A SUPER-STREAMLINED CONCEPTION OF CRITICAL THINKING (1) Robert H. Ennis, University of Illinois, UC -- 4/3/00
				Critical thinking, as the term is generally used these days, roughly means reasonable and reflective thinking focused on deciding what to believe or do. (2)   In doing such thinking, one is helped by the employment of a set of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that I shall outline, and that can serve as a set of comprehensive goals for a critical thinking curriculum and its assessment.  Pedagogical usefulness, not elegance or mutual exclusiveness, is the purpose of this outline.     It is only a critical thinking content outline.  It does not specify grade level, curriculum sequence, emphasis, teaching approach, or type of subject-matter content involved (standard subject-matter content, general knowledge content, symbolic content, streetwise-knowledge content, special knowledge content, etc.).     In presenting this brief and fairly abstract list of critical dispositions and abilities, I shall only attempt to depict, rather than defend, them.  The defense would require an extended treatment, but would follow two general paths: 1) examining the traditions of good thinking in existing successful disciplines of inquiry, and 2) seeing how we go wrong when we attempt to decide what to believe or do.  As you examine these dispositions and abilities, you might make a quick mental check to see whether they are likely in your view to pass these two tests.
					Dispositions Ideal critical thinkers are disposed to 1.  Care that their beliefs be true, (3)  and that their decisions be justified; that is, care to "get it right" to the extent possible.  This includes the dispositions to      a.  Seek alternative hypotheses, explanations, conclusions, plans, sources, etc., and be open to them      b.  Endorse a position to the extent that, but only to the extent that, it is justified by the information that is available      c.  Be well informed (4)      d.  Consider seriously other points of view than their own 2.  Care to present a position honestly and clearly, theirs as well as others'.  This includes the dispositions to      a.  Be clear about the intended meaning of what is said, written, or otherwise communicated, seeking as much precision as the situation requires      b.  Determine, and maintain focus on, the conclusion or question      c.  Seek and offer reasons      d.  Take into account the total situation      e.  Be reflectively aware of their own basic beliefs 3.  Care about the dignity and worth of every person (a correlative, (5)  as opposed to constitutive disposition). This includes the dispositions to      a.  Discover and listen to others' view and reasons      b.  Avoid intimidating or confusing others with their critical thinking prowess, taking into account others' feelings and level of understanding      c.  Be concerned about others' welfare Abilities Ideal critical thinkers have the ability to (The first five items involve clarification.) 1.  Identify the focus: the issue, question, or conclusion 2.  Analyze arguments 3.  Ask and answer questions of clarification and/or challenge 4.  Define terms, judge definitions, and deal with equivocation 5.  Identify unstated assumptions (The next two involve the basis for the decision.) 6.  Judge the credibility of a source 7.  Observe, and judge observation reports (The next three involve inference.) 8.  Deduce, and judge deduction 9.  Induce, and judge induction      a.  To generalizations      b.  To explanatory conclusions (including hypotheses) 10.  Make and judge value judgments (The next two involve supposition and integration.) 11.  Consider and reason from premises, reasons, assumptions, positions, and other propositions with which they disagree or about which they are in doubt -- without letting the disagreement or doubt interfere with their thinking ("suppositional thinking"); 12.  Integrate the other abilities and dispositions in making and defending a decision (The next three are auxiliary critical thinking abilities:  They, though very helpful in various ways, are not part of the constitutive core of critical thinking.) 13.  Proceed in an orderly manner appropriate to the situation, for example,      a.  Follow problem solving steps      b.  Monitor their own thinking (that is, engage in metacognition)      c.  Employ a reasonable critical thinking checklist 14.  Be sensitive to the feelings, level of knowledge, and degree of sophistication of others 15.  Employ appropriate rhetorical strategies in discussion and presentation (orally and in writing), including employing and reacting to "fallacy" labels (6)  in an appropriate manner Summary and Comment      The ideal critical thinker is disposed to try to "get it right", to present a position honestly and clearly, and to care about the worth and dignity of every person; furthermore the ideal critical thinker has the ability to clarify, to seek and judge well the basis for a view, to infer wisely from the basis, to imaginatively suppose and integrate, and to do these things with dispatch, sensitivity, and rhetorical skill.      If this conception of critical thinking is used to organize a separate critical thinking course or module, the definitional and assumption-identification abilities would probably come later than in the given order, because of their difficulty.  In any course, whether it be a separate critical thinking course or module, or one in which the critical thinking content is infused in or immersed in standard subject-matter content, or some mixture of these, all of the dispositions, the suppositional and integrational abilities (# 11 and #12), and auxiliary abilities (#13 through #15) should permeate the course.     There is much more to say about all this, but I shall be brief -- and stop here. Elaboration can be found in a variety of items listed in my academic Web site http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/facstaff/rhennis/ and especially in Ennis (1987, 1991, and 1996 -- this last-listed item providing the most examples, qualifications, and detail). References Ennis, R.H.  (1987).  A taxonomy of critical thinking dispositions and abilities.  In Joan Baron & Robert Sternberg (Eds.), Teaching thinking skills:  Theory and practice.  New York:  W.H. Freeman.  Pp. 9-26. Ennis, Robert H. (1991).  Critical thinking: A streamlined conception, Teaching Philosophy, 14 (1), 5-25. Ennis, Robert H. (1996).  Critical thinking.  Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Endnotes 1.  Originally presented in July, 1994 at the Sixth International Conference on Thinking at MIT, Cambridge, MA.  The current version incorporates minor revisions. 2.  This is a judgment about the central tendencies of standard usage of the term "critical thinking", and is based on many years? experience participating in, reading, and listening to discussions about critical thinking. 3.  With respect to epistemological constructivism (the view that truth is constructed): In expressing a concern about true belief, this conception of critical thinking accepts the view that our concepts and vocabulary are constructed by us, but also that (to oversimplify somewhat) the relationships among the referents of our concepts and terms are not constructed by us.  We can have true or false beliefs about these.     With respect to pedagogical constructivism (the view that students learn best when they construct their own answers to problems and questions):  For some (but not all) goals and types of learning, this view has empirical support, but it should not be confused with epistemological constructivism.  In particular, the validity of pedagogical constructivism (to the extent that it is valid) does not imply the validity of epistemological constructivism. They are totally different ideas. 4.  Several of the dispositions (1d, 2e, and 3a) contribute to being well-informed (1c), but are separate dispositions in their own right. 5.  The first two major dispositions are constitutive dispositions.  That is, they are definitionally part of this conception of critical thinking.  This, the third major disposition, is a correlative disposition.  That is, it is intended to accompany critical thinking.  The lack of it makes critical thinking less valuable, or even dangerous.  On the other hand, a criticism of critical thinking for a definitional omission of caring for the worth and dignity of every person could well be based on the unreasonable assumption that the concept, critical thinking, should represent everything that is good, an overwhelming requirement indeed. 6.  The fallacy-labels aspect of #15 is partly rhetorical, and partly constitutive of critical thinking.  The constitutive parts are covered in #1-#12, leaving the rhetorical part under #15.  These labels are useful to know and understand (at least as shorthand), but dangerous when used by, or in the company of, people who do not understand them fully, because the terms are so easy to apply and misapply and, on occasion, are intimidating.