Socrates

Socratic Questioning:
Established the
importance of asking
deep questions that probe
profoundly into thinking
before accepting ideas as Plato
worthy of belief. Aristotle
Greek skeptics
1. Decisive appearances ≠ 2.
Deeper realities of life

1. Only the trained mind is

prepared to see through
the way things look
2. Things beneath the surface

Anyone who aspired to:

Understand the deeper
realities
Think systematically
Trace implications broadly
and deeply
Middle Ages
Thomas Aquinas
Summa
Theologica:
Systematic critical thinking
Awareness of not only the
potential power of reasoning
&
The need for reasoning to be
systematically cultivated and
“cross-examined”.

Renaissance
15th and 16th century
Colet
Erasmus
Moore - England
All domains of human life were
in need of searching analysis
and critique
Scholars of Europe began to
think critically about:
Religión
Art
Society
Human Nature
Law
Freedom
 Francis Bacon
England
Study the word empirically
Lead the foundation for
modern science with his
emphasis on the information
gathering processes
“The Advancement of
Learning”: Earliest books in
critical thinking

Descartes
France
Critical thinking based on the
principle of systematic doubt
Need to base thinking on
well.thought through
foundational assumptions

Thinking should be:

Questioned
Doubted
Sir Thomas Moore Tested

New social order: Utopia

Every domain of the present
world subject to critique

Italian Renaissance
Machiavelli
The Prince
Assessed the politics of the
day
Laid foundation for modern
Hobbes and Locke critical political thought

(16th and 17th

century England)
Both looked to
the critical mind
to open up new vistas of

learning
Hobbes: Naturalistica view of the
world: Everything was to be
explained by evidence and
reasoning
Locke: Common sense analysis
of everyday life and thought
Laid the foundation for critical
thinking about human rights and
the responsibilities of all
governments to submit to
reasoned criticism of thoughtful Robert Boyle
citizens.

Sceptical chymist:

Critique to the chemical theory

 Sir Issaac Newton

(17th and 18th
Century)
Developed a
framework of
thought that criticized the

traditional world view

Egocentric views of the
world should be abandoned
in favor of those based
entirely on carefully
gathered evidence and
sound reasoning
French
Enlightenment
Bayle, Montesquieu,
Voltaire, Diderot

Disciplined human mind is

better able to figure out the
nature of the social and
political world
Value on disciplined
intellectual exchange: All
views should be submitted to 18th Century:
serious analysis and critique.
. Adam Smith

Kant

Applied to other fields:

Economics: Adam Smith’s
Wealth of Nations
Reason: Kant’s Critique of
Pure Reason

19th Century
Human social life:
Comte and Spencer
Applied to other fields:

Capitalism: Searching social

and economic critique of
Karl Marx
Human culture and basis of
biological life: Darwin’s
Descent of Man
Unconscious mind: Sigmund
Freud
Cultures: Establishment of
the field of Anthropological
studies
Language: Linguistics and to
many deep probings of the
functions of symbols and
language in human life

 20th Century
1906 - William
Graham Summer
Sociology and
Anthropology: ‘Folkways’.
Documented the tendency
of the human mind to think
socio centrically and the
parallel tendency for schools
to solve the function of
social indoctrination
Since it, we have increased
our sense of the pragmatic
basis of human thought
Ludwig Wittgenstein

Increase our awareness not only

of the importance of concepts

in human thought but also of

the need to analyze concepts
and assess their power and
limitations

Piaget
Increased awareness of the
egocentric and sociocentric
tendencies of human thought
and critical thought, which can
reason within multiple
standpoints and be raised to
the level of ‘conscious
realization.’

‘Hard’ sciences
Power of information and the

importance of gathering

information with care and

precision

Depth-psychology
Human mind is self-deceived. It
easily constructs illusions and
delusions

Florencia Corena - Agustina Acosta

Espacio de reflexión didactica
Prof.: Lourdes Achard
CeRP del Este 2022