what is the importance of critical thinking in understanding the humanities

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Critical & Creative Thinking

Key Concepts

This chapter will prepare you to:

• Explain the concepts of critical thinking.
• Evaluate the merits of the questions, not just the answers.
• Evaluate the origins of our values.
• Discuss the implications of perceptions and stereotypes as they relate to an individual.
• Identify historical, geographical, and cultural contexts.

In the Introduction , we presented the idea of metacognition, which is the first step in applying critical and creative thinking to our study of the humanities. We all view the world through a lens; one shaped by our personal experiences. So, to objectively analyze a news story, cartoon, painting, photograph, essay, song, or any number of ways we express our human experience, we begin by being aware of how our brain works.

You may hear the phrase “critical thinking” used many times in a humanities course. In the context of humanities, critical thinking is the process of reflection about our personal values, paradigms, and experiences. Creative thinking is another important tool for studying the humanities. By “creative thinking,” we mean challenging what you think you know and asking you to think outside the box. Creative thinking also acknowledges and explores how other people may see or experience the world differently from us.

Throughout this book are Questions for Critical & Creative Thinking . These questions may present novel situations or be tough to answer. They are designed to help you reflect on why you perceive the world the way you do and perhaps why someone else might see things differently. Some questions may prompt you to expand your personal perspective.

The Looking Exercises and Listening Exercises included at the end of this chapter will help you practice these approaches to critical and creative thinking.

Creative Approaches to Critical Thinking

What is critical thinking.

A key component of critical thinking is analyzing a person or event from multiple perspectives . The opposite of critical thinking would be characterizing a group of people based on a singular experience with one individual. Not only does this limited perspective interfere with critical and creative thinking, but it may also lead us to treat people or situations with unrealistic expectations.

Credit: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. “ The Danger of a Single Story .” TEDGlobal 2009. July 2009. CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International. https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie discusses the damage caused by people’s limited perceptions. She starts by sharing her perceptions of people from her childhood in Nigeria. She then moves on to other people’s perceptions of her and Nigerian culture when she was a student in the United States.

Questions for Critical & Creative Thinking

• Have you ever been subjected to a stereotype?
• Where do you think the basis of this assumption came from? Is there any truth to the idea?
• Do you feel like these stereotypes limit you or encourage you?

What Do We Know?

Our reaction to information—whether it comes via images, sound, or words—is informed by our value systems. Our value systems, in turn, are shaped by personal experience and learned knowledge.

Consider something as fundamental as clothing. The sight of a man wearing a skirt in Salt Lake City would be unusual enough that he would probably elicit some stares. However, maybe not from people living in Scotland or the Pacific islands. This is an example of a response informed by cultural context. In this case, about what is regarded as normal or acceptable attire for men to wear in public. There are also historical imperatives. In present-day society, men and women frequently wear jeans or pants. However, 100 years ago, a woman wearing pants was neither a common nor acceptable fashion statement.

Can you choose which of the following historical factors were at play to allow women in the United States the freedom to wear “men’s” clothing?

• The suffrage movement for women’s right to vote
• World War I and World War II (Hint: military conscription of men necessitated a female workforce.)
• The birth control pill

Think about what people considered normal in earlier historical settings and reflect on your own reaction.

• Do you think they are silly? Funny?
• Or were their standards acceptable because they were based on the information available at the time?

Let us look at another example, this time a symbol most likely associated with negative reactions. The swastika symbol was adopted by the Nazi party during World War II. Because of this, most people perceive the swastika as a symbol of murder and destruction.

The origins of this symbol reach back much further than 20 th -century Germany. The oldest known swastika is estimated to be about 15,000 years old , which puts it in the Paleolithic Period (Stone Age). Throughout history, the swastika was used in regions all over the world, including China, Japan, India, and southern Europe. It has been used to represent good luck, prosperity, and the sun. If not equipped with this knowledge before traveling abroad, it would be easy to assume that Nazi sympathizers had lived in these countries.

Questions to Critical & Creative Thinking

• Prior to reading about the history of the swastika, what conclusions might you have reached if you visited a building displaying a swastika on the wall?
• A swastika symbol on Japanese maps indicates the location of a Buddhist temple. In preparation for the 2020 Olympics, Japan’s national mapmaking department is considering changing the map symbol to something else. Do you think they should or should not change the symbol? Why or why not? Can you think of another way to resolve this issue?

What Is a Creative Approach to Critical Thinking?

As you might imagine from the swastika example, challenging long-held values or beliefs can cause conflict among people, and perhaps discomfort for an individual person. However, it is important to remember that critical and creative thinking does not require you to change your mind but rather, evaluate how you got there. One way to look at it is to imagine that critical thinking is like taking something apart, while creative thinking is like recycling or repurposing something. In the end, you may still end up with the same beliefs. Or you may discover you have acquired some new values.

Again, the goal is to get you thinking about how you think. In an early scene from the movie, The Matrix (1999) , the character Orpheus offers the protagonist Neo a blue pill and a red pill.

“You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.”

Likewise, by encouraging you to think critically and creatively, this course offers you a similar choice. You can superficially engage with the various artifacts presented throughout this book, skip the critical and creative thinking questions, and finish the book with your points of view pretty much unchanged. Or you can accept occasionally feeling uncomfortable as you delve deeper into how people across the centuries and around the world have tried to make sense of the human condition. Blue pill or red pill? You choose!

How to Approach an Artifact

Another critical thinking tool is the use and analysis of artifacts. A humanities artifact could be a piece of writing, music, painting, drawing, sculpture, dance, film, or any number of created works. In her article “ A Method for Reading, Writing, & Thinking Critically ,” Kathleen McCormick explains that we should consider the historical and cultural context when analyzing an artifact of written text. Additional contexts for approaching any type of artifact include economic, political, geographical, social, and religious, to name a few. These contextual pieces offer clues as to what may have motivated a person to compose or create an artifact. Analyzing context can also help us to determine how relevant an artifact is to our contemporary experiences.

In addition to considering context, it is important to ask a series of questions when approaching an artifact of the humanities. Critical and creative thinking encourages us to be actively engaged with a piece of text, music, or art. Some questions you should be asking yourself as you engage with the artifacts presented in this chapter, as well as the rest of the book include:

• Who is the author or creator of the artifact?
• What do we know about the artifact’s historical context, i.e., what was happening when the artifact was created?
• What was the inspiration or motivation for creating this artifact? For example, was it a commissioned piece or spontaneous creation?
• For written text, is there a narrative voice? If so, is it first person or third?
• Does who is speaking make a difference for a narrative?
• What is the main message the author or creator is trying to convey?
• Who, if any, is the author or creator’s intended audience?
• Does this artifact present a familiar concept or message? Is it something new for you?
• Does the author or creator’s message align or conflict with your values?

When we engage with humanities artifacts and then apply critical and creative thinking, we are not merely going through a process of decoding. Hopefully, this book helps you understand that analyzing the humanities using this approach is a sincere thoughtful process that helps broaden your understanding of what the humanities are and why understanding them is so important.

Looking Exercises: Architecture and Painting

These exercises will help you practice using critical and creative analysis of a humanities artifact through a couple of visual examples: building architecture and political painting.

The visual arts are a broad umbrella encompassing artifacts that are appreciated by looking at them. These arts include painting, drawing, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, printmaking, crafts, architecture, textiles, and much more. These artifacts are the result of people trying to make sense of their physical and inner worlds, and conveying that understanding to other people.

An important first question to ask when considering a visual arts artifact is, was the work commissioned? Meaning, was the piece created at the request of someone else, such as a government, individual, nonprofit group, political group, or otherwise? Naturally, the sentiment embodied in the artifact and the intended audience will likely align with the values of the group or person who commissioned it rather than the artist who created it.

Other important questions might include, when was the piece created? What political issues were prominent at the time? What historical events were happening? By gathering as much contextual information as possible about the artifact, we are better equipped to interpret the artifact’s message or intention.

Architecture

The built environment reflects the age and cultural context in which it was produced. Architecture gives us easy access to visual arts artifacts for analysis. Some contextual questions we can ask:

• What does the style of architecture in my city tell me about the cultural influences of my society?
• Is there a philosophical influence?
• How old is the city?
• Does it maintain some of the influence of the original settlers? If so, how and where did that influence come from?

