Download - Critical Thinking Beyond Skill

Educational Philosophy and Theory, Vol. 39, No. 6, 2007

doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2007.00311.x

© 2007 The AuthorsJournal compilation © 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia

Published by Blackwell Publishing, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA

Blackwell Publishing LtdOxford, UKEPATEducational Philosophy and Theory0013-1857© 2007 Philosophy of Education Society of AustralasiaxxxOriginal ArticleCritical Thinking Beyond SkillMarianna Papastephanou and Charoula Angeli

Critical Thinking Beyond Skill

M

arianna

P

apastephanou

& C

haroula

A

ngeli

Department of Education, University of Cyprus

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate possibilities for conceptions of critical thinking beyondthe established educational framework that emphasizes skills. Distancing ourselves from theolder rationalist framework, we explain that what we think wrong with the skills perspectiveis, amongst other things, its absolutization of performativity and outcomes. In reviewingthe relevant discourse, we accept that it is possible for the skills paradigm to be change-friendly and context-sensitive but we argue that it is oblivious to other, non-purposive kindsof rationality that are indispensable to critical thought. Our suggestion is that there is anaporetic element in critical thought that is missing from contemporary educational positions.We consider some other efforts to redeem the surplus of criticality that performativity failsto take into account and conclude that the aporetic element that we highlight accommodatesbetter than other theories do the significance of thematizing the taken-for-granted insteadof focusing on problem solving.

Keywords: effective thinking, Bailin, Hinchliffe, Halpern, aporetic,performativity, rationalism

Introduction

Critical thinking has engaged the attention of many educators in recent years,representing almost a kind of Promised Land: learners with critical minds will nolonger be passive vessels of knowledge, but they will become active performers ofsuccessful tasks. Education will then have achieved what has been its ultimate idealall along; that is, the right balance and reconciliation of theory and practice. Thus,a whole discourse of critical thinking has developed, generating at the same timedebates, polemics, conflicting theories, and varying experimental implementations(Angeli, 1999).

Theoretical underpinnings and sociocultural conditions had been such thatparticular premises of that discourse were elevated to paradigmatic certainties. Thelatter are not always compatible with one another. A Russellian conception ofknowledge as ‘justified true belief ’ (Russell, 1912, p. 130) differs in its implicationsand scope from a conception of knowledge as accumulated experience leading toproblem-solving, despite the fact that some of their assumptions may be shared incommon or may be overlapping. The former grounds a notion of critical thinking—


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and concomitant educational priorities—that reflect the entrenched idea(l)s of abroadly understood rationalist tradition. The latter conception of knowledgegrounds a notion of critical thinking that is more concretely oriented to effectivenessand performativity, and reflects a technicist ideal (Papastephanou, 2004).

In this article we shall argue for a conception of critical thinking that is equidis-tant from both paradigms, i.e. the rationalist and the technicist, for reasons thatwill become clearer as we proceed. However, first we shall explain briefly how theseparadigms differ and how we view their difference. Contrast, for instance, Ennis’famous definition of critical thinking as ‘reasonable reflective thinking that isfocused on deciding what to believe or do’ (cf. Smith, 2001, p. 349) with a definitionof critical thinking as the successful use of skills. In Halpern’s terms,

critical thinking is the use of those cognitive skills or strategies thatincrease the probability of a desirable outcome. It is used to describethinking that is purposeful, reasoned, and goal directed—the kind ofthinking involved in solving problems, formulating inferences, calculatinglikelihoods, and making decisions, when the thinker is using skills that arethoughtful and effective for the particular context and type of thinkingtask. (Halpern, 2003, p. 6)

In our opinion, regardless of their affinities, these two sets of paradigmatic certain-ties should be treated as two different discourses surrounding critical thinking, soas to overcome many current confusions in critical thinking conceptual analysis.Without being the only ones, rationalist and technicist discourses have neverthelessoffered the dominant ‘vocabularies’ (in Rorty’s sense) in critical thinking debates.What is noticeable, however, is that the technicist discourse that frames a skillingperspective in critical thinking has been attracting growing attention. The rationalisttradition appears to give way under the pressure of the growing association ofcritical thinking with skills, tasks and their effective coupling. From the assumptionof an objective rationality leading pupils to firm beliefs in the light of evidence andargument, education moves to the assumption of a goal-oriented, purposive ration-ality (Papastephanou, 2004, p. 373).

To anticipate the deployment of our own position in the debate, as it will becomeapparent below, and explain our uneven treatment of the two paradigms here, letus make some associations with Habermas’ and Apel’s distinctions of rationality.The main underpinnings of the rationalist approach to critical thinking resemblewhat Apel describes as formal and objectifying

logos

(Apel, 1998, p. 119) to whichhe counterposes a much wider

logos

, a communicative rationality as rendered byHabermas and Apel himself. The rationalist perspective assumes the highest criticaldistance from emotions, context and prejudice and almost no distance at all fromwhat it perceives as universally valid criteriology. The latest skills perspective rein-states situatedness and appropriates it only for the sake of optimizing outcomes. Itreflects the strategic rationality that Habermas and Apel connect with systemicimperatives and hold responsible for the growing colonization of the lifeworld bymoney, power and the objective of success. Following such a means-ends rationality,the skills perspective identifies uncritically with the criteriology of the sociopolitical

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Marianna Papastephanou and Charoula Angeli


system since it focuses so much on successful performance (Papastephanou, 2004,p. 373).

