Critical Thinkingin Higher Education

International Journal of Educational Research 71 (2015) 86–99
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
International Journal of Educational Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedures
Beyond critical thinking to critical being: Criticality in higher

education and life
Gerry Dunne
Trinity College Dublin, School of Education, Ireland
A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T
Article history: For John Henry Newman, the raison d’être of higher education was to ‘educate the intellect
Received 24 November 2014 to reason well in all matters, to reach out toward truth, and to grasp it’ (Newman, 1996, p.
Received in revised form 23 February 2015 103). But of course, assuming a realist stance, whereupon a singular objective truth exists
Accepted 19 March 2015 in every situation, and moreover, that it can be known, Newman’s enunciation merely begs
Available online the question: how exactly in a world of endlessly competing truths, does one set about
choosing the correct one? What competencies or skills ought one employ in order to grasp
Keywords: Aletheia/Truth? Should higher education, either explicitly, or via a hidden curriculum that
Criticality
transcends domain-specific knowledge, imbue criticality? In view of the fact that we all
Critical thinking
make truth-oriented decisions on a daily basis, very little research has been conducted into
Phronesis
Authenticity
the ‘science’ underlying the mechanics of precisely how we scrutinize evidence and use it
to justify our decisions and belief systems (Rescher[3_TD$IF], [19_TD$IF]2006). This paper proceeds in four
parts. Part one briefly outlines the centrality of criticality in higher education as it is found
in educational policy and learner outcomes. Part two appraises the critical thinking
movement, specifically its insistence on rationality as an organic heuristic entity. Part
three argues how criticality has supplanted critical thinking as the sine qua non, of not just
higher education, but life itself, whilst part four unpacks the embodied benefits embedded
in a tripartite ontology of criticality. To conclude, I shall proffer a synthesis of the findings.
ß 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
The importance of critical thinking has been heralded for quite some time as being one of the most desirable outcomes of
higher education (Ennis, 1987; Facione, 1990; Paul, [20_TD$IF]1984; Siegel, 1988). Proponents of critical thinking refer to it as the elixir
of modern education (Ennis, 1987; Facione, 1990; Fisher, 2001; Paul, [20_TD$IF]1984; Siegel, 1988). Taking up this very point in his
inaugural speech, Professor Patrick Prendergast, the current Provost of Trinity College Dublin, emphasizes the importance of
this leitmotif by drawing our attention to a recent Trinity survey of employer expectations. Results from this survey confirm
that employers [of TCD graduates] ascribe vital importance to ‘critical and independent thinking’ and view such skills as de
rigueur for life and the marketplace. Elaborating on this theme, Prendergast describes his vision for the university. He
explains how he craves,
E-mail address: [1_TD$IF]gedunne@tcd.ie.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2015.03.003
0883-0355/ß 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
G. Dunne / International Journal of Educational Research 71 (2015) 86–99 87
students who are every day wiser than they were yesterday; students engaged in lifelong learning, who are sound in
their foundations but not stuck in their opinions. . .that’s [what] will reap most private benefit and sow most public
good (Prendergast, para. 24, 2011)
Higher education commentators such as Barnett fervently endorse Prendergast’s vision of the modern university. In his
book, Higher Education: A Critical Business, Barnett (1997), expounds the educational value of criticality. In short, criticality
comprises, ‘critical thinking, analytical reasoning, critical self-reflection and critical action’ (p. 6). Accordingly, these domains
of criticality encompass: knowledge (critical reason), the self (critical reflection) and the world (critical action). For Barnett
(1997), the underlying purpose of education and educators is to ‘develop the capacities to think critically. . .to understand
oneself critically and to act critically, thereby forming critical persons who are not subject to the world, but able to act
autonomously and purposively within it’ (p. 7). Freire (1970), Newman (1996) and Jaspers (1965), all embrace similar
assessments, with the latter stating that higher education is a process of ‘self-formation’ through ‘self-criticism’ in which the
learner is ‘referred back to himself for all his decisions’ (Jaspers, 1965, p. 48). Reflecting on paideia and the importance of self-
agency, Peters (1973) asserts, ‘to be educated is not to arrive at a destination; it is to travel with a different view’ (p. 63).
Criticality thus empowers graduates to ‘travel with a different view’ – a decidedly vital quality, because as Dewey (2012) puts
it, ‘education is not preparation for life; education is life itself’ (p. 31).
2. Part one: national and international policy
Recent developments in educational policy across Europe and indeed further afield, have uniformly exalted the role of
criticality in higher education (A Test of Leadership, 2006; The Dearing Report, 1997; The Hunt Report, 2011). Some policy
documents even go as far as highlighting the lack thereof in their graduates. For instance, in the US document, A Test of
Leadership (2006), one learns that, ‘employers repeatedly report that many of the new graduates they hire are not prepared
for work, [because they] lack the critical thinking, writing and problem-solving skills needed in today’s workplaces’ (p. 4).
Such findings are at variance however with data extrapolated from several studies, all of which consistently reveal an
overwhelming faculty support (between 92% and 99%) for actively integrating criticality in instruction (Gardiner, 1995; Paul
[21_TD$IF]& [2_TD$IF]Elder, [23_TD$IF]1997; Thomas, 1999). Though the issue is admittedly complex, the basic thrust is straightforward: educational
institutions are falling short on their goal of imbuing criticality.
Bok (2006), the former president of Harvard University, explains how he finds it ironic that ‘faculty members. . .[agree]
almost unanimously that teaching students to think critically is the principal aim of undergraduate instruction, but generally
fail to help them do so’ (pp. 109–145). Since outcomes describe what the student actually achieves, as opposed to what the
institution intends to teach, Bok contends there is an urgent need to develop learner outcomes further in an effort to enhance
teaching and learning (pp. 109–145). This yawning chasm between the rhetoric of educational policy/curriculum, (what the
institution intends to teach), and the verifiable actuality of student learning, (what the student actually achieves), is
examined in a large-scale longitudinal study, entitled Academically Adrift,1 in which 2322 students drawn from around the US
undertook a critical thinking test (Arum & Roksa, 2011, p. 4). Results from this study found that nearly half (45%) of the
students in the sample exhibited no statistically significant gains in critical thinking after two years of the college experience
(p. 35). In keeping with these findings, it comes as no surprise that the report concludes that, even though, ‘99 percent of
college faculty say that developing students’ abilities to think critically is a ‘‘very important’’ or ‘‘essential’’ goal of
undergraduate education, commitment to these skills appears more a matter of principle than practice’ (p. 35). The end
result is that ‘many students are only marginally improving their skills in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing,
during their journeys through higher education’ (p. 37).
Perhaps in some way cognizant of these shortcomings, The Review of Australian Higher Education (2008) presents ‘critical
analysis and ‘independent thought’ as essential skills for twenty-first century graduates (p. 5). To this end, they administer
an outcomes-based assessment tool called Graduate Skills Assessment (2000) to gauge critical thinking and problem solving
skills amongst their undergraduate population. The purpose of the test is to assess students’ generic skills (critical thinking,
problem solving, interpersonal understandings and written communication) just as they begin university and shortly before
they graduate. A similar instrument is used in Mexico, called the Examen Nacional de Ingreso al Posgrado, which examines
candidates’ ability to infer, critically analyze and synthesize information (Nusche, 2008). The US have three main assessment
instruments at their disposal, namely, the Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA, 2002), the Measure of Academic Proficiency and
Progress (MAPP[5_TD$IF]) and the Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency (CAAP[6_TD$IF]). All these tests comprise some form of critical
thinking and analytical reasoning, skills which are crucial in the humanities. Additionally, there are several other established
critical thinking assessments in circulation, including the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (CTA), the Cornell Critical
Thinking Test (CCTT), developed by Ennis and Millman, and the California Critical Thinking Skills Test.
Over and above these instruments, each assessment tool has given rise to a multitude of variants and offshoots. Much has