Architecture may also reflect a building’s function. Public buildings tend to be open and inviting. Some buildings may be designed to deflect attention. The nondescript architecture of homeless shelters helps conceal the vulnerable people living there. This kind of architecture is known as hostile architecture.

For this exercise, use the contextual questions listed above (as well as ones of your own) to analyze the architectural artifact presented by the White House in Washington DC, which was built in 1792. And compare it with Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall, built in Los Angeles in 2003.

Looking at a piece of art, we can ask whether what we see relates to our contemporary setting. Sometimes, in order to fully understand an artifact, we must be familiar with the historical, political, or social context surrounding its creation.

The painting Guernica by Pablo Picasso was first displayed in Paris on May 1, 1937. He painted it during the midst of the Spanish Civil War (July 1936–April 1939) as an artistic reaction to the Nazi’s bombing of the Basque town on April 26, 1937 . The painting is monochromatic, to show the misery inflicted by the aerial bombardment. The images in the painting present the tragedy and suffering of the war: a dismembered soldier and nurse; an all-seeing eye; and the Spanish symbols of a bull and a horse.

One contextual question to ask is, does Picasso’s painting only hold relevance to the Spanish Civil War? Two examples of contemporary situations demonstrate that this painting can be relevant beyond what Picasso may have originally intended. In fact, this artifact presents timeless relevancy to the perception, interpretation, and expression of our human experiences during a war.

On February 28, 1974 , Tony Shafrazi entered the Museum of Modern Art in New York  City, and red-spray painted the words “Kill Lies All” over the Guernica. Shafrazi said this was “ a protest against the release on bail of the lieutenant later convicted for his role in the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War.”  The red paint was easily removed, as Guernica was heavily varnished.

On February 5, 2003, Colin Powell delivered a speech at the United Nations (UN) headquarters to make the case for war with Iraq. He was standing in front of a tapestry of Picasso’s Guernica, which hangs in the UN as a reminder of the horror of war and the need for diplomacy first. The tapestry was covered with a blue sheet.

Reports of the UN’s position behind this action vary and the organization did not release an official statement. However, using contextual information, such as the painting’s history, we can deduce some logical reasons. The New York Times reported the UN started covering the tapestry because they were afraid a horse’s screaming head would be visible next to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix while he spoke.  The article offered an alternative reason , “Mr. Powell can’t very well seduce the world into bombing Iraq surrounded on camera by shrieking and mutilated women, men, children, bulls and horses.”

An article in the Toronto Star ran the quote , “A [un-named] diplomat stated that it would not be an appropriate background if the ambassador of the United States at the U.N. John Negroponte, or Powell, talk about war surrounded with women, children and animals shouting with horror and showing the suffering of the bombings.”

Listening Exercises: Songs and Music

These two exercises apply to how our values shape our listening choices, both in conversations and songs. As described, we prefer listening to speech and music that agree with our values and ideas. In other words, we gravitate to news channels, influential people, and song lyrics that support our world view. This tendency to seek out similar viewpoints ends up reinforcing our world view rather than expanding it.

There are several reasons for this behavior:

• Consensual validation: When we meet people who share similar attitudes, it makes us feel more confident about our world view. For example, if you love jazz music, meeting a fellow jazz lover confirms that your love of jazz is OK and maybe even virtuous.
• Cognitive evaluation: We naturally form positive or negative impressions of other people by generalizing from the information we acquire through experience or absorption. When a person has common interests with us, we assume that we must also share other positive characteristics with that person.
• Certainty of being liked: We assume that someone who shares common interests and viewpoints will probably like us. In turn, we tend to like people if we think they like us.
• Preference for enjoyable interactions: It is just more fun to hang out with someone when you have a lot in common.
• Opportunity for self-expansion: We benefit from new knowledge and experiences as the direct result of spending time with someone else. Oddly, people seeking self-expansion will gravitate toward people who are similar to them, even though a person with dissimilar perspectives would likely provide greater opportunities for self-expansion.

Listen to 15 minutes of news on a network that represents viewpoints contrary to yours.

• How did you feel while listening to a contrary opinion?
• Did you find yourself responding, such as thinking of rebuttals to contradict the information you were hearing?
• Did you learn something new?

The same behaviors influence how we listen to music. Music presents an artifact with many contextual facets. Some people listen to music for entertainment value. Others listen to find meaning in either the music or lyrics, or both. Very often, we attach meanings to music depending on where we were or what was happening when we heard it. Composers will have an inspiration or recall their personal experiences when creating music. Therefore, when analyzing music, it is important to consider the context that includes our personal response, the composer’s motivation, and perhaps outside influences, such as historical events or political movements.

There are fundamental questions we can ask regardless of musical genre:

• When did the artist compose the music?
• How does the genre of music impact its meaning?
• Does the tempo make us feel a certain way, such as sad, energized, relaxed, or irritated? How about the lyrics?
• Who do you think the music was written for? The musician? The listener?
• What do you think is the message is? Is meaning fluid or changeable?
• Does your musical taste change over time? As you get older? Due to events in your life?

Modern Song Lyrics

The two examples in this exercise present music artifacts from very different genres. The first is “ Blurred Lines ,” a song written by Pharell Williams and Robin Thicke. Released on March 26th, 2013, it was immediately involved in a legal dispute. Marvin Gaye’s family sued on the grounds that the song was “ noticeably ripped off ” from Marvin Gaye’s song “ Got To Give It Up .” The plaintiffs won their case and were awarded $5.3 million dollars in damages and 50% of royalties from future sales.

Furthermore, the song was criticized for promoting rape culture . Critics said the “blurred lines” in the title and lyrics were an assault on someone’s right to control sexual consent and the song’s message promoted the objectification of women as sexual objects.

Here are the song lyrics :

I hate these blurred lines I know you want it I hate them lines I know you want it I hate them lines I know you want it But you’re a good girl The way you grab me Must wanna get nasty Go ahead, get at me

• After reading the lyrics, do you think the song is controversial?
• After watching the video clip, does the meaning of the song change for you?

The song faced further controversy when Miley Cyrus joined Robin Thicke on stage at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards. Cyrus performed twerking dance moves in close contact with Thicke and made sexual gestures using a foam finger. Her dance performance was regarded as an endorsement of the song’s message. (Time marker 04:10)

Credit: Robin Thicke, Miley Cyrus. “Miley Cyrus VMA 2013 with Robin Thicke SHOCKED.” MTV Video Music Awards 2013. Juan Manuel Cruz . YouTube. YouTube. Fair Use of worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to access content. https://youtu.be/LfcvmABhmxs.

Classical Instrumental Music

https://soundcloud.com/chicagosymphony/beethoven-symphony-no-6-2

Credit: Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Neeme Järvi, conductor. “ Beethoven Symphony No. 6 in F Major, Op. 68 .” SoundCloud. Fair Use of limited, personal, non-exclusive, revocable, non-assignable and non-transferable right and license to use the Platform to view Content. https://soundcloud.com/chicagosymphony/beethoven-symphony-no-6-2.

A very different example of a musical artifact is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 , written in 1808. (Making it a slightly older piece than “Blurred Lines.”). Historical context is important for analyzing the message in Beethoven’s composition. For example, what made No. 6 different from his other symphonies? A clue resides in the title Beethoven gave to this piece of music, Pastoral Symphony . According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, pastoral means “of, relating to, or composed of shepherds or herdsmen.” This suggests an agricultural theme. This is one of only two symphonies titled by the composer, rather than someone else. Beethoven had a lifelong appreciation of nature and frequently took walks in the countryside. For the premiere, he described this composition as having “ more an expression of feeling than painting .”

Listen to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and pay attention to how the music makes you feel.

• How does the music affect your mood?
• What images appear in your mind as you listen?
• Can you interpret a message conveyed in the music despite there being no lyrics?

Try practicing your analytical listening skills on other instrumental pieces, such as the movie score to Fantasia , Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus , or The Lord of the Rings .

As you move through this book, you may discover information that is already familiar to you. Those cases are an opportunity to put on your critical and creative thinking cap and use it to reflect on your existing world views and values. Observe, and then, ask yourself lots of questions!

