gillespie 2011 inquiry

8/13/2019 Gillespie 2011 Inquiry

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INQUIRYCRITICALTHINKINGACROSSTHEDISCIPLINES

Contents

Robert H. Ennis Critical Thinking: Reection and Perspective Part I................ 4

Michael A. Gillespie Assessing Critical Thinking about Values:A Quasi-Experimental Study.................................................. 19

Articles from the Members of the Lone Star College CyFair Campus Critical Thinking Based

Faculty Learning Community (CTB-FLC)

Maria Sanders Embracing Critical Thinking as a Model forProfessional Development: Creating CTB-FLCsOn Your Campus..................................................................... 29

Maria Sanders &Jason Moulenbelt Dening Critical Thinking: How Far Have We Come?.......... 38

Frank Codispoti The Academic College Course is an Argument ..................... 47

Idolina Hernandez Critical Thinking and Social Interaction in theOnline Environment............................................................... 55

Heather Mong & Ben Clegg Review of David Levys Tools of Critical Thinking:Metathoughts for Psychology................................................. 62


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2 INQUIRY: CRITICAL THINKING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES

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Board, or ad hoc reviewers. Publication should not be construed as endorsement.

Frank Fair, Managing Editor


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3SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1

From the Editors DeskFrank Fair

I am very pleased that in this issue ofINQUIRYwe continue the series of reection pieces that Gerald

Nosich began so well in the previous issue. Now it is Bob Enniss turn, and his contribution is so rich, so

replete with relevant detail, that it has been split into two parts. Critical Thinking: Reection and Perspec-

tive Part I appears in this issue and covers Bobs initial involvement with the eld of critical thinking and

the evolution of his conceptualization of critical thinking. Critical Thinking: Reection and Perspective

Part II has equally meaty content, and it will appear in the next issue,INQUIRYVol. 26, No. 2 (Summer

2011). It will cover Bobs perspective on issues involved in the assessment and teaching of critical thinking.

Next comes a piece by Michael Gillespie Assessing Critical Thinking about Values: A Quasi-experi-

mental Study that reports on a study of an innovative program at Bowling Green State University whose

goal is to foster critical thinking in the context of considering values. Many universities have programs

with similar intent, and Gillespies careful study provides a model for how one might assess such programs.Then we have a series of articles contributed by faculty members from the Cypress Fairbanks (CyFair)

campus of the Lone Star College System. With an enrollment of 85,000 students on its several campuses,

the Lone Star system is the largest institution of higher education in the Houston area and the fastest grow-

ing community college system in Texas. A faculty member and administrator from Lone Star-CyFair, Maria

Sanders, describes in Embracing Critical Thinking as a Model for Faculty Development how she and a

number of other faculty members from diverse disciplines formed a CTB-FLC, a Critical Thinking Based

Faculty Learning Community, in which critical thinking served as a focus for a low-cost, potentially high-

impact faculty development effort. Then come three essays that are fruits of this effort. The rst essay by

Maria Sanders and Jason Moulenbelt Dening Critical Thinking: How Far Have We Come? surveys

the often bewildering variety of conceptions of critical thinking with a view toward noting difculties this

variety poses for critical thinking assessments and for interdisciplinary collaborations. The second essay,

The Academic College Course is an Argument, is a spirited defense by Frank Codispoti of the lecture as

an instructional mode when done well and when approached with an emphasis on the same sort of critical

thinking skills that students are supposed to bring to course reading matter. (Note: anyone interested in

improving lectures might also look at the article on Successful Lecturing by Patricia deWinstanley and

Robert Bjork in Applying the Science of Learning to University Teaching and Beyond,edited by Diane

Halpern and Milton Hakel, a 2002 collection from Jossey-Bass.) Finally, Idolina Hernandezs essay Criti-

cal Thinking and Social Interaction in the Online Environment considers how the use of discussion boards

in the online course environment can foster critical thinking by encouraging the appropriate processes of

social interaction.

The last contribution is a review of David Levys Tools of Critical Thinking: Metathoughts for Psy-

chology.Heather Mong and Ben Clegg give an informative account of the book and a generally favorable

review, but they have a few caveats, mainly about what might be needed to avoid some of the thinkingpitfalls that the Levy discusses.


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It is an honor to have received Editor Frank Fairs

request to write a personal historical report about the

development of critical thinking education.1 My response

emphasizes the period 1950-2010, but does reach further

into the past, and is by no means a historians history of

critical thinking. It is a personal view of the critical thinking

movement and my involvement in it. Part I deals with how

I became involved in the critical thinking movement and

how my denition and conception of critical thinking have

evolved. Part II will deal with efforts to assess and to teach

critical thinking and with problems and future prospects.

My Background: How I Arrived atCritical Thinking

Although in my K-12 years I was exposed to an ex-

cellent traditional education, I, like Gerald Nosich (2010),

was quite ignorant and naive in making my early decisions.

Because I did well in high school math and physics, and

because of the encouragement of my teachers and parents, I

went to MIT in 1945, right at the end of World War II, plan-

ning to become an engineer. Although I did well for four

semesters in the math, engineering, and science aspects of

the curriculum, I developed some misgivings. For those

and other personal reasons, I interrupted my studies andjoined the US Army, serving in the Army of Occupation

in Japan in 1947. There I experienced a 19-year-old-type

total revision of my goals and interests. The war-making

technology and its effects (including what I saw in Hi-

roshima during a visit there on the second anniversary

of the bomb) convinced me that the world did not need

engineers or more science and technology. It needed a

population suffused with wisdom. At the time I thought

that philosophy was the ultimate repository of wisdom, so I

decided to obtain a bachelors degree in philosophy rather

than engineering, having done no investigating about the

nature of academic philosophy.

MIT at that time had no philosophy courses, so I

cautiously took a leave of absence, never to return. I

transferred to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. There

the contemporary philosophy to which I was exposed was

logical positivism, but also some of John Deweys work.

Neither satised me. Logical positivism seemed to be an

interesting, challenging system, like chess, but without

relevance to wisdom; and Deweys defense of his positions,

as well as some of his positions, seemed weak. Further-

more, even though his advocacy of reective thinking

(Dewey, 1933) would later appeal to me, that was not part

of what was presented to me as Deweys philosophy. Nor

did I see relevance to wisdom in my history of philosophy

courses. The content came too thick and fast for me to

grapple with and to discuss what I now see as important

ideas and issues. Grappling and discussing were not part

of the total curriculum that I experienced, though they are

what I now think are crucial elements in critical thinking

instruction, though of course not in themselves sufcient.

As a result of frustration in my search for wisdom,

I instead considered a career in the theater because my

extra-curricular experiences there were exciting and fun,and the theater actually is a way of promoting wisdom

(e.g., Twelve Angry Men, a timeless play). But I rejected

the theater, partly because I saw so many unemployed

actors and dancers who were much more talented than I.

There was a bit of critical thinking here: making observa-

tions and using the information in considering and being

open to alternatives (to some extent) when making deci-

sions. But these practices were not part of my traditional

education.

