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There is no such thing as ‘critical thinking’

Most human beings think well enough, and students are no exception. They just need help to express it within academic conventions, says Stuart Wrigley

January 4, 2018
Stuart Wrigley
Heads with lightbulb brains (illustration)
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Like many university teachers, I have had numerous students asking me what critical thinking is, or how they can become better critical thinkers. We do workshops and lectures on this, and there is a healthy cottage industry in “teach yourself critical thinking” books. Still, in a recent survey at my institution, critical thinking came up as one of the top skills that students feel they struggle to acquire.

So we in learning development and academic skills must try harder. Or must we? As I struggled to satisfactorily answer the latest student to ask me what critical thinking was, I was suddenly minded to subject critical thinking to some…well, critical thinking. And it occurs to me that, perhaps, there is no such thing as critical thinking at all: that the concept is just a tautology.

It’s a tautology because, to my mind, thinking encapsulates being critical. Otherwise it’s not thinking. So, in a sense, you can’t teach critical thinking because it doesn’t really exist as a distinct entity.

Most sentient human beings think well enough, and our students are (mostly) no exception. They “think critically” all the time. Last term, I was standing in the queue at a college cafe (where an awful lot of my undercover ethnography is conducted), and I overheard a discussion between three newly arrived 18-year-olds on the best method of commuting to and from the nearby town. The conversation was, in effect, a cogent cost-benefit analysis of various possible forms of transport. Evidence was weighed against evidence, conclusions were drawn and a consensus was reached that the humble bicycle, would, all things considered, represent the most cost-effective form of conveyance over the longer term. Hurrah, I thought – here’s an informed exegesis to challenge our car-obsessed society: bring in the political advisers!

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If these students are doing such a good job of thinking “critically”, why do they feel the need to ask me what critical thinking is? Why do they need workshops and self-help books? I think the answer is that they struggle to express their critical thinking in accordance with academic conventions. In other words, they can walk the walk but not, alas, talk the talk. This is what we need to teach them, and it means paying explicit attention to writing at university, and being prepared to talk about that writing.

As is well attested in the pedagogical literature, talking ideas through and writing them down helps to foster clear and logical thinking. Writing is a powerful tool for developing sharp arguments. Yet, in the UK at least, it is woefully underused. Unlike in the US, little overt attention has been historically?dedicated to “teaching” writing; all too often, essays are written with little or no feedback between drafts, and with detailed comments given only when it is too late for students to act on them. This is both ironic and puzzling considering the sheer quantity of written work produced by the average degree student.

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When undergraduates start talking about their writing, they start thinking better, often with startling results. In my own work in one-to-one writing tutorials, I know that such discussions can lead to palpable improvements, not just in a student’s writing for a particular module or course, but in their longer-term effectiveness as learners. I make sure that the student leaves with a concrete sense of how they can improve their writing. And I like to think that they thereby leave as better thinkers.

So let’s consign the term “critical thinking” to the dustbin of buzzwords and focus instead on challenging students simply to think, by providing them with gripping content and teaching them the power of effective written and oral communication. This surely is something truly transformative that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Stuart Wrigley is a teaching fellow at Royal Holloway, University of London’s Centre for the Development of Academic Skills.

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Reader's comments (1)

