I had to take a course in logic as an undergraduate and saw little point in it at the time. The reason we were given for having to take the course was so that we would be able to read papers that used logical symbols, but the symbols we were taught were not the ones most commonly used in readings we were assigned. And you don't need to take an entire course in order to know that this symbol should be read as 'or' and that as 'if ... then' (although translating from formal symbolism into ordinary language is not as straightforward as one might think). No one ever claimed, as far as I can recall, that studying logic would make us any more logical than we already were, any better at reasoning. Perhaps it does have that effect, but I've seen no evidence that it does, and this would surely be widely advertised by logicians if it existed (or have I just committed some fallacy right there?). I believe that argument mapping has good effects, but I haven't looked into it much. That's because I don't teach critical thinking, although if I did I expect I would start here and make my students do some mapping. Basically the (apparent) problem with teaching logic is that one course in anything is not likely to make a lasting difference to students, and if you're going to have students reason logically then you might as well have them do so about some particular subject, and then what you have is not a course in logic but a philosophy course on whatever area of philosophy you have chosen to focus on in the course. Perhaps it wouldn't even be a philosophy course, although if the primary focus is logical reasoning then I don't know what else it could be. In short, maybe logic should be taught across the philosophy curriculum rather than in a dedicated course. As David Papineau says:
I’ve long been unsure about the point of normal introductory logic courses. It is doubtful they do anything to improve argumentative skills, and they tend not to leave time for any philosophically significant metalogic. Of course, they are a necessary prerequisite for those who are going to go on in logic. But for the many who aren’t, it is not obvious what the philosophical payoff is.The problem with inculcating an informed skeptical tendency is that what's in question seems to be a virtue rather than some quantity of knowledge, and developing a virtue is going to take much more than one course. It's easy enough to educate students about the bias of Fox News, but (or because) they already know this. The ones who watch it will continue to do so, and will insist (rightly) that other news sources have their own biases. People generally know how to be skeptical when they want to be. It's developing that will in the right way that's the tricky part. I don't want my students to be skeptical about global climate change--they should trust scientists more than that. I don't want them to believe that 9/11 was an inside job by the US government--they should trust the government more than that. But should they believe everything that scientists tell them? Should they always trust the government? No. It might help if they knew more about how science is done, about how many scientists believe in man-made climate change, and if they knew something about the science of climate change itself. But how much of that could be covered in one general course on critical thinking? And what would prevent any students whose minds were changed as a result from starting to believe in some other irrational theory (or some other excuse to do nothing about climate change)? It seems to me that, once again, the habits of mind we're looking for need to be encouraged and developed across the curriculum.
Which means students need to be challenged to justify their beliefs more consistently. They need to be graded on their reasoning more and on knowing the right answer less. Which means less multiple choice and memorization, more papers, oral exams, etc. Which probably means smaller classes, more encouragement to teachers to challenge students even if students don't like it, and less pressure on teachers to do anything other than teaching (so that they have time to grade all those papers, for instance). It also means thinking less that a course or two can fix a major deficiency in anyone's education.
Having said all that, every time I visit the Critical Thinking on the Web site I start to want to teach a critical thinking course despite it all.
There is one other reason for teaching normal introductory courses to logic: It gives the students a false idea of what logic is (false because it is so very partial). The way in which this is a good thing is that it makes it possible to later give them a sense of what logic really is, and why it is important in the first place: The importance of logic can become clear in the contrast to what they’ve been taught in the introductory course. (I have here in mind Rush Rhees saying about Wittgenstein’s On Certainty that is a book in logic. That this is so, and the depth and importance of this comment, can only be seen by people who took introductory courses to logic.)
ReplyDeleteAnd I completely agree with what you say about teaching critical thinking across the curriculum. The very notion of a course in critical thinking sounds strange as a course in artistic style. It seems like an attempt to deal with form without at the same time dealing with content.
Thanks, Reshef. Yes, you make a good point in your first paragraph, and one I would not have thought of.
ReplyDeleteSome people seem to think of all courses as being like a course in calculus or computer programming: passing the course means that you have acquired some specific skill. So if students don't write well we should make them take an extra writing course or two. And if they don't behave well we should make them take an ethics course. Etc. In some cases the absurdity is more evident than in others (although I have known people think this way about ethics, which strikes me as the most obviously absurd case of all). And it isn't absurd in every case (as with calculus or typing).
Whence is the urge to teach a course that’s focused on critical thinking? – assuming that as it is, you are already cultivating your students’ ‘informed skeptical tendencies.’