Critical Thinking: Reection and PerspectivePart I

Robert Ennis

Abstract

This is Part I of a two-part reection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in the critical thinkingmovement. Part I deals with how he got started in the movement and with the development of his

inuential denition of critical thinking and his conception of what critical thinking involves. Part

II of the reection will appear in the next issue ofINQUIRY, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer 2011), and it

will cover topics concerned with assessing critical thinking, teaching critical thinking, and what the

future may hold.

Key words: critical thinking denition, rigor, criteria, logic, looseness, progressive education, Vietnam

War protests, subject matter, critical thinking movement

I am uneasy to think I decide concerning truth and falsehood, reason and folly, without

knowing upon what principles I proceed.(David Hume)


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5SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1

In 1950 I managed to get a BA in philosophy without

any knowledge of the ordinary-language philosophical

developments associated with the later Wittgenstein. More

ignorance. Then I heard about philosophy of education. It

struck me (still naively, given what I believed about phi-

losophy) that what I had learned and had not yet learned

about philosophy could somehow help the eld of educa-tion. There was some equivocation going on in my head

regarding philosophy, but I had not been sensitized to

equivocation or ambiguity in my logic course, or any other

courses. And I rightly believed that education could have an

important role in developing a world population suffused

with wisdom. I decided to go into philosophy of education.

I then received some wise (though unrequested)

advice: Learn rst-hand as a teacher what goes on in

our education system before launching into a career in

educational theory. Though I had not sought that advice,

I followed it and became a high school physical science

teacher, who also had to teach two sections of a combina-

tion of English and social studies. It was called a coreor common learnings course in progressive education

parlance, and it was a precursor to writing across the

curriculum. In the process, I heard about critical thinking

from the progressive-education movements advocacy of it,

and realized that the promotion of critical thinking would

be very important for our personal, vocational, and civic

lives, and that the survival of a democratic way of life de-

pended on the critical thinking of the voters. I still believe

this, even more strongly, and am pleased that I have been

able to spend as much time as I have on critical thinking,

only wishing that I could have accomplished more.

I tried to incorporate critical thinking in my teaching.

But I had little notion of how to teach it or even of whatcritical thinking was other than propaganda analysis

(Institute for Propaganda Analysis, 1938), which was

heavily negative and oversimplied in its approach (as is

commonly the case with the current fallacies approach to

teaching critical thinking).

After three years of high school teaching I became

a graduate student at the University of Illinois, and en-

rolled in a philosophy of education program with minors

in philosophy and educational measurement. I was lucky

to get an assistantship with the Illinois Project for the Im-

provement of Thinking under the leadership of B. Othanel

Smith and Kenneth Henderson. We tried to help three

Chicago-area high schools embed critical thinking in their

subject-matter instruction, physics being the area on which

I focused. I also found myself immersed in, and fascinated

by, the later-Wittgenstein movement in philosophy, which I

saw and still see to be quite relevant to education, wisdom,

and critical thinking, in spite of its excesses. I had nally

found a home combining philosophy and education.

The above-described background is, among other

things, a generalizable argument-by-example in support of

the supplementation of our subject-matter courses and oth-

er courses with a heavy dose of critical thinking instruction.

Notice that I said supplementation, not supplanting. A

necessary condition for thinking critically about anything is

being well informed, which includes subject-matter content

where relevant. Unfortunately, aside from simple deduc-

tion, principles of critical thinking were not included in thecontent that I encountered with two minor exceptions:

In high school English I was taught to make classication

(genus-differentia) denitions, and in college physics labs

I was taught to make three measurements (instead of just

one) and average the three in order to secure a more reliable

measure of a quantity. In my undergraduate deductive logic

course I was not shown thatstrictdeductive logic rarely

applies to everyday reasoning (including that of scholars,

voters, and Supreme Court Justices). However, imprecise

derivation or qualied reasoning (Ennis, 1969a & 1969b,

1981a, 1996a, 2004; discussed later in this essay) does

apply to everyday reasoning. Fortunately, material impli-

cation and its implausible cohorts were, as I remember it,not promoted in that logic course.

The fact that I did receive advice from an experienced

person about how to pursue my career is not to my credit.

I did not know enough to seek it out. It was in effect im-

posed on me by the father of a high school friend. In none

of my courses was I told the critical thinking principle that

one needs to make a special effort to get all the relevant

information appropriate for a decision, and to seek, con-

sider, and get informed about alternatives before making

an important decision.

In sum, in my K-12 and undergraduate education there

was virtually no attention to the principles, procedures,

and criteria for thinking critically in or out of the subjectsI studied. Basically I was engaged in acquiring, and was

tested on, straight subject-matter knowledge only.

The Critical Thinking Movement as I Saw Itand Associated with It:

From Progressive Education and theLater Wittgenstein to the Present

Early philosophical concerns about critical thinking

can be found, among other places, in Socrates, Plato,

Aristotle, Bacon, Hume, and especially John Stuart Mill,

but John Dewey (Dewey, 1933, rst edition 1910) was the

source of inspiration for the progressive-education K-12

critical thinking movement of which the Illinois Project

for the Improvement of Thinking was a part.

The Progressive Education Movement

The progressive-education movement, which was

strong in the United States from the 1920s through the

1950s, adopted and developed Deweys emphasis on

reective thinking. Tests called Interpretation of Data,


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Application of Principles of Science, Application of Prin-

ciples of Logical Reasoning, andNature of Proof(Smith

and Tyler, 1942, pp. 35-156) were developed to appraise

students in the Progressive Education Associations monu-

mental Eight-Year Study, which took place in the 1930s.

(See Aiken, 1942, for an overview.) In that study, the words

critical thinking and clear thinking replaced reec-tive thinking (Smith & Tyler, pp. 35-37), and a 1942

yearbook of the National Council for Social Studies used

critical thinking in its title, Teaching Critical Thinking

in the Social Studies(Anderson, 1942). My rst published

article was about the teaching of critical thinking (Critical

Thinking: More on Its Motivation, Ennis, 1956), and ap-

peared in the journal,Progressive Education. I submitted to

that journal because the progressive-education movement

was the primary promoter of critical thinking at the time.

In addition to my focus on the teaching of critical

thinking, I became the statistician for the Illinois Project for

the Improvement of Thinking, and produced conclusions

from the data obtained with the tests we used and fromour observations in the classrooms. I saw the importance

of having valid tests of critical thinking, and I realized the

dependence of such tests on ones conception of critical

thinking. As a result, my Ph.D. dissertation topic was The

Development of a Critical Thinking Test (Ennis, 1959b).

Given the state of critical thinking theory in use at the time,

I believed that the development of a critical thinking test

required the prior development and specication of a con-

ception of critical thinking. So my dissertation combined

the development of a conception with the development of

a test. The conception leaned heavily on my philosophi-

cal forbears, as well as this question: How do people go

wrong in their thinking? Because of my assistantship andthesis work I was able at the time to contribute directly to

the literature on the teaching of (Ennis, 1956), the nature

of (Ennis, 1962, 1964b), and assessment of (Ennis, 1958,

1959b) critical thinking. In particular, my 1962 article

on the nature of critical thinking, A Concept of Critical

Thinking, has received much attention. Michael Roth

(Roth, 2010), in an article in the Chronicle of Higher

Educationchallenging critical thinking, attributed critical

thinkings becoming popular to this article. Harvey Seigel

(Siegel, 1988) deemed the article highly inuential (p.