• Does your gender, race, sexuality, socio-economic status inform your interpretation of an artifact?
• What was happening historically when you read, listened to, or observed the artifact?
• Are (or were) there external circumstances, such as laws or events, that may have informed your interpretation of an artifact?
• Do you have acquired knowledge that helps deepen your appreciation or understanding of an artifact?
• Do you agree or disagree with an artist or creator’s message? If you disagree, can you appreciate why they felt compelled to create their message?

Remember, these questions are not intended to force you to shift your ideology. However, they do require you to consider how your personal perspective affects your interpretation of artifacts. And hopefully, these questions will encourage you to look at things from a different perspective than the one you are used to using.

The examples, questions, and descriptions in this book are designed to help teach you to:

• See and interpret patterns in people’s behavior.
• View situations from a variety of different perspectives.
• Realize that there may not be definitive answers to questions that arise from the human experience.

For our last example, use your critical and creative thinking skills to reflect on the following quote by Lawrence Wright :

“We prefer an ordered world, regular patterns, familiar forms, and when flaws or distortions occur, provided they are not too gross, our mind’s eye tidies them up. We see what we want or expect to see.”

• Do you agree with Wright? Do you prefer to categorize contemporary and historical events so they fit in with your world view?
• If you disagree, in what way?
• Is it possible that you could be misinterpreting information? Is it possible you do not have possession of all the facts?
• Do you operate in a clearly defined narrative within a clearly defined paradigm?
• Could you possibly change your mind?

The Human Experience: From Human Being to Human Doing Copyright © 2020, Edition 1 by Claire Peterson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Humanities and the Importance of Critical Thinking

In the late 1970’s, two psychologists, Dr. Daniel Kahneman and Dr. Amos Tversky , set out to understand why “we” were failing ourselves in the rise (or fall) to Homo economicus – some semblance of a consistently rational, self-interested being capable of pursuing optimal decisions based on individual goals. It seems reasonable, right? Who doesn’t think of themselves as a more or less rational person able to make clear decisions? Or more accurately, who wants to openly admit to never really understanding why they make one decision over another going through life like a leaf in the wind? But the reality of the situation is much more complicated. Kahneman and Tversky’s work would take decades to unravel. Kahneman received the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 2002, six years after Tversky died, and nearly ten years later in 2011 Kahneman published Thinking, Fast and Slow , an almost 500-page manuscript explaining the complex nature of a very simple concept – critical thinking.

We’ve all heard the phrase “slow down and think about it” or some disambiguation thereof, but it’s not always this simple. Kahneman details our fast thinking process, System 1, and slower, more critical process, System 2 , not as consistent adversaries but each serving a distinct purpose. Both have strengths and weaknesses: Our fast system relies on heuristics and bias (note that not all bias in inherently bad), while the other is slower, more compete, but needs more energy. Kahneman received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013, and though the plethora of news stories about the rise of the NY Times Best-Seller List in 2011-12 are available all over the internet, his rise to fame appears to have quieted. So why now, in 2018, do we bring it up?

For starters let’s look at the current investigation into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica . People are outraged – well, they were but they’re not ( it’s hard to tell ) – over the collection of data and use (some call manipulation or abuse) during the last election. But why? What Facebook did, and still does, is nothing new – we visited this topic earlier . We spoke about critically evaluating new stories as well with the all-important caveat that we’re probably the cause of fake news .

Everything you buy or use, more or less, comes with terms and conditions or user agreements but have you ever read one? In 2005, PC Pitstop included a line in their End-User License Agreement (EULA) which would award $1,000 to the first person to read the line and contact the company . That was it: read the contract you are “Agreeing” to, get paid $1,000. After thousands of downloads, it still took four months for anyone to claim the money. In the U.K., a Wi-Fi hotspot provider recently pulled a similar stunt but included wording that anyone using their service would be required to perform 1,000 hours of community service . The company never tried to enforce this clause, but users did agree unknowingly because there is a real problem with people not reading EULAs. So, why does this problem exist? Who wants to read the EULA or terms and conditions on every webpage they visit? Who has time? Next month the General Data Protection Regulation in the E.U. goes into effect to simplify this situation – for the E.U. And this presents an interesting paradox for the U.S. We are disgusted with the use of our data and simultaneously with regulation and laws. The simple solution is more critical thinking. Rather than automatically hopping on the latest app or website to join our friends in some digital mash-up, we need to think about what we are sharing and ask, what does the company do with what I give it? Mark Zuckerberg’s answer to U.S. Sen. Orin Hatch that Facebook sells ads to make money was comical to some as it demonstrated Sen. Hatch’s complete lack of technological savvy, but Zuckerberg’s answer beguiled the truth as well. Facebook does not only “sell ads” to make money, they clearly collect and sell data . But let’s move away from the digital world; we can only beat a dead horse for so long.

This critical thinking skill, the engagement of System 2, forces us to reconsider new or other perspectives, historical events, and new information: the humanities. This manifests in myriad ways that surface daily on our nightly news. Just recently, Nike faced an upheaval of executives at the highest level who were challenged by the women in its employ . After years of a “boy’s club” mentality and a toxic culture, the #metoo movement caught not one or two but numerous male executives at Nike. How do situations like this evolve? Heuristics and bias, our fast-thinking System 1. Critical thinking does not arrive at the conclusion with evidence to support the idea that demeaning anyone is “OK.” “Because it’s always been this way,” “everyone else does it,” or “Joe gets away with it,” is heuristical decision-making at its best.

Two Black men recently settled a case against the city of Philadelphia and Starbucks after they were forcibly removed from the store while waiting for friend – a hueristical decision made with race as a bias (Racism). On the same day, two Native American men were briefly apprehended by Colorado State University Police on campus because a parent was “nervous” . Nervousness, or fear, the unknowing, is a key trigger for our Fast System 1 processes – it is our flight or fight response and initial reaction to any given situation.

We constantly talk about diversity, inclusion, acceptance, and equality, whether it is different cultural backgrounds, gender, race, religious beliefs, gender orientation, etc. but is this superficial? Could we be more critical of our biases and aware of the implications this has on racism to address the truth of situation? From Black Lives Matter to a Day Without Women, a Day Without Immigrants to #Neveragain, we see these protests and rallies come and go but Amy Alexander from NPR argues perhaps we are unwilling to engage in the “ tough work required to address the hard, cold facts of gender and racial inequality ” rather it is all too easy to rely on our immediate reactions and move on.

And how can we truly understand these problems if we are not willing to engage in the hard work of critical thinking? How can a middle-class suburban individual understand the plight a low-income urban family living in subsidized housing? How might a non-Native American person truly feel the pain and anguish of two centuries of demonization as the “savage?” How can a normal American male understand the gender norming and degradation of women in the workplace with ever having experience it? How can we in Wyoming, a relatively safe state all-around understand the fear of violence and missing essentials of life, like clean water in Flint, MI? We may not be able to experience this, but we empathize if we are willing to engage in the hard work of critical thinking about the situation and facts not readily presented in our 30-second news stories.

When we watch The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu, do we see the parallels in our own political and cultural rhetoric about women’s rights, the environment, and civil disobedience or do we only focus on the totalitarian government in place and react with disgust? If we play games like Far Cry 5 , do we understand the very real consequences and appeal of fundamentalist religions misrepresenting a larger body of beliefs or do we react only to the idea of Americans being portrayed as evil ? When we enjoy the movie Black Panther do we consider the powerful implications discussed in Afro-Futurism and the opportunities this success brings to future African-American people, or do we only see yet another Marvel movie ? Moving from our initial reactions to see the deeper implications is tough. Critical thinking can be mentally exhausting when all we want to do is tune in and veg out, but it can be much more rewarding.

We are not yet Homo economicus , we are emotional, fraught with complex decisions and a lack of information, and imperfect in our processes. But there is hope; we have the ability to overcome this if we choose to so. It is our choice to rely on our biases and reactions in decision making, but we elevate our thinking and the outcomes by engaging in critical thinking. Done with intent, this is the purpose of the humanities and our humanity: to reflect without bias (or with a clear understand and admission of it), critically on the matter at hand. To read, watch, engage, and converse in matters of our daily lives and move past our reactions to consideration of information which does not readily present itself.

