•  113
    A Review of THINK Critically by Peter Facione and Carol Ann Gittens (review)
    Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 28 (1): 46-53. 2013.
  •  79
    A Meta-Level Approach to the Problem of Defining ‘Critical Thinking’
    with Ralph H. Johnson
    Argumentation 29 (4): 417-430. 2015.
    The problem of defining ‘critical thinking’ needs a fresh approach. When one takes into consideration the sheer quantity of definitions and their obvious differences, an onlooker might be tempted to conclude that there is no inherent meaning to the term: that each author seems to consider that he or she is free to offer a definition that suits them. And, with a few exceptions, there has not been much discussion among proposers about the strength and weaknesses of the attempted definitions. There…Read more
  •  51
    Eating Flowers, Holding Hands
    Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 26 (3): 47-53. 2011.
    This paper is inspired by Anthony Weston’s “What if Teaching Went Wild?” (2004), in which he proposes a radical approach to environmental education, suggesting among other things a stress on “otherness.” Comparing Weston’s proposal to Richard Paul’s (1992) concept of the “strong sense” critical thinker, and to Trudy Govier’s (2010) rationale for her pedagogy of argument, I suggest that “going wild” in stand-alone critical thinking courses could provide a positive, unsettling push, helping studen…Read more
  •  33
    Critical thinking skills have associated critical thinking virtues, and the internal motivation to carefully examine an issue in an effort to reach a reasoned judgment, what I call the “willingness to inquire”, is the critical thinking virtue that stands behind all skilled and virtuous thinking that contributes to critical thinking. In this paper, I argue that the willingness to inquire is therefore a more primary critical thinking virtue than charity, open-mindedness, or valuing fallacious-free…Read more
  •  31
    There is a mounting case to be made for not teaching critical thinking. Given recent evidence suggesting that cognitive biases are intractable, that students who receive comprehensive, long term, explicit instruction for critical thinking “across the curriculum” reap negligible benefits, and meta-analyses that suggest only certain limited approaches to critical thinking instruction produce meaningful gains, this paper offers a critical challenge to teaching critical thinking, especially as a gen…Read more
  •  26
    Review of Stephen Brookfield‘s Teaching for Critical Thinking (review)
    Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 30 (2): 63-68. 2015.
    Stephen Brookfield offers a distinctive conceptualization of and approach to teaching critical thinking. In this review I highlight some major aspects of his approach, and critique his baseline conception. I conclude that, while evaluating assumptions is an important aspect of critical thinking, it is not as important as Brookfield maintains. Instructors of critical thinking should read his book, but they should remain skeptical of its major substantive theoretical commitments.
  •  12
    Review of Diane Halpern’s Thought and Knowledge, 5th Edition (review)
    Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 29 (2): 68-75. 2014.
  •  7
    Libri ad Nauseam: The Critical Thinking Textbook Glut
    Paideusis: Journal of the Canadian Philosophy of Education Society 21 (1): 39-48. 2013.
    Critical thinking instructors are faced with an overwhelming number of textbooks to choose from for their courses. Many of these texts do not reflect an awareness of current scholarship in critical thinking and informal logic. I argue that instructors should only adopt textbooks that reflect a sound theoretical understanding of the topic by acknowledging the central role of critical thinking dispositions, offering a more nuanced approach to the teaching of fallacies and of inference, stressing d…Read more