5). John McPeck (McPeck, 1981), perhaps the critical

thinking movements most vociferous critic, treated this

article as presenting the prevailing view of the conception

of critical thinking (pp. 39-57).

From Progressive Education to Emphasizing Subject

Matter

Results of the Eight-Year Study were published in

1942, when everyone was focused on World War II. I

believe that the progressive-education movement disin-

tegrated because of the overwhelming importance of the

war (1941-1945 for the United States) when the Eight-Year

Studys results appeared; the excesses that inevitably occur

in any movement; the strong criticisms of the movement

by academic subject-matter specialists (especially Arthur

Bestor of the University of Illinois); and (the nal nail

in the cofn) Russias beating the USA to having a suc-

cessful satellite, Sputnik, in 1957. Sputniks appearingbefore the USAs rst satellite was blamed by many on

the schools, which were still somewhat under the inu-

ence of progressive education. I have a vivid recollection

of the large front-page headline in the Chicago Tribune

right after Sputnik, What went wrong with U.S. schools?

According to popular insight, the schools had failed to

teach science to their students. Progressive education

was held by many to be the problem. As a result, straight

subject-matter acquisition became very popular, and was

the theme in former scientist and Harvard President James

B. Conants inuential The American High School Today

(Conant, 1959).

In spite of the opposition to, and the disintegrationof, the progressive-education movement, there were con-

tinuing expressions of interest in critical thinking in the

1930s through the 1970s, mostly by philosophers. Cohen

and NagelsIntroduction to Logic and Scientic Method

(1934) introduced me as a graduate student to many aspects

of critical thinking. Max Blacks Critical Thinking: An

Introduction to Logic and Scientic Method(1946) and

W. H. WerkmeistersAn Introduction to Critical Thinking

(1948) were college textbooks that to my knowledge were

the earliest college textbooks that used the words critical

thinking in their titles. Another early text was Monroe

BeardsleysPractical Logic(1950). All four of these early

works were guides used by the staff of the Illinois Projectfor the Improvement of Thinking, of which I was a member

from 1954 to 1957.

Even Conant was a participant in the early promotion

of critical thinking at the college level with his general

editorship of the series,Harvard Case Histories in Experi-

mental Science(Conant, 1950-1954), and his authorship of

On Understanding Science(Conant, 1951). Using detailed

cases from the history of science, his series and his book

illustrated certain principles in the strategy and tactics of

science (Conant, 1951, pp. 102-111). A principal theme of

Conants in these works was opposition to a simple ve-

step concept of the scientic method(promoted I believe

by the progressive-education movement), which he felt

vastly oversimplied how scientists think. I agreed with

him in his emphasis on principles in scientic thinking

(Ennis, 1974b, 1979, 1991a, 1991b), and his complaint

about oversimplication.

From Sputnik through the mid-1970s, I was part of the

philosophically-oriented minority pressing for the incor-

poration of critical thinking in K-12 and higher education.

During this period (1959-1970), I authored 12 articles


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and two books concerned with the nature, teaching, and

assessment of critical thinking.

The Vietnam War Protests

From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the Vietnam

War and student-based concerns about relevance, authen-

ticity, and the war itself overwhelmed the subject-matteremphasis of Conant and others. But it was not only students

who challenged the academic establishment. I vividly re-

member a scholarly professor in the English Department

at Cornell University in 1968 expressing at a university

faculty meeting his contempt for the academic establish-

ment by gravely pronouncing, Were in bad trouble.

Bad trouble is not the sort of expression I expected to

hear from a scholar in the English Department at a Uni-

versity Faculty meeting. It was protest language. To use it

in those circumstances in 1968 was a powerful expression

from within of a rejection of academia.

In that context, critical thinking struggled along,

but was not very popular because of its emphasis onrigor, reection,and, alternatives,as opposed to action

now. For example, the activists of the period judged that

neutrality by our educational institutions was impossible

(generally, in that period, neutrality toward the Vietnam

War, and in one instance, toward the administration in the

late 1960s by some colleges and universities of a draft-

exemption examination, an unpopular action in the eyes

of most activists because it constituted what they felt was

complicity in the war effort). Though I opposed the war,

I disagreed with the judgment that neutrality for colleges

and universities was impossible. I argued that neutrality

on any specic issue (though not on every issue at once)

was possible, unless the argument assumed from its begin-ning that its position and recommendation on the specic

issue were correct, in which case the argument became

essentially circular (Ennis, 1969d, an improvement on an

early version, 1959a). My argument in this case involved

an ordinary-language sensitivity to reported denition and

equivocation, sub-aspects of the denition aspect of critical

thinking to be considered later and listed in the appendix

(Abilities 9b1 and 9d).

Renewed Emphasis on Critical Thinking

In the late 1970s, concern about critical thinking

moved back into the foreground, I believe because of the

excesses of the protest movement, because the war was

over, and because the protestors emphasis on relevance

had strong appeal. Howard Kahanes popular Logic and

Contemporary Rhetoric(1971) contributed to the revival

of attention to critical thinking at the time. It was written

. . . in an attempt to raise the level of political argument

and reasoning by acquainting students with the devices and

ploys which drag that level down (Kahane, 1971, Pref-

ace). But the renewed emphasis on critical thinking was

not as part of a rejuvenation of the progressive-education

movement. Critical thinking was advocated because it

provided the rigor, reection, and reasonableness that both

the anti- and pro-war forces had ignored, as evidenced by

Howard Kahanes inuential efforts.

Around 1980, interest in critical thinking suddenly ex-

ploded. The First International Conference on Informal Log-ic was held at the University of Windsor in 1978. Canada,

as I understand it, had not experienced the extreme reaction

against academia that we had in the United States. Never-

theless, there was some, and emphasis on critical thinking

and informal logic was a step back to rigor and reection.

Signicant establishment institutions contributed. The

Commission on the Humanities (1980), sponsored by the

Rockefeller Foundation, placed heavy emphasis on critical

thinking, as did the Carnegie Foundations Ernest Boyer

(Boyer, 1983). The College Board (College Board, 1983),

which is responsible for the SAT test, specied reasoning

as one of the six basic academic competencies in Aca-

demic Preparation for College.In 1983, Executive Order# 338 in the California State University System required

that in order to graduate from one of the State University

units, a student must have had nine hours of instruction

in communication and in critical thinking. At the Second

International Conference on Informal Logic at Windsor

in 1983, The Association for Informal Logic and Critical

Thinking (AILACT) was established, the membership of

which then consisted mostly of philosophers from Canada

and the United States and it still does. The American

Philosophical Associations Board of Ofcers (1985) urged

philosophers to help with attempts to test for critical think-

ing and attempts to include critical thinking in elementary

and secondary curricula.This explosion of interest was neither a return to

straight subject matter exclusively, nor to the progressive-

education movement. It was a marriage of subject matter

and one important feature of the progressive movement,

critical thinking, a marriage that to this day we struggle to

implement. In going beyond straight subject-matter acquisi-

tion, The College Board exhibited this attempted marriage

in its Academic Preparation for College: The learning

outcomes described here [including reasoning] are rigorous

as well as comprehensive (College Board, 1983, p. 3).