been written on the technical and conceptual limitations inherent in these instruments, but space precludes a thorough
examination here (see McPeck, 1981; Modjeski & Michael, 1983). What is important here is the pervasive nature of these
1
This study used the Collegiate Learning Assessment tool to generate its data. In the US, the Collegiate Learning Assessment, (CLA[4_TD$IF]), has been used by over
400 institutions in order to collect objective data on learning outcomes (Coates, [24_TD$IF]2010, p.32).
88 G. Dunne / International Journal of Educational Research 71 (2015) 86–99
assessment tools. In accordance with the diktats of a supply and demand marketplace, there must first be a demand in order
for these assessments to exist. Even more worrying perhaps, is the extent to which test-scores drawn from these instruments
heavily influence prospective employers and universities alike – almost to the point where they embrace their results
without question (see Douglass et al., 2012). The emergence of this educational zeitgeist, or fixation with outcomes-based
metrics, is as some commentators have argued, largely responsible for propagating ‘governance by numbers’ (Ozga &
Lingard, 2007). Be that as it may, this is a separate debate and beyond our purview here. What is particularly germane here is
that when one considers the existence of these pervasive assessment tools, in addition to their substantial operating costs,
there can be no disagreement as to the vaulted prominence economies are assigning to measuring criticality.
Should one wish to secure further proof regarding the primacy of criticality in higher education, they need look no further
than learner outcomes. Thanks to the Bologna Process[25_TD$IF], ([26_TD$IF]1999)[7_TD$IF] and its pledge to write all higher education programs in terms
of learning outcomes by 2010, learner outcomes now enjoy an exalted existence within higher education institutions across
Europe (Adam, 2004; OECD, 2012). Today, 47 countries are signatories to this process, the outcome of which has precipitated
an inordinate number of learner outcome statements favoring some variation of ‘critical’ in their formulation. It would seem
that virtually no university mission statement, department evaluation procedure, or course outcome outline is complete
without at least a casual reference to critical thinking (Arum & Roksa, 2011). Upon completion of set modules, students are
expected to ‘critically evaluate’ and ‘critically analyze,’ ‘critically assess’ and ‘critically appraise’ – needless to say, the list
could go on. Because learner outcomes supposedly pinpoint, what ‘a student knows or can do as a result of their learning’, it is
worth noting that, not only are students expected to have a satisfactory grasp of their chosen field of knowledge, but they
must also be able to critically evaluate this knowledge. The omnipresent validation of this critico-component emphasizes the
lofty position criticality inhabits within the taxonomy of scholastic epistemology.
Likewise implicit in this understanding is the idea that critical knowledge in some way surpasses all others. This is a
crucial point and cannot be overstated – critical knowledge, although still imperfect, is deemed to be superior to its
uncritical, ancillary and multifarious impostors. But why is this the case? Firstly, critical knowledge teaches students
about epistemology. It teaches them about the nature, sources, scope, and limits of knowledge; it teaches them about the
questions relating to the origins and scope of knowledge; the place of reason and experience in generating knowledge;
the relationship between knowledge and certainty; the business of uncovering what must be added to true beliefs to
convert them into knowledge, and the ongoing analysis of evolving forms of knowledge that arise from new
conceptualizations of the world[8_TD$IF]. Whatever field one pursues in the arena of higher education, be it in the sciences or the
arts, knowledge is at the center of the learning experience. Consequently, a strong argument could be made for teaching
students about knowledge (epistemic literacy as I call it), including the mechanics underpinning how to cogently justify
one’s knowledge claims.
A second reason why critical knowledge is superior to all others can be traced to the fact that knowledge is accretive.
Education needs to empower students to interrogate the established epistemic norms (status quo) of the world around
them. But they can only do this[7_TD$IF] if they are epistemically literate. Epistemic literacy teaches students to scrutinize all
knowledge claims[7_TD$IF] and avoid the pitfalls of institutionalized or immutable truths. Epistemically literate students approach
the world with the fervor of a reflective skeptic. With each knowledge claim, they ask themselves: does this convince me?
Are the reasons this person believes X and Y to be the case sufficiently cogent reasons? Am I sufficiently moved by these
reasons? Has this person appropriately justified their position? And finally, what are the limits of this person’s knowledge
claims? Given the importance of these dispositions, skills and competencies, it is unsurprising that critical knowledge,
together with its present incarnation in learner outcomes, remains a defining characteristic of higher education (Barnett,
1997).
Leaving the efficacy of outcomes-based assessments and learning outcomes aside, the Higher Education in a Learning
Society report, known colloquially as the Dearing Report (1997), likewise stipulates that undergraduates should develop the
skills of ‘learning to learn’, ‘critical analysis’ and ‘independent thought’ (p. 6). In the Republic of Ireland, the National Strategy
for Higher Education to 2030, otherwise known as the Hunt Report (2011) concurs, affirming that, ‘in order to address the
societal needs over the coming years, increased attention must be paid to core skills such as quantitative reasoning and
critical thinking’ (p. 35). Here in Ireland, the former Minister for Education and Skills, Mr. Quinn (2012) echoes these
sentiments in an article called The Future Development of Education in Ireland. In it he states:
We need a system where students learn to learn and where they develop critical thinking skills and the ability to solve
problems both individually and through working with others. Students need to be liberated to think rather than be
forced to memorise (para.14)
Although Minister Quinn’s reflections are chiefly aimed at the second-level system, they still nonetheless apply to HEIs.
Higher education is not immune to considering the merits of forging a new educational system, where students ‘learn to
learn. . .develop critical thinking skills. . .[and] be liberated to think’ (para. 14). Parallels can be drawn between this
progressive overarching educational philosophy and Albert Camus’s bemoaning of how we are guilty of ‘getting into the
[ 991, p. 52). Consequently, true education, ‘is not so much to
habit of living, before acquiring the habit of thinking’ (Camus, 27_TD$IF]1
see what no one else has seen, but to think what nobody yet has thought . . . about that which everybody sees’
(Schopenhauer, 1973, p. 79). Certainly, heuristics, critical thinking, and being liberated to think, are all highly desirable
qualities, especially in our ‘knowledge economy’. Still, there is nothing new about these qualities. Qualities of this manner
have endured since Plato (428 BCE-), wherein he describes ‘philosopher kings’ as ‘those who love the sight of truth’ (Republic
475c). For those who ‘love the sight of truth’ therefore, and in the interests of fostering criticality as a means of attaining
truth, higher education remains charged with continuously striving to cultivate ‘the pursuit of truth and knowledge,
rationality, the development of the students’ critical abilities, character formation. . .providing a critical center within society
and preserving society’s intellectual culture’ (Barnett, [28_TD$IF]1990, p. 9).
3. Higher education and criticality
Broadly speaking, Higher Education upholds and subscribes to the following tenets: (i) the pursuit of truth through
critical investigation; (ii) the expansion of the student’s outlook; (iii) the development of the student’s capacity for social and
civic interaction; and (iv) the development of the student’s general intellectual capabilities (Newman, 1996; Whitehead,
1932; Nussbaum, 1997; Oakeshott, 1989; Jaspers, 1960).
Strongly underpinning this philosophy is the conviction that criticality comprises each one of these objectives.
Commentators like Scriven and Paul (2001) support this assessment, proffering their own reading of critical thinking as:
the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualising, applying, analysing, synthesising and/
or evaluating information gathered from, or generalised by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or
communication, as a guide to belief or action [or argument] (Scriven & Paul, 2001, p. 1)
Facione (1990), another exponent of critical thinking, offers another erudite analysis. He stresses that,
the ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded
in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues,
orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in
inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit
(Facione, 1990, Table 1, p. 2).
Collectively[7_TD$IF] these analyses underscore how criticality dovetails with the de facto objectives of higher education.
Universities thrive on students who are inquisitive, prudent, willing to reconsider their positions, and diligent in seeking