Since most research and critical thinking teaching programs have focused on the

cultivation of critical thinking skills

, we deem more appropriate here to explain ourown position against the backdrop created by the fact that the ‘development ofskills’ has become common place in everyday educational vocabulary and practice.

However, there have recently been some new tendencies in critical thinkingdiscourse preparing the ground for a paradigm shift. For Alston (2001), the skillingperspective seems no longer adequate or unproblematic and for Blake, Smeyers,Smith and Standish (1998), there is a dangerous dependency of the skills paradigmon instrumental reason. For Peters (2005), the actuarial rationality diagnosed incontemporary education leads to the production of prudentialized minds andentrepreneurial selves. Siding with this new wave of theories and through a quali-fied welcome of Habermas’ and Apel’s conception of communicative rationality, weshall present what we call ‘the skills paradigm’ and explain why we consider itinsufficient to cover the whole ground of what is critical about critical thinking.Then, we shall examine the possibility of a new paradigm that will acknowledgethe significance of the development of skills, but will go beyond it in order toretrieve what belongs to the critical province but has so far been missing from thecorresponding discourse. Finally, we shall conclude with suggestions about practicaleducational implications of the new account.

Although the rationalist and the skilling perspective are far more nuanced thancan be presented in an article and although there have been attempts to cross thedivide leading to standpoints that initiate new approaches, we believe that ourposition is different from both the established approaches and those challengingthem. The attempt to recuperate the significance of feelings against the binaryopposition that gave priority to reason over them has generated an emphasis ondispositions or/and contexts. While this is an important step, we argue that dispo-sitions to critique the means for achieving a goal do not drive us automatically tocritiquing the ends. Similarly, sensitivity to context may guarantee a more refinedand thoughtful application of criteria or a better and more appropriate selection ofthem but it does not lead us directly to critiquing the system that frames our goals.In our opinion, what such reformulations miss is the need of a prior commitmentto an aporetic stance toward the ‘big picture’ of which our acts and ideas are buta small part. As we shall explain, only such a commitment can combat phenomenaof ‘trivialization’ (Masschelein, 2004) and ‘domestication’ of critique.

Critical Thinking and the Skills Paradigm

Gleanings from the relevant bibliography reveal the extent to which critical think-ing has been coupled with skills. As Kalman writes, ‘a working definition of criticalthinking has been given as “the use of those skills or strategies that increase theprobability of a desirable outcome. It is used to describe thinking that is purposeful,reasoned, and goal directed”’ (Kalman, 2002, p. 84). Skills, strategies, outcomes andpurposive action (Habermas, 1989) may seem self-evident cornerstones of objective


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and universal rationality, but, in fact, they are concepts that belong to a veryspecific and situated language game. It is the language game of what, in Haberma-sian terms, is called ‘purposive’ and more specifically ‘strategic’ rationality (ibid.;see also Papastephanou, 1999) and it is situated rather than universal, because itis a socio-historical projection of particular Occidental values and priorities. Itmakes sense and acquires social currency only along with other paradigmaticassumptions about what counts as good life and successful action in a Westerncultural setting. It reflects a technicism (Smith, 1999) that has been charged withtoo much instrumentality, and contested not only by rival non-Western worldviewsbut also by alternative Occidental philosophical traditions (Papastephanou, 2001).

On a Frankfurt School Critical Theory account, purposive rationality (in itsinstrumental but even more in its strategic mode) leads ultimately to an uncriticaland complacent proclamation of performativity a universal and ahistorical value.For Adorno and Horkheimer, the self-mythologizing tyranny of instrumentalrationality is responsible for most of Western societal dysfunctions and pathologies—one of which being the very lack of critical edge in Western self-understanding (seePapastephanou, 2000). Similar condemnations of purposive rationality are encoun-tered in many continental philosophical trends of thought, the most recent of whichdetect also much ethnocentrism in the glorification of effectiveness, outcomes, andperformance.

The paradigm that has been consolidated around these notions is suspect fromthe start, if one turns to non-technicist accounts of what ‘critical’ should mean.But before we proceed with that, let us first see to what degree the notion of skillis determined by purposive rationality too. According to Gerald Smith, ‘a skill isan ability to do something well, to competently perform certain tasks. Skills extendnormal human capacities by means of the training and experience involved in theiracquisition’. And further, ‘skills typically consist, in part, of methods and strategiesthat have been incorporated into a

performance routine

. But, the process or activityside of a skill is necessarily complemented by a content side—what the skill workswith or on’ (emphasis added) (Smith, 2002, p. 208).

This mechanistic association of critical thinking and skills has a third componentthat is defined equally purposively in terms of performativity. Critical thinking assuccessful employment of skills is exercised on particular

tasks

: ‘thinking skills areused in the performance of thinking tasks, tasks requiring a considerable mentalcontribution for their performance’ (ibid., p. 209). Quite often, the mentalist andtechnicist spirit of the above definitions (which, in effect, are emblematic of a muchwider educational consensus) is mistakenly charged with rigidity, i.e. resistance toinnovation, and decontextualization. In this way, the real weakness of that spirit isunwittingly glossed over, and its lack of genuine critical import obscured.

Thus, we accept that it is possible for the skills paradigm to be change-friendlyand context-sensitive but we argue that it is oblivious to other, non-purposive kindsof rationality that are indispensable to critical thought. Consider, for instance, thefollowing statements. Kalman’s view that ‘students require critical thinking skills togo beyond the simple assimilation of their experiences into their own models andinstead undergo conceptual change’ (Kalman, 2002, p. 84), asserts an association

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of critical thinking with cognitive skills and habits of inquiry that constitute aspringboard for any innovation. Likewise, Smith’s view that ‘thinking skills must beexercised with judgment and understanding, and with sensitivity to context’(Smith, 2002, p. 210) accommodates concerns regarding situatedness. But, whatthis skilling framework misses is the crucial role that goal-revision plays for criticalthinking as such. Its goal-oriented, purposive rationality focuses so much on suc-cessful performance that inevitably remains silent about pupils’ ability to critiquethe task itself, and take a reflective distance from their own involvement in it.