The roots of three current, philosopher-led, criti-

cal-thinking-promoting organizations developed in the

1980s. One, led by Richard Paul (and currently also

Linda Elder), developed at Sonoma State University,

California, with large annual conferences of educators at

the K-12 and university levels at which many of us in

AILACT made presentations. Its current titles are Foun-

dation for Critical Thinking, Center for Critical Think-

ing, and The National Council for Excellence in Critical

Thinking. A second, led by Robert Swartz, developed at

the University of Massachusetts-Boston with a masters


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program in critical and creative thinking, and is currently

titled the National Center for Teaching Thinking (NCTT).

I have participated in some of its workshops. A third, led

by Peter Facione, had its origins at Santa Clara Univer-

sity, California, where Facione led an effort to arrive

at an agreement by mail among forty-six specialists in

critical thinking (of which I was one) on a fairly-detaileddispositions-and-abilities denition of critical thinking.

Facione called the results The Delphi Report (Facione,

1990). His organization operates under the title Insight

Assessment. The rst two of these organizations focus on

teaching, and the third focuses on a conception of and on

the assessment of critical thinking, although all are con-

cerned with all three elements. All three have extensive

web sites. The rst and second claim national status,

but I see no interaction or cooperation between them.

AILACT, of which I am a member and past pres-

ident, is open to new members on application, has elec-

tions for its leaders, and is not publicized as well as the

above three, though it is trying to catch up. On its web siteat http://ailact.mcmaster.ca, it provides material dealing

with the nature of, teaching of, and assessment of criti-

cal thinking and informal logic, lists available consultants

from its membership, lists institutions providing advanced

instruction in critical thinking, and will be listing avail-

able critical thinking tests. AILACT also sponsors criti-

cal thinking and informal logic sessions at annual APA

meetings. More information about all four of these critical

thinking organizations can be found on their web sites.

Throughout the 1980s there was a large amount

of activity in critical thinking: workshops, conferences,

test development, new curricula, restatement of goals,

books, articles, etc., accompanied by controversies aboutall aspects of the movement. These controversies live

on, and include the basic nature of critical thinking; the

details of the nature of critical thinking; the relationship

between critical thinking and subject matter; promoting

critical thinking in the different subjects as opposed to

doing it in separate critical thinking courses (often unfor-

tunately assumed to be mutually-exclusive alternatives);

the role of metacognition (being aware of and thinking

about ones own thinking) in critical thinking; the nature

of the deduction involved in critical thinking; the role

of persuasion in critical thinking; the relation between

critical thinking and problem solving; the degree to which

critical thinking is broader than argumentation and

deduction, if at all; the possibility of assessing critical

thinking; how to assess critical thinking on a large

scale and on a small scale; the possibility of teaching

critical thinking; the role of critical thinking principles

in critical thinking instruction; whether to seek and how

to achieve transfer of the learning of critical thinking to

topics other than those used in instruction; and of course,

the value of critical thinking.

The multiplicity of critical-thinking-promoting activi-

ties from 1980 through the present involved not only phi-

losophers, but also people in all subject-matter areas. The

principal academics with whom I interacted at workshops

and conferences were philosophers, psychologists, and

speech/communication experts, each with a somewhat dif-

ferent emphasis. To oversimplify, the philosophers tendedto emphasize seeking the truth (or the rightness or correct-

ness of a process or result), and using rational methods of

doing so; psychologists tended to emphasize empirical

relationships, such as what causes what, including such

processes as metacognition, transfer of critical thinking

learning to a new area of application, and problem solving.

Speech/communication experts tended to emphasize effec-

tive persuasion. But all three were generally interested at

least to some extent in the others emphases. During this

period I contributed to general critical thinking and criti-

cal thinking in science, and authored some 41 articles and

one book, as well as co-authoring two articles, one book,

three published tests, and several unpublished tests, eachrelevant to at least one of the above-listed controversial

areas in critical thinking.

In the 1980s, the critical thinking movement em-

phasized critical thinking in K-12, as well as at the un-

dergraduate level. Extending into the 1990s and the rst

decade of the twenty-rst century, emphasis on critical

thinking increased in college and universities, at least

in mission statements. This occurred partly at the behest

of accrediting agencies and partly because people real-

ized that critical thinking is important and that existing

subject-matter acquisition generally did not adequately

prepare people to think critically in their vocational, civic,

and personal lives. All the controversies I have mentionedcontinue today, though progress has been made. Because

critical thinking is so important, I have devoted much of

my career to the task.

My Contributions to the Content of theCritical Thinking Movement

Because I am probably best known for my develop-

ment of a conception of critical thinking, and because

teaching and assessment both assume a conception of

critical thinking, the nature of critical thinking is the rst

topic to be addressed. It will be followed in Part II in the

next issue of INQUIRYby discussions of assessment,

teaching (including incorporation in a curriculum), and

future prospects.

The Nature of Critical Thinking

Early on I developed a denitionand an associated

elaborated conceptionof critical thinking (Ennis, 1962).

I am here employing the distinction between concept

and conception that John Rawls offered (Rawls, 1971,


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9SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1

p. 5), following H. L. A. Hart (Hart, 1961, pp. 155-159):

A conceptis that which different, more detailed concep-

tionsof a particular idea have in common. But I use the

terms denition and conception instead of concept

and conception in order to minimize confusion. In 1962

I was not aware of the distinction and called the whole

presentation a concept of critical thinking (Ennis, 1962,p. 81), though a more appropriate title might have been a

denition and a conception of critical thinking.

As a result not only of the intense discussions of the

late 1970s and the early 1980s, but also further investiga-

tion from 1962 to 1987 of a number of critical thinking

aspects, my rst denition and conception of critical

thinking developed into a new pair (Ennis 1987b, 1991c,

1996a, 2002), which I shall call my second denition and

conception. In this section, I shall present and discuss the

features of the two pairs, the second conception having

evolved from the rst, and the second denition being

radically different from the rst, though they both treat

critical thinking as a term of approbation. An unexempli-ed presentation of the total second denition/conception

can be found in the appendix to this essay.

My First Critical Thinking Denition and the

Associated First Conception of Critical Thinking

The critical thinking denition that was presented

to me as a graduate student was the one advanced by B.

Othanel Smith (Smith, 1953), my advisor, mentor, teacher,

model, and supervisor in the Illinois Project for the Im-

provement of Thinking. Smith held that critical thinking is

both determining the meaning of statements and assessing

these statements (p. 130).

For my rst denition, I amended Smiths denitionby holding that critical thinking is the correct assessing

of statements (Ennis, 1962, p. 83). The key change from

Smiths denition was the addition of the word correct.

I felt that the determining-the-meaning part was implicit,

although I now would make it explicit because it is so

important. I added correct because I believed and still

do believe (somewhat under the ordinary-language inu-

ence of the later Wittgenstein) that critical thinking, as

used in the critical thinking movement, was not merely a

descriptive term, but also a term of approbation.