relevant information. These qualities are essential tools in the pursuit of truth through critical investigation. By engaging in
their studies, students of this caliber commit themselves to assiduously examine ‘any belief or supposed form of knowledge
in the light of the evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends’ (Glaser, 1941, p. 12). When all else is
forgotten, this is the epistemic principle they will apply to their various pursuits in life, be they, in academia, or the
workplace. This is what empowers students to be ‘each day wiser than the last, sound in their foundations, but never stuck in
their opinions’ – this is what shall ultimately, ‘reap most private benefit and sow most public good’ (Prendergast, 2011).
Given that we live in an interrogative world, we not only ask questions of this world, but it also asks questions of us. To
accomplish [29_TD$IF]our goals[30_TD$IF], particularly in light of the uncertainty that such interrogative questions elicit, one of the most widely
accepted modes of ‘interrogating’ knowledge-claims can be found [31_TD$IF]under the rubric of criticality. Given that disciplines are
critical conversations, students are expected to rigorously interrogate all knowledge-claims in their pursuit of truth, whether
it be a realist and singular truth, or an ostensive one – a truth one recognizes can be usurped at any time (Oakeshott, 1989).
This is the type of knowledge higher education aims to foster, a knowledge that is accretive; a knowledge that can be
cogently justified; a reflexive knowledge that attends to the limits and scope of its domain – a knowledge that is tentative
and metacognitive.
4. Part two: critical views of critical thinking and criticality
Having isolated the centrality of criticality in higher education policy, this section now moves to interrogate the primacy
of rationality in critical thinking. From there I argue that a Heideggerian reading of criticality can be adequately
conceptualized along the lines of generalized skills, abilities and disciplines, all of which can be utilized across a broad range
of contexts of being-in-the-world.
Firstly we begin with the difficulty around securing a satisfactory definition of critical thinking. Although there is an
abundance of literature on the topic, ‘educators [still] need a defensible conception of [criticality] and a perspicuous account
of the characteristics or qualities necessary for being a critical thinker’ (Bailin[32_TD$IF], [3_TD$IF]Case, [34_TD$IF]Coombs, [35_TD$IF]& Daniels, 1999, p. 286).
Prevailing definitions of critical thinking exalt ‘the ability and disposition to critically evaluate beliefs, their underlying
assumptions, and the worldviews in which they are embedded’ (Paul, [28_TD$IF]1990, p. 46). Ennis (1987) likewise concludes it is,
‘reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe and do’ (p. 10). Other commentators like Siegel
(1988) offer similar appraisals, insofar as he states, critical thinking is ‘the educational cognate’ of rationality (p. 32). This is
principally because both rational thinking and critical thinking are ‘coextensive with the relevance of reasons’ (Scheffler,
1973, p. 107). For this reason, Scheffler (1973) argues that the ‘fundamental trait to be encouraged is that of
reasonableness. . .in training our students to reason, we train them to be critical’ (p. 62). He later develops what is arguably
the most philosophically rigorous and compelling explication of the mechanics of critical thinking, ‘rationality. . .is a matter
of reasons, and to take it as a fundamental educational ideal is to make as pervasive as possible the free and critical quest for
reasons (critical thinking) in all realms of study (p. 62).
These definitions share a few common threads. For instance, they exalt rationality. They also posit a link between
rationalism and belief. Thinking rationally is deemed a superior epistemic pursuit – the most correct way of thinking so to
speak. However, one matter they arguably fail to address fully is the very subject of rationality. What exactly is rationality?
Are there limits to rationality[7_TD$IF] in relation to epistemic endeavors? Are all of our beliefs rational? Indeed, should they be
rational? And finally, is rationality a temporally confined position, given that the information and cogent reasons we deploy
to justify our beliefs and actions are more often than not incomplete and unverifiable?
Rescher (1988) argues that ‘rationality is not just a matter of thought, but of action as well. . .rationality accordingly pivots
on the deployment of good reason, and the appropriate use of reason to resolve choices in the best possible way’ (p. 3). Put
simply, a person acts rationally in matters of belief, action, and evaluation, when his/her reasons are cogent reasons. Since
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, there are normally three main contexts of choice with regard to reason: those of belief, of
accepting or endorsing theses or claims, of action, of what overt acts to perform, and of evaluation, of what to value or
disvalue. These domains comprise: (i) cognitive rationality (what to believe or accept); (ii) practical rationality (what to do or
perform) and (iii) evaluative rationality (what to prefer or prize). As this paper shall argue later, criticality as an ontological
position marries these strands of rationality in implementing the best reasons for any given belief, action and evaluation.
Of course, people can rationalize anything they wish by excavating reasons for their actions. In this way, rationality is not
just a matter of having specific reasons for what one does, but of aligning one’s beliefs, actions and evaluations in accordance
with the best or strongest available reasons. Rationality thus operates in line with two principles: assessing the strength of
probative reasons and working toward the putative optimum. In keeping with the fact that rationality is an organic entity,
insofar as it relies on the most cogent reasons available at a given moment in time, its plasticity permits it to evolve in light of
new cogent reasons emerging over time. As an educational goal, it remains truth-oriented – albeit with the caveat that we
can only make our reason-based decisions based on the best available reasons/evidence at hand at any given moment in
time. Conceptualizing rationality in this way is both a blessing and a curse for the epistemologist. On the one hand, it allows
rationality to evolve. This seems a commonsensical position, given that we often have insufficient data or cogent reasons to
make certain decisions or judgments. On the other hand, it raises the thorny question of incompleteness. What once was
deemed to be a rational position in the past, may of course now, in light of new cogent reasons developing for one’s new
positionality, not be the case anymore. So, in a sense, rationality can only really tell us how rational a position/belief is at a
given time in human history. Though it continuously remains focused on reaching out toward truth, it remains perpetually
hampered by its flawed incompleteness.
Notwithstanding the temporal limitations of rationality, each of the aforementioned demarcations of critical thinking still
fail to answer whether critical thinking is a skill, disposition, competency – or, on the other hand, as some sustain, a tripartite
synergy (Barnett, 1997, p. 7). Various expositions such as Bailin[36_TD$IF] and Siegel (2002) avoid the noun form ‘skills’ altogether
because, she maintains that criticality is then conceived as a ‘mental operation’, some ‘inner entity, ability or possession’ (p.
188). By contrast, Siegel’s (1988) analysis offers a more practical assessment, insofar as he accepts the term ‘skill-talk’ vis-à-
vis, criticality, with the proviso that it ‘refers to thinking that is skilled in the sense that it meets relevant criteria’ (p. 23).
According to this view, since a critical thinker is someone who has the skill or ability to assess reasons and arguments in the
light of epistemic and logical criteria, they are ideally positioned to distinguish between good and bad reasons for believing
something. Of course, this practice first presupposes a ‘critical spirit,’ a constellation of dispositions, attitudes, habits of
minds and character traits that ensure they are concerned to seek good reasons and question bad ones. In this way, the notion
that criticality is skilled in the sense ‘that it meets certain criteria’ is a persuasive position, largely because the mechanics of
assessing the probative strength of reasons for one’s position or actions distinctly involves meeting certain criteria,
specifically, the isolation of cogent reasons, and striving for the putative optimum.
With regard to the issue of criticality being a disposition or competency, most theorists agree that critical thinking
involves the disposition to seek out and assess reasons for all action-based behavior (Paul & Elder, 2005; Scriven & Paul,
2008). Their role is thus akin to an engineer stress-testing the sturdiness of probative reasons. To be a critical thinker, one
must not only have the prerequisite faculties, but also the relevant dispositions in order to exercise their abilities. This much
is self-evident. What perhaps poses the most pressing question for educationalists at present lies in establishing how
generalizable these criteria are.2 For instance, if you put an ethical dilemma to two different people and ask them to
rigorously apply the rubric above (‘reasonable reflective thinking’), to resolve the dispute, will they always reach the same
