Critical Thinking: Present, Past and Future 5 April, 2015 Outline - PDF document

Critical Thinking: Present, Past and Future 5 April, 2015 Outline V1 2015 Schield CTC 1 V1 2015 Schield CTC 2 Critical Thinking: Outline Present, Past & Future We were better at critical thinking; We’ve gotten worse. Milo Schield Recent causes Augsburg College Root cause: Aristotle’s description of Induction Hume (1746): Induction is invalid and unjustified. Philosophy today: the dark ages No truth. April 5, 2015 Aristotle resurrected: Induction is conceptual. Why the future will be much better. St. Paul Critical Thinking Club www.StatLit.org/pdf/2015-Schield-CTC-Slides1.pdf Past Past V1 2015 Schield CTC 3 V1 2015 Schield CTC 4 We thought critically! Critical Thinking in America January, 1776 1858 In proportion to the population of the colonies (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. [500,000 copies 1 st year] As of 2006, it remains the all-time 1 st speaker had 60 minutes; 2 nd had 90; 1 st replied for 30 best-selling American title Speakers averaged around 100 words per minute. Families stood, listened, analyzed and evaluated! Wikipedia: Common Sense Present Present V1 2015 Schield CTC 5 V1 2015 Schield CTC 6 Change in Values Critical Thinking: US Freshman The Fall in Culture . Advocacy journalism rejects objectivity and neutrality Rise of pseudo-science: • young-earth creation • denial of evolution Confirmation bias in media • MS-NBC & Fox News 2015-Schield-CTC-slides.pdf 1

Critical Thinking: Present, Past and Future 5 April, 2015 Present Present V1 2015 Schield CTC 7 V1 2015 Schield CTC 8 Most College Grads do NOT Assumptions are Arbitrary accept Darwinian evolution . Theory! . Present Present V1 2015 Schield CTC 9 V1 2015 Schield CTC 10 Assumptions are Arbitrary Assumptions are Arbitrary . Secular humanism Religious humanism Present V1 2015 Schield CTC 11 V1 2015 Schield CTC 12 Stance & Perspective: Recent causes; Optional / Elective but not the Root Cause Schools drop diagramming sentences (1960s) Humanism is a philosophical and ethical Colleges drop logic as GenEd requirement. stance that emphasizes the value and agency No evidence that logic improves writing of human beings, individually and collectively, Schools cut back on formal debate and generally prefers critical thinking and Critical thinking: waxes, peaks (1996) and wanes evidence (rationalism, empiricism) over Reading for pleasure declines for school children established doctrine or faith (fideism). … humanism refers to a perspective that Decline in academic rigor ( Academically Adrift ) affirms some notion of “human nature”… College is not much harder than high school 2015-Schield-CTC-slides.pdf 2

Critical Thinking: Present, Past and Future 5 April, 2015 V1 2015 Schield CTC 13 V1 2015 Schield CTC 14 The Root Cause Aristotle: Aristotle! the Father of Logic Aristotle noted two kinds of reasoning: Aristotle was clear on deduction : • Deduction : from general to specific valid arguments gave true • Induction : from specific to general. conclusions given true premises. All men are mortal. Socrates is a man, Aristotle was extremely clear on deduction. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. Every deductive argument required a universal Aristotle was ambiguous ( incomprehensible?) on induction. premise: Either “All X are Y” or “No X are Y”. Where did these universals come from? V1 2015 Schield CTC 15 V1 2015 Schield CTC 16 Aristotle: Need for a the Father of Logic Induction All inductions involve universals Inductions generate universals based on particulars. From “Some” to “All”. “All men are mortal” “All acorns come from oak Aristotle was incomprehensible on induction. trees” “All water runs downhill” All universals about the causes and natures of Induction: Socrates is mortal; Plato is mortal; things are inductions. Therefore all men are mortal. Aristotle said induction was justified if we knew what Without induction, we have no science, no truth, no virtues, no ethics, no right and wrong. was true for all subjects. This made him sound like an idiot. It required omniscience! Without induction, all premises are arbitrary. All swans I know are white, so all swans are white… V1 2015 Schield CTC 17 V1 2015 Schield CTC 18 The Fall in Philosophy The Fall in Philosophy Hume in 1748 No Certainty 1748 Hume: Human Understanding : 1748 Hume: Human Understanding : The problem of causation; The problem of causation; The problem of induction The problem of induction Cannot generalize with certainty “We cannot rationally justify the claim " induction is the glory of science that nature will continue to be and the scandal of philosophy " uniform.” Broad Hume has posed “a most “The supposition that the future fundamental challenge to all human resembles the past is not based on knowledge claims.” Kant and arguments of any kind, but is derived Popper entirely from habit.” 2015-Schield-CTC-slides.pdf 3

Critical Thinking: Present, Past and Future 5 April, 2015 V1 2015 Schield CTC 19 V1 2015 Schield CTC 20 Critical Thinking: . The Fall in Philosophy 1748 Hume: Human Understanding : . Problem of induction; Problem of causation. 1879 Frege: Formal Language for Pure Thought Father of Analytic philosophy Creator of mathematical/symbolic/predicate logic 1903 Moore: Principia Ethica, the naturalistic fallacy Cannot derive an “ought” from an “is” 1921 Wittgenstein: the Tractatus : Language limits what can be said meaningfully. This excludes “religion, ethics, aesthetics , the mystical”... Present V1 2015 Schield CTC 21 V1 2015 Schield CTC 22 Change in Values Critical Thinking: US Freshman The Fall in Philosophy No way to validate an ethical statement: . Impossible to obtain an “ought” from an “is” No way to validate a scientific statement. All statements are conditionally or temporarily true: true until they have been refuted. Induction as invalid/unjustified leads to: • Subjectivism • Skepticism • Relativism • Cynicism V1 2015 Schield CTC 23 V1 2015 Schield CTC 24 Relativism: Cultural Relativism The Religious Response Relativism: No good or bad; no right or wrong; no virtue or vice; no duties; no responsibilities. No sin! 2015-Schield-CTC-slides.pdf 4

Critical Thinking: Present, Past and Future 5 April, 2015 V1 2015 Schield CTC 25 V1 2015 Schield CTC 26 Bloom’s Taxonomy #2: Focus on Analysis Top 2 are opinions; Ignored Treat Synthesis as Opinion . Analysis: Synthesis: “To break up” “to put together” decomposition, composition, disintegration, integration, reductionism creation V1 2015 Schield CTC 27 V1 2015 Schield CTC 28 Critical Thinking: Ethics reduced Problems Teaching to value-clarification . What is called critical thinking in the classroom tends to be • reductionist (explaining complex phenomena in terms of more elemental events), • positivistic (limiting the “real” to what is physically observable or which can be proved), • quantitative (understanding qualities in terms of quantities). Source: John Bardi: www.personal.psu.edu/jfb9/essay2ThinkingCritically.html V1 2015 Schield CTC 29 V1 2015 Schield CTC 30 Three Key Problems: Resolving these problems could Schield (2004) Resolving Three Key Problems in the Humanities . • Provide a reality-based middle ground that avoids Abstract: The disarray in the humanities reflects their the excess of relativistic subjectivism and sensitivity to the problems of objectivity, unobservables dogmatic intrinsicism. and induction . Resolving these problems could set a • Reverse the tide of anti-intellectualism, skepticism new direction. and pseudo-science. Copy: www.statlit.org/pdf/2004SchieldNDIH.pdf • Lay the foundation for a second renaissance that would outshine the first in its benefits to society Schield 2004 2015-Schield-CTC-slides.pdf 5