4 INQUIRY: CRITICAL THINKING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES

Critical Thinking: Reflection and Perspective

Part I
Robert Ennis

Abstract
This is Part I of a two-part reflection by Robert Ennis on his involvement in the critical thinking
movement. Part I deals with how he got started in the movement and with the development of his
influential definition of critical thinking and his conception of what critical thinking involves. Part
II of the reflection will appear in the next issue of INQUIRY, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Summer 2011), and it
will cover topics concerned with assessing critical thinking, teaching critical thinking, and what the
future may hold.

Key words: critical thinking definition, rigor, criteria, logic, looseness, progressive education, Vietnam
War protests, subject matter, critical thinking movement

“I am uneasy to think I … decide concerning truth and falsehood, reason and folly, without
knowing upon what principles I proceed.” (David Hume)

It is an honor to have received Editor Frank Fair’s
request to write a personal historical report about the
development of critical thinking education.1 My response
emphasizes the period 1950-2010, but does reach further
into the past, and is by no means a historian’s history of
critical thinking. It is a personal view of the critical thinking
movement and my involvement in it. Part I deals with how
I became involved in the critical thinking movement and
how my definition and conception of critical thinking have
evolved. Part II will deal with efforts to assess and to teach
critical thinking and with problems and future prospects.
My Background: How I Arrived at
Critical Thinking
Although in my K-12 years I was exposed to an ex-
cellent traditional education, I, like Gerald Nosich (2010),
was quite ignorant and naive in making my early decisions.
Because I did well in high school math and physics, and
because of the encouragement of my teachers and parents, I
went to MIT in 1945, right at the end of World War II, plan-
ning to become an engineer. Although I did well for four
semesters in the math, engineering, and science aspects of
the curriculum, I developed some misgivings. For those
and other personal reasons, I interrupted my studies and
joined the US Army, serving in the Army of Occupation
in Japan in 1947. There I experienced a 19-year-old-type
total revision of my goals and interests. The war-making
technology and its effects (including what I saw in Hi-
roshima during a visit there on the second anniversary
of the bomb) convinced me that the world did not need
engineers or more science and technology. It needed a
population suffused with wisdom. At the time I thought
that philosophy was the ultimate repository of wisdom, so I
decided to obtain a bachelor’s degree in philosophy rather
than engineering, having done no investigating about the
nature of academic philosophy.
MIT at that time had no philosophy courses, so I
cautiously took a leave of absence, never to return. I
transferred to the University of Wisconsin, Madison. There
the contemporary philosophy to which I was exposed was
logical positivism, but also some of John Dewey’s work.
Neither satisfied me. Logical positivism seemed to be an
interesting, challenging system, like chess, but without
relevance to wisdom; and Dewey’s defense of his positions,
as well as some of his positions, seemed weak. Further-
more, even though his advocacy of “reflective thinking”
(Dewey, 1933) would later appeal to me, that was not part
of what was presented to me as Dewey’s philosophy. Nor
did I see relevance to wisdom in my history of philosophy
courses. The content came too thick and fast for me to
grapple with and to discuss what I now see as important
ideas and issues. Grappling and discussing were not part
of the total curriculum that I experienced, though they are
what I now think are crucial elements in critical thinking
instruction, though of course not in themselves sufficient.
As a result of frustration in my search for wisdom,
I instead considered a career in the theater because my
extra-curricular experiences there were exciting and fun,
and the theater actually is a way of promoting wisdom
(e.g., Twelve Angry Men, a timeless play). But I rejected
the theater, partly because I saw so many unemployed
actors and dancers who were much more talented than I.
There was a bit of critical thinking here: making observa-
tions and using the information in considering and being
open to alternatives (to some extent) when making deci-
sions. But these practices were not part of my traditional
education.
SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1
In 1950 I managed to get a BA in philosophy without
any knowledge of the ordinary-language philosophical
developments associated with the later Wittgenstein. More
ignorance. Then I heard about philosophy of education. It
struck me (still naively, given what I believed about phi-
losophy) that what I had learned and had not yet learned
about philosophy could somehow help the field of educa-
tion. There was some equivocation going on in my head
regarding ‘philosophy,’ but I had not been sensitized to
equivocation or ambiguity in my logic course, or any other
courses. And I rightly believed that education could have an
important role in developing a world population suffused
with wisdom. I decided to go into philosophy of education.
I then received some wise (though unrequested)
advice: Learn first-hand as a teacher what goes on in
our education system before launching into a career in
educational theory. Though I had not sought that advice,
