willingness and the
ability contribute causally to the person's action, in the sense
that the voluntary action would not occur if either (or both) of these
were lacking. For example, suppose that one is standing with
one's arms at one's sides and one voluntarily lifts
one's right arm to an extended horizontal position. One would
not do so if one were unable to lift one's arm, if for example
one's right side was paralyzed as the result of a stroke. Nor
would one do so if one were unwilling to lift one's arm, if for
example one were participating in a street demonstration at which a
white supremacist was urging the crowd to lift their right arm in a
Nazi salute and one were unwilling to express support in this way for
the racist Nazi ideology. The same analysis applies to a voluntary
mental process of thinking critically. 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.



Consider willingness first. We can identify causal contributors to
willingness to think critically by considering factors that would
cause a person who was able to think critically about an issue
nevertheless not to do so (Hamby 2014). For each factor, the opposite
condition thus contributes causally to willingness to think critically
on a particular occasion. For example, people who habitually jump to
conclusions without considering alternatives will not think critically
about issues that arise, even if they have the required abilities. The
contrary condition of willingness to suspend judgment is thus a causal
contributor to thinking critically.



Now consider ability. In contrast to the ability to move one's
arm, which can be completely absent because a stroke has left the arm
paralyzed, the ability to think critically is a developed ability,
whose absence is not a complete absence of ability to think but
absence of ability to think well. We can identify the ability to think
well directly, in terms of the norms and standards for good thinking.
In general, to be able do well the thinking activities that can be
components of a critical thinking process, one needs to know the
concepts and principles that characterize their good performance, to
recognize in particular cases that the concepts and principles apply,
and to apply them. The knowledge, recognition and application may be
procedural rather than declarative. It may be domain-specific rather
than widely applicable, and in either case may need subject-matter
knowledge, sometimes of a deep kind.



Reflections of the sort illustrated by the previous two paragraphs
have led scholars to identify the knowledge, abilities and
dispositions of a "critical thinker", i.e., someone who
thinks critically whenever it is appropriate to do so. We turn now to
these three types of causal contributors to thinking critically. We
start with dispositions, since arguably these are the most powerful
contributors to being a critical thinker, can be fostered at an early
stage of a child's development, and are susceptible to general
improvement (Glaser 1941: 175)


## 8. Critical Thinking Dispositions



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 2016a) propose to use the
term 'virtues' for this dimension of a critical thinker.
The virtues in question, although they are virtues of character,
concern the person's ways of thinking rather than the
person's ways of behaving towards others. They are not moral
virtues but intellectual virtues, of the sort articulated by Zagzebski
(1996) and discussed by Turri, Alfano, and Greco (2017).



On a realistic conception, thinking dispositions or intellectual
virtues are real properties of thinkers. They are general tendencies,
propensities, or inclinations to think in particular ways in
particular circumstances, and can be genuinely explanatory (Siegel
1999). Sceptics argue that there is no evidence for a specific mental
basis for the habits of mind that contribute to thinking critically,
and that it is pedagogically misleading to posit such a basis (Bailin
et al. 1999a). Whatever their status, critical thinking dispositions
need motivation for their initial formation in a
child--motivation that may be external or internal. As children
develop, the force of habit will gradually become important in
sustaining the disposition (Nieto & Valenzuela 2012). Mere force
of habit, however, is unlikely to sustain critical thinking
dispositions. Critical thinkers must value and enjoy using their
knowledge and abilities to think things through for themselves. They
must be committed to, and lovers of, inquiry.



A person may have a critical thinking disposition with respect to only
some kinds of issues. For example, one could be open-minded about
scientific issues but not about religious issues. Similarly, one could
be confident in one's ability to reason about the theological
implications of the existence of evil in the world but not in
one's ability to reason about the best design for a guided
ballistic missile.



Facione (1990a: 25) divides "affective dispositions" of
critical thinking into approaches to life and living in general and
approaches to specific issues, questions or problems. Adapting this
distinction, one can usefully divide critical thinking dispositions
into initiating dispositions (those that contribute causally to
starting to think critically about an issue) and internal dispositions
(those that contribute causally to doing a good job of thinking
critically once one has started). The two categories are not mutually
exclusive. For example, open-mindedness, in the sense of willingness
to consider alternative points of view to one's own, is both an
initiating and an internal disposition.