For example, when Halpern defines critical thinking as ‘using skills and strategiesthat will make “desirable outcomes” more likely’ (Halpern, 2003, p. 7), she addsthat ‘decisions as to which outcomes should be desirable are embedded in a systemof values’, and leaves it at that. Apart from a sense of unease that this inadequatelyunpacked point conveys, the shift from the normativity of the definition to thedescriptiveness of this point betrays a positivist confinement of critical thinking toevaluation of thinking processes and achievement of desired outcomes. However,critical thinker cannot just be the one who carries out an action successfully, butchiefly one who considers and, when necessary, questions the appropriateness ormoral relevance of the action as such. In other words, it is the very ‘system ofvalues’ in which the decisions as to the desirability of outcomes are embedded thatshould be placed under scrutiny by the critical self in all spheres of action, theprivate, the professional, and the public.

Now, in Smith’s words, ‘a thinking skill is a teachable, consciously controlled,partially proceduralised, mental activity that extends normal cognitive capabilitiesin the performance of certain tasks’ (Smith, 2002, p. 211). If applied to a specificdomain, e.g. the army industry, this entails more or less that an employee is acritical thinker when she performs successfully the undertaken tasks and perhapsaccomplishes modifications that will refine the tasks and effect a better outcome(e.g. a ‘smart’ bomb). Other considerations, remaining outside the task itself, butcrucial for the lifeworld and the responsibility the employee has as citizen, or evenconsiderations of moral duties to humanity and the environment, appear to beoutside the scope of this kind of critical thinking.

Similar textual evidence is encountered in Halpern’s (2003, pp. 2–3) elaborationon the need for critical thinking skills. If we attempt to narrow this elaborationdown to the main points, we see that first in the row is the importance of criticalthinking for a better-equipped workforce in the age of knowledge economy. Anotherreason for critical thinking, always according to Halpern, is the information explosion.‘Relevant, credible information has to be selected, interpreted, digested, evaluated,learned, and applied’ (p. 2). The third argument for the importance of criticalthinking appears less attached to performativity as it raises concerns about envi-ronmental damage. ‘For the first time in history, we have the ability to destroy alllife on earth’ (p. 3). Yet, again, the critical thinking that this situation necessitatesis inspired by an anthropocentric rationale. ‘The decisions that we make as indi-viduals and as a society regarding the economy, conservation of natural resources,and the development of nuclear weapons will affect future generations of all peoplearound the world’ (ibid.). After all, to pursue goals and be productive one needs


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first to be alive and sufficiently healthy! Post-Fordist technicist educational idealshave realized this by now and moderate their commitment to performativity accord-ingly. What they find unnecessary to ponder, however, is whether an environmentaldamage that affects other biota and not human generations is permissible. Con-versely, they fail to inform us on whether financial moves that cause no materialdestruction, but affect detrimentally human rights and relations globally, pass thetest of critical thinking or not. The fourth and final argument explaining, according toHalpern, the need for critical thinking relates to the role of the citizen as chooser:

We are called upon to make decisions on a wide range of important localand personal topics. For example, in a recent election, voters had todecide if they favored or opposed an increase in property taxes … .Consumers need to decide if irradiated foods pose a health risk [on whatgrounds could they possibly decide?—M.P. & C.A.] … and whetherhealth plans that allow you to choose your physician are preferable toplans that do not. Because every citizen is required to make countlessimportant decisions, it may seem obvious that, as a society, we should beconcerned with the way these decisions are made. (ibid.)

This passage manifests a technicist spirit both in what it states and what it overlooks.The Occidental ideal of performativity becomes clear by the fact that issues ofcitizenship listed by Halpern are relevant to the roles of the customer of the state,and consumer of services and goods, and not to the active participant in a possibletransformation of the public sphere. The individualism that is reflected in the skillingperspective is evident here too, as the ‘citizen’ in all examples is the ‘interested’average bourgeois subject in the position of the chooser (and perhaps critic) ofanything except the values and attitudes that determine goals. There is no referenceto the Other within the society, no sensitivity to the politics of difference in settingsthat are by now generally globalized and multicultural. And the silence aboutdecisions that concern not personal and local, but international topics (e.g. consideringthe role of the UN, taking a position as to the justifiability of a war etc.) is very tellingregarding the ethnocentrism with which purposive rationality is often charged.

If skills ‘are developed to help people achieve their goals’ (Smith, 2002, p. 210)and critical thinking is the effective use of skills, then critical thinking is confinedto a rationality that is oriented to success. According to Habermas, there is ahigher-order rationality oriented to mutual understanding and guiding opinion- andwill- formative dialogue. Habermas terms this rationality ‘communicative,’ and, bygiving it priority, he emphasizes the reforming effect that communication has onhuman relations and actions, especially those critical modes of communication thatlead to self-analysis and critique of ideology (Papastephanou, 1999, pp. 422–423).The implication of this primacy of communicative rationality for our topic is thatgoals are not there simply to be achieved or approximated, but first and foremostto be checked in introspection, but more appropriately in deliberation. Criticalthinking and its teaching cannot be solely concerned with the achievement of goals,but with the ability to think over and argue for or against their meaningfulness ormoral pertinence.