I followed it and became a high school physical science
teacher, who also had to teach two sections of a combina-
tion of English and social studies. It was called a “core”
or “common learnings” course in progressive education
parlance, and it was a precursor to “writing across the
curriculum.” In the process, I heard about critical thinking
from the progressive-education movement’s advocacy of it,
and realized that the promotion of critical thinking would
be very important for our personal, vocational, and civic
lives, and that the survival of a democratic way of life de-
pended on the critical thinking of the voters. I still believe
this, even more strongly, and am pleased that I have been
able to spend as much time as I have on critical thinking,
only wishing that I could have accomplished more.
I tried to incorporate critical thinking in my teaching.
But I had little notion of how to teach it or even of what
critical thinking was — other than propaganda analysis
(Institute for Propaganda Analysis, 1938), which was
heavily negative and oversimplified in its approach (as is
commonly the case with the current fallacies approach to
teaching critical thinking).
After three years of high school teaching I became
a graduate student at the University of Illinois, and en-
rolled in a philosophy of education program with minors
in philosophy and educational measurement. I was lucky
to get an assistantship with the Illinois Project for the Im-
provement of Thinking under the leadership of B. Othanel
Smith and Kenneth Henderson. We tried to help three
Chicago-area high schools embed critical thinking in their
subject-matter instruction, physics being the area on which
I focused. I also found myself immersed in, and fascinated
by, the later-Wittgenstein movement in philosophy, which I
saw and still see to be quite relevant to education, wisdom,
and critical thinking, in spite of its excesses. I had finally
found a home combining philosophy and education.
The above-described background is, among other
things, a generalizable argument-by-example in support of
5
the supplementation of our subject-matter courses and oth-
er courses with a heavy dose of critical thinking instruction.
Notice that I said “supplementation,” not “supplanting.” A
necessary condition for thinking critically about anything is
being well informed, which includes subject-matter content
where relevant. Unfortunately, aside from simple deduc-
tion, principles of critical thinking were not included in the
content that I encountered — with two minor exceptions:
In high school English I was taught to make classification
(genus-differentia) definitions, and in college physics labs
I was taught to make three measurements (instead of just
one) and average the three in order to secure a more reliable
measure of a quantity. In my undergraduate deductive logic
course I was not shown that strict deductive logic rarely
applies to everyday reasoning (including that of scholars,
voters, and Supreme Court Justices). However, imprecise
derivation or qualified reasoning (Ennis, 1969a & 1969b,
1981a, 1996a, 2004; discussed later in this essay) does
apply to everyday reasoning. Fortunately, material impli-
cation and its implausible cohorts were, as I remember it,
not promoted in that logic course.
The fact that I did receive advice from an experienced
person about how to pursue my career is not to my credit.
I did not know enough to seek it out. It was in effect im-
posed on me by the father of a high school friend. In none
of my courses was I told the critical thinking principle that
one needs to make a special effort to get all the relevant
information appropriate for a decision, and to seek, con-
sider, and get informed about alternatives before making
an important decision.
In sum, in my K-12 and undergraduate education there
was virtually no attention to the principles, procedures,
and criteria for thinking critically in or out of the subjects
I studied. Basically I was engaged in acquiring, and was
tested on, straight subject-matter knowledge only.
The Critical Thinking Movement as I Saw It
and Associated with It:
From Progressive Education and the
Later Wittgenstein to the Present
Early philosophical concerns about critical thinking
can be found, among other places, in Socrates, Plato,
Aristotle, Bacon, Hume, and especially John Stuart Mill,
but John Dewey (Dewey, 1933, first edition 1910) was the
source of inspiration for the progressive-education K-12
critical thinking movement of which the Illinois Project
for the Improvement of Thinking was a part.
The Progressive Education Movement
The progressive-education movement, which was
strong in the United States from the 1920’s through the
1950’s, adopted and developed Dewey’s emphasis on
reflective thinking. Tests called Interpretation of Data,
6 INQUIRY: CRITICAL THINKING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
Application of Principles of Science, Application of Prin-
ciples of Logical Reasoning, and Nature of Proof (Smith
and Tyler, 1942, pp. 35-156) were developed to appraise
students in the Progressive Education Association’s monu-
mental “Eight-Year Study,” which took place in the 1930’s.
(See Aiken, 1942, for an overview.) In that study, the words
“critical thinking” and “clear thinking” replaced “reflec-
tive thinking” (Smith & Tyler, pp. 35-37), and a 1942
yearbook of the National Council for Social Studies used
“critical thinking” in its title, Teaching Critical Thinking
in the Social Studies (Anderson, 1942). My first published
article was about the teaching of critical thinking (“Critical
Thinking: More on Its Motivation,” Ennis, 1956), and ap-