### 8.1 Initiating Dispositions



Using the strategy of considering factors that would block people with
the ability to think critically from doing so, we can identify as
initiating dispositions for thinking critically attentiveness, a habit
of inquiry, self-confidence, courage, open-mindedness, willingness to
suspend judgment, trust in reason, wanting evidence for one's
beliefs, and seeking the truth. We consider briefly what each of these
dispositions amounts to, in each case citing sources that acknowledge
them.


* *Attentiveness*: One will not think critically if one fails
to recognize an issue that needs to be thought through. For example,
the pedestrian in
 *Weather*
 would not have looked up if he had not noticed that the air was
suddenly cooler. To be a critical thinker, then, one needs to be
habitually attentive to one's surroundings, noticing not only
what one senses but also sources of perplexity in messages received
and in one's own beliefs and attitudes (Facione 1990a: 25;
Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
* *Habit of inquiry*: Inquiry is effortful, and one needs an
internal push to engage in it. For example, the student in
 *Bubbles*
 could easily have stopped at idle wondering about the cause of the
bubbles rather than reasoning to a hypothesis, then designing and
executing an experiment to test it. Thus willingness to think
critically needs mental energy and initiative. What can supply that
energy? Love of inquiry, or perhaps just a habit of inquiry. Hamby
(2015) has argued that willingness to inquire is the central critical
thinking virtue, one that encompasses all the others. It is recognized
as a critical thinking disposition by Dewey (1910: 29; 1933: 35),
Glaser (1941: 5), Ennis (1987: 12; 1991: 8), Facione (1990a: 25),
Bailin et al. (1999b: 294), Halpern (1998: 452), and Facione, Facione,
& Giancarlo (2001).
* *Self-confidence*: Lack of confidence in one's
abilities can block critical thinking. For example, if the woman in
 *Rash*
 lacked confidence in her ability to figure things out for herself,
she might just have assumed that the rash on her chest was the
allergic reaction to her medication against which the pharmacist had
warned her. Thus willingness to think critically requires confidence
in one's ability to inquire (Facione 1990a: 25; Facione,
Facione, & Giancarlo 2001).
* *Courage*: Fear of thinking for oneself can stop one from
doing it. Thus willingness to think critically requires intellectual
courage (Paul & Elder 2006: 16).
* *Open-mindedness*: A dogmatic attitude will impede thinking
critically. For example, a person who adheres rigidly to a
"pro-choice" position on the issue of the legal status of
induced abortion is likely to be unwilling to consider seriously the
issue of when in its development an unborn child acquires a moral
right to life. Thus willingness to think critically requires
open-mindedness, in the sense of a willingness to examine questions to
which one already accepts an answer but which further evidence or
reasoning might cause one to answer differently (Dewey 1933; Facione
1990a; Ennis 1991; Bailin et al. 1999b; Halpern 1998, Facione,
Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). Paul (1981) emphasizes open-mindedness
about alternative world-views, and recommends a dialectical approach
to integrating such views as central to what he calls "strong
sense" critical thinking. In three studies, Haran, Ritov, &
Mellers (2013) found that actively open-minded thinking, including
"the tendency to weigh new evidence against a favored belief, to
spend sufficient time on a problem before giving up, and to consider
carefully the opinions of others in forming one's own",
led study participants to acquire information and thus to make
accurate estimations.
* *Willingness to suspend judgment*: Premature closure on an
initial solution will block critical thinking. Thus willingness to
think critically requires a willingness to suspend judgment while
alternatives are explored (Facione 1990a; Ennis 1991; Halpern
1998).
* *Trust in reason*: Since distrust in the processes of
reasoned inquiry will dissuade one from engaging in it, trust in them
is an initiating critical thinking disposition (Facione 1990a, 25;
Bailin et al. 1999b: 294; Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001; Paul
& Elder 2006). In reaction to an allegedly exclusive emphasis on
reason in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, Thayer-Bacon (2000)
argues that intuition, imagination, and emotion have important roles
to play in an adequate conception of critical thinking that she calls
"constructive thinking". From her point of view, critical
thinking requires trust not only in reason but also in intuition,
imagination, and emotion.
* *Seeking the truth*: If one does not care about the truth
but is content to stick with one's initial bias on an issue,
then one will not think critically about it. Seeking the truth is thus
an initiating critical thinking disposition (Bailin et al. 1999b: 294;
Facione, Facione, & Giancarlo 2001). A disposition to seek the
truth is implicit in more specific critical thinking dispositions,
such as trying to be well-informed, considering seriously points of
view other than one's own, looking for alternatives, suspending
judgment when the evidence is insufficient, and adopting a position
when the evidence supporting it is sufficient.


