Just so!Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 10:13 am But I don't think it would be fruitful to pursue our disagreement.
You've been taken in as most of academia and intellectual world has been by post modernism and so-called, "critical theory." What you mean by, "critical thinking," is, "correct thinking," which evades gullibility and is objectively skeptical. That's not what is being promoted as, "Critical Thinking." The term is being used to put over the very kind of anti-objective ideological thinking you despise, emphasizing social values and sentiments over obejctive reason and evidence.Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Tue Mar 15, 2022 10:13 am (Critical thinking: 'Critical thinking is the analysis of available facts, evidence, observations, and arguments to form a judgment. The subject is complex; several different definitions exist, which generally include the rational, skeptical, and unbiased analysis or evaluation of factual evidence.' It's the only rational approach - and applied to invented things, such as concepts, it usually demolishes them.)
Have a look at the most influential source of material on critical thinking which almost every college, university, or educational organizations, government agency,and large corporations in the West relies on and refers to as, "the authority," when promoting or teaching critical thinking, the Foundation for Critical Thinking. The link is to their, "Defining Critical Thinking," page.
Near the beginning of their definition of critical thinking is this wonderful example:
These supposed authorities on critical thinking never once actually explain what thinking is but assure us there is thinking in science, math, history, anthropology, economics, morality (really?) and philosophy which are all different kinds of thinking. If you read the entire "definitions," you will also discover the words—logic, (although "logical" is now used twice), identity, identification, truth, true, false, incorrect, real, reality, mind, (though 'openmindedly' and 'fairmindedness' are used) consciousness, fact, facts, factual, contradict, contradiction, non-contradiction, order, objective, or subjective are never used in their definition of thinking—a feat that surpasses writing an article on chemistry without using the names of any elements or compounds.Critical thinking — in being responsive to variable subject matter, issues, and purposes — is incorporated in a family of interwoven modes of thinking, among them: scientific thinking, mathematical thinking, historical thinking, anthropological thinking, economic thinking, moral thinking, and philosophical thinking.
The real purpose of critical thinking is revealed here:
To suggest it is one's motives or attitude that determines whether one's thinking is correct or not is absurd. One can certainly reason correctly with all the wrong intentions, just as one can get everything wrong from the best of intentions. But it is not really the validity or reason critical thinking is about, it is a social/political agenda it is meant to put over.Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one’s own, or one's groups’, vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fairmindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of "idealism" by those habituated to its selfish use.
What has, "fairmindedness," (whatever that is) to do with correct reasoning. Appatently any reasoning that favors one's own interests is, "selfish," unless it is the interest of the critical thinking crowd, of course. Their object is made more explicit, however.
It is not thinking as you mean it the Critical Thinking movement is about. It is to put over a social political agenda, as they say on their, "Our Mission," page.People who think critically consistently attempt to live rationally, reasonably, empathically. ... They work diligently to develop the intellectual virtues of intellectual integrity, intellectual humility, intellectual civility, intellectual empathy, intellectual sense of justice ...
It does not occur to these idiots, societies do not think at all, critically or otherwise. Only individuals think.We seek to promote essential change in education and society through the cultivation of fairminded critical thinking.
Critical thinking is essential if we are to get to the root of our problems and develop reasonable solutions. ... Whereas society commonly promotes values laden with superficial, immediate "benefits," ...
"Critical thinking," sounds very good, and the question is how could anyone be opposed to thinking critically. No one could, if critical thinking really meant that, and I would be the first to celebrate it. It is in fact a subtle perversion of what true thinking is. There is a reason it is called "critical thinking" and not "correct thinking." Thinking critically is only part of correct thinking, a necessary part. It is that healthy skepticism that refuses to accept anything as true without evidence or reasoning they can understand from that evidence. It is protection from superstition and gullibility. But thinking critically is only part of correct thinking which can only eliminate wrong thinking and belief, but cannot establish correct thinking and knowledge. "Critical thinking," distorts the nature of thinking by substituting one part of thinking for all of thinking opening the door replace positive thinking with emotionalism and ideology.
You need to apply what you mean by critical thinking to what is being promote and put over in academia and other intellectual circles as, "critical thinking." Yours comes from sound reason, the other from the critical theory of the cultural Marxists of the Franklin School. [I am quite aware Dewey's influence, also, in the development of what's called critical thinking.]