This approbation feature of the rst denition is one

of several features of particular note in the 1962 deni-

tion/conception. Three other features are (a) emphasis on

detailed criteria, (b) emphasis on good judgment in an

imprecise environment because criteria do not automati-

cally yield critical thinking decisions, and (c) attention to

credibility of sources. I shall elaborate.

(a) Criteria

One basic idea in both the rst and second of my

conceptions of critical thinking came from my high school

teaching experience. It is that in order to do critical think-

ing, students need criteria for making decisions. These

criteria would give them guidance that is as precise as is

feasible in making decisions. That meant, for example, not

just that students should learn or know that they should

take into account the credibility of their sources, or that

they should judge a hypothesis by looking at the evidence;but also that they should learn or know criteria (and ac-

companying distinctions) for deciding whether a source is

credible, or for judging whether the evidence supports the

hypothesis. As a high school teacher I had no such criteria

to promote with my students.

(b) Good Judgment: Qualications, Tolerating Lack

of Precision, and SEBKUS

One cannot expect the application of these criteria

to yield a result automatically, except in mathematics

and deductive logic. And even deductive logic in real life

applications usually has to deal with implicit or explicit

qualifying words like ceteris paribus(other things be-ing equal), probably, tends to, roughly, etc., making

the application of criteria not logically necessary in most

cases (Ennis, 1969b); hence, in a way, imprecise or loose.

So good judgment in applying the criteria is needed

as well. Criteria used in making a good judgment are

generally aided by Sensitivity, Experience, Background

Knowledge, and Understanding of the Situation, that is,

SEBKUS (an acronym I developed fairly recently (En-

nis, 2004)).

These emphases on criteria and good judgment (ex-

pressed with varying degrees of qualication, and made

with SEBKUS) have permeated all my work on critical

thinking, even my work on operational denition (En-nis, 1964a), but the basic ideas started to develop when

I was a graduate student involved in the Illinois Project

for the Improvement of Thinking. They are key features

of my 1962 concept article. Many of my articles since

then have elaborated these emphases in different contexts

and with respect to different aspects of critical thinking.

If I am right about the need for good judgment (which

often requires a tolerance of some lack of precision,

that is, tolerance of some looseness), then I see no hope

for computerizing critical thinking, though I admit that

expert computer systems can probably ((!) See my

paper Probably (Ennis, 2006) for a discussion of some

details of imprecision.) do a better job in tight time limits

than many professionals.

The emphases on qualications, tolerance of impreci-

sion, and SEBKUS are not original. For example, Aristotle

suggested them in The Nichomachean Ethics (I, 3). I have

attempted to implement them in numerous places (Ennis,

1964a, 1969b Ch. 5, 1981a, 1987a, 1987b, 1991c, 1996a,

2001, 2004, 2006, 2007). But although they seem obvious

to me, they are controversial, both in and out of philosophy.


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(c) Credibility of Sources

Another feature I introduced that was not original,

but that to my knowledge was new to the philosophical

critical thinking literature is the emphasis on judging the

credibility of sources.I introduced it in my dissertation,

leaning heavily on a legal source, John Henry Wigmore.

(Wigmore, 1942) In the rst denition/conception article(1962), I discussed credibility of sources and later, at

the time of challenges to President Nixons credibility,

elaborated the imprecision of credibility criteria (Ennis,

1974a). I also incorporated credibility of sources in my

second conception of critical thinking (Ennis, 1980, 1981b,

1987a, 1991c, 1996a, 2002).

Credibility of sources is now fairly widely accepted

as an aspect of critical thinking. I suspect that it was

not mentioned in early philosophical works on critical

thinking because of philosophers traditional emphasis

on argument and reasoning (especially deductive logic).

However, I do realize that there was some philosophical

concern with this topic, for example in consideration offallacies, and in Francis Bacons idols, but criteria for

judging credibility of a source (such as the desirability

of a sources not having a conict of interest) were not at

that time advanced in the philosophical literature (so far

as I know). However, they are in both of my conceptions

of critical thinking.

My Second Critical Thinking Denition and

Conception of Critical Thinking

Going beyond the special features of the rst de-

nition/conception, (criteria, judgment/imprecision, and

credibility of sources) my second denition/conception

has several additional special features. These are (a) thedenition itself, (b) explicit inclusion of critical thinking

dispositions, (c) qualied deduction, (d) detailing of as-

sumption ascription, (e) expansion of inference-to-best-

explanation, (f) special emphasis on equivocation, and (g)

inclusion of value judging. All of these except the rst and

the last, were present in some form or were implicit in the

rst conception. I shall discuss each in turn.

(a) The Denition

John Dewey provided two informative examples of

critical thinking inHow We Think.The rst involves what

to believe about the cause of bubbling coming from under

hot, recently-washed glasses (which involved formulat-

ing alternative hypotheses and checking predictions from

them with observations). The second concerned selecting

a subway train for a timely trip to his destination (involv-

ing alternative possible decisions, exploring their prob-

able consequences, and making one decision, which was

implemented and found satisfactory). He thus exemplied

the two main emphases (belief and action) in my second

and current denition of critical thinking:

Critical thinking is reasonable reective

thinking focused on deciding what to believe

or do.(Ennis, 1987a, 1987b, 1991a, 1996a,

2002).

During the early 1980s when I was developing this

denition, Gerald Nosich urged me to add or do tobelieve, on the ground that decisions about actions (not

only decisions about beliefs) are a type of decision that is

ordinarily included in the concerns of people in the criti-

cal thinking movement and incorporated in their use of

the term. I appreciate his suggestion and did implement it.

It is not a precise denition, which fact bets the gen-

eral imprecision in the everyday use of the term critical

thinking (thus illustrating the tolerance of imprecision as

suits the circumstances, which was a topic in the previ-

ous section). If the denition is a true though imprecise

report of usage in the critical thinking movement, which

is what I hold it to be, then it describes the current no-

tion of critical thinking in that movement. But it is alsopositional in that in offering it I take the position that this

denition represents something worth implementing in

our education system and elsewhere. So I offer it also as

a defensible positional denition (a denition that takes a

position on some issue for which rational arguments can

be offered). I hold this position because I think that reason-

able and reective thinking focused on what to believe or

do should be a very important part of our personal, civic,

and vocational lives, and should receive attention in our

education system.

(b) Dispositions

The rst conception has been criticized for omittingcritical thinking dispositions (e.g., Siegel, 1988, p. 6), such

as the dispositions to be open-minded, to try to be well

informed, to be alert for alternatives, and to exercise ones

critical thinking abilities. Although I believe that critical

thinking dispositions are implicit in my rst conception, I

explicitly included them in the second conception because

they are so important and might otherwise be neglected.

Over the years, I have reorganized my presentation of

critical thinking dispositions (Ennis, 1987a, 1991c, 1996a,

1996b, 2002). See the latest version in the appendix. It is a

brief list with no examples, containing I believe the most

important ones.