### 8.2 Internal Dispositions



Some of the initiating dispositions, such as open-mindedness and
willingness to suspend judgment, are also internal critical thinking
dispositions, in the sense of mental habits or attitudes that
contribute causally to doing a good job of critical thinking once one
starts the process. But there are many other internal critical
thinking dispositions. Some of them are parasitic on one's
conception of good thinking. For example, it is constitutive of good
thinking about an issue to formulate the issue clearly and to maintain
focus on it. For this purpose, one needs not only the corresponding
ability but also the corresponding disposition. Ennis (1991: 8)
describes it as the disposition "to determine and maintain focus
on the conclusion or question", Facione (1990a: 25) as
"clarity in stating the question or concern". Other
internal dispositions are motivators to continue or adjust the
critical thinking process, such as willingness to persist in a complex
task and willingness to abandon nonproductive strategies in an attempt
to self-correct (Halpern 1998: 452). For a list of identified internal
critical thinking dispositions, see the
 Supplement on Internal Critical Thinking Dispositions.


## 9. Critical Thinking Abilities



Some theorists postulate skills, i.e., acquired abilities, as
operative in critical thinking. It is not obvious, however, that a
good mental act is the exercise of a generic acquired skill. Inferring
an expected time of arrival, as in
 *Transit*,
 has some generic components but also uses non-generic subject-matter
knowledge. Bailin et al. (1999a) argue against viewing critical
thinking skills as generic and discrete, on the ground that skilled
performance at a critical thinking task cannot be separated from
knowledge of concepts and from domain-specific principles of good
thinking. Talk of skills, they concede, is unproblematic if it means
merely that a person with critical thinking skills is capable of
intelligent performance.



Despite such scepticism, 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).
Amalgamating these lists would produce a confusing and chaotic
cornucopia of more than 50 possible educational objectives, with only
partial overlap among them. It makes sense instead to try to
understand the reasons for the multiplicity and diversity, and to make
a selection according to one's own reasons for singling out
abilities to be developed in a critical thinking curriculum. Two
reasons for diversity among lists of critical thinking abilities are
the underlying conception of critical thinking and the envisaged
educational level. Appraisal-only conceptions, for example, involve a
different suite of abilities than constructive-only conceptions. Some
lists, such as those in (Glaser 1941), are put forward as educational
objectives for secondary school students, whereas others are proposed
as objectives for college students (e.g., Facione 1990a).



The abilities described in the remaining paragraphs of this section
emerge from reflection on the general abilities needed to do well the
thinking activities identified in
 section 6
 as components of the critical thinking process described in
 section 5.
 The derivation of each collection of abilities is accompanied by
citation of sources that list such abilities and of standardized tests
that claim to test them.



*Observational abilities*: Careful and accurate observation
sometimes requires specialist expertise and practice, as in the case
of observing birds and observing accident scenes. However, there are
general abilities of noticing what one's senses are picking up
from one's environment and of being able to articulate clearly
and accurately to oneself and others what one has observed. It helps
in exercising them to be able to recognize and take into account
factors that make one's observation less trustworthy, such as
prior framing of the situation, inadequate time, deficient senses,
poor observation conditions, and the like. It helps as well to be
skilled at taking steps to make one's observation more
trustworthy, such as moving closer to get a better look, measuring
something three times and taking the average, and checking what one
thinks one is observing with someone else who is in a good position to
observe it. It also helps to be skilled at recognizing respects in
which one's report of one's observation involves inference
rather than direct observation, so that one can then consider whether
the inference is justified. These abilities come into play as well
when one thinks about whether and with what degree of confidence to
accept an observation report, for example in the study of history or
in a criminal investigation or in assessing news reports.
Observational abilities show up in some lists of critical thinking
abilities (Ennis 1962: 90; Facione 1990a: 16; Ennis 1991: 9). There
are items testing a person's ability to judge the credibility of
observation reports in the Cornell Critical Thinking Tests, Levels X
and Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985,
2005). Norris and King (1983, 1985, 1990a, 1990b) is a test of ability
to appraise observation reports.



*Emotional abilities*: The emotions that drive a critical
thinking process are perplexity or puzzlement, a wish to resolve it,
and satisfaction at achieving the desired resolution. Children
experience these emotions at an early age, without being trained to do
so. Education that takes critical thinking as a goal needs only to
channel these emotions and to make sure not to stifle them.
Collaborative critical thinking benefits from ability to recognize
one's own and others' emotional commitments and
reactions.



