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Archive for the ‘Critical Thinking’ Category

John Cleese on Creative Thinking

Posted in Connections, Critical Thinking, Discussion, tagged , , , on December 30, 2012| 2 Comments »

Here’s a lovely little talk by John Cleese on the subject of creativity.  While watching it I was struck that many of Cleese’s points applied equally well to the sort of problem solving we think of as central to critical thinking. Readers of RAIL may recall earlier discussions of this topic that can be found here and here about the (supposed) distinction between the two. This video extends those discussions nicely.

No matter where one comes down on the question of the relationship between critical and creative thinking, there are some interesting suggestions here. Of particular interest should be his remarks on space, time, quiet, and humor–all of which (though I think the last especially) are in increasingly short supply. Some of the psychology is a little dated (the video was shot in the 1980’s, I think), but the advice is still interesting and worthy of consideration.

Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/VShmtsLhkQg

The end is worth hanging on for, as it affords a political edge to the talk.

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CFP: AILACT Session at APA Eastern

Posted in CFP, Critical Thinking, Informal Logic, tagged , , on July 31, 2012| Leave a Comment »

CALL for PAPERS

ASSOCIATION for INFORMAL LOGIC and CRITICAL THINKING [AILACT]

AILACT will convene a session of paper presentations and discussion during the APA Eastern Division Meeting in Atlanta, GA during 27-30 December 2012 to meet in the Marriott Atlanta Marquis.

While we are requesting papers that treat a broad range of topics relating to informal logic and critical thinking, as continuing focal points within the modern argumentation movement, we are especially interested this round to invite papers treating themes relating to the teaching and role/s of critical thinking in academia.

In recent months there has been an elevated discussion about the importance of cultivating critical thinking skills in core and general education curricula. These discussions have responded to some skepticism about teaching higher order critical thinking skills, that somehow doing so undermines authority and core social values. In this connection, we are asking for paper submissions treating such topics as (but not limited to) that might be thought to full (loosely) under the rubric of applied epistemology:

  • Successful or unsuccessful pedagogic strategies for teaching CT skills
  • Whether and in what ways CT skills are discipline specific
  • Successful assessment practices and strategies for teaching CT as an institutional or discipline learning goal
  • How student proficiencies with CT skills are measured
  • What students say about their experiences with CT and the means used to gather information
  • How CT skills and information literacy skills are similar or different; on the relationship between CR skills and IL skills in student learning
  • Whether CT skills should be scaffolded throughout the undergraduate curriculum; how CT skills could effectively be scaffolded throughout the undergraduate curriculum
  • Is teaching CT skills subversive?
  • Other

Again, while we encourage persons to submit papers relating to teaching critical thinking, our call for papers is open to any topic within informal logic and critical thinking.

Papers should have a reading time of 25 minutes.

Deadline: 30 September 2012

Send completed paper with abstract as a pdf document attached to an email message to:

George Boger

BOGER@canisius.edu

Department of Philosophy

Canisius College

Buffalo, NY 14208-1098

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CFP: Critical Thinking in Higher Education

Posted in CFP, Critical Thinking, Teaching, tagged , , , on May 25, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Proposed New Book: Critical Thinking in Higher Education

Contributions are invited for an edited collection of papers for a book on the topic Critical Thinking in Higher Education,to be edited by Emeritus Professor Ronald Barnett (Institute of Education, University of London), Emeritus Professor Robert H. Ennis (University of Illinois), and Associate Professor Martin Davies (University of Melbourne).

Papers should be submitted by December 31st 2012. Please note that abstracts for papers (400 words maximum) should be sent to the editors for consideration first (see Submission Procedure below).

The book will include a number of previously published papers and original, previously un­published papers. Submissions can be comparative reviews, conceptual studies, empirically-based papers, reflective case studies or offer theoretical contributions. The book will combine new papers, commissioned articles, and excerpts from seminal papers in the field.

Contributions for the proposed book can cover, but are not limited to, the following areas: (more…)

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AILACT Responds to Peter Wood

Posted in Critical Thinking, Discussion, News, tagged , , , , on May 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Some RAIL readers may recall the fracas that developed between Peter Wood, of the NAS and AILACT around the end of 2011.  Unfortunately, it’s a fracas in which RAIL played a direct role–something I sincerely regret. Though I had written what I hoped was a moderate-in-tone post questioning Wood’s use of the term ‘critical thinking’ before this, it was a guest post by Don Lazere that really earned Wood’s anger in sufficient quantity for him to denounce both RAIL and AILACT in a post at the Chronicle of Higher Education website. Many members of AILACT, including myself, found Wood’s characterization of the organization and its conception of critical thinking in this post to be both unfair and inaccurate.  In order to respond to Wood’s charges, the Board of AILACT wrote the following reply, which appears in the organization’s April Newsletter.  It is reproduced here, in its entirety, by permission of the Board.  In addition to setting the record straight about AILACT and the sense of critical thinking it endorses, I hope that it sets the stage for a more constructive dialogue between AILACT and Wood, and with others who care about critical thinking and its place in higher education.

A Reply by the AILACT Board to Peter Wood’s CHE Comments on “Critical Thinking” (more…)

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Critical thinking about irony

Posted in Critical Thinking, tagged , , , on April 30, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Jezebel has a few things to tell us regarding critical thinking and racism, mostly “keep it simple stupid.”  Stop making excuses to believe that there is no racism or that it’s sufficiently over that it can be employed ironically.  That ignorance is a failure in critical thinking.

Writers Jim Cooke and elenabo/Shutterstock use a disquotational appeal to truth:

You know how you can tell that black people are still oppressed? Because black people are still oppressed.

