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1. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 3
Frank Fair From the Editor’s Desk
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2. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 3
Dr. Ralph H. Johnson When Informal Logic Met Critical Thinking
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In this reflection piece, Ralph Johnson provides an account of the development of informal logic and how it intersected with the Critical Thinking Movement. Section I is an account of the origins of what Johnson calls the “Informal Logic Initiative.” Section II discusses how the Informal Logic Initiative connected with the Critical Thinking Movement at the Sonoma State University Conferences starting in 1981. Section III discusses the relationship between logic and critical thinking. Section IV describes “The Network Problem,” which emerged for Johnson in the mid-1980s – largely as a result of his experiences at critical thinking conferences, especially the Sonoma State conference. Section V expresses some concerns about the current status of critical thinking as an educational idea and about the Critical Thinking Movement.
3. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 3
Erratum
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4. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 3
Martin Davies Computer-Aided Argument Mapping and the Teaching of Critical Thinking: Part II
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Part I of this paper outlined the three standard approaches to the teaching of critical thinking: the normative (or philosophical), cognitive psychology, and educational taxonomy approaches. The paper contrasted these with the visualisation approach; in particular, computer-aided argument mapping (CAAM), and presented a detailed account of the CAAM methodology and a theoretical justification for its use. This part develops further support for CAAM. A case is made that CAAM improves critical thinking because it minimises the cognitive burden of prose and the demands that arguments in prose typically place on memory. CAAM also has greater usability, complements the imperfect human cognitive system, and adopts a logic of semi-formality which is both natural and intuitive. The paper claims that CAAM is an important advance given that traditional stand-alone critical thinking courses do not teach critical thinking as well as they as they are assumed to do. It is also important given that tertiary education fails to deliver improvements in critical thinking gains for too many students. The paper outlines results from a number of empirical studies that demonstrate that CAAM yields robust gains in critical thinking as measured by independent tests. Students themselves also believe CAAM to be beneficial as noted in coded responses to surveys. I conclude the paper by comparing the traditional approaches to the teaching of critical thinking to the visualisation approach. I argue that CAAM should taken seriously in the context of contemporary educational practices.
5. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 3
Kevin Possin The Myth of Conductive Arguments
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The topic of conductive arguments, as a separate category of reasoning, is experiencing a revival. In 2010, the University of Windsor’s Centre for Research in Reasoning, Argumentation, and Rhetoric dedicated a two-day symposium to the topic and recently published the proceedings. In this article, I argue against the existence of conductive arguments as a distinct type and argue against a popular analysis of the structure of conductive arguments.
6. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 3
Paul A. Wagner From Critical Thinking to Non-conclusive Argument and Back Again: A Review of Conductive Argument: An Overlooked Type of Defeasible Reasoning, Edited by J. Anthony Blair and Ralph H. Johnson
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7. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 3
Alhasan Allamnakhrah Critical Thinking Implementation by Lecturers at Two Secondary Pre-service Teacher Education Programs in Saudi Arabia
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Although there are differences among critical thinking (hereafter CT) theorists about aspects of critical thinking, there is consensus about its importance in education. Several Saudi scholars argue that there is a lack of CT among Saudi students at high school which is attributed to the lack of teacher knowledge and practice of CT. This qualitative case study based on Paul’s theoretical framework (1992) investigates the implementation of CT at two secondary preservice teacher education programs in Saudi Arabia. The results reveal that none of the lecturers taught CT, either explicitly or implicitly. While they all acknowledged the importance of CT, most maintained that they have never been instructed, advised or encouraged to teach CT. This study aims to build on the CT literature and address the gap in this literature in the Saudi context.
8. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Frank Fair From the Editor’s Desk
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9. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Mark Weinstein Critical Thinking from the Margins: A Personal Narrative
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A narrative review of a 35-year career in critical thinking reflecting an idiosyncratic approach to both practical and theoretical matters. The social as well as the intellectual context is described. Critical thinking across the disciplines and metamathematics are discussed as alternatives to more standard perspectives such as informal logic.
10. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Martin Davies Computer-Aided Mapping and the Teaching of Critical Thinking: Part I
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This paper is in two parts. Part I outlines three traditional approaches to the teaching of critical thinking: the normative, cognitive psychology, and educational approaches. Each of these approaches is discussed in relation to the influences of various methods of critical thinking instruction. The paper contrasts these approaches with what I call the “visualisation” approach. This approach is explained with reference to computer-aided argument mapping (CAAM) which uses dedicated computer software to represent inferences between premise and conclusions. The paper presents a detailed account of the CAAM methodology, and theoretical justification for its use, illustrating this with the argument mapping software Rationale™. A number of Rationale™ design conventions and logical principles are outlined including the principle of abstraction, the MECE principle, and the “Holding Hands” and “Rabbit Rule” heuristics. Part II of this paper outlines the growing empirical evidence for the effectiveness of CAAM as a method of teaching critical thinking.
11. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Maralee Harrell Assessing the Efficacy of Argument Diagramming to Teach Critical Thinking Skills in Introduction to Philosophy
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After determining one set of skills that we hoped our students were learning in the introductory philosophy class at Carnegie Mellon University, we performed an experiment twice over the course of two semesters to test whether they were actually learning these skills. In addition, there were four different lectures of this course in the first semester, and five in the second; in each semester students in some lectures were taught the material using argument diagrams as a tool to aid understanding and critical evaluation, while the other students were taught using more traditional methods. In each lecture, the students were given a pre-test at the beginning of the semester, and a structurally identical post-test at the end. We determined that the students did develop the skills in which we were interested over the course of the semester. We also determined that the students who were taught argument diagramming gained significantly more than the students who were not. We conclude that learning how to construct argument diagrams significantly improves a student’s ability to analyze arguments.
12. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Brenda Oyer, Mark Gillespie, Mohammed Issah, Daniel Fasko The Role of Personality in Argument Evaluation
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Argument evaluation, the ability to separate prior belief from evaluation of the quality of an argument, is an essential element of critical thinking. The present study examined the ability of three personality traits (dogmatism, openness to experience, and open-mindedness) to predict argument evaluation quality and belief bias. One hundred and twelve undergraduate students completed the Argument Evaluation Test (Stanovich & West, 1997), measures of Dogmatism, Open-Mindedness, Openness to Experience, and a Vocabulary test. Argument Evaluation Quality was negatively related to Dogmatism, and positively related to Openness to Experience and Vocabulary. Path analysis showed that, when controlling for Vocabulary, Dogmatism was the only personality variable that significantly (negatively) predicted Argument Evaluation Quality. None of the variables in our study were related to belief bias. Implications for future research and educational practice are discussed.
13. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Marc Carter Review of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
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14. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 2
Frank Zenker Review of Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
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15. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
Frank Fair From the Editor’s Desk
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16. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
Richard Paul Reflections on the Nature of Critical Thinking, Its History, Politics, and Barriers and on Its Status across the College/UniversityCurriculum Part II
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This is Part II of a reflection by Richard Paul on critical thinking, its theory and pedagogy, and on political and personal barriers to critical thinking education and practice. Part I of Paul’s reflection appeared in INQUIRY, Vol. 26 No. 3 (Fall 2011), pp. 5-24. In Part II Paul focuses on the concept of critical thinking, pointing out its unifying features as well as the many ways it can be contextualized in human thought and life. He lays out his basic critical thinking theory and offers critical thinking polarities for use in assessing critical thinking approaches. He provides an overview of the work of the Foundation for Critical Thinking in advancing fairminded critical thought in education and in society.
17. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
Ana Mª Nieto, Jorge Valenzuela A Study of the Internal Structure of Critical Thinking Dispositions
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The execution of critical thinking depends on a set of skills and dispositions. It is unanimously accepted that skills represent the cognitive component, but consensus varies with regard to dispositions. Although most theoreticians admit that this is a complex construct integrated by motivations and mental habits, they don’t explain further. We have performed a study attempting to explore the internal structure of dispositions. We suggest a possible hypothesis of “Motivational Genesis of Dispositions,” according to which disposition would be formed by motivation and by mental habits, although the contribution of each of these factors would change depending on the practice gained in critical thinking. Thus, when a person is not practised in critical thinking, motivation makes a greatercontribution than mental habits. Nevertheless, with practice and motivated exercise of the skills of critical thinking, the influence of these mental habits increases. The regression analyses carried out support such a hypothesis.
18. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
Collin Anderson, Scott Aiken, John Casey You Would Sing Another Tune: Subjunctive Tu Quoque Arguments
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A special version of arguments from hypocrisy, those known as tu quoque arguments, is introduced and developed. These are arguments from what one’s opponent would do, were conditions different, so they are what we call subjunctive tu quoque arguments. Arguments of this form are regularly taken to be fallacious, but the authors discuss conditions for determining when hypothetical inconsistency is genuinely relevant to criticizing a speaker’s assertion or proposed action and when it is not relevant.
19. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
Linda Carroza Review of Reason in the Balance: An Inquiry Approach to Critical Thinking by Sharon Bailin and Mark Battersby
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20. Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines: Volume > 27 > Issue: 1
Thomas Fischer, Ph.D. Review of Critical Thinking: Consider the Verdict (6th edition) by Bruce N. Waller
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