*Questioning abilities*: A critical thinking process needs
transformation of an inchoate sense of perplexity into a clear
question. Formulating a question well requires not building in
questionable assumptions, not prejudging the issue, and using language
that in context is unambiguous and precise enough (Ennis 1962: 97;
1991: 9).



*Imaginative abilities*: Thinking directed at finding the
correct causal explanation of a general phenomenon or particular event
requires an ability to imagine possible explanations. Thinking about
what policy or plan of action to adopt requires generation of options
and consideration of possible consequences of each option. Domain
knowledge is required for such creative activity, but a general
ability to imagine alternatives is helpful and can be nurtured so as
to become easier, quicker, more extensive, and deeper (Dewey 1910:
34-39; 1933: 40-47). Facione (1990a) and Halpern (1998)
include the ability to imagine alternatives as a critical thinking
ability.



*Inferential abilities*: The ability to draw conclusions from
given information, and to recognize with what degree of certainty
one's own or others' conclusions follow, is universally
recognized as a general critical thinking ability. All 11 examples in
 section 2
 of this article include inferences, some from hypotheses or options
(as in
 *Transit*,
 *Ferryboat* and
 *Disorder*),
 others from something observed (as in
 *Weather*
 and
 *Rash*).
 None of these inferences is formally valid. Rather, they are licensed
by general, sometimes qualified substantive rules of inference
(Toulmin 1958) that rest on domain knowledge--that a bus trip
takes about the same time in each direction, that the terminal of a
wireless telegraph would be located on the highest possible place,
that sudden cooling is often followed by rain, that an allergic
reaction to a sulfa drug generally shows up soon after one starts
taking it. It is a matter of controversy to what extent the
specialized ability to deduce conclusions from premisses using formal
rules of inference is needed for critical thinking. Dewey (1933)
locates logical forms in setting out the products of reflection rather
than in the process of reflection. Ennis (1981a), on the other hand,
maintains that a liberally-educated person should have the following
abilities: to translate natural-language statements into statements
using the standard logical operators, to use appropriately the
language of necessary and sufficient conditions, to deal with argument
forms and arguments containing symbols, to determine whether in virtue
of an argument's form its conclusion follows necessarily from
its premisses, to reason with logically complex propositions, and to
apply the rules and procedures of deductive logic. Inferential
abilities are recognized as critical thinking abilities by Glaser
(1941: 6), Facione (1990a: 9), Ennis (1991: 9), Fisher & Scriven
(1997: 99, 111), and Halpern (1998: 452). Items testing inferential
abilities constitute two of the five subtests of the Watson Glaser
Critical Thinking Appraisal (Watson & Glaser 1980a, 1980b, 1994),
two of the four sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X
(Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005),
three of the seven sections in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test
Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985,
2005), 11 of the 34 items on Forms A and B of the California Critical
Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992), and a high but variable
proportion of the 25 selected-response questions in the Collegiate
Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to Education 2017).



*Experimenting abilities*: Knowing how to design and execute an
experiment is important not just in scientific research but also in
everyday life, as in
 *Rash*.
 Dewey devoted a whole chapter of his *How We Think* (1910:
145-156; 1933: 190-202) to the superiority of
experimentation over observation in advancing knowledge. Experimenting
abilities come into play at one remove in appraising reports of
scientific studies. Skill in designing and executing experiments
includes the acknowledged abilities to appraise evidence (Glaser 1941:
6), to carry out experiments and to apply appropriate statistical
inference techniques (Facione 1990a: 9), to judge inductions to an
explanatory hypothesis (Ennis 1991: 9), and to recognize the need for
an adequately large sample size (Halpern 1998). The Cornell Critical
Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman 1971; Ennis, Millman, &
Tomko 1985, 2005) includes four items (out of 52) on experimental
design. The Collegiate Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to
Education 2017) makes room for appraisal of study design in both its
performance task and its selected-response questions.



*Consulting abilities*: Skill at consulting sources of
information comes into play when one seeks information to help resolve
a problem, as in
 *Candidate*.
 Ability to find and appraise information includes ability to gather
and marshal pertinent information (Glaser 1941: 6), to judge whether a
statement made by an alleged authority is acceptable (Ennis 1962: 84),
to plan a search for desired information (Facione 1990a: 9), and to
judge the credibility of a source (Ennis 1991: 9). Ability to judge
the credibility of statements is tested by 24 items (out of 76) in the
Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level X (Ennis & Millman 1971;
Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005) and by four items (out of 52)
in the Cornell Critical Thinking Test Level Z (Ennis & Millman
1971; Ennis, Millman, & Tomko 1985, 2005). The College Learning
Assessment's performance task requires evaluation of whether
information in documents is credible or unreliable (Council for Aid to
Education 2017).