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Mythology and Humanities in the Ancient World Delahoyde & Hughes CRITICAL THINKING ABOUT THE HUMANITIES   Washington State University is currently taking an impressive lead in finding and fine-tuning ways to improve critical thinking skills. The WSU Critical Thinking Rubric provides a vocabulary for identifying many of the elusive features that teachers seek in their students' work and classroom contributions. The developers of this rubric emphasize the flexibility of it as a tool and encourage teachers to adapt it freely -- liberally, as it were -- to suit their own courses and/or assignments. We think it logical for humanities teachers to consider carefully the rubric's seven components, or subsets thereof, in terms of sequencing. 1) Identifying and summarizing the problem/question at issue (and/or the source's position). This does seem basic, which is not saying that it's a cinch. Students, even teachers, are apt to approach ancient works as if there are no ongoing debates about living issues embedded in the texts and material. A student's "report" on the Greek gods in the pantheon does not reach even this first rung of critical thinking. Wrangling with the notion of the interventions of particular anthropomorphic gods in the Iliad lends itself better to being cast as a problem or question.

2) Identifying and presenting the student's own perspective and position as it is important to the analysis of the issue.

Teachers in many disciplines who have adapted the entire rubric, as a sequence, to their courses have relocated this step to a place much later in the schematic. In certain assignments, and if one reductively translates "perspective" as "opinion," this component may not even be relevant. But in the humanities, we are often at pains to explain to students that somewhere between the dry, probably pointless reporting of factoids and an editorial spewing of their "opinions" comes what we really seek -- their "perspective" -- that is, a well-articulated indication that they have brought some sophisticated worldview of their own to the subject, or that the subject has contributed somehow to the development of that worldview. We have read, for example, many term papers that are impressively researched, superbly organized, excellently written, and utterly pointless. They fall dead because the conclusion merely concludes and readers are left asking "so what?" Indeed, even within the wording of this component of the rubric, one might take issue with the blurring of the terms "perspective" and "position." Someone with a ferocious "position" on an issue may desperately need some "perspective"! So, consider the terms you want to emphasize and consider relocating this component of the rubric before or after what is listed as #6: context.

3) Identifies and considers OTHER salient perspectives and positions that are important to the analysis of the issue.

If there is no awareness that multiple angles or possibilities are inherent in the subject, then it's likely that the student isn't conceptualizing the subject as a problem or question to begin with. Identifying and considering other perspectives and positions means more than the usual academic procedure; that is, the student reads secondary sources or even engages in primary research and applies this information to the topic / problem / question in meaningful ways, which includes generating an argumentative or expository text with a thesis. However, identifying and considering the perspectives of the "Other" has its own set of difficulties and levels of comprehension and interpretation and may be more of a bottleneck than current research statistics indicate. As a vital component of what we do in the humanities, teachers need to clarify the ways this section of the rubric encourages "critical thinking" beyond the standard procedures of secondary and primary research. Considering other perspective must include the process of consciousness or even soul-making that might rightfully be part of what we call the mental discipline of de-centering. This may sound entirely non-profit liberal, but the application can be worked out in specific pedagogical performances in the classroom. Cultural receptivity: In this context, Critical Thinking begins with fostering a willingness to consider seeing the world from another foreign or otherwise remote perspective, especially difficult at times given the way we depend on our facts and figures, the virtuosi of our knowledge, memory, authority, and arrogance. This area nevertheless necessarily includes an affinity for suspending what we know in order to imagine (with a degree of verisimilitude) what is quite literally and physically beyond our experience, culture, ethnicity, religion, gender, and so on. The pedagogical problem begins with a distinct treatise: we can only know what we have experienced. A racist male is not going to denounce his racism by merely researching the history of oppression in America or by reading Richard Wright's Native Son . Obviously educators hope that this person would indeed become less inclined toward racism by doing the above, but getting students to walk a mile in another person's shoes creates a complexity of puzzles and often requires a teaching miracle. For instance, when considering foreign perspectives are we not almost immediately immersed in a kind of cultural or otherwise voyeurism? Or worse yet hamstrung by our own ideological hierarchies which undermine or counter our attempts to achieve genuine empathy and therefore representation of the other? And in some or most cases, isn't gathering other perspectives (in an academic context) about pointing out where these "other perspectives" are wrong or askew? Certainly we also face the very syntax of the English language itself where the subject of the sentence always does something to the predicate. The tantalizing and stereotypical verbs within the sentence diagram often breed acquisition and assault, sometimes with sudden and surprising violence. We need real salience of interpretation. The central accomplishment is to overcome the tendency to lampoon, vivify, or praise the author's perspective strictly from the canvas of our own dramatic self-portrait. This category of the rubric invites precarious ladder-climbing in the classroom. We can feel the ladder sway and the boughs bend. For instance, some female students will read the Iliad in a different way that some male students. As teachesr, we can try to underscore differences based on gender ( at least in the ancient world) through text selection by asking students to also read The Trojan Women by Euripides, which adds to the Homeric drama and certainly identifies and considers other perspectives. The agenda here however is not to generate feminine / masculine polarities or emphasize a point of view that sees women as the grass that gets trampled when the elephants fight. Or to convey that the narratives of the ancient world characterize women as the trophies or spoils of war, vital to the male heroic code. We desire something more; identifying other perspectives is easy; considering other perspectives is more complex. Remember that we are speaking only of one verse of the rubric here, a part that acts in symbiotic relationship with the rubric as a whole and involves a redemptive vision that shifts the inevitable to the creative. As educators we must ask students to explore the incongruous terrain beyond polarities. Identifying and considering other perspectives requires an unprocessed even exotic medium to give it meaning and stimulate the mind's own processes. And whether we seek or shun foreign perspectives, conceit in all its forms is damn near inescapable. At least this awareness alone should shape our capacity for rearranging the way we teach in the humanities.

4) Identifies and assesses the key assumptions .

This means that the student is perceiving the subject somewhat three-dimensionally, or at least reading between the lines. Questioning the assumption that the Greek audience of the Iliad would in all cases have understood the intervening gods as literal characters is a good sign of the critical thinking process. The notion of ethics is curiously included within the rubric wording about assumptions. Are some disciplines or topics void of ethical assumptions? Are Newton's Laws up for ethical analysis? We begin by identifying methods of inquiry appropriate, in particular, to a specific discipline in order to achieve pedagogical goals. In the humanities, we proceed slowly for we suspect that even gravity and its laws will wax ethical at some point in the history and future of the human endeavor. Our fundamental approach to assumptions involves equality or rather thinking critically about how assumptions may perpetuate inequality. We all participate in what Alexis de Tocqueville called the Equality of Condition, regardless of our discipline. In this case, critical thinking is a social force.

5) Identifies and assesses the quality of supporting data/evidence and provides additional data/evidence related to the issue.

The distinction here is between merely regurgitating others' work or reporting from research and truly incorporating the valuable findings.

6) Identifies and considers the influence of the context on the issue.

An appendix to the Critical Thinking Rubric lists possible contexts (cultural, political, ethical, etc.) for consideration. That we still think in terms of ephemeral forces taking over ("Something told me I should go in there"; "The paper suddenly seemed to write itself!") might serve as a context for the issue of anthropomorphic gods intervening at the right times in the Iliad .

7) Identifies and assesses conclusions, implications and consequences .

The rubric's developers admit that it contains a bias towards teachers of writing. This item is difficult to envision outside of some form of writing, where students ideally have moved beyond concluding with simply a reassertion of the thesis, or a limp summary of the preceding discussion. Here too readers are asking, "So what?" and the best signs of critical thinking are those indications that the student has activated the subject by showing its importance. Not every assignment, nor even every class, needs to demand that students succeed in demonstrating all the above skills. Rather, the Critical Thinking Rubric is designed to lend individual teachers some framework and/or some language with which to formulate their assignments and classes, and to help them pinpoint some ways to evaluate not student writing strictly, but student thinking. Texts and materials in the Humanities exist not to be "appreciated" reverentially, but rather to encourage critical thinking themselves. We think Homer, Thucydides, Socrates, Euripides, Ovid, and the rest of the gang would agree.