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that I am already cultivating those tendencies in my students, so that's part of it. I also think it might be a popular course, bringing students to philosophy and showing to everyone else that critical thinking (which everyone agrees is a good thing) is part of philosophy (which not everyone values as much as they might).
ReplyDeleteOn reflection it's embarrassing to have to confess that I might not be cultivating those tendencies. Perhaps I am doing so, but what I mean is that I spend very little time talking explicitly about this, and that I am never sure how much of a lasting effect my teaching has.
DeleteBut then what about your worry about teaching form without content? How can one focus on cultivating informed skeptical tendencies without giving the students something specific to be skeptical about?
DeleteRight, that's why I don't do much of it. That is, I hope that by teaching philosophy I encourage thoughtfulness in my students, which should include a tendency to be somewhat skeptical, to want to have reasons to believe whatever they are told (within reason). But the main things I want them to be skeptical about in an informed way are scientific claims and the media, and I don't teach science or media studies. To sum up: I would like my students to have an informed skeptical tendency. Why, then, do I not try to develop such a tendency in them? Well, to some extent I do, but not to a very great extent because the relevant information is not relevant to the courses I teach.
DeleteI'm not sure I'm following you: What information do you want to discuss with the students that you don't get a chance to discuss with them?
DeleteAs we are discussing this, I'm thinking of a feature of PI: every once in a while he stops and reflects--makes some meta-response, meta-philosophical, ethical, and so on. I imagine this to be the way informed skeptical tendency should also be cultivated: let the student think something through, and then reflect on what they did. (e-portfolio, here I come!)
It's not so much that there is information that I want to discuss with my students so much as that there is information that I want someone to discuss with them. (I do wish I knew enough and had the power to discuss this information with them, but that's a different point.) I want them to be well informed about climate change, evolution, the origin of the universe, and about science in general. Not general scientific facts but what science is, how it is done, and why its results should generally be trusted. I also want them to know about who owns the media, what biases they have or are likely to have, how to spot lies and bull, etc. I cover next to none of this in my classes, because I lack the relevant expertise and it's not what the content of my courses is meant to be. I hope, though, that I do encourage my students somewhat to be less likely to fall for bull, sophistry, etc.
DeleteWhat could possibly motivate someone like our students to want to be more knowledgeable about these kind of things?
DeleteIt seems to me that part of what you are up against here is a deep mistrust that they have for intelligence. And some of that is triggered by the sheer amount of information that they are flooded by. Giving them more information is bound to make them mistrust you--as if you are out to confuse them even more.
Hence my question above: What could possibly make someone like them trust that someone like you is telling them an important truth?
i would say, not so much intelligence, but authority which declares itself to somehow rest on intelligence, knowledge, etc.
Deletethe difficulty seems to be that duncan wants students who recognize the authority of the various things that go into making a modern, reasonable person - scientific consensus, claims grounded in evidence, made without certain kinds of appeals to authority or tradition, assessed with an eye toward how the claims could have been produced or how they could be assessed by others who are not the claimant or the direct recipient of the claim, etc. etc. - but recognizes that this is not something he can bring about on his own.
and isn't the content of a stereotypical critical thinking course designed as if it were believed that one could come to acknowledge authority of this sort, or at least be nudged closer toward doing so, with a run-through of a smattering of topics having to do with probability, evidence, bias, informal fallacies, and so on? whereas it seems to me as if the people who do acknowledge this sort of authority do so because they have a history, possibly of a few to several years, of dealing with this sort of authority's characteristic materials, techniques, ways of carrying oneself, probably in high school.
What could possibly motivate someone like our students to want to be more knowledgeable about these kind of things?
DeleteI don't know. I wish they were required to learn about some of them, or had already learned about them in high school.
There are people who mistrust intelligence, but I think j. is right that this isn't quite the problem with most of our students. Actually I think everything he says here is right.
would it be accurate to describe some of these courses as courses in 'reasonableness'? and if so would that show what is wrong with trying to load the students up on reasonableness in one course, or in remedying a past deficit of reasonableness in their educations, to prepare them for future college courses in which reasonableness is a prerequisite?
ReplyDeleteYes, I like that way of putting it. Would that show what is wrong etc.? Yes, although not everyone will see that it shows that.
ReplyDelete"Reasonableness" is a name of a virtue. It seems to me, this is what you might be after: cultivating some sort of intellectual virtue in your student. But it seems to also be fairly complex type of virtue you are after. Patience, courage, generosity... are all part of it.
ReplyDeleteYes, that's right. Some knowledge, too. But it is a type of virtue that I think I primarily want to develop (or see developed) in them. And this is what makes the idea of fixing the problem in one or two courses misguided.
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