*Argument analysis abilities*: The ability to identify and
analyze arguments contributes to the process of surveying arguments on
an issue in order to form one's own reasoned judgment, as in
 *Candidate*.
 The ability to detect and analyze arguments is recognized as a
critical thinking skill by Facione (1990a: 7-8), Ennis (1991: 9)
and Halpern (1998). Five items (out of 34) on the California Critical
Thinking Skills Test (Facione 1990b, 1992) test skill at argument
analysis. The College Learning Assessment (Council for Aid to
Education 2017) incorporates argument analysis in its
selected-response tests of critical reading and evaluation and of
critiquing an argument.



*Judging skills and deciding skills*: Skill at judging and
deciding is skill at recognizing what judgment or decision the
available evidence and argument supports, and with what degree of
confidence. It is thus a component of the inferential skills already
discussed.



Lists and tests of critical thinking abilities often include two more
abilities: identifying assumptions and constructing and evaluating
definitions.


## 10. Required Knowledge



In addition to dispositions and abilities, critical thinking needs
knowledge: of critical thinking concepts, of critical thinking
principles, and of the subject-matter of the thinking.



We can derive a short list of concepts whose understanding contributes
to critical thinking from the critical thinking abilities described in
the preceding section. Observational abilities require an
understanding of the difference between observation and inference.
Questioning abilities require an understanding of the concepts of
ambiguity and vagueness. Inferential abilities require an
understanding of the difference between conclusive and defeasible
inference (traditionally, between deduction and induction), as well as
of the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions.
Experimenting abilities require an understanding of the concepts of
hypothesis, null hypothesis, assumption and prediction, as well as of
the concept of statistical significance and of its difference from
importance. They also require an understanding of the difference
between an experiment and an observational study, and in particular of
the difference between a randomized controlled trial, a prospective
correlational study and a retrospective (case-control) study. Argument
analysis abilities require an understanding of the concepts of
argument, premiss, assumption, conclusion and counter-consideration.
Additional critical thinking concepts are proposed by Bailin et al.
(1999b: 293), Fisher & Scriven (1997: 105-106), Black
(2012), and Blair (2021).



According to Glaser (1941: 25), ability to think critically requires
knowledge of the methods of logical inquiry and reasoning. If we
review the list of abilities in the preceding section, however, we can
see that some of them can be acquired and exercised merely through
practice, possibly guided in an educational setting, followed by
feedback. Searching intelligently for a causal explanation of some
phenomenon or event requires that one consider a full range of
possible causal contributors, but it seems more important that one
implements this principle in one's practice than that one is
able to articulate it. What is important is "operational
knowledge" of the standards and principles of good thinking
(Bailin et al. 1999b: 291-293). But the development of such
critical thinking abilities as designing an experiment or constructing
an operational definition can benefit from learning their underlying
theory. Further, explicit knowledge of quirks of human thinking seems
useful as a cautionary guide. Human memory is not just fallible about
details, as people learn from their own experiences of misremembering,
but is so malleable that a detailed, clear and vivid recollection of
an event can be a total fabrication (Loftus 2017). People seek or
interpret evidence in ways that are partial to their existing beliefs
and expectations, often unconscious of their "confirmation
bias" (Nickerson 1998). Not only are people subject to this and
other cognitive biases (Kahneman 2011), of which they are typically
unaware, but it may be counter-productive for one to make oneself
aware of them and try consciously to counteract them or to counteract
social biases such as racial or sexual stereotypes (Kenyon &
Beaulac 2014). It is helpful to be aware of these facts and of the
superior effectiveness of blocking the operation of biases--for
example, by making an immediate record of one's observations,
refraining from forming a preliminary explanatory hypothesis, blind
refereeing, double-blind randomized trials, and blind grading of
students' work. It is also helpful to be aware of the prevalence
of "noise" (unwanted unsystematic variability of
judgments), of how to detect noise (through a noise audit), and of how
to reduce noise: make accuracy the goal, think statistically, break a
process of arriving at a judgment into independent tasks, resist
premature intuitions, in a group get independent judgments first,
favour comparative judgments and scales (Kahneman, Sibony, &
Sunstein 2021). It is helpful as well to be aware of the concept of
"bounded rationality" in decision-making and of the
related distinction between "satisficing" and optimizing
(Simon 1956; Gigerenzer 2001).