--Michael Delahoyde --Collin Hughes

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Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a widely accepted educational goal. Its definition is contested, but the competing definitions can be understood as differing conceptions of the same basic concept: careful thinking directed to a goal. Conceptions differ with respect to the scope of such thinking, the type of goal, the criteria and norms for thinking carefully, and the thinking components on which they focus. Its adoption as an educational goal has been recommended on the basis of respect for students’ autonomy and preparing students for success in life and for democratic citizenship. “Critical thinkers” have the dispositions and abilities that lead them to think critically when appropriate. The abilities can be identified directly; the dispositions indirectly, by considering what factors contribute to or impede exercise of the abilities. Standardized tests have been developed to assess the degree to which a person possesses such dispositions and abilities. Educational intervention has been shown experimentally to improve them, particularly when it includes dialogue, anchored instruction, and mentoring. Controversies have arisen over the generalizability of critical thinking across domains, over alleged bias in critical thinking theories and instruction, and over the relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking.

2.1 Dewey’s Three Main Examples

2.2 dewey’s other examples, 2.3 further examples, 2.4 non-examples, 3. the definition of critical thinking, 4. its value, 5. the process of thinking critically, 6. components of the process, 7. contributory dispositions and abilities, 8.1 initiating dispositions, 8.2 internal dispositions, 9. critical thinking abilities, 10. required knowledge, 11. educational methods, 12.1 the generalizability of critical thinking, 12.2 bias in critical thinking theory and pedagogy, 12.3 relationship of critical thinking to other types of thinking, other internet resources, related entries.

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.

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).

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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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).

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.

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

• suggestions , in which the mind leaps forward to a possible solution;
• an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a problem to be solved, a question for which the answer must be sought;
• the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis , to initiate and guide observation and other operations in collection of factual material;
• the mental elaboration of the idea or supposition as an idea or supposition ( reasoning , in the sense on which reasoning is a part, not the whole, of inference); and
• testing the hypothesis by overt or imaginative action. (Dewey 1933: 106–107; italics in original)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 .

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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The humanities belong to everyone

The humanities preserve our valued traditions and transmit them from generation to generation. The humanities listen to the voices of many generations and share them through history, literature, philosophy, ethics, religion, languages, archaeology, and all the other areas of thought and culture that make up the record of human activity.

The humanities have practical applications for everyday life. They offer individuals and societies the opportunity to test ideas or actions and to imagine their consequences. The humanities provide a context for envisioning the impact—positive and negative—of new ideas in our culture, politics, and daily lives. They benefit people by helping them to think about and to consider life’s surprises and challenges before they happen and by giving strength when they do happen. The humanities help us to make informed decisions.

The humanities help us answer big questions. What is the meaning, value, and purpose of human life? What is justice? What is equality? What is freedom? How might a just society function? How do individuals relate to the state and society? What are the moral consequences of human action? Why do both cruelty and good exist? How do people best work together?

The humanities

• Give us wisdom and vision
• Clarify our roles as citizens in a democratic society
• Explain politics, religion, business, ethics, international relations, social and community values
• Encourage our participation in our communities
• Assist us in weighing the ideas, statements, and discourse we hear and read
• Help us understand and explain to what or to whom we give authority
• Awaken us to the possibilities of human life and culture
• Let us think big and understand much
• Make us curious about people and places
• Open us to the experiences of others and allow us to understand what we haven’t experienced ourselves
• Give us the means to recognize the common ground shared by all varieties of human thought and endeavor, and to bring about connections among them
• Help to make sense of the world we live in
• Tease our brains and expand our understanding
• Power our imaginations
• Preserve and share our stories
• Explore what it is to be human
• Assure us that we are not alone

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Why Humanities Matter A conversation with Dianne Harris, a champion for the disciplines.

A h, the humanities. History, literature, languages, philosophy, and more… these subjects have always occupied a place of central importance at the University of Utah. The earliest curricula at the U focused on liberal arts and classics, and the College of Humanities will celebrate its 50th anniversary as a free-standing college in 2020. Yet today, with increasing emphasis on the disciplines of science, business, and technology, the value of a humanities education has become a debated topic on campuses, in workplaces, and on the political scene.

According to a 2016 analysis from the American Academy of Arts & Sciences published in Inside Higher Ed , the number of humanities undergrad majors has been on a slow decline, hitting an all-time low in 2014. Meanwhile, and probably not coincidentally, employers across the country express concern that newer hires often lack the very skills learned through humanities courses, such as critical thinking, contextual understanding, and the ability to write well. Then there’s the annual hold-your-breath ritual around the question of federal public funding for the National Endowment for the Humanities, which divvies out funds to the 56 state humanities councils across the country, dependent on its largess to produce education programs for college faculty and public programs that enrich personal and civic life.

These trends and ongoing discussions are paramount to those who champion the humanities, including Dianne Harris, a history professor and former dean of the U’s College of Humanities. Harris recently left the U after serving two years as dean to take an impressive position as senior program officer in higher education and scholarship in the humanities with the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of New York City, which is committed to the humanities, the arts, and higher education.

And while she has enjoyed serving as dean and calls Salt Lake City “one of the most welcoming and beautiful cities on earth,” she acknowledges that joining the Mellon Foundation is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to support the humanities in higher education at a time when doing so feels especially urgent. “It provides an opportunity to have a positive impact on the humanities at an unparalleled scale,” she says. Harris began in her new role November 1. But before she left the U, we asked her to share why she believes the humanities matter.

Q: YOU RECENTLY WROTE IN AN OP-ED, “WE NEED THE HUMANITIES NOW MORE THAN EVER.” WHY IS THAT?

Dianne Harris: We are living in profoundly complex times that demand mastery of the skills we teach in the humanities to successfully navigate many key aspects of daily life. The future of our democracy depends on a citizenry that deeply understands its past; that communicates clearly and effectively; that is able to read texts with care and discernment so that fact can be sorted from fiction; that understands ethics and the underpinnings of logic and what is at stake in the leading of an ethical life; that understands how to frame a clear and compelling argument based in rigorously produced research; that embraces the rich mosaic of difference in all its forms and understands that our differences are what make us great; that is multilingual and values diverse modes of communication.

We need to strive for a population that is as widely educated as possible in the critical realms of knowledge that are not simply aimed at problem-solving, but that instead permit our citizens to understand how to frame the most pressing problems that exist now, and to forecast what those will be in the future. That requires creative thinking, not just problem-solving capabilities. If we don’t ensure such an educated citizenry, one that is steeped in a humanities education, our future looks far less bright, and our democracy will be increasingly destabilized.

In the wake of national trauma, we look to the poets and writers, to artists, historians, musicians, and philosophers… to help us ease the pain.”

Q: WHAT ABOUT THE CONCERNS SOME STUDENTS AND PARENTS HAVE ABOUT THE EARNING POTENTIAL OR JOB PROSPECTS OF STUDENTS WHO STUDY HUMANITIES?

Harris: All the available data that have been collected over the past decade by reputable sources such as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (see their Humanities Indicators project) show us that humanities degree holders do every bit as well financially over the span of their working lives as do those who hold degrees in business, education, and in many of the sciences. But just as important, we also know from that data that humanities degree holders have among the highest rates of lifelong job satisfaction and fulfillment because they are pursuing meaningful work and enriching their lives—and the lives of others—by using the skills they acquired through their humanities majors.

It might be going too far to say that studying the humanities makes you happier over the long haul of life, but I do think the humanities give us the tools to seek out enriching and deeply rewarding resources that move us towards fulfilled lives of meaning and purpose. There is no question that STEM education is tremendously important as well. But in the absence of a strong background in the humanities, STEM education alone will leave our society impoverished and ill-prepared for the rapidly changing world ahead. Far from being degrees to nowhere, humanities degrees—as all the data show us—are degrees to everywhere.

Q: WHAT WAS YOUR PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF FIRST REALIZING THE VALUE OF THE HUMANITIES IN YOUR OWN LIFE?

Harris: Like many, I was fortunate to have parents who read to me when I was very young, and who frequently took me to the local public library when I was a child. We also read in school, of course, but I particularly remember the ways reading fiction became a mainstay of everyday life in the summer. Instead of summer camp, we would head to the library every week and check out books to keep us busy. We lived in a place where it was too hot to play outdoors during much of the day in the summer, so indoor reading kept us occupied and out of trouble for hours at a time. At first, reading was simple entertainment, but books quickly became an entry point into entirely unknown worlds of adventure, mystery, fantasy, history, and more.