(c) Qualied Deduction

The basic ideas of deduction are important in many

aspects of thought, as I argued in A Conception of De-

ductive Logic Competence (Ennis, 1981a), although

logical necessity is too strict for many practical ap-

plications (discussed under Good Judgment above),

and although material implication and its cohorts make

trouble and must be ignored in critical thinking (Lewis,


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11SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1

C. I., 1912 and Strawson, P. F., 1952). Criteria for useful

deduction have not been specied in most versions of my

second conception of critical thinking in order to save

space, but can be found in a few places (Ennis, 1969a,

1969b, 1981a, 1996a, with further application discussed

in 2004).

Deduction is usually included in attempts by phi-losophers to teach critical thinking. What is unique in

my conception is my emphasis on qualifying deductive

reasoning so as to accommodate the implicit and explicit

use of words like probably and ceteris paribus.The

explicit rejection of material implication and its cohorts is

not unique, but is controversial. Keeping deduction simple

is also a feature of my approach, but it is not unique in the

eld of critical thinking.

(d) Assumption Ascription

This second conception goes more deeply into types

of assumptions and criteria for ascribing assumptions than

is widely advocated, perhaps because of the complexityof the topic. Ordinarily students are urged to identify their

and others assumptions, but are not told how to do this.

There are different sorts of assumptions, which need

to be distinguished from each other because different

criteria apply to each. Some are presuppositions, which

must be true for another proposition to make sense (but

see Donnellan, 1966,1968). Some are assumptions in the

pejorative sense. Some are also needed assumptions (called

assumptions of the argument by Hitchcock, 1985),

which, however, are not logically necessary conditions

for drawing the conclusion, as some people think. And

some are used assumptions (called assumptions of the

arguer by Hitchcock, 1985), that is, those that someonecognitively used, either explicitly or implicitly. Reason-

able space limits preclude giving more details here, but the

distinctions and criteria for ascribing assumptions can be

found most completely in Identifying Implicit Assump-

tions (Ennis, 1982c), and to a lesser extent also in Critical

Thinking(Ennis, 1996a), Argument Appraisal Strategy

(Ennis, 2001), and Applying Soundness Standards to

Qualied Reasoning (Ennis, 2004).

(e) Inference-to-best-explanation

Although inference-to-best-explanation (IBE) is well

known in the philosophical literature as exemplied by

Gilbert Harman (Harman, 1965, 1973), a discussion by

me of one feature of Harmans approach (Ennis, 1968)

with a reply by him, and Peter Liptons book (Lipton,

2004). But outside of my work (Ennis, 1996a), IBE is not

generally advocated in the critical thinking literature. There

are three features about IBE that I should mention: (1) the

confusion that might be introduced by the name, (2) its

widespread applicability in elds other than science, and

(3) its relation to causality.

First with regard to a confusion, IBE basically consists

of an approach to evaluation of hypotheses that considers

the explanatory power of the hypothesis and the inability

of competitors to explain evidence or the outright incon-

sistency of the alternatives with the evidence. There are

details that are more controversial. But calling it infer-

ence might misleadingly suggest that it is a set of rules forgenerating hypotheses, that is, of inferring the hypothesis

directly from the evidence, which it is not. Rather IBE is an

approach containing a set of rules or criteria for evaluating

a hypothesis, and in many situations is the evaluation part

of the exploratory process of rening and developing a nal

hypothesis, which is also evaluated by IBE.

However, IBE can also be used as a label for the

intuitive leap from the known facts in a situation to a

hypothesis which should then be judged for its adequacy

by the rules or criteria of IBE. Thus IBE is both an intui-

tive generation and an approach to evaluating the product

resulting from this intuitive process. This dual meaning

can be confusing.Second, as far as applicability is concerned, IBE ap-

plies not only to scientic hypotheses, but also to historical

claims about what happened, such as, Napoleon died of

arsenic poisoning; interpretive claims in literature, such

as the claim that in Othello,Desdemonas maid, Emelia,

never dreamed he [Iago] was a villain. (Bradley, 1937,

p. 213 an example suggested to me by Bruce Warner).

It also applies to test validity claims, such as a claim I have

made to the effect that a particular critical thinking test is

a substantially valid test of college-level critical thinking

ability under standard conditions (Ennis, 2009). I have

discussed the Napoleon and Emelia examples elsewhere

(Ennis, 1996a).Third, to consider IBE in relation to causality, as I

see it, all explanatory hypotheses that account for an oc-

currence or type of occurrence are implicitly or explicitly

causal. There are some, including Bertrand Russell, who

have urged abandoning causality in our disciplined think-

ing, and there are various views about what it is and how

we identify it. This is a controversial area. In the past, I

have argued that we should not abandon causality (Ennis,

1982a), and that being a necessary condition for an effect

is not necessarily necessary (Ennis, 1982b), contrary to

necessary-condition and counterfactual analyses of specic

(singular) causal claims, e.g., the analyses of John Mackie

(1974) and David Lewis (1973). I have also tried to sketch

out a broad picture of causality (Ennis, 1973), especially

specic causal claims like The bad decisions by BP caused

the 2010 Gulf oil spill and Lack of adequate regulation

caused the spill (two seemingly inconsistent claims),

and am now working on a sufcient-condition speech-act

interpretation of specic causal claims. However, I am

convinced that causality itself is an irreducible notion.

There is still much work to be done here.


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(f) Equivocation

Although equivocation is a standard item in a list of

fallacies, I treat it as deserving special mention because

it is particularly insidious. In my rst conception I called

it merely ambiguity, but actually it is more serious than

ambiguity. It is often connected with denitions, and I

usually mention it in association with denitions. As I usethe term, equivocation is the process of shifting between

two meanings of a term in an argument, generally proving

a proposition using one sense of the term and applying the

proposition using a different sense.

For example someone might charge that my concep-

tion of critical thinking is biased because it takes a posi-

tion on what makes for good thinking. In this example the

denition of bias that is assumed is that a person is biased

if he or she has a position on something. But the applica-

tion of the term bias seems to be a charge of unfairness

(unfairness not having been mentioned in the denition of

bias, but a characteristic ordinarily associated with the

use of the term bias). So it seems to follow that criticalthinking is unfair, ifone ignores the shift in meaning. But

of course, it does not follow.

Actually, blatant cases of equivocation (in which the

arguer explicitly adopts two meanings, and deliberately

exploits the shift between them) are rare. Most actual cases

of equivocation are more subtle, and must be uncovered

by probing. One of the subtleties is in what I have called

impact equivocation (Ennis, 1980) which is found in

arguments that have the impact of equivocation but in

which the arguer does not explicitly adopt both of the

meanings of the crucial term. Rather the arguer adopts a

special meaning for a term that is at variance with ordinary

use of the audience, makes a statement using the term inthat special meaning, which will be taken by the audience

to assume the ordinary meaning of the term, and thus be

misleading. This sometimes happens with the word bias,

and with the word reliability, a psychometric term used

in the discussion of tests. Concern with equivocation,

including impact equivocation, is one of the good things

that was part of the ordinary-language movement inspired

by the later Wittgenstein.

(g) Value judgments

Value judgments were omitted in my rst conception,

making it what I then called a truncated conception.