Critical thinking about an issue requires substantive knowledge of the
domain to which the issue belongs. Critical thinking abilities are not
a magic elixir that can be applied to any issue whatever by somebody
who has no knowledge of the facts relevant to exploring that issue.
For example, the student in
 *Bubbles*
 needed to know that gases do not penetrate solid objects like a
glass, that air expands when heated, that the volume of an enclosed
gas varies directly with its temperature and inversely with its
pressure, and that hot objects will spontaneously cool down to the
ambient temperature of their surroundings unless kept hot by
insulation or a source of heat. Critical thinkers thus need a rich
fund of subject-matter knowledge relevant to the variety of situations
they encounter. This fact is recognized in the inclusion among
critical thinking dispositions of a concern to become and remain
generally well informed.


## 11. Educational methods



Experimental educational interventions, with control groups, have
shown that education can improve critical thinking skills and
dispositions, as measured by standardized tests. For information about
these tests, see the
 Supplement on Assessment.



What educational methods are most effective at developing the
dispositions, abilities and knowledge of a critical thinker? In a
comprehensive meta-analysis of experimental and quasi-experimental
studies of strategies for teaching students to think critically,
Abrami et al. (2015) found that dialogue, anchored instruction, and
mentoring each increased the effectiveness of the educational
intervention, and that they were most effective when combined. They
also found that in these studies a combination of separate instruction
in critical thinking with subject-matter instruction in which students
are encouraged to think critically was more effective than either by
itself. However, the difference was not statistically significant;
that is, it might have arisen by chance.



Most of these studies lack the longitudinal follow-up required to
determine whether the observed differential improvements in critical
thinking abilities or dispositions continue over time, for example
until high school or college graduation. For details on studies of
methods of developing critical thinking skills and dispositions, see
the
 Supplement on Educational Methods.


## 12. Controversies



Scholars have denied the generalizability of critical thinking
abilities across subject domains, have alleged bias in critical
thinking theory and pedagogy, and have investigated the relationship
of critical thinking to other kinds of thinking.


### 12.1 The Generalizability of Critical Thinking



McPeck (1981) attacked the thinking skills movement of the 1970s,
including the critical thinking movement. He argued that there are no
general thinking skills, since thinking is always thinking about some
subject-matter. It is futile, he claimed, for schools and colleges to
teach thinking as if it were a separate subject. Rather, teachers
should lead their pupils to become autonomous thinkers by teaching
school subjects in a way that brings out their cognitive structure and
that encourages and rewards discussion and argument. As some of his
critics (e.g., Paul 1985; Siegel 1985) pointed out, McPeck's
central argument needs elaboration, since it has obvious
counter-examples in writing and speaking, for which (up to a certain
level of complexity) there are teachable general abilities even though
they are always about some subject-matter. To make his argument
convincing, McPeck needs to explain how thinking differs from writing
and speaking in a way that does not permit useful abstraction of its
components from the subject-matters with which it deals. He has not
done so. Nevertheless, his position that the dispositions and
abilities of a critical thinker are best developed in the context of
subject-matter instruction is shared by many theorists of critical
thinking, including Dewey (1910, 1933), Glaser (1941), Passmore
(1980), Weinstein (1990), Bailin et al. (1999b), and Willingham
(2019).



McPeck's challenge prompted reflection on the extent to which
critical thinking is subject-specific. McPeck argued for a strong
subject-specificity thesis, according to which it is a conceptual
truth that all critical thinking abilities are specific to a subject.
(He did not however extend his subject-specificity thesis to critical
thinking dispositions. In particular, he took the disposition to
suspend judgment in situations of cognitive dissonance to be a general
disposition.) Conceptual subject-specificity is subject to obvious
counter-examples, such as the general ability to recognize confusion
of necessary and sufficient conditions. A more modest thesis, also
endorsed by McPeck, is epistemological subject-specificity, according
to which the norms of good thinking vary from one field to another.
Epistemological subject-specificity clearly holds to a certain extent;
for example, the principles in accordance with which one solves a
differential equation are quite different from the principles in
accordance with which one determines whether a painting is a genuine
Picasso. But the thesis suffers, as Ennis (1989) points out, from
vagueness of the concept of a field or subject and from the obvious
existence of inter-field principles, however broadly the concept of a
field is construed. For example, the principles of
hypothetico-deductive reasoning hold for all the varied fields in
which such reasoning occurs. A third kind of subject-specificity is
empirical subject-specificity, according to which as a matter of
empirically observable fact a person with the abilities and
dispositions of a critical thinker in one area of investigation will
not necessarily have them in another area of investigation.