conclusion? For the criteria to be generalizable, inductive reasoning dictates that one should be able to move from the
particular, (one situation), to the general, (all situations). This is especially problematic when evaluating the merits of the
candidate’s reasons for making their decision[s]. Further complications arise when trying to establish whether the merits of
said reasons are the same in all contexts. What is more, will a decision made twenty years ago still be correct today? In light
of these questions, the question remains: is the criteria, (reasonable reflective thinking), ‘absolute or relative?’ (Bailin et al., p.
189).
Brown (1995) argues they are not absolute, since codifying ‘critical thinking’ in this manner, fails to address the
distinction between reasoning per se (aligning one’s positionality with the best available cogent reasons), and the slavish
practice of conforming to a rule-based logic. He remarks that,
2
Of course, another consideration is whether criticality can be taught, and if so, how? However, this lies outside the scope of this paper.
Following rules is not always required [for reasoned thinking], since one task of rational assessment is to determine
which rules should be followed in a particular situation. . .mindlessly applying rules just because they are logically
correct is foolish (Brown, 1995, p. 744).
Certainly the idea of mechanical reasoning, (mindlessly following a codified set of logical rules in order to reach a
conclusion) is a questionable course of action. Inductive and deductive methods can be highly problematic when dealing
with epistemic certainties (see Hume, 1975; Popper, 1977; Skyrms, 2014). At the end of the day, ‘simple logic or formulas are
not adequate for solving the kinds of problematic situations that are truly controversial; nor are they adequate for making
judgments when there is an inadequate data base to work from (King & Kitchener, 1994, p. 7). Or as Popper (1977) argues, it
may be that every truth offering is set within a framework, but that does not mean we are condemned to live only within that
framework. To do so, is to irrefutably say, that truth lives here, but never there. Russell (1959) uses comedy to illustrate the
folly inherent in inductive reasoning, telling us, about ‘the man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life finally
wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the
chicken’ (p. 63). He goes on to explain that, ‘the mere fact that something has happened a certain number of times causes
animals and men to expect that it will happen again’ (p. 63). In the field of epistemology, Gettier’s seminal paper, Is Justified
Belief True Knowledge?, although published over fifty years ago, still raises questions about the efficacy of epistemic
reasoning. Since the publication of Gettier’s paper (1963), there has been a widespread consensus amongst epistemological
experts that the cases he presents are effective counterexamples in dispelling the view that justified true belief, is equivalent
to, or at least sufficient for, knowledge. Although several attempts have been made to undermine Gettier’s arguments, the
problem still persists within epistemology (Williamson, 2012, p. 2).
5. The specifist/generalist debate
Another contentious issue overshadowing critical thinking/criticality at present, hinges on resolving whether it is
appropriately conceived as something general, or conversely, as something domain-specific or context-specific. The
generalist view contends that criticality is a set of ‘generalized skills, abilities and disciplines’, which can be ‘utilized or
applied across a broad range of contexts and circumstances’ (Bailin & Siegel, [37_TD$IF]2002, p. 190). An example of this would be a
critical thinker dissecting a journalistic piece. Given their abilities and competencies, it is logical to assume that they
would be able to identify fallacies, such as (argumentum ad hominem) – the fallacy of attacking the character or
circumstances of an individual who is advancing a statement or an argument instead of trying to disprove the truth of the
statement or the soundness of the argument), and (argumentum ad verecundium) – the fallacy of appealing to the
testimony of an authority outside their specialist field. Other professionals, such as medics, dismiss causal inferences like
(post hoc, ergo propter hoc) – ‘after the event, therefore because of it’, on a daily basis, both in their clinical judgments, and
their evaluation of pioneering research. Another example would be a judge making her deliberations on a controversial
case. He/she would be able to examine the evidence, scrutinize relevant testimonies and make an informed decision
based within the confines of the law.
On the other hand, proponents of the specifist-school, deny any such general ability. One such exponent is John McPeck.
He strongly disputes the idea that critical thinking skills can be applied generally across subject-area domains, because
‘thinking is always thinking about something. . .to think about nothing is a conceptual impossibility’ (McPeck, 1981, p. 3).
Explaining his position, he asserts, ‘to the extent that critical thinking is not about a specific subject X, it is both
conceptually and practically empty’ (p. 5). In his view, thinking is always tied to a particular subject and content; therefore,
to speak of critical thinking skills as a general measure to enhance students’ critical thinking is both unwise and a costly
mistake.
I suggest there are some anomalies in McPeck’s reasoning. Firstly, there already exists several academic works devoted to
the exploration of ‘nothing’. The enduring question of how something can come from nothing is not only a metaphysical
question, but one that unites theists, atheists and indeed scientists in their quest for a satisfactory answer. For example,
Thomist theologians such as Davies have grappled with the very idea of nothingness and its ramifications for the Kalām
cosmological argument for God’s existence (Davies, 2004). How can God (something) come from nothing? If God always
existed, does She have within herself the reason for her own existence? Because everything that has a beginning of its
existence has a cause of its existence, how do we avoid an infinite regression? Assuming God exists and has within himself
the reason for his own existence, is it possible there are other entities that have also always existed? It would appear these
interlinked questions are not only confined to theology. Mathematician and physicist Barrow similarly wrestles with the
very question ‘out of nothing, nothing comes’ and Leibniz’s idea of ‘nothing is without a reason’ in his book, The Book of
Nothing (Barrow, 2002). Since science relies on the idea that ‘nothing is without a reason,’ this epistemic stance would seem
to imply the universe has a reason for its existence. If so, what is it? And what caused the cause? And what caused the cause
of the cause? Based on these examples, it would appear the study of nothing is of vital importance to both science and
theology, and therefore clearly not, as McPeck (1981) contends, ‘a conceptual impossibility’ (p. 3).
Granted in these instances, ‘nothing’ is being treated as ‘something’. I would agree that critical thinking skills cannot exist
in a vacuum; however, we do not exist in a vacuum. As human beings, we occupy an infosphere – whereupon a sea of
information and data swamps us on a daily basis. Indeed, it is terribly difficult to avoid it. To do so would be tantamount to
ignoring our own existence. Hence, criticality, as we shall argue throughout this paper (as opposed to critical thinking), is
rarely ‘conceptually empty’ (as McPeck puts it), because we are rarely conceptually empty. Our being-in-the-world requires
us to interact with an endless stream of input and data generated from the world around us. Such input comes in the guise of
all forms of media: news, books, journals, conversation, the internet, and so on and so forth. With this input comes the
universal human challenge of sifting out: (i) what to believe or accept; (ii) what to do or perform and (iii) what to prefer or
prize (Rescher, 1988, p. 4). When viewed this way, criticality, in contrast to critical thinking, is not something that is simply
‘switched on’ or engaged, when a specific topic that requires critical thinking emerges. Rather, criticality as critical being, is
inexorably embedded in our everyday activities and experiences, regardless of how mundane they may appear. Critical being
affords a fertile critical space that fosters a sense of lucidity[7_TD$IF] in order to secure the putative optimum, based on the most
cogent reasons available at that given moment in time. This is of course a highly desirable position given the fact we occupy
an information-saturated world. Needless to say, this information (input) is seldom linear, atomized, or neatly packed into
certain pre-ordained ‘subject-area’ domains. Sometimes this information transcends typical subject-content demarcations.
For example, the questions: does happiness always involve a measure of self-delusion, or what is the difference between
happiness and contentment, are questions of equal concern for psychologists, psychiatrists and philosophers alike. For this
reason, I argue that neither critical thinking nor criticality need be attached to only one particular subject or content. Such a
reading ignores the fact that whatever decision one comes to in any sphere of knowledge is almost certainly based on a
