Critical Thinking: Two Theses from the Ground Up

Abstract

This paper analyses a set of widely held beliefs concerning our understanding and teaching of critical thinking, a notion which is increasingly adopted by universities as their main educational goal. Existing scholarship on critical thinking throws up a vast heterogeneous collection of definitions of critical thinking. I propose a ‘meta-definition’ of critical thinking—or, what I call the cluster concept of critical thinking—to show that there is unity in an otherwise messy conceptual terrain. A second aim of this paper is to offer a plea for the intellectual virtues in general and that of humility in particular as a means of fostering critical thinking. This paper concludes by presenting a series of pedagogical implications for instructors in tertiary education in the business of designing modules that aim to promote critical thinking.