Appraising value judgments is an aspect of the second

conception, and some criteria are offered, such as getting

the facts straight (including facts about the likely conse-

quences of an action), prima facie application of acceptable

principles, and attention to alternatives. But a heavy dose

of good judgment is needed as well.

Two Overall Summaries

(a) The appendix

The Nature of Critical Thinking: An Outline of

Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities, which is the

appendix to this paper and is in outline form, contains all

of the above-described second-conception ideas, as well

as additional features that are fairly standard in the criticalthinking literature. This outline, though unexemplied, is

comprehensive and thorough enough to be used in plan-

ning for an overall curriculum, or as a basis for a table

of specications for a critical thinking test or test series.

But it makes for difcult reading if read straight through,

especially for beginners, and it contains more than can be

incorporated in an introductory course in critical thinking.

(b) A brief summary of the second conception

Table 1 provides a very brief (super-streamlined)

overall presentation with neither listings of criteria nor

detailed listing of aspects of critical thinking. I call it

super-streamlined to show that it is a streamlined ver-sion of A streamlined conception of critical thinking

(Ennis, 1991c) and other article-length presentations of the

second conception. It also merges critical thinking abilities

and dispositions. But it can be useful as someones rst

encounter with critical thinking, or as a rough checklist for

a students paper or thesis, or for anyones act of deciding

what to believe or do.

Table 1

A Super-Streamlined Conception of

Critical Thinking

Assuming that critical thinking is reasonable reective thinkingfocused on deciding what to believe or do, a critical thinker:

1. Is open-mindedand mindful of alternatives

2. Desires to be, and is, well-informed

3. Judges well the credibilityof sources

4. Identies conclusions, reasons,and assumptions

5. Asks appropriate clarifying questions

6. Judges well the quality of an argument,including its reasons,

assumptions, evidence,and their degree of support for the

conclusion

7. Can well developand defend a reasonable position,doing

justice to challenges

8. Formulatesplausible hypotheses

9. Plans and conducts experimentswell

10. Defnes termsin a way appropriate for the context

11. Draws conclusions when warranted but with caution

12. Integratesall items in this list

Incidentally I have argued (Ennis, 1981c) that another

brief characterization of good thinking, Benjamin Blooms

popular Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Cognitive


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13SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1

Domain (Bloom, 1956) is inspiring, but not very helpful

as guidance. Among other things, its six categories do

not have useful criteria that can be applied across top-

ics and subject-matter areas. For example, his category,

analysis, covers a range of important activities that vary

considerably from, for example, chemistry to literature,

with not much in common that is worth teaching as criti-cal thinking or higher-order thinking (a term in use by

Blooms followers). There is not much to teach in general

about analysis, making Blooms taxonomy vulnerable to

McPecks (1981, 1990a) complaints about the emptiness

of attempts to teach general thinking. However, in provid-

ing a list with a ve-to-one ratio of thinking categories to

knowledge (Bloom behaviorally dened knowledge

as recall, but most people have taken it in its ordinary

sense), his taxonomy is an apparently persuasive counter to

demands for exclusive attention to subject-matter knowl-

edge, as opposed to higher-order thinking.

Other TopicsRelated to the second conception, though not explic-

itly mentioned in it, is the relationship between critical

thinking and creativity. In agreement with Sharon Bailin

(1985), I hold that they are somewhat interdependent

(Ennis, 1985). Judgments that some act of thinking is

creative generally assume a positive evaluation of the

thinking (thus requiring critical thinking). Furthermore,

creativity is needed in generating hypotheses, denitions,

and alternatives, in planning experiments, and conceiving

of counter-examples.

Another so-far-undiscussed topic in this essay is the

possibility of critical thinkings being gender or culturally

biased (Wheary & Ennis, 1995; Ennis, 1998). My view isthat critical thinking is basically not gender or culturally

biased, as can be seen in a point-by-point examination of

the second conception in the Appendix.

Later, in the section labeled Teaching Critical Think-

ing in Part II, I will consider the question of whether

critical thinking is subject-specic, and the question of

the appropriate allocation of responsibility for teaching

critical thinking among various teachers, subject-matter

areas, and other units. Both questions are related to ones

conception of critical thinking, but perhaps better consid-

ered under teaching.

[To be continued inINQUIRYVol. 26, No. 2 (Sum-

mer 2011).]

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Appendix

The Nature of Critical Thinking: An Outline of

Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities3

Critical thinking is reasonable and reective think-

ing focused on deciding what to believe or do.Thisdenition I believe captures the core of the way the term

is used in the critical thinking movement. In deciding what

to believe or do, one is helped by the employment of a set

of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that I shall

outline. These can serve as a set of comprehensive goals

for a critical thinking curriculum and its assessment. Use-

fulness in curriculum decisions, teaching, and assessment,

not elegance or mutual exclusiveness, is the purpose of this

outline. For the sake of brevity, clarication in the form of

examples, qualications, and more detail, including more

criteria, are omitted, but can be found in sources listed

below, but most fully in my Critical Thinking(1996a).

This outline is the encapsulation of many years of

work in the elaboration of the simple denition of critical

thinking given above, and it distinguishes between criticalthinking dispositions and abilities.

It is only a critical thinking contentoutline. It does not

specify grade level, curriculum sequence, emphasis, teach-

ing approach, or type of subject-matter content involved

(standard subject-matter content, general knowledge

content, streetwise-knowledge content, special knowledge

content, etc.). For assessment purposes it can only provide

a basis for developing a table of specications and the

preparation of assessment rubrics.

Critical Thinking Dispositions

Ideal critical thinkers are disposed to

1. Care that their beliefs be true,4and that their decisions

be justied; that is, care to get it right to the extent

possible; including to

a. Seek alternative hypotheses, explanations, conclu-

sions, plans, sources, etc.; and be open to them

b. Consider seriously other points of view than their

own

c. Try to be well informed

d. Endorse a position to the extent that, but only to the

extent that, it is justied by the information that is

available

e. Use their critical thinking abilities

2. Care to understand and present a position honestly

and clearly, theirs as well as others; including to

a. Discover and listen to others view and reasons

b. Be clear about the intended meaning of what is

said, written, or otherwise communicated, seeking

as much precision as the situation requires

c. Determine, and maintain focus on, the conclusion

or question

d. Seek and offer reasons

e. Take into account the total situation

f. Be reectively aware of their own basic beliefs

3. Care about every person. (This one is an auxiliary,

not constitutive, disposition. Although this concern

for people is not constitutive, critical thinking can be

dangerous without it.) Caring critical thinkers

a. Avoid intimidating or confusing others with their

critical thinking prowess, taking into account others

feelings and level of understanding

b. Are concerned about others welfare


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Critical Thinking Abilities

The following abilities numbered 1 to 3 involve basic

clarication; 4 and 5, the bases for a decision; 6 to 8,

inference; 9 and 10, advanced clarication; and 11 and

12, supposition and integration. Abilities 13 to 15 are

auxiliary abilities, not constitutive of critical thinking,but very helpful.