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Now let us critically approach Smith’s following remark about the discourse ofcritical thinking.

Critical thinking is either a form of problem solving, a part of problemsolving, or should include problem solving. It can’t be distinguished fromcreative thinking and is part of effective decision making. While reasoningis broader than

critical thinking, the latter is either a dimension of rationality

or is coextensive with rationality, depending on whose view is accepted.(emphasis added) (Smith, 2001, p. 350)

We take issue with the idea of critical thinking as a form of problem solving andpart of effective decision making and then as being just one dimension of ration-ality, because such an idea limits critical thinking to purposive rationality. Or, ifone takes the second option, that is, that critical thinking (understood as relatedto problem solving) is coextensive with rationality, then, by implication, rationalityis reduced to purposiveness/strategy (e.g. games theory). Following Habermas(1998) and Apel (1998) instead, we claim that communicative reason, i.e. reasonoriented to mutual understanding has priority over reason oriented to successfulaction.

Moreover, rationality is, arguably, an attribute that people as reflective subjectsgive to thinking. In this sense, rationality (as a whole or in its dimensions) is acategorization, not a substantive category of thinking as such with extra-culturalor extra-linguistic existence or objectivity. Habermas (1998) and Apel’s (1998)accommodation of the notion of fallibilism in their discourse theory aims preciselyto do justice to this nominalist condition. The rationality of a mode of thinking isnot something necessarily intrinsic to it, but the result of a characterization wemake according to criteria of what counts as rational, criteria that vary in virtue ofcontext and cultural values. In a society where strategic rationality is hegemonic,giving up one’s privileges for the sake of a needy may be judged at best as an actof saintliness, and at worst as an act of imprudence and carelessness. From areasoning perspective, this act would not be considered as the outcome of criticalthinking and perhaps not of thinking at all, since it would be viewed as emanatingfrom feelings separated from reason. In a society where strategic rationality wouldbe considered derivative and limited, or in a Kantian universe of moral duty beingthe supreme expression of rational choice, the very same act would appear as theutmost exercise of critical thinking and manifestation of communicative rationality.

What most discourse about skill deals with is what Smith views as effectivethinking rather than critical thinking. The skills paradigm promotes a conceptualframework that informs in a comprehensive manner a kind of specialized (and inthis sense ‘higher order’) thinking that is indispensable to the dominant socio-economic system, but hardly identifiable with critical vision. For, if effective think-ing is ‘the mental processing engaged in by someone who is trying to think aboutsomething to some purpose’ (Smith, 2001, p. 350), critical thinking is principallythe scrutiny of the purpose. And we argue that critical thinking has a temporal,logical, and educational priority over effectiveness for the following reasons. Priorto committing oneself to a certain purpose and undertaking a particular task, one


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does, and should, examine the commitment as such. S/he must do so from anexistential point of view, i.e. what this commitment means to her/his life as a lifechoice, but also from a moral point of view, i.e. what would such commitmententail for the surrounding world and the self. Educationally, it is more importantto empower pupils by encouraging them to become reflective subjects rather thansimply equip them with skills for successful process-following or decision-making.

In fact, the means-ends rationality that determines effective thinking as an edu-cational ideal is inappropriate for critical thinking; hence, many problems regardingthe theorization and teaching of critical thinking may prove to derive from con-fusions of these two ideals.

1

For instance, the outcome of a course that is outlinedto serve critical thinking should not be assessed (if it is conventionally measurableat all) in ways that pertain to the skills paradigm. Non-measurability and resistanceto assessment does not entail less educational importance or even expendability.

A good example explaining why this is so can be drawn from teaching citizenship.This new addition to the British national curriculum is defined in ways that go muchfurther than measurable political literacy, and aim to combat racism, cultivatedemocratic feelings and communal spirit, and prepare the pupils for their life in amulticultural society. It has been argued that these educational objectives displayconsiderable resistance to standard assessment techniques, but that does not hindertheir being more valuable than mere proficiency in political terminology (Gearon,2003).

Those qualities that are left out in the skills paradigm may not be directlyteachable, but can be enhanced and heightened by specific teaching environmentsand techniques, e.g. pedagogical strategies that disclose to students how poweroperates in textuality. Endres refers to such a case in his discussion of criticalliteracy (Endres, 2001). He mentions Lankshear’s sample critical reading exerciseof a newspaper article about famine in Somalia—an exercise that made the studentsmore perceptive of subtle mechanisms of public opinion formation and more ableto view information from a reflective distance. In Endres’ words, ‘while the articleseems to present a sympathetic portrayal of famine, Lankshear suggests that itslarger political context is concealed, leaving the noncritical reader with an incom-plete and distorted understanding’ (Endres, 2001, p. 406). This example involvesnot only the planes of declarative and procedural knowledge but also the plane ofcritical profundity, what we call an ‘aporetic’ (i.e. question raising) stance towardknowledge or the cultural material that shapes peoples subjectivities. This aporeticdimension represents a surplus of the notion of the critical that escapes the atten-tion of the ‘skills paradigm’ supporters when the latter take ‘critical’ to be solelythe successful application of criteria or evaluation on the grounds of establishedcriteria. For Halpern, ‘the “critical” part of critical thinking denotes an evaluationcomponent’ (2003, p. 7) but for us it denotes something more: a problematizationcomponent, a profound consideration of the very standards we employ when weevaluate means, set our ends, and serve our commitments to values prior to ourundertakings. To choose the ‘right’ path for solving a problem is one thing, toapproach criteriology meta-selectively, so to speak, is quite another. In Benn’swords, quoted by Bramall (2000, p. 202) ‘to be a chooser is not enough for

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autonomy, for a competent chooser may still be a slave to convention, choosing bystandards he has accepted quite uncritically from his milieu’.