I surely couldn’t have articulated it as such at the time, but the Baker Street branch of the public library in Bakersfield, California, changed my life by making reading—and thus the humanities— essential to my world. Also, my father was a geologist, and he had a profound sense of the earth as an historical document that could be read. Every road trip with my father turned into some sort of teachable moment that wove together the history of the earth with the history of the people living on the planet. Those early conversations forever shaped my sense that we are responsible to and for other humans and for the planet.

Q: YOU OFTEN SPEAK ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMANITIES BEYOND THE WALLS OF HIGHER EDUCATION. HOW DO THE HUMANITIES BENEFIT US AS A SOCIETY?

Harris: The humanities are crucial to a healthy democracy, just as they also provide opportunities for fulfilled and gainful employment and an enriched life. But I’m also recurringly struck by the ways in which we consistently and necessarily turn to the humanities and arts for answers, for healing, and for resolution in the most difficult and trying of times.

In the wake of national trauma, for example, we look to the poets and writers, to artists, historians, musicians, and philosophers, for the tools that help us ease the pain of trauma into memory, and to help us process grief and sorrow. We also look to those same humanities and arts disciplines when seeking how best to express joy and to celebrate human achievement. I can’t imagine, nor do I wish to do so, a life without the beauty of artfully crafted texts, images, and sounds.

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9 thoughts on “ Why Humanities Matter ”

I studied Metallurgical Engineering and a class in humanities was required. I thought it was a waste of time and not relevant. However, the U printed 2” thick book of required reading was interesting. I did read it all. Over the years I have many times recalled something from the material and I must agree that the class influenced my thinking in a positive way. During one of my many moves, I tossed that text and today, I would like to be able to re-read some of that material. The way our society today is increasingly divided I think the premise of knowing the past does influence how we behave today. So from an old grad, I highly recommend the topic be included in the required classes. BS 68

Harris makes a convincing rational argument, which is effective to those that believe as she does. However, she does not make a persuasive argument.

The persuasive argument that LM Jennings feels is missing here might be more of an indicator of how in late era American capitalism, there is only one civilizing force: the market. Even higher education is now driven by the market, as is religion, and government, the other anchors to what we traditionally viewed as “the town square.” Unless something can be measured as valuable by the market, or has a quantifiable (read: monetary) value, then the warrants aren’t there for what he refers to as “a persuasive argument” for the humanities in education and everyday life. We orient ourselves exclusively to the marketplace at our peril. I think that is what Ms. Harris is trying to say.

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This is only a little off the main course of the subject. I do believe the humanities matter but the concept of being a well rounded person encompassed in non-stem degrees really isn’t well rounded. They are like a flat tire. rounded except flat on one side. A person cannot be well rounded without a basic knowledge of math to include statistics and the basic ideas of Calculus. The BA graduates who write our news and report on the media clearly do not understand basic differences like confusing the national debt with a balanced annual budget. They often report study results listing the number of people responding to a survey in a particular way without giving the context of how many people are included in the sample.

I think it’s also important to consider the level of education that comes with a bachelor’s in any topic. The reality is that a BA can mean anything from “a student put in a minimum of effort and passed with D’s and C’s” to “this is a person who is really motivated to learn and apply the information made available to them through their education.” There is only so much teachers can do if students aren’t interested. I was TA to a few students who put taking their Gen Ed history class off until the final semester of their Bachelor’s program, who lacked a basic grasp of reasoning. Two students of about sixty explicitly said that they only wanted to get a D (and I assume from the consistent low C high D performance of others that that was the case for others too). I offered help on every assignment and only three or four students ever took me up on it. I sent out emails telling them how to easily get full points for their weekly assignments, but the ones that complained grading was too tough. This is why employers *should* ask for college transcripts, not just a diploma. A student who put an effort in will likely work harder in the job place as well; someone who is okay with putting in the minimal effort will probably do the same at work. The journalist you are citing may have a degree, but that doesn’t mean they cared about learning or even remember much of what they were taught.

I agree with her argument that the integrity of democracy depends on an informed public. Exposure and understanding is important, at the very least because we decide whether to fund the humanities, or the arts, or even public science. Plus you don’t actually have to graduate in the humanities to personally benefit from some classes. Take a poetry class. Minor in philosophy because you want to know something about philosophy.

I have always loved the humanities. It pains me to go to the symphony and ballet and see only half the seats filled much of the time. The original culture in this state was one that celebrated the arts. I worry that universities have prices themselves out of the education market and that more and more people will go on to technical training and not have any exposure to the humanities. I subscribe to the thought that “If all I had was a loaf of bread, I would sell half to buy white hyacinths to feed my soul.” However, I also agree with the comments of Thomas Johnson, above, that to be well rounded one must also have a grasp of math and other sciences. I graduated from the University in history, but wound up in a business career as a real estate appraiser, where an understanding of math as well as the ability to write a coherent sentence was essential. Artists who don’t understand economics do not make good citizens. We need both areas of understanding. No one should live in a cocoon.

What humanities? You are torturing animals in the most inhumane and unimaginable ways with taxpayer money. Shame on you!!

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Hilbert College Global Online Blog

Why are the humanities important, written by: hilbert college   •  feb 6, 2023.

Why Are the Humanities Important? ¶

Do you love art, literature, poetry and philosophy? Do you crave deep discussions about societal issues, the media we create and consume, and how humans make meaning?

The humanities are the academic disciplines of human culture, art, language and history. Unlike the sciences, which apply scientific methods to answer questions about the natural world and behavior, the humanities have no single method or tools of inquiry.

Students in the humanities study texts of all kinds—from ancient books and artworks to tweets and TV shows. They study the works of great thinkers throughout history, including the Buddha, Homer, Aristotle, Dante, Descartes, Nietzsche, Austen, Thoreau, Darwin, Marx, Du Bois and King.

Humanities careers can be deeply rewarding. For students having trouble choosing between the disciplines that the humanities have to offer, a degree in liberal studies may be the perfect path. A liberal studies program prepares students for various exciting careers and teaches lifelong learning skills that can aid graduates in any career path they take.

Why We Need the Humanities ¶

The humanities play a central role in shaping daily life. People sometimes think that to understand our society they must study facts: budget allocations, environmental patterns, available resources and so on. However, facts alone don’t motivate people. We care about facts only when they mean something to us. No one cares how many blades of grass grow on the White House lawn, for example.

Facts gain meaning in a larger context of human values. The humanities are important because they offer students opportunities to discover, understand and evaluate society’s values at various points in history and across every culture.

The fields of study in the humanities include the following:

• Literature —the study of the written word, including fiction, poetry and drama
• History —the study of documented human activity
• Philosophy —(literally translated from Greek as “the love of wisdom”) the study of ideas; comprising many subfields, including metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics
• Visual arts —the study of artworks, such as painting, drawing, ceramics and sculpture
• Performing arts —the study of art created with the human body as the medium, such as theater, dance and music

Benefits of Studying the Humanities ¶

There are many reasons why the humanities are important, from personal development and intellectual curiosity to preparation for successful humanities careers—as well as careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and the social sciences.

1. Learn How to Think and Communicate Well ¶

A liberal arts degree prepares students to think critically. Because the study of the humanities involves analyzing and understanding diverse and sometimes dense texts—such as ancient Greek plays, 16th century Dutch paintings, American jazz music and contemporary LGBTQ+ poetry—students become skilled at noticing and appreciating details that students educated in other fields might miss.

Humanities courses often ask students to engage with complex texts, ideas and artistic expressions; this can help them develop the critical thinking skills they need to understand and appreciate art, language and culture.

Humanities courses also give students the tools they need to communicate complex ideas in writing and speaking to a wide range of academic and nonacademic audiences. Students learn how to organize their ideas in a clear, organized way and write compelling arguments that can persuade their audiences.

2. Ask the Big Questions ¶

Students who earn a liberal arts degree gain a deeper understanding of human culture and history. Their classes present opportunities to learn about humans who lived long ago yet faced similar questions to us today:

• How can I live a meaningful life?
• What does it mean to be a good person?
• What’s it like to be myself?
• How can we live well with others, especially those who are different from us?
• What’s really important or worth doing?