The thesis of empirical subject-specificity raises the general problem
of transfer. If critical thinking abilities and dispositions have to
be developed independently in each school subject, how are they of any
use in dealing with the problems of everyday life and the political
and social issues of contemporary society, most of which do not fit
into the framework of a traditional school subject? Proponents of
empirical subject-specificity tend to argue that transfer is more
likely to occur if there is critical thinking instruction in a variety
of domains, with explicit attention to dispositions and abilities that
cut across domains. But evidence for this claim is scanty. There is a
need for well-designed empirical studies that investigate the
conditions that make transfer more likely.



It is common ground in debates about the generality or
subject-specificity of critical thinking dispositions and abilities
that critical thinking about any topic requires background knowledge
about the topic. For example, the most sophisticated understanding of
the principles of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is of no help unless
accompanied by some knowledge of what might be plausible explanations
of some phenomenon under investigation.


### 12.2 Bias in Critical Thinking Theory and Pedagogy



Critics have objected to bias in the theory, pedagogy and practice of
critical thinking. Commentators (e.g., Alston 1995; Ennis 1998) have
noted that anyone who takes a position has a bias in the neutral sense
of being inclined in one direction rather than others. The critics,
however, are objecting to bias in the pejorative sense of an
unjustified favoring of certain ways of knowing over others,
frequently alleging that the unjustly favoured ways are those of a
dominant sex or culture (Bailin 1995). These ways favour:


* reinforcement of egocentric and sociocentric biases over
dialectical engagement with opposing world-views (Paul 1981, 1984;
Warren 1998)
* distancing from the object of inquiry over closeness to it (Martin
1992; Thayer-Bacon 1992)
* indifference to the situation of others over care for them (Martin
1992)
* orientation to thought over orientation to action (Martin
1992)
* being reasonable over caring to understand people's ideas
(Thayer-Bacon 1993)
* being neutral and objective over being embodied and situated
(Thayer-Bacon 1995a)
* doubting over believing (Thayer-Bacon 1995b)
* reason over emotion, imagination and intuition (Thayer-Bacon
2000)
* solitary thinking over collaborative thinking (Thayer-Bacon
2000)
* written and spoken assignments over other forms of expression
(Alston 2001)
* attention to written and spoken communications over attention to
human problems (Alston 2001)
* winning debates in the public sphere over making and understanding
meaning (Alston 2001)



A common thread in this smorgasbord of accusations is dissatisfaction
with focusing on the logical analysis and evaluation of reasoning and
arguments. While these authors acknowledge that such analysis and
evaluation is part of critical thinking and should be part of its
conceptualization and pedagogy, they insist that it is only a part.
Paul (1981), for example, bemoans the tendency of atomistic teaching
of methods of analyzing and evaluating arguments to turn students into
more able sophists, adept at finding fault with positions and
arguments with which they disagree but even more entrenched in the
egocentric and sociocentric biases with which they began. Martin
(1992) and Thayer-Bacon (1992) cite with approval the self-reported
intimacy with their subject-matter of leading researchers in biology
and medicine, an intimacy that conflicts with the distancing allegedly
recommended in standard conceptions and pedagogy of critical thinking.
Thayer-Bacon (2000) contrasts the embodied and socially embedded
learning of her elementary school students in a Montessori school, who
used their imagination, intuition and emotions as well as their
reason, with conceptions of critical thinking as



> 
> 
> thinking that is used to critique arguments, offer justifications, and
> make judgments about what are the good reasons, or the right answers.
> (Thayer-Bacon 2000: 127-128)
> 
> 
> 



Alston (2001) reports that her students in a women's studies
class were able to see the flaws in the Cinderella myth that pervades
much romantic fiction but in their own romantic relationships still
acted as if all failures were the woman's fault and still
accepted the notions of love at first sight and living happily ever
after. Students, she writes, should



> 
> 
> be able to connect their intellectual critique to a more affective,
> somatic, and ethical account of making risky choices that have sexist,
> racist, classist, familial, sexual, or other consequences for
> themselves and those both near and far... critical thinking that
> reads arguments, texts, or practices merely on the surface without
> connections to feeling/desiring/doing or action lacks an ethical depth
> that should infuse the difference between mere cognitive activity and
> something we want to call critical thinking. (Alston 2001: 34)
> 
> 
> 



Some critics portray such biases as unfair to women. Thayer-Bacon
(1992), for example, has charged modern critical thinking theory with
being sexist, on the ground that it separates the self from the object
and causes one to lose touch with one's inner voice, and thus
stigmatizes women, who (she asserts) link self to object and listen to
their inner voice. Her charge does not imply that women as a group are
on average less able than men to analyze and evaluate arguments.
Facione (1990c) found no difference by sex in performance on his
California Critical Thinking Skills Test. Kuhn (1991: 280-281)
found no difference by sex in either the disposition or the competence
to engage in argumentative thinking.