Problematization derives from an aporetic dimension of thinking that thematizeswhat is usually taken for granted in a social context. To be critical is not simply,or solely, to evaluate means or decisions but to question—not necessarily in anegative or dismissive sense—consolidated criteria, practices and idea(l)s. It is alsoto bring hidden aspects to the fore, to accommodate reflectively the new and theunknown (Lyotard). To be critical means first and foremost to be imaginative ofalternative realities and thoughtful about their possible value or non-value. In ouropinion, the aporetic dimension in its inexorable claim to revise reality as well asreality’s ossified meanings makes a huge difference between critical and effectivethinking.

Many contentions about generic, or domain specific, critical thinking could beresolved by distinguishing between critical and effective thinking. As we do nothave the space here to elaborate on that, suffice it to suggest for further researchthat qualities and dispositions pertaining to critical thinking may be categorizedas generic, whereas skills belonging to effective thinking may be chiefly domainspecific and less transferable. Yet, even the latter thinking could be critically sub-ordinated to the former, since some generic qualities are presupposed as they offerto students and adults those critical touchstones for judging the worth of domainspecific means and ends. Domain specific thinking, critical or effective, has toanswer implicitly or explicitly an initial question by setting the goals of the specifictask: what for?

For instance, effective thinking applied to one of our previous cases, inventingand manufacturing a clever bomb (focusing on the possibility of such a product),should be submitted to critical thinking scrutiny for deciding on whether, or forwhat purposes effectiveness should be exercised (focusing on necessity or utility).That venture is more generic and concerns (a) political, existential, and moralchoice rather than mere (b) argumentative or performative ability. An effectivethinker satisfying condition b (performance skills) is not necessarily, or auto-matically, a critical thinker with regard to condition a (reflective and responsiblechoice). But condition a is more important than b and more worth cultivating inschools, even if its imparting is didactically somewhat elusive and its acquisitionnot directly testable. Why is it educationally more important? This takes a longanswer that cannot be given within the space of this article and a short answerstating that, in our globalized world and education, problems and pathologiesaffecting societies and the environment do not seem to emanate from low perfor-mativity. They stem rather from the exaggerated commitment to performativity(Blake, Smeyers, Smith & Standish, 1998), the uncritical neglect of morality (Bagnall,2002), and the colonization of the lifeworld by the systems of money and power(Habermas, 1989).

To summarize, the paradigm of effectiveness is very problematic and cannotaccommodate a more comprehensive notion of critique, for it sees thinking as‘shaped by our basic cognitive capacities and by the thinking tasks to which theseare applied’ (Smith, 2002, p. 218). This subject (cognitive capacities)—object


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(thinking tasks) model of theorizing thinking leaves out the formative and informa-tive role that worldviews and other hermeneutic materials play in framing thought.By doing so, it confines the province of the ‘critical’ to the exercise of mentalcapacities and the appropriateness of tasks. Thus, it overlooks the fact that someof the most creative and innovative moments in the history of ideas were borne out ofa radical critique of dominant discourses and the cultural fabric of mental faculties.

Despite its claiming objectivity, the paradigm of effectiveness is biased right fromthe start, i.e. from its basic assumption that critical thinking is reducible to a small(or large) set of skills. It takes a particular mode of rationality, purposive and/orstrategic, and elevates it to a universal normative standard and, in turn, to aneducational ideal. Therefore, its tension with what we consider critical thinking isnot due to a supposed adherence of effective thinking to context, as if criticalthinking were context insensitive or abstract. Both kinds may equally be contextspecific and their interplay may appear in certain cases indispensable. But criticalproneness should be able to take a reflective distance from the system that framesmeans and ends (irrespectively of context or in all contexts) not necessarily oralways to discard or combat it but to evaluate it with regard to its own assumptionsand to consider alternatives. Effective thinking cannot exactly operate in this waybecause it is by definition committed to effects—which means that its immersionin the system is pre-given since effectiveness is the very imperative of the systemitself. The particularity of the system that frames the discourse of skills is that, justas the western socioeconomic system and cultural milieu do, it also

reduces

reasonto purposive rationality.

Effective thinking as a proneness to find the optimal means for achieving thedesired ends is an important element of human existence (and in no way peculiarto the West, for sure). But the exaggeration and hegemony of effectiveness con-stitutes an absolutization and universalization of the specific western context andan effacement of complementary or alternative spaces. Critical thinking acknowledgesthe potentiality and actuality of different spaces where human endeavour can takeplace and traverses them. In simpler words, critical thinking can be directed at thesystem itself and the niche the latter has curved in western educational thought.

Thus, we do not assume a separation of means and ends in any rigid way thatwould form a binarism but we aspire to draw critical attention to the enshrinedideals that underlie the complex interplay of means and ends in the frame ofperformativity. Hence we argue that critique is more about the problematization ofthe taken for granted rather than about the means for solving problematic situa-tions or impasses within the system. For, in the end, autonomy, reflection andmeta-cognition, all seem to serve effectiveness rather than check the excessive andobsessive commitment to it (Papastephanou, 2004). According to Masschelein,autonomy, emancipation and meta-cognition are taken to be goals among manypursued by the system for the optimization of its own function and are expectedfrom all people. They are the ‘absolute necessity’ for the survival of the system andthey can no longer be brought to bear against the existing social order and powerbut have become part of that order and power (2004). As Masschelein rightlyconcludes, this leads to a trivialization of critique.

