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Is Critical Thinking Enough to Decide Questions Such as Those Posed in Enough? Applying a Schema of Critical Wisdom For Deciding the “Big Questions” Jim Fahey Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Department of Cognitive Science

3 Guess What? Most of you who are in this room tonight are taking a First Year Studies Course. What’s that?

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5 The Center of the Wheel … CRITICAL WISDOM –But formerly the center was Critical Thinking... –What gives?

6 How does critical wisdom relate to the more traditional critical thinking? Largely Uninformative Answer – Critical Wisdom is a form of thinking that employs standard critical thinking but goes beyond it. Both critical thinking and critical wisdom, however, refer to techniques that we employ in the purposive activity of problem solving. Moreover, because these problem solving activities greatly overlap, it is helpful to study critical thinking in an effort to become clear about critical wisdom.

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8 Critical Thinking (in the broad sense): What is it? Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction. –This is the title of the research report published in 1990 analyzing a two year research program conducted by Peter Facione, et. al. and sponsored by the American Philosophical Association. As outlined in his Critical Thinking: What It Is and Why It Counts this research was based on the discussions of a panel of 46 men and women from the USA and Canada, from many different scholarly disciplines, each of whom was a recognized authority on critical thinking.

9 Critical Thinking: What is it? This “46 experts” divided critical thinking into two classes of features: 1. Six Cognitive Skills: –Interpretation –Analysis –Inference –Evaluation –Explanation –Self-Regulation

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11 Critical Thinking : What is it? Interpretation – –Categorizing available information in a manner that is appropriate to the problem at issue; –Decoding the significance (or irrelevancy) of the information at hand; –Clarifying the meaning of the information presented. Analysis – –Examining ideas in an effort to make distinctions that will help to clarify the problem; –Identifying and Analyzing arguments that are employed in an effort to deal with the problem. What is the main argument? What assumptions are made?

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13 Critical Thinking: What is it? Evaluation – –Assessing claims – Is there good reason to believe that the assumptions made are true? … that the “expert knows his/her stuff? –Assessing arguments – Are the arguments cogent? Are they strong or weak? If appropriate, does the conclusion “follow from” the premises? That is, is the argument a valid deductive argument? Explanation – –Stating results in a connected fashion that ties the results to an appropriate process of inference. That is, giving appropriate arguments that reveal why the results are to be expected. –Justifying procedures that produce the information necessary to arrive at the end results.

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15 Critical Thinking: What is it? Self-Regulation – –Self examination – the self-referential employment of critical thinking in an effort to monitor one’s attempts to “think critically.” –Self correction – correct one’s mistaken CT attempts Inference – –Querying evidence – Does the information given really lend support to the stated conclusion? –Conjecturing alternatives – Might the information support an alternative conclusion equally well? –Drawing conclusions – What conclusions may I reasonably infer from the given information?

16 Critical Thinking: What is it? The “46 Experts’” 2 nd Class of Critical Thinking Features: 2. Seven Dispositional or “Action Traits:” –Inquisitive –Systematic –Open-Minded –Analytical –Judicious –Truth Seeking –Confident in Reasoning

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18 Is Critical Thinking All You Need to Become a “Good Thinker?”

19 A Famous Critical Thinker?

20 Beyond Critical Thinking: Critical Wisdom -- What Is It? At least some members of Rensselaer’s First Year Studies Program advocate that we add to the “Six Cognitive Skills” and “Seven Action Traits” of Critical Thinking the Six Wisdom Skills & Three Moral Action Traits of Critical Wisdom Six Wisdom Skills:

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22 Six Wisdom Skills Imagine & Consider Many Values-Feelings-Perspectives -- –A process of “wise problem solving” requires that one be able to imaginatively consider the problem from the standpoints of many of those who will be most greatly affected by the course of action that is chosen.

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24 Six Wisdom Skills Relate Local to Global, Immediate to Long-term -- –A process of “wise problem solving” requires that one consider not only the immediate and local affects of the solution chosen but also the “ripple effects” to which the solution might give rise.

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26 Six Wisdom Skills Engage in Critical Reflection Regarding One’s Own Values-Feelings-Perspectives – –A process of “wise problem solving” requires that one be willing to reflect on one’s own values-feelings-perspectives and, if necessary, change them in light of the evidence one acquires.

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28 Six Wisdom Skills Acknowledge the Imperfections of Both Self & Others -- –A process of “wise problem solving” requires that one understand that it is possible that “evidence” can lead both oneself and others astray and, moreover, that “new evidence” can controvert old. Thus a process of “wise problem solving” encourages a certain measure of humility and tolerance towards those with whom one disagrees -- not always, but in many instances.

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30 Six Wisdom Skills Prioritize What Is Important in Relating Self to Society, Environment & the World – –A process of “wise problem solving” requires that one comes to understand that since “problem solving does not take place in a vacuum,” the wise solutions to problems often have many effects -- some good some bad. Having a “wise prioritization” of these outcomes in mind is thus an important aspect of “wise problem solving.” Moreover, arriving at such a “wise prioritization” should be a matter of ‘wise problem solving” in its own right.

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32 Six Wisdom Skills Aim at Worthwhile Living -- –A process of “wise problem solving” always has as its ultimate aim that of “worthwhile living.” What does this come to? We analyze ‘worthwhile’ as implying that something is Being worth the time spent; of sufficient value to the effort -- (Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 5 th ed.) –Moreover, we require that if something is worthwhile, it is worthwhile in the best sense. That is, it is both “good for its consequences” and “good for its own sake.”

33 Three Moral Action Traits Wise problem solvers are disposed to act: Caringly: Empathetically: Morally

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35 Enough? Bill McKibben writes: –We need to do an unlikely thing: we need to survey the world we now inhabit and proclaim it good. Good enough. Not in every detail; there are a thousand improvements, technological and cultural, that we can and should still make. But good enough in its outlines, in its essentials. … Enough intelligence. Enough capability. Enough.

36 Enough? But what we have to decide is whether saying Enough is a Wise.