knowledge or truth-claim. For sure, the business of establishing the robustness of knowledge and truth-claims is part and
parcel of life. We do it every day, whether it be analyzing the merits of some new scientific discovery, or deciding if we
believe in a supernatural being. Each decision we arrive at invokes reference to a knowledge or truth-claim. For the
epistemologist, these decisions likewise rest on the principles of justification, verifiability, and, in some instances, objective
Bayesianism, where specific formulas utilizing probability theory to describe human cognition account for how rational
agents should reason in situations of uncertainty (Hacking, 2006). Somewhere amongst this intricate nexus of epistemetrics,
one of the most difficult tasks for society in substantiating knowledge or truth-claims rests in carefully sifting out and
uncovering, ‘where is the wisdom that is lost in knowledge’ and ‘where is the knowledge that is lost in information?’ (Eliot,
The Rock, 1934).
Insofar as critical thinking skills can be tacitly understood as internalized cognitive operations, criticality is markedly
different – it is critical Dasein in action. In using the expression Dasein, Heidegger sought to emphasize that a human
being cannot be taken into account, except as being an existent in the middle of a world amongst other things and that
Dasein is ‘to be there’ and ‘there’ is the world (Warnock, 1970). The world for Heidegger designates what he calls the
‘ontologico-existential concept of worldhood’ (BT 14: 93) Thus, to be human, is to be fixed, embedded and immersed in
the physical, literal, tangible day-to-day world (Steiner, 1978). Try as we may, we cannot extricate ourselves from this
reality. Because Dasein is ‘ontically distinguished by the fact that, in its very being, being is an issue for it’ (BT, 32),
authentic Dasein presupposes a critical reading of the world, a continual sifting out of inauthenticity and a commitment
to reinventing oneself/knowledge/and the world, in light of our lived experience of Being-in-the-world. For Heidegger,
the means through which we grasp authenticity is ‘care’ [Sorge]. Here I interpret ‘care’ as an ontological maxim,
embodied in critical-reason, critical self-reflection and critical-action, collectively referred to here as ‘critical being’.
Hence, authentic Dasein is criticality and vice versa. Critical being emancipates us from the epistemic slavery imposed by
convention and empowers us to question the rules, to meticulously scrutinize and update them where necessary; to
rigorously test and refine them, and most important of all, continuously revise them in light of our lived experience, our
being-in-the-world. But why adopt such a stance we may ask? To answer this question, firstly we must accept that it is
absurd to contend that life, or moreover, the act of living, can be adequately captured with reference to a neat, all-
encompassing set of formulae. Such a reductionist view misses out on the reality of the undeniable uniqueness of each
human being’s existence and experiences (Jemeinigkeit), including how these experiences repeatedly transcend the
deductions of logic and epistemic certainties.
To adopt a Hegelian position, life is a Bildungsroman, a ‘novel of education,’ in which, through a series of learning
experiences, the hero progresses from naiveté to wisdom. What is important here is that experiences only become ‘learning
experiences’ through ‘critical being in-the-world,’ an authentic ‘being’ that dispels the enveloping embeddedness of one’s
situationedness, culture, assumed normative values and trenchant epistemic convictions (PS 233). Thus, Bildungsroman as a
journeying from naiveté to wisdom is the process of an ongoing constructive, dialectical dialog, an organic learning activity
between ‘critical being’ (critical thinking, critical self-reflection and critical action) and our lived experience of being-in-the-
world. Such a dialog draws our attention to the essential contestability of all knowledge claims, including the limitations of
logical enquiry. To be sure, existence and experience cannot be reduced to a logical equation. This is why, for instance, in Zen
Buddhism, monks set their novices koāns (paradoxes) to solve. The effort to solve these koāns is supposed to exhaust the
analytic intellect and show the mind the limits of logical endeavor. The example of ‘what is the sound of one hand clapping?’
is probably most familiar here. Modern examples of this phenomenon can be found in game theory (The Prisoner’s Dilemma),
paradoxes in philosophy (The Liar Paradox) and mathematics (Hilbert’s Hotel), (see Sorensen, 2013). As pedagogical tools,
these aporias illustrate how ‘logic is the art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and
incapacities of human misunderstanding’ (Bierce, [38_TD$IF]2003, p. 58).
In relation to McPeck’s view that critical thinking cannot transcend subject-domains, I agree with him in many ways.
Criticality assumes a satisfactory working knowledge of the discipline in which it is exercised. But there are exceptions,
whereby a kind of leakage occurs between domains. Take the conclusions of induction and deduction. Although a student
may not have any formal training in science, his general training in logic and epistemology have equipped him to wrestle
with the limitations of the scientific method. Courtesy of this student’s formation in epistemology, with its rigorous
interrogation of all knowledge-claims, he has already transcended academic disciplines. He can comment on the efficacy of
the epistemic conclusions propounded by the scientific method, with arguably as much authority as a practising scientist.
Since epistemology is the unifying principle across disciplines, it follows that a solid foundation in its fundamental principles
is both advantageous and desirable. To illustrate my point, consider the following example from Davies (1993). Here, he
reminisces about his childhood and his fondness for asking ‘why’. He recalls:
When I was a child I used to infuriate my parents by continually asking ‘why?’ Why can’t I go out to play? Because it
might rain. Why might it rain? Because the weatherman said so. Why has he said so? Because there are storms coming
in from France. Why are there. . .? And so on. These relentless interrogations normally ended with a desperate ‘because
God made it that way, and that’s that! My childhood discovery (deployed more out of boredom than philosophical
acuteness) that the explanation of a fact or circumstance itself demanded an explanation, and that this chain might
continue indefinitely, has troubled me ever since. Can the chain of explanation really stop somewhere, with God
perhaps, or with some super-law of nature? If so, how does this supreme explanation itself escape the need to be
explained? In short, can ‘that’ ever be ‘that?’. . .can one ever be truly satisfied with a ‘that’s that’ explanation? (Davies,
1993, p. 14).
The question of truth, belief, causality, judiciously scrutinizing inferences, verification and justifiable reasons are crucial
to epistemology. By definition, it is the very lifeblood, of not just science and the scientific method, but moreover, all domains
of knowledge. The question however remains: can one ever be satisfied with a ‘that’s that’ explanation? If the answer is yes,
science cannot explain everything (why is there something rather than nothing for example?) and therefore cannot claim to
be our sole guide to reality. If the answer is no, how does science avoid an ad infinitum chain of circular reasoning, wherein
each explanation of a fact demands a further explanation? This is of course a central question, not only in science, but also
epistemology. It is a question I would contend most people can grasp, both on a conceptual and practical level. What is more,
I argue that courtesy of criticality: scientists, philosophers and non-specialists alike, are equally capable of metabolizing this
fundamental question.
6. Part three: differences between critical thinking and criticality
1. Despite its prominence within educational debate, criticality, as commonly defined within educational discourse, is
often misconstrued as being synonymous with critical thinking. While both domains noticeably share a similar repertoire
of skills, dispositions and competencies, the notion of criticality, as espoused by Barnett (1997), brandishes a number of
marked differences. Firstly, criticality repositions the totality of the self – that is, the human being at the center of
education, life and the learning experience. It begins with personology – in other words, what it means to be human – a
unique being that is habitually in a context-specific situation, a sentient being continuously engaged in trying to critically
understand their lived qualia experiences, a being that is always striving for something, a being whose existence elicits a
marked disease, an uneasiness about who they are and what they should do. In contrast, critical thinking, through striving
for the epistemic goals of: objectivity, generalizability and replicability, atomizes reality, and attempts to disentangle the
person from the immediacy of the context-specific reality they are experiencing. Taken this way, critical thinking
engenders a somewhat instrumentalist, inert cognitive operation, characterized by a deliberate disembedding of the agent
from their lived experience. Here, human beings, their behaviors and decisions, are now expected to conform to
deterministic models. Because critical thinking is solely truth-oriented, as opposed to a symbiotic fusion between the