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Toward a New Paradigm

In the previous section we argued that the skills paradigm:

• prioritizes purposive/strategic rationality,• neglects reason oriented to mutual understanding and its parameters (existential,

ethical, political),• focuses on the approximation or achievement of goals ousting questions of desirability

to a sphere of values that is separated from critical thinking as such,• identifies criticality with evaluation,• and wrongly identifies effective and critical thought.

In virtue of such a critique of the skills paradigm, we suggested that we characterizethe kind of thinking that pertains to this paradigm ‘effective’, and reserve the term‘critical’ for a more comprehensive kind of thinking that has a strong aporeticquality. It is the thinking that paves the path not only to successful action, butalso—or perhaps more—to unveiling power mechanisms and workings of heter-onomy in goal-setting as such. It is the thinking that goes beyond evaluation upona criterion and displays reflexivity as well as self-criticality ‘about its own natureand limits’ as Burbules rightly remarks in his response to Biesta’s critique ofFrankfurt School Critical Theory (Burbules, 1998).

Therefore, our objection to the skills model goes beyond those objections thatwe often encounter in bibliography and emanate from a motivational ground. Formany theorists, what appears missing in the skilling discourse is the due referenceto the willingness of a self to get involved in a critical thinking process and evaluateher means and steps rather than follow an established (although less effective)strategy. The idea of this criticism is that the cognitive sphere cannot operatewithout a harmonious play with the affective. This charge is often true and appli-cable to several accounts of critical thinking as the use of skills, but, in our opinion,it leaves the main problem untouched. What if one has the educationally acquiredcognitive ability as well as the concomitant dispositions and character qualities toachieve fully a task, but is so immersed in her lifeworld and its existential, political,and moral certainties that becomes unable to consider the ‘why’ of the task itself?The problem is not only that dispositions necessary for the willingness to performa task may be overlooked, or played down, by the skilling discourse. Even whendispositions are accommodated in the skills paradigm, the uncritical stance towardgoal-setting remains unaffected.

Thus, we agree with Alston when she characterizes current critical thinkingconceptions as flat and narrow and, like her, we stress the need to recuperatecritical thinking talk from the skilling perspective (Alston, 2001). In this section,we shall discuss two similar efforts that seem to transcend the rationalist versustechnicist binary opposition, and seek to reveal some other dimensions either ofcritical thinking itself or of the concept of skills. Such a discussion will facilitatethe deployment of our own intervention. Sharon Bailin considers the inadequaciesof existing conceptions of critical thinking and explores a way to go beyond the


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skill paradigm. She writes that ‘critical thinking is frequently conceptualized in termsof processes or skills. Much educational literature refers to cognitive or thinkingskills, and equates critical thinking with certain mental processes, or proceduralmoves, which can be improved through practice’ (Bailin, 2002, p. 362). She objectsto such theorizations of critical thinking, because she regards them as dependenton mechanistic and repetitive models of routine following. In her words, ‘simplycarrying out a set of procedures is not sufficient to ensure critical thinking, sinceany procedure can be carried out carelessly, superficially, or unreflectively—inother words, in an uncritical manner’ (p. 363).

Bailin detects many problems in the received view of critical thinking and rejectsits conceptualization in terms of skills, or processes, for a number of reasons. Forinstance, the procedural character of thought cannot be formulated in a standardizedand one-size-fits-all manner. ‘There does not seem to be any one set of procedureswhich is necessary for all critical thinking’ (p. 365). Moreover, discourses thatglorify skills and processes presuppose a truncated notion of knowledge. ‘Whencritical thinking is conceived of in terms of processes, then knowledge becomessimply the raw material that is processed’ (ibid.). But, as she makes clear, becom-ing proficient at critical thinking involves a far more complex picture of whatshould count as knowledge. Among other things, what is involved is ‘the acquisitionof certain kinds of knowledge, for example, knowledge of critical concepts such as“premise”, “conclusion”, “cause and effect”, “necessary and sufficient condition”;knowledge of methodological principles; and knowledge of the criteria for criticaljudgment’ (ibid.). Missing the differentiation of kinds of knowledge and their valueleads to a prioritization of knowledge as content over knowledge as form andframing of thought.

The skills paradigm operates on a descriptive dimension that Bailin contrasts tothe normative one that is, and ought to be, discernible in critical thinking. Thus,she suggests that ‘a justifiable conception of critical thinking must be explicitlynormative, focusing on the adherence to criteria and standards’ (p. 368). Onlythrough the acknowledgement of the normative quality of critical thinking can itscontextual nature be sufficiently highlighted.

Critical thinking always takes place in response to a particular task,question, problematic situation or challenge, including solving problems,evaluating theories, conducting inquiries, interpreting works, and engagingin creative task, and such challenges always arise in particular contexts.(ibid.)