3. Gain a Deeper Appreciation for Art, Language and Culture ¶

Humanities courses often explore art, language and culture from different parts of the world and in different languages. Through the study of art, music, literature and other forms of expression, students are exposed to a wide range of perspectives. In this way, the humanities help students understand and appreciate the diversity of human expression and, in turn, can deepen their enjoyment of the richness and complexity of human culture.

Additionally, the study of the humanities encourages students to put themselves in other people’s shoes, to grapple with their different experiences. Through liberal arts studies, students in the humanities can develop empathy that makes them better friends, citizens and members of diverse communities.

4. Understand Historical Context ¶

Humanities courses place artistic and cultural expressions within their historical context. This can help students understand how and why certain works were created and how they reflect the values and concerns of the time when they were produced.

5. Explore What Interests You ¶

Ultimately, the humanities attract students who have an interest in ideas, art, language and culture. Studying the humanities has the benefit of enabling students with these interests to explore their passions.

The bottom line? Studying the humanities can have several benefits. Students in the humanities develop:

• Critical thinking skills, such as the ability to analyze dense texts and understand arguments
• A richer understanding of human culture and history
• Keen communication and writing skills
• Enhanced capacity for creative expression
• Deeper empathy for people from different cultures

6. Prepare for Diverse Careers ¶

Humanities graduates are able to pursue various career paths. A broad liberal arts education prepares students for careers in fields such as education, journalism, law and business. A humanities degree can prepare graduates for:

• Research and analysis , such as market research, policy analysis and political consulting
• Nonprofit work , social work and advocacy
• Arts and media industries , such as museum and gallery support and media production
• Law, lobbying or government relations
• Business and management , such as in marketing, advertising or public relations
• Library and information science , or information technology
• Education , including teachers, curriculum designers and school administrators
• Content creation , including writing, editing and publishing

Employers value the strong critical thinking, communication and problem-solving skills that humanities degree holders possess.

5 Humanities Careers ¶

Humanities graduates gain the skills and experience to thrive in many different fields. Consider these five humanities careers and related fields for graduates with a liberal studies degree.

1. Public Relations Specialist ¶

Public relations (PR) specialists are professionals who help individuals, organizations and companies communicate with public audiences. First and foremost, their job is to manage their organizations’ or clients’ reputation. PR specialists use various tactics, such as social media, events like fundraisers and other media relations activities to shape and maintain their clients’ public image.

PR specialists have many different roles and responsibilities as part of their daily activities:

• Creating and distributing press releases
• Monitoring and analyzing media coverage (such as tracking their clients’ names in the news)
• Organizing events
• Responding to media inquiries
• Evaluating the effectiveness of PR campaigns

How a Liberal Studies Degree Prepares Graduates for PR ¶

Liberal studies majors are required to participate in class discussions and presentations, which can help them develop strong speaking skills. PR specialists often give presentations and speak to the media, so strong speaking skills are a must.

PR specialists must also be experts in their audience. The empathy and critical thinking skills that graduates develop while they earn their degree enables them to craft tailored, effective messages to diverse audiences as PR specialists.

Public Relations Specialist Salary ¶

The median annual salary for PR specialists was $62,800 in May 2021, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS expects the demand for PR specialists to grow by 8% between 2021 and 2031, faster than the average for all occupations.

The earning potential for PR specialists can vary. The size of the employer can affect the salary, as can the PR specialist’s level of experience and education and the specific duties and responsibilities of the job.

In general, PR specialists working for big companies in dense urban areas tend to earn more than those working for smaller businesses or in rural areas. Also, PR specialists working in science, health care and technology tend to earn more than those working in other industries.

BLS data is a national average, and the salary can also vary by location; for example, since the cost of living is higher in California and New York, the average salaries in those states tend to be higher compared with those in other states.

2. Human Resources Specialist ¶

Human resources (HR) specialists are professionals who are responsible for recruiting, interviewing and hiring employees for an organization. They also handle employee relations, benefits and training. They play a critical role in maintaining a positive and productive work environment for all employees.

How a Liberal Studies Degree Prepares Graduates for HR ¶

Liberal studies majors hone their communication skills through coursework that requires them to write essays, discussion posts, talks and research papers. These skills are critical for HR specialists, who must communicate effectively with company stakeholders, such as employees, managers and corporate leaders.

Additionally, because students who major in liberal studies get to understand the human experience, their classes can provide deeper insight into human behavior, motivation and communication. This understanding can be beneficial in handling employee relations, conflict resolution and other HR-related issues.

Human Resources Specialist Salary ¶

The median annual salary for HR in the U.S. was $122,510 in May 2021, according to the BLS. The demand for HR specialists is expected to grow by 8% between 2021 and 2031, per the BLS, faster than the average for all occupations.

3. Political Scientist ¶

A liberal studies degree not only helps prepare students for media and HR jobs—careers that may be more commonly associated with humanities—but also prepares graduates for successful careers as political scientists.

Political scientists are professionals who study the theory and practice of politics, government and political systems. They use various research methods, such as statistical analysis and historical analysis, to study political phenomena: elections, public opinions, the effects of policy changes. They also predict political trends.

How the Humanities Help With Political Science Jobs ¶

Political scientists need to have a deep understanding of political institutions. They have the skills to analyze complex policy initiatives, evaluate campaign strategies and understand political changes over time.

A liberal studies program provides a solid foundation of critical thinking skills that can sustain a career in political science. First, liberal studies degrees can teach students about the histories and theories of politics. Knowing the history and context of political ideas can be useful when understanding and evaluating current political trends.

Second, graduates with a liberal studies degree become accustomed to communicating with diverse audiences. This is a must to communicate with the public about complex policies and political processes.

Political Scientist Specialist Salary ¶

According to the BLS, the median annual wage for political scientists was $122,510 in May 2021. The BLS projects that employment prospects for political scientists will grow by 6% between 2021 and 2031, about as fast as the average for all occupations.

4. Community Service Manager ¶

Community service managers are professionals who are responsible for overseeing and coordinating programs and services that benefit the local community. They may work for a government agency, nonprofit organization or community-based organization in community health, mental health or community social services.

Community service management includes the following:

• Training and overseeing community service staff and volunteers
• Securing and allocating resources to provide services such as housing assistance, food programs, job training and other forms of social support
• Developing and implementing efficient and effective community policies
• Fundraising and applying for grants grant to secure funding for their programs

In these and many other ways, community service managers play an important role in addressing social issues and improving the quality of life for people in their community.

Community Service Management and Liberal Studies ¶

Liberal studies prepares graduates for careers in community service management by providing the tools for analyzing and evaluating complex issues. These include tools to work through common dilemmas that community service managers may face. Such challenges include the following:

• What’s the best way to allocate scarce community mental health resources, such as limited numbers of counselors and social workers to support people experiencing housing instability?
• What’s the best way to monitor and measure the success of a community service initiative, such as a Meals on Wheels program to support food security for older adults?
• What’s the best way to recruit and train volunteers for community service programs, such as afterschool programs?

Because the humanities teach students how to think critically, graduates with a degree in liberal studies have the skills to think through these complex problems.

Community Service Manager Salary ¶

According to the BLS, the median annual wage for social and community managers was $74,000 in May 2021. The BLS projects that employment prospects for social and community managers will grow by 12% from 2021 to 2031, much faster than the average for all occupations.

5. High School Teacher ¶

High school teachers educate future generations, and graduates with a liberal studies degree have the foundation of critical thinking and communication skills to succeed in this important role.

We need great high school teachers more than ever. The U.S. had a shortage of 300,000 teachers in 2022, according to NPR and the National Education Association The teacher shortage particularly affected rural school districts, where the need for special education teachers is especially high.

How the Humanities Prepare Graduates to Teach ¶

Having a solid understanding of the humanities is important for individuals who want to become a great high school teacher. First, a degree that focuses on the humanities provides graduates with a deep understanding of the subjects that they’ll teach. Liberal studies degrees often include coursework in literature, history, visual arts and other subjects taught in high school, all of which can give graduates a strong foundation in the material.

Second, liberal studies courses often require students to read, analyze and interpret texts, helping future teachers develop the skills they need to effectively teach reading, writing and critical thinking to high school students.