epistemological and the ontological story of our everyday lives, it indomitably suppresses the first-person experience in
favor of a third-person perspective. According to this model, the agent or person is somewhat superfluous to the reality of
the conundrum confronted. Criticality, on the other hand, embodies a critical mode of being-in-the-world. It starts from the
particularity of the first-person experience and exhibits a healthy skepticism for all forms of nomological knowledge-
claims that endeavor to establish correlations that hold reliably under certain pre-established conditions. Doherty and
Rysien (2014) refer to this phenomenon as the ‘experience first’ (p. 17) approach to epistemology. Armed with this
‘experience first’ approach to knowledge, criticality internalizes all that is good about critical thinking: (the search for
truth, cogent reasons, inquisitiveness, prudence, willingness to reconsider, care [Sorge], creativity, imagination and so on),
and integrates them into how we live our lives and approach the world. We become criticality, and criticality becomes us.
There is no separating the dancer from the dance, so to speak. It is a deeply existential position wherein each human being is
celebrated as being more than the sum of their parts. As an internal reality with an outward focus, criticality (critical being),
to the extent that it houses the ineffability of human experience, transcends immutable rules, axiomatic logic and inherited
wisdom.
2. The second difference between the typology of criticality and critical thinking can be explained with reference to
distinguishing between ‘the truth’ and ‘the real’. Truth is an epistemic construct and reality an ontological one. The truth of
the matter is not to be confused with the reality of the matter. Take love for example. It is something most of us are lucky
enough to experience at some point in our lives. We can analyze, conceptualize, deconstruct and try to explain it ad nauseum.
Millions of books and poems in libraries, homes and schools around the world are testament to this. And yet, despite all our
efforts, it still eludes us. There remains no all-encompassing formula for love. One cannot separate the phenomena of love
from the person experiencing it. They are inextricably linked. It cannot be explained on an a priori level – but instead, must
first be experienced in order to be understood. Even then, in trying to explain it, logic fails, words are wholly inadequate and
reason laughed at. As Lacan sagaciously points out, ‘there is no way, to say it all. Saying it all is literally impossible: words fail.
Yet it is through this very impossibility that the truth holds onto the real’ (Lacan, 1990, p. 3). Drawing on Lacan’s argument, I
wish to propose that critical thinking, in striving toward truth, neglects the real. Through only permitting a certain amount of
cognitive moves in any given situation, it fails to give sufficient credence to the irreducible and ineffable meta-logical
particulars of each agent’s lived experience. As a cognitive operation, critical thinking irreducibly cognitivizes our very being
and imposes an ends-focused problem-solving rubric to accomplish a satisfactory conclusion. In so doing, it extricates both
the experiences, and the situationedness of the living agent from the reality she is experiencing. Put another way, it tries to
separate the dancer from the dance.
But what is truth we may ask? The most commonly held view of truth stipulates a belief is true if and only if it corresponds
to a fact. This is widely known as the correspondence theory of truth. Proponents of this view subscribe to its core ontological
thesis: a belief is true if there exists an appropriate entity – a fact – to which it corresponds. If there is no such entity, the belief
is false (Russell, 1994, p. 492). In the case above, critical thinking may be useful in establishing the facts of the situation, in
this instance, am I in love? But in working toward truth, it merely reflects reality; it does not embody (live) it as criticality
does. For sure, my biochemistry is awash with endorphins and oxytocin and this is contributing to my feelings of love. This is
the truth of the matter. But of course, this is not the full story. There is something lacking in this approach; the actual reality of
me being in love is beyond the reductionist truth approximation determined via critical thinking. Hence, there exists a kind of
liminal space between ‘the truth’ and ‘the real’. There is always something lost in translation. Critical thinking in working
toward truth is much like seeing the world through one eye. It is only when we see through two eyes with binocular vision,
that things converge and we have full depth perception. Broadly speaking, critical thinking imposes a cognitive rubric on our
lived experience and expects this construct to fully account for each individual’s dreams, goals, desires, actions and very
being. This is in contrast to criticality, that celebrates the fact that ‘life is not a series of gig lamps symmetrically arranged; life
is a luminous halo, a semitransparent envelope surrounding us from the beginning of consciousness to the end (Woolf, 1925,
p. 150). As an educational exemplar, criticality embodies the pedagogical maxim: ‘tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may
not remember. Involve me and I’ll understand.’ Criticality, as critical being, challenges us not to be bystanders in our own
lives. It does not merely tell us or show us what to do; it involves us in forging our own grand narratives. Here we move from
being narrators of our lives, to becoming the authors. Since criticality does not try to separate the dancer form the dance, we
are both the authors and the subjects of our own grand narratives. We are thus directly involved in critically understanding
our experiences, including how they shape us, and the world around us.
3. For Barnett (1997), ‘critical persons are more than just thinkers’ – they are able to critically engage with the world
and with themselves, as well as with knowledge’ (p. 1). Critical thinking as the deployment of cognitive skills is
inadequate – it is thinking without a ‘critical edge’ (Barnett, 1997, p. 17). Given the fact critical thinking skills frequently
confine the thinker to established standards of reasoning within specific disciplines, there is an urgent need for criticality
to counteract this myopic construct, and in so doing, open the door to fresh and rich modes of understanding. Because of
its insistence on the guiding principles of rationality, critical thinking remains hampered by the fact that humanity
occupies a meta-logical world, a world through which an oscillating plethora of option-ranges exist. These meta-logical
option-ranges symbolize the sophisticated vagaries of existence. With due deference to these limitations, Barnett’s
model of criticality embraces not just rationalism and logic, but the totality of the person, deeply embedded in a context-
specific situation, in-the-world. To this end, Barnett’s model embraces: emotional perceptiveness, creativity, reflexivity,
heuristics and rationalism, and yokes them together in a new paradigm. Rationalism in this ever-evolving epistemic
model need not preclude the insights of emotional insight and reflexivity. Careful consideration is afforded not to treat
the person’s mental faculties independently of the person. Fundamentally, Barnett’s model draws on a holistic
understanding of personhood – best viewed through an ontological lens. In contrast to many of the critical thinking
theorists we have examined, he subscribes to the view that ‘life is not [just] a problem to be solved, but a reality to be
experienced’ (Hannay, 2001, p. 76).
In advocating this philosophy of education, Barnett’s idea of criticality integrates this broad epistemic outlook. He
points out that, as human beings, we encounter life with a holistic fervor. We exercise criticality in our everyday lives, not
only in our decision-making processes, but also in our knowledge of self, the other, knowledge, and the world in which we
live in. In fact, they are all inextricably linked – it is part of being human. Our knowledge of self, the other, and the world we
live in is at the very heart of education. As Lao-Tzu observes in The Way of Life, ‘it is wisdom to know others; it is
enlightenment to know one’s self.’ Criticality infuses selfhood/being with prudence, and as Peters (1973) declared earlier,
invites us to ‘travel with a different view’ (p. 63). This ‘personal epistemology’ as Barnett calls it, is not a diluted version of
solipsism or cognitive relativism, but an epistemology that is bedded in critical knowledge/thought and informed by our
own lived experience. It is a personal epistemology bedded in the context-specific reality of the agent; a reality that
acknowledges the fact that each of us makes decisions on what to believe or accept, what to do or perform and what to value
and disvalue based on one’s unique set of epistemic criteria and standards. Of course, as one would expect, this process
differs from person-to-person, since the epistemic criterion by which one must first be satisfied, undoubtedly varies from
person to person.
4. Whilst critical thinking can be reduced to a formulaic list of fallacies, criticality is Dasein in action. In many ways,
Barnett’s approach can be likened to the See/Judge/Act model in liberation theology, which drew inspiration from Vatican II
(1962–1965) documents such as Gaudium et Spes. Firstly, we encounter or see the world, we then move to make judgments