Despite the significance of Bailin’s contribution and the further examination andappreciation that her position requires, we argue that the self-reflective and aporeticdimensions of critical thinking remain underdeveloped even within the frameworkof her approach. Transferred to the educational context, her argument implies thatthere should be ‘a pedagogical focus on the principles, concepts and criteria ofparticular modes of inquiry as they play a role in the making of reasoned judgmentsin real contexts’ (p. 370). In her description of the benefits of her account, wenotice that due emphasis is given to criteriology and the way the latter varies in

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ways that upset all attempts to pin it down procedurally and mechanically. But thedangers of convention are lurking within so long as there is no reference to a moreradical conception of critique. Proficiency at employing appropriate criteria eachtime betrays sensitivity to context and flexibility, but is hardly adequate for turningreflectively to the criteria themselves. Bailin’s position echoes some rationalist pre-judices that take the normative to be objective in a more solid sense than we wouldendorse. Some criteria are more appropriate than other in specific situations, butthat concerns, once again, their effectiveness and not necessarily their pertinence,moral, political, social or existential etc.

Criteriology is compelling due to its objective

qua

supra-individual character,since criteria and their relevance to a situation are ultimately judged by a communityof thinkers be it a lifeworld or a scientific community. Some criteria may appearto such a community as self-evident, axiomatic, universal, but whether they areindeed so is never, or rarely, conclusive. This is not a concession to relativism,because the latter draws completely different normative implications from theadmission that dialogue on criteria is open-ended. We take the Habermasian andApelian fallibilist position that subjects (in the role of the citizen or scientist)cannot be epistemologically contented with the social currency of an idea, andalways try to consider its validity, knowing however that no certainty is absolute,infallible, and beyond argumentative questioning. Quite often, social currency isdisguised as validity and dogmatism about the latter pays service to conventionrather than truth: history of science offers numerous examples of this. A rationalistposition that exaggerates the normativity of objectivity finds itself in a dangerousproximity to convention and dogma. For us, the corrective to this rationalist over-reliance to supra-individuality is not so much the contextual flexibility that Bailinemphasizes but the cultivation of the aporetic element in critical thought. Theaporetic urges the thinking subject to wonder not only about

problematic

situationsbut also about what is usually

taken for granted

, and to wander in alternative and asyet unexplored cognitive paths. Its commitment to the epistemologically legitimatingforce of criteriology wards off the danger of relativism, while its self-reflective turnto the criteria we employ to authorize our positions goes directly to the heart of humanaction, goal-setting as such. Bailin’s idea of normativity refines indubitably thesense in which criteria are important for thinking but cannot look behind criterio-logy itself, because it has not left much space to the issue of problematization. For,to problematize does not mean to engage in problem solving ventures, but to thinkand search critically precisely where there seems to be ‘no problem’ at all.

Another line of argument and effort to redeem the surplus of criticality thatperformativity fails to consider is made by Hinchliffe and concerns the notion ofskills. In his view, ‘the model of instrumental reason fails to engage with thecomplex nature of skills and performance. Most activities that involve skills involvesomething more than the exercise of mere technique, and, consequently, a suitabletheoretical framework is needed in which the conditions for the exercise of a skillcan be interpreted’ (Hinchliffe, 2002, p. 188). In his attempt to salvage the notion ofskill from the effectiveness context and rehabilitate it in a less positivist educationaloutlook, Hinchliffe discusses not only the received view of skills but also the


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corresponding attacks. As he writes, the position of Blake

et al.

is that ‘skills aredivorced from the ends of action and that the learning of a set of techniques doesnothing to settle the crucial question of what purposes the techniques are to servein the first place’ (ibid.). To Hinchliffe, those who critique skills in this fashion failto see that what is wrong is the framework not the problematic about skills as such.Thus, in their theorization of skills, dismissive critics remain in the logic of instru-mental rationality. He defends the possibility that new frameworks of skill place itin relation to agency and situational understanding incorporating thus the criticalstance to goal-setting. Whether his argument fully succeeds is crucial to us, as ourown position resembles that of Blake

et al.

Checking whether Hinchliffe’s skillstheorization is indeed immune to the charges above boils down to examiningwhether his notion of skills can exhaust the meaning of ‘critical’ in critical thinking.But first let us give a brief account of his position.

‘One way of defining a skill is in terms of a series of operations, capable of repetition,with an outcome that is measurable’ (p. 189). To him, this is a behaviourist andoperationalist definition of skills that assumes that the successful performance of askill can be assessed in a context-independent way. This is a misconception, and inexplaining why, Hinchliffe demonstrates how his argument ‘implies more than thepoint often emphasized that skills involve thought and reflection and so are “mindful”’.His argument is:

that skills are learnt in a context and are deployed in a context. Thecontext, or background, gives the skill its purpose or point. Thus,whether a skill is performed more or less well depends not only onwhether particular techniques have been mastered, but also on whetherthe particular context has been appropriately understood. It follows,therefore, that there are not necessarily straightforward, simple objectivecriteria for what counts as successful performance, since interpretationsof context may vary, and what counts as a successful performance in onecontext may not do so in another. (p. 190)

Like Bailin, Hinchliffe stresses the supposed weakness of the technicist conceptionof skills to display enough sensitivity to context. ‘Uncertainty, uniqueness andinstability are defining features of many of the situations confronted by practitioners,which means there is no single method/procedure that can standardly apply to aparticular situation’ (p. 193). Hence, it may be more fruitful ‘to think of the term“skill” in an inclusive way, ranging from techniques that can only be learnt throughrepeated and sustained practice to performances that are improvised and combinea range of techniques’ (p. 196). Despite our agreement on agency, its relation to skilland the importance of not leaving skills to those with a technicist or behaviouristagenda (p. 203), we believe that his approach does not spell out to a sufficientdegree the intrinsic value of the aporetic aspect of critical thinking. This aspectgoes beyond the notion of technique and considers the thematization of establishedcriteria of ends as the utmost manifestation of critical mentality.