Ideal critical thinkers have the ability to:

(Basic Clarication, 1 to 3)

1. Focuson a question:

a. Identify or formulate a question

b. Identify or formulate criteria for judging possible

answers

c. Keep the question and situation in mind

2. Analyze arguments:

a. Identify conclusions

b. Identify reasons or premises c. Ascribe or identify simple assumptions (see also

ability 10)

c. Identify and handle irrelevance

d. See the structure of an argument

e. Summarize

3. Ask and answer clarication and/or challenge ques-

tions, such as:

a. Why?

b. What is your main point?

c. What do you mean by______________________?

d. What would be an example?

e. What would not be an example (though close tobeing one)?

f. How does that apply to this case (describe a case,

which appears to be a counterexample)?

g. What difference does it make?

h. What are the facts?

i. Is this what you are saying:__________________?

j. Would you say more about that?

(Two Bases for a Decision: 4 and 5)

4. Judge the credibilityof a source. Major criteria(but

not necessary conditions):

a. Expertise

b. Lack of conict of interest

c. Agreement with other sources

d. Reputation

e. Use of established procedures

f. Known risk to reputation (the sources knowing of

a risk to reputation, if wrong)

g. Ability to give reasons

h. Careful habits

5. Observe, and judge observation reports. Major

criteria (but not necessary conditions, except for

the rst):

a. Minimal inferring involved

b. Short time interval between observation and report

c. Report by the observer, rather than someone else

(that is, the report is not hearsay)d. Provision of records

e. Corroboration

f. Possibility of corroboration

g. Good access

h. Competent employment of technology, if technol-

ogy applies

i. Satisfaction by observer (and reporter, if a differ-

ent person) of the credibility criteria in Ability # 4

above (Note: A third basis is your own established

conclusions.)

(Inference, 6 to 8)

6. Deduce, and judge deduction:a. Class logic

b. Conditional logic

c. Interpretation of logical terminology, including

i. Negation and double negation

ii. Necessary and sufcient condition language

iii. Such words as only, if and only if, or,

some, unless, and not both

d. Qualied deductive reasoning (a loosening for

practical purposes)

7. Make material inferences(roughly induction):

a. To generalizations. Broad considerations:

i. Typicality of data, including valid samplingwhere appropriate

ii. Volume of instances

iii. Conformity of instances to generalization

iv. Having a principled way of dealing with outliers

b. To explanatory hypotheses (IBE: inference-to-

best-explanation):

i. Major types of explanatory conclusions and

hypotheses:

a.Specic and general causal claims

b.Claims about the beliefs and attitudes of

people

c.Interpretation of authors intended meanings

d.Historical claims that certain things happened

(including criminal accusations)

e.Reported denitions

f.Claims that some proposition is an unstated,

but used, reason

ii. Characteristic investigative activities

a.Designing experiments, including planning

to control variables


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b.Seeking evidence and counterevidence, in-

cluding statistical signicance

c.Seeking other possible explanations

iii. Criteria, the rst four being essential, the fth

being desirable

a.The proposed conclusion would explain or

help explain the evidenceb.The proposed conclusion is consistent with

all known facts

c.Competitive alternative explanations are

inconsistent with facts

d.A competent sincere effort has been made

to nd supporting and opposing data, and

alternative hypotheses

e.The proposed conclusion seems plausible and

simple, tting into the broader picture

8. Make and judge value judgments

Important factors:

a. Background factsb. Consequences of accepting or rejecting the judg-

ment

c. Prima facie application of acceptable principles

d. Alternatives

e. Balancing, weighing, deciding

(Advanced Clarication, 9 and 10)

9. Dene terms and judge denitions, using appropriate

criteria

Three basic dimensions are form, function (act),

and content. A fourth, more advanced dimension is

handling equivocation.

a. Denition form. For criteria for 1 through 4 and6, see Ennis (1996, Ch 12 & 13). For #5 see Ennis

(1964, 1969c).

i. Synonym

ii. Classication

iii. Range

iv. Equivalent-expression

v. Operational

vi. Example and non-example

b. Denitional functions (acts)

i. Report a meaning (criteria: the ve for an ex-

planatory hypothesis)

ii. Stipulate a meaning (criteria: convenience,

consistency, avoidance of impact equivocation)

iii. Express a position on an issue (positional deni-

tions, including programmatic and persua-

sive denitions) Criteria: those for a position

(Ennis 2001)

c. Content of the denition

d. Identifying and handling equivocation (Ennis 1996)

10. Attribute unstated assumptions(an ability that belongs

under both basic clarication(2b) and inference(7bif)

a. Pejorative avor (dubiousness or falsity): com-

monly but not always associated to some degree

with the different types. Criteria: See #8 above.

b. Types:

i. Presuppositions (required for a proposition tomake sense)

ii. Needed assumptions (needed by the reasoning

to be at its strongest, but not logically necessary

(Ennis 1982)), (called assumptions of the argu-

ment by Hitchcock (1985))

iii. Used assumptions (judged by hypothesis-testing

criteria, Ennis 1982), called assumptions of the

arguer by Hitchcock (1985)

(Supposition and Integration, 11 and 12)

11. Consider and reason from premises, reasons, assump-

tions, positions, and other propositions with which

they disagree or about which they are in doubt, withoutletting the disagreement or doubt interfere with their

thinking (suppositional thinking)

12. Integrate the dispositions and other abilities in making

and defending a decision

(Auxiliary abilities,13 to 15)

13. Proceed in an orderly manner appropriate to the situ-

ation:

a. Follow problem solvingsteps

b. Monitor their own thinking (that is, engage in

metacognition)

c. Employ a reasonable critical thinking checklist

14. Be sensitiveto the feelings, level of knowledge, and

degree of sophistication of others

15. Employ appropriate rhetoricalstrategies in discussion

and presentation (oral and written), including employ-

ing and reacting to fallacylabels in an appropriate

manner. Examples of fallacy labels are circularity,

bandwagon, post hoc, equivocation, non se-

quitur, and straw person

Summary and Comments

In brief, the ideal critical thinker is disposed to try to

get it right, to present a position honestly and clearly, and

to care about others (this last being auxiliary, not constitu-

tive); furthermore the ideal critical thinker has the ability

to clarify, to seek and judge well the basis for a view, to

infer wisely from the basis, to imaginatively suppose and

integrate, and to do these things with dispatch, sensitivity,

and rhetorical skill.


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In presenting this outline of critical thinking disposi-

tions and abilities, I have only attempted to depict, rather

than defend, them. The defense would require much more

space than is available, but would follow two general paths:

1) examining the traditions of good thinking in existing

successful disciplines of inquiry, and 2) seeing how we go

wrong when we attempt to decide what to believe or do.In any teaching situation for which critical thinking

is a goal, whether it be a separate critical thinking course

or module, or one in which the critical thinking content

is infused in (making critical thinking principles explicit)

or immersed in (not making critical thinking principles

explicit) standard subject-matter content, or some mixture

of these; all of the dispositions, as well as the suppositional

and integrational abilities (# 11 and #12) and auxiliary

abilities (#13 through #15) are applicable all the time and

should permeate the instruction to the extent that time and

student ability permit.

I have only attempted to outline a usable and de-

fensible set of critical thinking goals, including criteriafor making judgments

gillespie 2011 inquiry

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