#1 Submitted by Alex Gordon on November 13, 2019 - 8:50am
The Pedagogical Value of Critical thinking: 18 Theses for Meta-Critical Consideration 1. The argument condensed in these 18 theses on the pedagogical value of critical thinking is this: critical thinking can be instrumental in students developing from being in a heteronomous (subordinate) position as learners towards becoming active, independent, and relatively autonomous researchers. 2. In terms of their personal intellectual development, critical thinking helps students to bridge the gap between simply memorizing or passively accepting information (i.e., being heteronomous) and the greater challenge of being capable of critical analysis and synthesis (i.e. being autonomous). 3. Cognitively conceived, critical thinking aids in the intellectual development of the student through the appropriation of ‘thinking maps’ (cognitive schemata) which helps improve reasoning by asking key questions and using appropriate concepts of different types applied to the analysis, explanation, evaluation, and judgment of issues and problems. 4. Etymologically: As for the adjective ‘critical’ in the expression ‘critical thinking’: the word comes from a Greek word krinein, meaning ‘to separate’, ‘to choose’; it thus implies conscious, deliberate inquiry. Given this etymological derivation, forensic analysis is a necessary step in the process of critical – ultimately – judgmental inquiry. The latter in essence sums up the aim of an education in critical thinking. 5. Regarding operational rationality, critical thinking exemplifies the practice of reasoning in action its chief focus being how to analyze different kinds of arguments as they pertain to problems, issues and questions leading to the consequence of being able to come to informed judgments about them. 6. In a critical thinking context informal logic is not taught for its own sake but as a heuristic aid to help students make discoveries about their own argumentation and so to become more analytically aware of the strategies of argument used by different writers in composing different texts for different purposes. 7. Specifically, in that critical thinking deals with different patterns of reasoning and the standards which apply in different argumentative contexts, it gives students abundant practice in clarifying and interpreting ideas, and how to judge the credibility of claims, adjudicate between kinds of evidence, and appraise the conclusions that flow from premises in arguments. 8. The philosophical issue at stake running throughout these propositions is consideration of the aims of an education in critical thinking; but meritorious as the purpose of critical thinking promulgated in this theses appears, sociological realism is needed to appreciate the complexity of the field. 9. In the intellectual itinerary of critical thinking there have been four dispensations or problematics centered on (1) informal logic; (2) the liberal arts; (3) composition classes; and (4) a utilitarian conception of education. (1) Critical thinking qua informal logic emerged from questioning the usefulness of formal logic to understanding everyday reasoning. On this view informal logic has been viewed as being applicable to analyzing quotidian thinking with the emphasis on teaching the fallacies of ‘crooked’ thought. (2) Critical thinking as writing argumentative essays on composition courses – along with/after writing descriptive, classificatory, and narrative essays. (3) Critical thinking in a liberal arts context is seen as contributing to the development of the student as a whole person imbued with a liberal-humanist world outlook. The ratiocinative practice of informal logic is considered as contributing to shaping the student’s mind towards this assumed universalistic telos. These 18 theses are imbued with this viewpoint. (4) Utilitarian: In a world in which educational systems are faced with the imperative of being geared towards labor markets and economic growth, critical thinking is reduced to a skill set of argumentative devices useful in problem solving and decision making in the workplace – hence such programmatic titles as ‘Critical Thinking for Leadership/Professional Development’ along the lines of ESP, in this case critical thinking for special (job-oriented) purposes. 10. The intellectual history of critical thinking since the 1950s has been marked by these three problematics, but the emphasis in the current neoliberal economic situation is on the utilitarian approach. This being the case philosophical reflection on the aims of an education in critical thinking has to consider critically the uses and value of a functionalist-instrumentalist view of reason expressive, as it is, of the technocratic economism more or less ubiquitous worldwide. 11. The meta-critique of critical thinking cannot confine itself only to disputing aspects of the first three problematics considered above in thesis 9, namely those of informal logic and the liberal arts. What needs countering is the limiting of critical reasoning to a set of cognitive skills at the service of occupational roles that have little chance of actually being applied critically to call into question let alone change practices of the status quo in educational organizations and in the workplace. 12. A significant normatively-oriented aspect of an education in critical thinking is that it teaches students how to judge the credibility of prescriptive and proscriptive claims. Such an analytically-based evaluative skill is indubitably useful in the pragmatics of real-life arguing and debating about issues. 13. A curriculum that includes critical thinking as an indispensable component, then, implies an education in the principled critique of prejudice – of all biased, ideological positions passed off as supposed credible arguments, and also of misinformation and disinformation in the public sphere. 14. In Habermasian terms, these propositions argue that an education in critical thinking is oriented towards improving the ‘communicative rationality’ of students in their daily lives – beyond the academy – as active and reflective members of their society, whilst concomitantly being constitutive of their personal individuation process. 15. Ideally, an active education in critical thinking aids students in achieving autonomy, curiosity, reasonableness, creative openness, and making better, well informed life decisions. 16. An active (constitutive) education in critical thinking, attendant to the diversity in values and beliefs, teaches students to respond with cultural tolerance and sensitivity to alternative points of view and develop a solid intellective foundation for making personal choices about what to accept and what to reject on a principled, rational basis. 17. Existentially understood, critical thinking is instrumental in the student’s personal ratiocinative and ethical progress towards becoming a mature adult and responsible engaged citizen able to make better, well informed life decisions. 18. In sum: educationally, critical thinking is potentially constitutive of the individuation process of the student – of the personal intelligence and, indeed, of his/her reflective and/or active mental life and overall well-being.

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