Our idea is that critical thinking amounts to something more than a set ofgeneralized techniques (within a domain or in crossing domains) and inclinations

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to use them. True, Hinchliffe’s account comes closer to the issue of connectingcritique with ends of action, as he distances himself from the Aristotelian rigidconception of ends, and considers ends debatable and varying. But, he provides noaccount of how ends are judged, and how the agent should treat established criteriaof ends. It is imperative to reconsider the notion of skills and Hinchliffe’s work onthis task is valuable, but no matter how enriched the framework of skill may become,it will still be such as to bear a stronger connotational affinity to performance ratherthan problematization. A skill, after all, and in Hinchliffe’s account too, presupposesthat the goal for which it will be employed has been already judged by the agent,or is judged at the deployment of the skill, but is this judgment a matter of skill?We assume a negative answer to this question and argue thereby that there is asurplus of critical thinking that cannot be canalized in the skill talk. As a result,this surplus remains under-theorized in a language game that revolves around skills.

Conclusion

In our conclusion we draw implications for cultivating critical thinking in educa-tional settings. If the distinction between critical and effective thinking is valid, andthe former is more general than the latter in the sense that it determines a certainattitude to knowledge that goes beyond domain specific skilful performance, thenmuch educational critical thinking talk should be approached anew.

Consider, for instance, transferability and skills: Skills generating effective think-ing are interwoven with concrete tasks and that makes their transferability from onedomain to the other conditional on contextual parameters. But, on their own, skillsare not automatically transferable for one more reason. Their effective employmentin different contexts, or domains, involves the intervention of non-cognitive factorssuch as, e.g. feeling confident while performing the equivalent task, which cannotbe fully measured, or predicted, in teaching ‘critical’ thinking skills. But, othercritical thinking qualities and modalities relating to the aporetic are more trans-ferable by definition, since they concern all contexts of epistemological endeavour.For example, when cultivating awareness of power mechanisms operating in textualauthority, and vigilance regarding the ways by which they bias thought, a criticalthinking course does not impart concrete or perhaps measurable knowledge abouthow to perform a task. What it does, however, is to equip students with a criticalproneness that can be automatically transferred to all contexts of knowledge to theextent that they involve the authority of experts and their works. In this way, theubiquitous relevance of the aporetic element of critical thought acquires a directiveand corrective role in its interplay with thinking oriented to success and performativity.Likewise, effective thinking staves off the risk of a perpetuation of the aporeticmoment, a perpetuation that might render thinking inoperative and stagnant.

The acknowledgement of the complex interplay and complementarity of critiqueand effectiveness goes hand in hand with the prior assumption that the skillsparadigm, no matter how enlarged, cannot exhaust the meaning of critical thinkingsince the latter comprises conditions and conceptions that cannot be theorized interms of skills. Thus, in our opinion, the frequently raised issue of the utility and


619


learnability of critical thinking skills is already biased thinking, reflecting a commitmentto a rationale of performativity, measurability, and direct one-to-one appropriationof knowledge. A student attending, let us say, a critical thinking course designedto combat an unsuspecting stance to conventions and clichés may fail to carry outparticular tasks that aim to assess successful employment of skills. But, she maygrow to develop much more thoughtful views on private and public matters thanthose of many skilful scientists, and attain a kind of happiness and sense of directionthat her fellow students, who did not take the course may fail to attain. Such‘outcomes’ are not measurable, because they ultimately concern what peoplevalue in life, and educators may wish to refrain from evaluating values and pro-claiming critical thinker a subject that fails measurable tasks. Then again, is this notalready a tacit and selective commitment to values, those that sustain the ideal ofmeasurability?

When what we consider testable is belief and skill, especially the transferabilityof those to other domains, it is no wonder when we see no positive results ofgeneral critical thinking courses and, further, no determination to revise suchcourses on less measurable grounds. A successful course, to our mind, would bethe one that would generate in the students the feeling that something has changedpositively in the way they relate to their self, the world, and others. It would createin them a sense of growing and more importantly it would help them develop moreaporetic stances to life and knowledge.

Hence, apart from the critical and effective thinking that can be cultivated withinspecific domains of knowledge, we suggest that students be taught a general criticalthinking course. But, unlike existing such courses that draw didactic material fromwhat society has already thematized leaving entrenched ideals or ‘common sense’untouched, we imagine a course that itself thematizes the taken for granted. Sucha course would not necessarily rely on the authority of established trends ofthought, but it would take into consideration undercurrents of thought, ideas thathave not gained social currency. It would not do so in order to render the latterhegemonic in an act of substitution, but in order to redeem counterfactual pos-sibilities, i.e. passages that are culturally available but as yet unexplored. Counter-factuality amounts more or less to mining a train of thought that is rival to thedominant one, and points to alternative accounts of reality. It is crucial to criticalthinking, because it gives the means for an immanent critique of criteriology, i.e.critique from within the cultural material of the lifeworld itself.

Overall, neither is critical thinking only the use of skills nor are the skillsthemselves exhausted by the technicist definition. Theory and practice find theirreconciliation in the unity of reason achieved through its modes operating asmutual correctives. A more inclusive and multi-faceted conception of reason treatsreason as a ‘practice growing out of communicative interactions in which thefull play of human thought, feeling and motivation operates’ (Burbules, 1993).Educational theory serves this unity when it acknowledges the inexorable meaning-seeking quality of communicative reason that goes beyond purposiveness, distin-guishes between the mode of the critical and the mode of the effective, and adaptsits goals accordingly.

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Note

1. On critical thinking as an educational ideal see Harvey Siegel, 1991.

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