Third, liberal studies courses often include coursework in research methods, which can help graduates develop the skills necessary to design and implement engaging and effective lesson plans.

Finally, liberal studies degrees often include classes on ethics, philosophy and cultural studies, which can give graduates the ability to understand and appreciate different perspectives, cultures and life experiences. This can help future teachers create inclusive and respectful learning environments and help students develop a sense of empathy and understanding toward others.

Overall, a humanities degree can provide graduates with the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to be effective high school teachers and make a positive impact on the lives of their students.

High School Teacher Salary ¶

According to the BLS, the median annual wage for high school teachers was $61,820 in May 2021. The BLS projects that the number of high school teacher jobs will grow by 5% between 2021 and 2031.

Take the Next Step in Your Humanities Career ¶

A bachelor’s degree in liberal studies is a key step toward a successful humanities career. Whether as a political scientist, a high school teacher or a public relations specialist, a range of careers awaits you. Hilbert College Global’s online Bachelor of Science in Liberal Studies offers students the unique opportunity to explore courses across the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences and craft a degree experience around the topics they’re most interested in. Through the liberal studies degree, you’ll gain a strong foundation of knowledge while developing critical thinking and communication skills to promote lifelong learning. Find out how Hilbert College Global can put you on the path to a rewarding career.

Indeed, “13 Jobs for Humanities Majors”

NPR, The Teacher Shortage Is Testing America’s Schools

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, High School Teachers

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Human Resources Specialists

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Political Scientists

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Public Relations Specialists

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Social and Community Service Managers

Recent Articles

Humanities vs. Liberal Arts: How Are They Different?

Hilbert college, feb 3, 2023.

What Is Liberal Studies? Curriculum, Benefits and Careers

Oct 24, 2022.

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Dec 10, 2023, learn more about the benefits of receiving your degree from hilbert college.

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1.16: Critical Thinking

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Learning Objectives

• Explore the concept of critical thinking

As a college student, you are tasked with engaging and expanding your thinking skills. One of the most important of these skills is critical thinking. Critical thinking relates to nearly all tasks, situations, topics, careers, environments, challenges, and opportunities—it’s not restricted to a particular subject area.

Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is clear, reasonable, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do. It means asking probing questions like, “How do we know?” or “Is this true in every case or just in this instance?” It involves being skeptical and challenging assumptions, rather than simply memorizing facts or blindly accepting what you hear or read.

Imagine, for example, that you’re reading a history textbook. You wonder who wrote it and why, because you detect certain assumptions in the writing. You find that the author has a limited scope of research focused only on a particular group within a population. In this case, your critical thinking reveals that there are “other sides to the story.”

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Who are critical thinkers, and what characteristics do they have in common? Critical thinkers are usually curious and reflective people. They like to explore and probe new areas and seek knowledge, clarification, and new solutions. They ask pertinent questions, evaluate statements and arguments, and they distinguish between facts and opinion. They do not rely on quick, first-order level thinking, but instead use second-level or higher-order thinking skills that require them to think more deeply before jumping to conclusions. They can evaluate their own opinion and judge whether ideas are their own. They are also willing to examine their own beliefs, possessing a manner of humility that allows them to admit a lack of knowledge or understanding when needed. They are fair-minded and open to changing their mind. Perhaps most of all, they actively enjoy learning, and seeking new knowledge is a lifelong pursuit.

Sharpen Your Critical Thinking

Critical thinking skills are perhaps the most fundamental skills involved in making judgments and solving problems. You use them every day, and you can continue improving them.

The ability to think critically about a matter—to analyze a question, situation, or problem down to its most basic parts—is what helps us evaluate the accuracy and truthfulness of statements, claims, and information we read and hear. It is the sharp knife that, when honed, separates fact from fiction, honesty from lies, and the accurate from the misleading. We all use this skill to one degree or another almost every day.

For example, we use critical thinking every day as we consider the latest consumer products and why one particular product is the best among its peers. Is it a quality product because a celebrity endorses it? Because a lot of other people may have used it? Because it is made by one company versus another? Or perhaps because it is made in one country or another? These are questions representative of critical thinking.

The academic setting demands more of us in terms of critical thinking than everyday life. It demands that we evaluate information and analyze a myriad of issues. It is an environment where our critical thinking skills can be the difference between success and failure. In this environment, we must consider information in an analytical, critical manner. We must ask questions—What is the source of this information? Is this source an expert one and what makes it so? Are there multiple perspectives to consider on an issue? Do multiple sources agree or disagree on an issue? Does quality research substantiate information or opinion? Do I have any personal biases that may affect my consideration of this information?

It is only through purposeful, frequent, intentional questioning such as this that we can sharpen our critical thinking skills and improve as students, learners, and researchers.

—Dr. Andrew Robert Baker, Foundations of Academic Success: Words of Wisdom

No matter where you are on the road to being a critical thinker, you can always more fully develop your skills. Doing so will help you develop more balanced arguments, express yourself clearly, read critically, and absorb important information efficiently. Critical thinking skills will help you in any profession or any circumstance of life, from science to art to business to teaching.

A YouTube element has been excluded from this version of the text. You can view it online here: pb.libretexts.org/ec1/?p=106

You can view the transcript for “Why Critical Thinking (Study Skills)” here (opens in new window) .

Critical thinking is fundamentally a process of questioning. You may question the information you read in a textbook, or you may question what a politician or a professor or a classmate says. You can also question a commonly-held belief or a new idea. With critical thinking, anything and everything is subject to question and examination.

An Example of Critical Thinking

Let’s use a simple example of applying logic to a critical-thinking situation. In this hypothetical scenario, Professor Brown has a PhD in political science, and he works as a professor at a local college. His wife works at the college, too. They have three young children in the local school system, and their family is well known in the community.

Professor Brown is now running for political office. Are his credentials and experience sufficient for entering public office? Will he be effective in the political office? Some voters might believe that his personal life and current job, on the surface, suggest he will do well in the position, and they will vote for him.

In truth, Brown’s characteristics as described above don’t guarantee that he will do a good job. What else might you want to know? How about whether Brown has already held a political office? If so, was he effective? How about Brown’s reputation for personal integrity? Just because he works as a professor does not mean he has experience or skill with the ethical issues of public office. Does he have the leadership skills required to be an effective public leader? Just because he teaches college students does not mean Brown has effective leadership skills. In this case, we want to ask, “How much information is adequate in order to make a decision based on logic instead of assumptions?”

The following questions, presented in Figure 1, below, are ones you may apply to formulate a logical, reasoned perspective in the above scenario or any other situation:

• What’s happening? Gather the basic information and begin to think of questions.
• Why is it important? Ask yourself why it’s significant and whether or not you agree.
• What don’t I see? Is there anything important missing?
• How do I know? Ask yourself where the information came from and how it was constructed.
• Who is saying it? What’s the position of the speaker and what is influencing them?
• What else? What if? What other ideas exist and are there other possibilities?

Problem-Solving With Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is not just an academic exercise. For most people, a typical day is filled with critical thinking. We use critical thinking to solve problems all the time. For example, consider the following situation. Gisella is doing well in college, and most of her college and living expenses are covered, but there are some gaps between what she wants and what she feels she can afford. She uses critical thinking to analyze her income, savings, and budget to better calculate what she will need to stay in college and maintain her desired level of spending.

Remember, when you apply the skills of a good critical thinker to your academic work or to the problems in your life, your challenge will be less of a hurdle. If you are curious, reflective, knowledge-seeking, open to change, probing, organized, and ethical, you’ll be in a good position to find intelligent solutions.

critical thinking : clear, reasonable, reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do

Contributors and Attributions

• Foundations of Academic Success. Authored by : Thomas C. Priester, editor. Provided by : Open SUNY Textbooks. Located at : textbooks.opensuny.org/foundations-of-academic-success/. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Critical Thinking. Provided by : Critical and Creative Thinking Program. Located at : cct.wikispaces.umb.edu/Critical+Thinking. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Critical Thinking Skills. Authored by : Linda Bruce. Provided by : Lumen Learning. Project : courses.lumenlearning.com/lu...inking-skills/. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Why Critical Thinking. Provided by : Careers and Skills. Located at : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ntsfbMXGwU&feature=youtu.be . License : All Rights Reserved . License Terms : Standard YouTube License