based on our perception of certain realities within it; and finally, we act on those evaluations. Historically, this exemplar can
be loosely traced to Aristotle’s pioneering concept of phronesis and Aquinas’s conception of prudence, or recta ratio agibilium,
often translated as, ‘right reason applied to practice’. Put simply, prudence is the intellectual habit that enables us to discern
in human affairs, what is virtuous and what is not, and furthermore, how to come at one and avoid the other. It thus denotes,
‘a certain rectitude of discretion in any actions or matters whatever’ (Aquinas, ST, 1981 ed., Ia, IIae 61.4; 61.3). In building on
this understanding, Barnett’s three intertwined domains of criticality: (i) critical reason; (ii) critical self-reflection/
reflexivity; and (iii) critical action, reshape and refine this notion of prudence (‘right reason applied to practice’) and
revolutionize its untapped potential to transform the human being, not only within the constructivist realm of higher
education, but also life itself.
7. Part four: critical reason: reconstructing institutionalized truth
In a fable by Lincoln Steffens, quoted here from Huston Smith’s book, The World’s Religions, he recounts the fate of a man,
who, climbing to the top of a mountain, seizes hold of the Truth. Satan, suspecting mischief from this upstart, duly directs
his underlings to tail him. When the demon reports with alarm the man’s success – that he had indeed seized hold of the
Truth – Satan was unperturbed. ‘Don’t worry,’ he yawned. ‘I’ll tempt him to institutionalize it’ (Smith, 1991, p. 5).
Most of us succumb to the allure of institutionalized truth at times, whether it is some new scientific discovery, the
allure of hearsay, or sometimes even, certain teachings of institutionalized religions. Whatever one’s beliefs may be, ‘it is
not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not
dogmatic, they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition’ (Russell, [39_TD$IF]1996, p. 527). As such, it is ‘wrong always,
everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence’ (Clifford, 1999, p. 295). Correspondingly,
beliefs should always be tentative, thereupon subject to modification, as and when more evidence comes to light. Beliefs
should never rest solely on authority, intuition or weak evidence. Critical reason scrutinizes the contestability of all
knowledge claims, and in this way, insists on tirelessly re-evaluating and re-constructing institutionalized truth. To this
end, it employs the old dictum, ‘doubt is the key to knowledge.’ By doubt, I do not mean Descartean doubt – for it is evident if
philosophy [life] is to ‘serve a positive purpose, it must not teach mere skepticism, for. . .dogmatism and skepticism are
both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing’ (Russell, [39_TD$IF]1996, p. 38). Instead,
the model of critical reason I wish to advance is borrowed from the work of Rescher (2004) in metaphilosophy. In
identifying a uniform methodological principle for cogent reasoning, Rescher identifies the following rubric as being an
apposite modus operandi: (i) principles of informative adequacy to facilitate understanding; (ii) principles of rational
cogency to assure convincing argumentation; and (iii) principles of rational economy to avert needless labor in production
and avoidable difficulty in consumption (p. 5). Informative adequacy involves a rubric that addresses the problem of
providing sufficient information in an effort to facilitate the business of understanding and enabling us to get a firm
cognitive grip on the issues at hand. Probative principles of rational cogency seek out methodical evidentiation,
demonstration and substantiation, while principles of rational economy, insists on avoiding making matters more complex
than they need to be. In operationalizing this rubric Rescher (1994) argues that we are all working toward securing the
putative optimum and that ‘rational conjecture is not a matter of mere guesswork, but one of responsible estimation in a
strict sense of the term’ (p. 6). Consistent with this approach, such deliberations avoid simply furnishing us with some sort
of estimate of the true answer that we want; instead, they yield an estimate that is sensible and defensible – an estimate to
whose tenability we are prepared to commit ourselves.
7.1. Critical self-reflection
At the risk of cliché, it seems fair to say, ‘the longest journey is the journey inward’. Unfortunately this voyage of being/
selfhood has no map or destination. One is burdened with making one’s own way. To a large extent, we must
acknowledge, ‘caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar’3 (Traveler, there is no path, paths are made by walking).
With this challenge comes great responsibility. Our notion of self and our place in the world is in a constant state of flux.
We are in a relationship with the world, with our peers and with our ever-evolving idea of selfhood. This ongoing
existential crisis leads us to questions such as: ‘who am I?’, ‘what should I be?’ and ‘how can I authentically live out this
life?’ These are not easy questions, and as such, there are times when we need to distance ourselves from our own
narratives – in other words – step outside of ourselves to critically observe ourselves from the outside in. In Hinduism,
they call this the ‘third eye’ or the ‘I-maker’. Through the act of critically observing oneself in the third person, criticality
as Dasein (a way of being) imbues this I-maker, and in so doing, eases the transitional process of stepping outside of our
selves when it comes to the business of evaluating our notion of self and our decisions. This is crucial because we
frequently succumb to the perception, ‘I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am, I am what I think you
think I am’ (Bierstedt, 1974, p. 51). Criticality inoculates us against this type of flawed analysis and helps guard against
inauthenticity creeping into our daily lives. Nietzsche (2001) refers to this process of distancing ourselves from our own
3
Antonio Machado.
narratives as absolutely essential, since without it, ‘we would be nothing but foreground and live entirely in the spell of
that perspective which makes what is closest at hand. . .appear as if it were vast, and reality itself’ (GS, 78). Although this
stance of ‘desertion’, as Marcel (2001) calls it, is highly beneficial, it is worth pointing out that it is not a God’s eye view
and therefore should not be considered the means by which we secure infallible, omniscient revelations about who we
are and what we should do. Rather, it is best to view it as an ontological process that aids lucidity and the search for the
putative optimum in our lives.
Freire (1972) identifies the art of reflection as being the precursor to action and named this relationship ‘praxis’. He
cautioned how reflection on its own, with no opportunity for action or change, became ‘verbalism’: ‘an alienated and
alienating ‘‘blah’’ and action without reflection was action for action’s sake: ‘activism’ (p. 60). For this reason, Freire (1972)
wanted both reflection and action to yoke together in dialog to ‘name the world’ (p. 61). In other words, rather than talk
about change in a vacuum (verbalism), or act impulsively without first critically evaluating the ramifications of one’s actions
and the reasons behind them (activism), ‘praxis’ necessitates a moral imperative to become the change you want to see in the
world. This change (critical being) must always come from a critical space – a space that fosters rigorous, critical self-
reflection, in an effort to decipher the type of person we want to be in the world.
Part of the process of deciphering the type of person we want to be can be explained with reference to the idea of persona
and authenticity. Originally the word ‘personality’ derived from the Latin persona, referred to the mask an actor donned as he
or she stepped onto the stage; the mask depicted the actor’s role, while behind it the person remained hidden and
anonymous. In truth, most of us wear masks and confuse our roles with our authentic selves. To remedy this situation, critical
self-reflection strips away the masks (personas) we wear through life, whether they be the result of conscious choices,
assumed cultural norms or otherwise, and reconnect with the person behind the mask – that is, our authentic selves again.
This can be an arduous task, because sooner or later those that wear two faces forget which one is real. Critical self-reflection
invites us put an end to hiding behind what we think other people think about us. After all, that is not the true us. It is up to us
to decide who and what we are through our own actions, to take a stand in the world. But first we must cast aside our
personas and begin to live authentically; for if we do not know who we really are, then we cannot strive to be the person we
want to be in the world.
To understand how we can live authentically, we must first have a working definition of it. Heidegger uses the term
Eigentlichkeit (someone who is their own person) to capture his conceptualization of authentic being. To grasp
authenticity, we must first realize that as human beings in a situation, our existence is often embedded in a cultural
context. Try as we might, the influence of social and epistemic norms, intertwined with the assumed practices of our
communities and inherited wisdom, all shape our inveterate tendency toward inauthenticity. We become observers in