The critics propose a variety of remedies for the biases that they
allege. In general, they do not propose to eliminate or downplay
critical thinking as an educational goal. Rather, they propose to
conceptualize critical thinking differently and to change its pedagogy
accordingly. Their pedagogical proposals arise logically from their
objections. They can be summarized as follows:


* Focus on argument networks with dialectical exchanges reflecting
contesting points of view rather than on atomic arguments, so as to
develop "strong sense" critical thinking that transcends
egocentric and sociocentric biases (Paul 1981, 1984).
* Foster closeness to the subject-matter and feeling connected to
others in order to inform a humane democracy (Martin 1992).
* Develop "constructive thinking" as a social activity
in a community of physically embodied and socially embedded inquirers
with personal voices who value not only reason but also imagination,
intuition and emotion (Thayer-Bacon 2000).
* In developing critical thinking in school subjects, treat as
important neither skills nor dispositions but opening worlds of
meaning (Alston 2001).
* Attend to the development of critical thinking dispositions as
well as skills, and adopt the "critical pedagogy"
practised and advocated by Freire (1968 [1970]) and hooks (1994)
(Dalgleish, Girard, & Davies 2017).



A common thread in these proposals is treatment of critical thinking
as a social, interactive, personally engaged activity like that of a
quilting bee or a barn-raising (Thayer-Bacon 2000) rather than as an
individual, solitary, distanced activity symbolized by Rodin's
*The Thinker*. One can get a vivid description of education
with the former type of goal from the writings of bell hooks (1994,
2010). Critical thinking for her is open-minded dialectical exchange
across opposing standpoints and from multiple perspectives, a
conception similar to Paul's "strong sense" critical
thinking (Paul 1981). She abandons the structure of domination in the
traditional classroom. In an introductory course on black women
writers, for example, she assigns students to write an
autobiographical paragraph about an early racial memory, then to read
it aloud as the others listen, thus affirming the uniqueness and value
of each voice and creating a communal awareness of the diversity of
the group's experiences (hooks 1994: 84). Her "engaged
pedagogy" is thus similar to the "freedom under
guidance" implemented in John Dewey's Laboratory School of
Chicago in the late 1890s and early 1900s. It incorporates the
dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring that Abrami (2015) found
to be most effective in improving critical thinking skills and
dispositions.


### 12.3 Relationship of Critical Thinking to Other Types of Thinking



What is the relationship of critical thinking to problem solving,
decision-making, higher-order thinking, creative thinking, and other
recognized types of thinking? One's answer to this question
obviously depends on how one defines the terms used in the question.
If critical thinking is conceived broadly to cover any careful
thinking about any topic for any purpose, then problem solving and
decision making will be kinds of critical thinking, if they are done
carefully. Historically, 'critical thinking' and
'problem solving' were two names for the same thing. If
critical thinking is conceived more narrowly as consisting solely of
appraisal of intellectual products, then it will be disjoint with
problem solving and decision making, which are constructive.



Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives used the phrase
"intellectual abilities and skills" for what had been
labeled "critical thinking" by some, "reflective
thinking" by Dewey and others, and "problem solving"
by still others (Bloom et al. 1956: 38). Thus, the so-called
"higher-order thinking skills" at the taxonomy's top
levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation are just critical
thinking skills, although they do not come with general criteria for
their assessment (Ennis 1981b). The revised version of Bloom's
taxonomy (Anderson et al. 2001) likewise treats critical thinking as
cutting across those types of cognitive process that involve more than
remembering (Anderson et al. 2001: 269-270). For details, see
the
 Supplement on History.



As to creative thinking, it overlaps with critical thinking (Bailin
1987, 1988). Thinking about the explanation of some phenomenon or
event, as in
 *Ferryboat*,
 requires creative imagination in constructing plausible explanatory
hypotheses. Likewise, thinking about a policy question, as in
 *Candidate*,
 requires creativity in coming up with options. Conversely, creativity
in any field needs to be balanced by critical appraisal of the draft
painting or novel or mathematical theory.