The evidence is overwhelming.  Even if it were not, irony takes a delicate hand and is almost impossible to deliver from a position of privilege.

Their anger is inspiring but humour is difficult to think about critically.  Many of us have no understanding of how it works and why what seems to be a simple pleasure can cause so much harm.  Perhaps that is as important a subject for teaching critical thinking as argumentation?  Humour can be a hindrance or boon, and understanding the reasoning it involves may help us use it better.

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Critical stakes

Posted in Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Discourse Analysis, tagged , , , on April 27, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I keep hearing from colleagues in other disciplines that the stakes are incredibly low in contemporary psychology.  Requests for explanation get me no further than utterances of despair over the stranglehold caused by increased ethical standards for research on humans.  There will be no more Stanford prison experiments or Milgram authority tests.  All that is left are either peculiar lab objectifications of the social or discourse analysis.

I don’t understand the despair:  we’ve learned what we needed to from Zimbardo and Milgram, surely.  The new social psychology involved with cognition and discourse provides good fodder for argumentation studies (or at least it can).  It encourages critical thinking that will be informed by empirical analysis of what works, rather than armchair speculations.  All this feeds democracy.

Argumentation and discourse analysis (of which I have only the vaguest understanding) seem especially important given the current proliferation of discourse.  Discourse may also be the site of some of the most persistent stumbling blocks to social justice.  Micro-inequalities and implicit bias impede women’s and minorities’ social and political participation.

Cecelia Ridgeway suggests implicit bias may be a central cause for the stalled gender revolution:  despite the massive improvements for women in wealthy countries during the 20th century the progress stalled around 1990.  On the major markers of social status (income, wealth, and political participation as I recall), we are still where we were 22 years ago!

While Ridgeway argues we cannot directly affect our cognitive biases, given their deep and unconscious operation, we can certainly affect their impact on our discourse, watch for it, and compensate.  We can revise our hiring and promotion practices, we can change more casual standards too perhaps, e.g. by making direct eye-contact with marginalized people.  That could be part of critical thinking too, and might aid its impact. Attention to micro-inequalities may be critical too in the sense of necessary to push beyond the stall, and psychology is helping us sort them out.  The stakes remain pretty high for women and minorities.

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(Another) Fallacies Infographic

Posted in Connections, Critical Thinking, Discussion, Fallacies, Teaching, tagged , , on April 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »

My but these things are popular. This one comes to us via yourlogicalfallacyis.com and is free to download in three sizes. The graphic is also downloadable as vector art for those saavy and motivated enough to want to work with the image some more. In terms of design I think I like this one the best of all those shared on RAIL so far. (You can see the others here and here.) It also avoids the tricky business of classification and therefore might be more useful for teaching purposes. Below is a (crummy) screenshot. The files available for download are much higher quality.

Who are those three chaps in the middle there?

It is interesting that the fallacies seem to be bubbling up as a meme in the culture at large like this. I wonder if it’s a sign of sorts that people have had enough of the shoddy, transparently shortsighted and self-interested discourse that has come to characterize so much of public life and are starting to crave discourse of a different kind–perhaps more rational, thoughtful, and careful.  That would be nice…and timely too.

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The Trouble with Experts

Posted in Connections, Critical Thinking, Discussion, tagged , , , on April 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Here’s a short documentary on appeal to expert authority, produced by the CBC.  I found it by way of Ben Goldacre’s secondary blog. If you don’t know about Goldacre or his work on calling out abusive and phony experts in the UK, you should. His blog Bad Science is highly recommended reading.

The documentary:

http://youtu.be/nW3wQdo3sg4

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R.I.P. Facts

Posted in Critical Thinking, Discussion, Humor, tagged , , , , on April 20, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Today there’s a lovely little piece by Rex W. Huppke in the Chicago Tribune on the life and death of facts.

That’s right, facts are dead.

A favorite quote from the obituary:

“It’s very depressing,” said Mary Poovey, a professor of English at New York University and author of A History of the Modern Fact. “I think the thing Americans ought to miss most about facts is the lack of agreement that there are facts. This means we will never reach consensus about anything. Tax policies, presidential candidates. We’ll never agree on anything.”

I often tell my students that to have critical discussions that aren’t aimed either at truth or at consensus is like having archery without targets. Nice to see I’m not the only one who will miss Facts (and probably duck more frequently) now that they’re gone.  Ah, but how did facts die, you ask?  Poovey again:

“There was an erosion of any kind of collective sense of what’s true or how you would go about verifying any truth claims,” Poovey said. “Opinion has become the new truth. And many people who already have opinions see in the ‘news’ an affirmation of the opinion they already had, and that confirms their opinion as fact.”

Of course, the article goes on to point out, many people won’t believe that facts are dead.  This makes them something like the people who think that Elvis is alive and walking among us, or that Tupac Shakur survived his 1996 shooting.  Jeez. As if being a philosophy prof wasn’t challenging enough already…

The op-ed is funny–but only in that way that makes you glance nervously around the room with a look in your eyes that says “We’re all laughing because this is preposterous, right? Right?”

I’d write more on this, but I think I just saw the flash of sequins out of the corner of my eye. I’m gonna go check it out. Just to be sure.

http://youtu.be/8iqyZep5eNQ

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Psychology, Emotion, and the Human Sciences

Posted in Announcements, Argumentation, Critical Thinking, Informal Logic, Rhetoric, Seminar/Workshop/Program Announcements, tagged , , , , , , on March 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The program for the University of Windsor symposium on Psychology, Emotion and the Human Sciences is now available at http://www.thehumansciences.com/programme/.  Registration should be available in a few days.

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