our own grand narratives and forget how to act autonomously and purposively within it. A certain ‘mentality of the herd’
ensues. Along with this assumed mentality, a certain prosaic numbness accompanies our being-in-the world. We assume
a role (persona) within our community/situationdness and lose our ability to seize on and define our own lives. The act of
living overshadows our critical spirit and being-in-the-world. Heidegger calls this phenomenon falling and suggests it is a
direct result of us fleeing from the fact that we are finite beings who stand before death (understood as the culmination of
our possibilities). Being-toward-death can be described as the picture the imagination projects of what the world would
be like without us in it. Such an activity forces us to take stock of our lives and in Heideggerean discourse, spawns
Vorlaufen – a transformative event (BT, 52-3). Through imagining our absence, our non-being/death, we discover what
our presence adds to the world, and thereby come face-to-face with what it means to be authentic. Because our very
being (Dasein) confronts a choice as to the quality of the life it is to lead, to be authentic is to clear-sightedly face up to
one’s responsibility for what one’s life is adding up to as a whole, and in light of this commitment, seize one’s existence
with integrity and self-constancy. Living one’s life with integrity and self-constancy forces us to break through the prosaic
conventions of our assumed roles and question the numb-like acceptance of the world around us. Only then can one
finally take a critical stance in the world, and to paraphrase William Ernest Henley, become the ‘captain of our souls and
the masters of our fates.’
7.2. Critical action: authenticity in action
Having examined the merits of criticality in shaping a robust science of doubt and applying this rubric to reconstructing
institutionalized knowledge, in conjunction with outlining the benefits of critical self-reflection and its exhortation to seize
one’s existence with integrity and self-constancy, we now turn to critical action, and more specifically, how might our
conceptualization of criticality influence or inform our decision-making processes? To accomplish this task, firstly we must
establish that the relationship between moral experience and moral theories is fundamentally dialectical. From this vantage
point it becomes clear that there are no immutable golden rules in moral philosophy and ethics. Golden rules simply cannot
account for every eventuality within the human experience. Human beings are evolving, our ways of communicating and
interacting with one another are evolving, and so too are the ever-increasing sophistication of our desires. Our ethical
frameworks or rubrics therefore are subject to revision, as of when our lived experience presents us with more and more
complex moral problems. On foot of this understanding, we develop theories to critically discern our lived experience and
determine what we ought to do. But of course, we also use experience to test, corroborate and revise theories. This ongoing
evolutionary progression is a process of pruning and dialectical adjustment, with a view to aligning one’s actions and beliefs
with the strongest reasons available, as informed by the context-specific particularity of the agent enmeshed within the
experience. Against this backdrop, we shall now briefly analyze Aristotle’s idea of phronesis (practical reason) and unpack its
embedded benefits in making informed judgments leading to critical action.
Practical reason according to Aristotle is a ‘true and reasoned state of capacity to act with regard to the things that are
good or bad for man’ (Nicomachean Ethics, VI.V). From this we can derive that practical reason equips oneself with the ability
to distinguish between what is good and bad and the capacity to act on such knowledge. Unlike its counterpart techne,
phronesis as practical wisdom cannot be taught. Phronesis under the rubric of judgment assumes a certain maturity and life
experience. Practical reason is hence applied in ‘variable matters’ – in other words, matters or things that can change.
Aristotle argues in his doctrine of the mean that what is right on a particular occasion is in accordance with ‘right reason’
(orthos logos), but that this principle can vary from one situation to the next:
That we must act according to the right rule is a common principle and must be assumed. . .matters concerned with
conduct and questions of what is good for us have no fixity, any more than matters of health. . .the agents themselves
must in each case consider what is appropriate to the occasion (II.2)
This of course makes it impossible to extrapolate any moral generalizations about what is right or wrong, good or bad:
Fine and just actions. . .exhibit much variety and fluctuation. . .And goods exhibit a similar fluctuation because they
bring harm to many people; for before now men have been undone by reason of their wealth, and others have been
undone by reason of their courage. We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premises to
indicate the truth roughly and in outline (I.3).
Instead of reading this as a validation of relativism, it is more fruitful to distil phronesis as a means to carefully attending to
the particularity of each person’s context-specific situation, and with it, the immediacy of the problem facing him or her.
Insofar as the particularities of human affairs are subject to variability and fluctuation, they do not lend themselves to
universal formulation – hence, true rigor entails a considered appreciation of the kinds of rigor that are, and are not, available
in disparate domains (Nicomachean Ethics, 1, 3). Judgment, then, is in the first instance an ability to recognize atypical
situations and ‘resist the temptation to submit the problem to a procrustean application of the general rule’ (Dunne, 2002, p.
201). Consistent with this approach, judgment requires resourcefulness, a context-specific fluency, characterized by an
ability to look beyond instrumentalism and its preoccupation with choosing efficacious means to an end. As Wiggins
suggests (1980), practical reason is less a matter of deciding on the best means, than to see what really constitutes an
appropriate end. In this way, phronesis as practical reason or judgment embodies an irreducible, human-centered and meta-
scientistic approach to our being-in-the-world. To this end, it fits in with criticality as an ontology which embraces the
particularity of each agent’s experience, including their context-specific narrative with its exhortation to look beyond
unassailable generalizations of how one should behave in any given situation.
8. Conclusions
The purpose of this paper was to offer a brief account of criticality, and argue for its primacy within life and higher
education. The paper began with a brief outline of the primacy of criticality within higher education policy. From there it
proceeded to contextualize the merits of rationality in critical thinking, particularly when situated within an
incompletedness framework. A distinction was then drawn between critical thinking and criticality. Following this, the
paper moved to discuss the embodied benefits embedded in a tripartite ontology of criticality. Here the focus was on critical
reason, critical self-reflection and critical-action.
As a discussion document, the paper aims to stimulate debate around the role and merits of criticality in both education
and life, especially against the backdrop of a shifting policy background. This paper argues for the adoption of a reflexive
epistemic literacy within the curriculum – a literacy that both attends to and informs students’ understanding of not just the
nature, aims, scope and limits of knowledge (critical reason) – but also a literacy that empowers us to better understand
ourselves as individuals and professionals, in terms of our self-knowledge and our actions.
Finally, since knowledge is the product of the modern university, one could argue that learning about what exactly
constitutes knowledge, remains an untapped field in higher education. I suggest these questions are certainly worth asking,
and require a sustained and thoughtful debate, a ‘space of reasons’ as (Bakhurst, 2011) puts it, in order to tackle the enduring
question of ‘what is education?’ In a world where knowledge is more often that not valued according to the diktats of the
marketplace, educators, stakeholders and students need to swim against the tide and ask themselves repeatedly, ‘what is
education?’ One thing is clear, philosophical questions of this nature ultimately spring from criticality. The question
remains: what can we do to keep nurturing it?
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International Journal of Educational Research 71 (2015) 86–99

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Educational Research

Beyond critical thinking to critical being: Criticality in higher

E-mail address: [1_TD$IF]gedunne@tcd.ie.

2. Part one: national and international policy

3. Higher education and criticality

4. Part two: critical views of critical thinking and criticality

5. The speciﬁst/generalist debate

6. Part three: differences between critical thinking and criticality

7. Part four: critical reason: reconstructing institutionalized truth

7.1. Critical self-reﬂection

7.2. Critical action: authenticity in action

The Bologna Process ([26_TD$IF]1999). Retrieved from http://www.ehea.info/Uploads/National%20reports/Ireland.pdf.

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