Postscript (on informal logic and critical thinking)
Chapters
Overview
Identity
Additional Document Info
View All
Overview
abstract
Informal logic is a newly self-conscious sub-discipline of philosophy that seeks to develop criteria, standards and procedures for the construction, identification, analysis, interpretation, evaluation and criticism of arguments. It is the philosophy of argument, or the philosophy of argumentation, and by extension the philosophy of reasoning. It overlaps with social epistemology and with applied epistemology, and is a significant part of philosophy, now recognized by the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Philosophiques (FISP) under the label ‘philosophy of argumentation’. An argument is a structure in which either one or more reasons are advanced for or against a claim or a conclusion is drawn from a set of premisses. A simple argument is a second-order illocutionary act in which one or more suppositives or assertives are adduced in support of or in opposition to an illocutionary act of any type. A complex argument is one built up from simpler arguments by chaining (when the conclusion of one argument is used as a premiss of another) or embedding (when one or more pieces of suppositional reasoning are adduced in support of a conclusion). Authors of arguments use them for various purposes. Critical thinking is a process of reflectively thinking about an issue with a view to reaching a reasoned judgment on what is to be believed or done. Education at all levels should aim to develop critical thinkers, i.e. people who think critically when it is appropriate to do so. The fundamental attitude of a critical thinker is a willingness to inquire, in fact a love of inquiry; derivatively, critical thinkers are fair-minded and open-minded, and they proportion the confidence they have in their beliefs to the strength of the evidence for them. The knowledge and skills required by a critical thinker come from formal logic, informal logic, cognitive psychology, epistemology, philosophy of science, statistics, and other disciplines. There is good evidence for the effectiveness of mixing explicit instruction in critical thinking with subject-matter instruction in a setting that includes student discussion, engagement with a problem, and coaching. This evidence is consistent with John Hattie’s recommendation of “visible teaching” and “visible learning” in which teachers see how well their teaching is coming across and learners see how well they are learning.