peared in the journal, Progressive Education. I submitted to
that journal because the progressive-education movement
was the primary promoter of critical thinking at the time.
In addition to my focus on the teaching of critical
thinking, I became the statistician for the Illinois Project for
the Improvement of Thinking, and produced conclusions
from the data obtained with the tests we used and from
our observations in the classrooms. I saw the importance
of having valid tests of critical thinking, and I realized the
dependence of such tests on one’s conception of critical
thinking. As a result, my Ph.D. dissertation topic was “The
Development of a Critical Thinking Test” (Ennis, 1959b).
Given the state of critical thinking theory in use at the time,
I believed that the development of a critical thinking test
required the prior development and specification of a con-
ception of critical thinking. So my dissertation combined
the development of a conception with the development of
a test. The conception leaned heavily on my philosophi-
cal forbears, as well as this question: “How do people go
wrong in their thinking?” Because of my assistantship and
thesis work I was able at the time to contribute directly to
the literature on the teaching of (Ennis, 1956), the nature
of (Ennis, 1962, 1964b), and assessment of (Ennis, 1958,
1959b) critical thinking. In particular, my 1962 article
on the nature of critical thinking, “A Concept of Critical
Thinking,” has received much attention. Michael Roth
(Roth, 2010), in an article in the Chronicle of Higher
Education challenging critical thinking, attributed critical
thinking’s becoming popular to this article. Harvey Seigel
(Siegel, 1988) deemed the article “highly influential” (p.
5). John McPeck (McPeck, 1981), perhaps the critical
thinking movement’s most vociferous critic, treated this
article as presenting “the prevailing view of the conception
of critical thinking” (pp. 39-57).
From Progressive Education to Emphasizing Subject
Matter
Results of the Eight-Year Study were published in
1942, when everyone was focused on World War II. I
believe that the progressive-education movement disin-
tegrated because of the overwhelming importance of the
war (1941-1945 for the United States) when the Eight-Year
Study’s results appeared; the excesses that inevitably occur
in any movement; the strong criticisms of the movement
by academic subject-matter specialists (especially Arthur
Bestor of the University of Illinois); and (the final nail
in the coffin) Russia’s beating the USA to having a suc-
cessful satellite, Sputnik, in 1957. Sputnik’s appearing
before the USA’s first satellite was blamed by many on
the schools, which were still somewhat under the influ-
ence of progressive education. I have a vivid recollection
of the large front-page headline in the Chicago Tribune
right after Sputnik, “What went wrong with U.S. schools?”
According to popular insight, the schools had failed to
teach science to their students. Progressive education
was held by many to be the problem. As a result, straight
subject-matter acquisition became very popular, and was
the theme in former scientist and Harvard President James
B. Conant’s influential The American High School Today
(Conant, 1959).
In spite of the opposition to, and the disintegration
of, the progressive-education movement, there were con-
tinuing expressions of interest in critical thinking in the
1930’s through the 1970’s, mostly by philosophers. Cohen
and Nagel’s Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method
(1934) introduced me as a graduate student to many aspects
of critical thinking. Max Black’s Critical Thinking: An
Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method (1946) and
W. H. Werkmeister’s An Introduction to Critical Thinking
(1948) were college textbooks that to my knowledge were
the earliest college textbooks that used the words “critical
thinking” in their titles. Another early text was Monroe
Beardsley’s Practical Logic (1950). All four of these early
works were guides used by the staff of the Illinois Project
for the Improvement of Thinking, of which I was a member
from 1954 to 1957.
Even Conant was a participant in the early promotion
of critical thinking at the college level with his general
editorship of the series, Harvard Case Histories in Experi-
mental Science (Conant, 1950-1954), and his authorship of
On Understanding Science (Conant, 1951). Using detailed
cases from the history of science, his series and his book
illustrated “certain principles in the strategy and tactics of
science” (Conant, 1951, pp. 102-111). A principal theme of
Conant’s in these works was opposition to a simple five-
step concept of the scientific method (promoted I believe
by the progressive-education movement), which he felt
vastly oversimplified how scientists think. I agreed with
him in his emphasis on principles in scientific thinking
(Ennis, 1974b, 1979, 1991a, 1991b), and his complaint
about oversimplification.
From Sputnik through the mid-1970s, I was part of the
philosophically-oriented minority pressing for the incor-
poration of critical thinking in K-12 and higher education.
During this period (1959-1970), I authored 12 articles
SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1
and two books concerned with the nature, teaching, and
assessment of critical thinking.
The Vietnam War Protests
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the Vietnam
War and student-based concerns about relevance, authen-
ticity, and the war itself overwhelmed the subject-matter
emphasis of Conant and others. But it was not only students
who challenged the academic establishment. I vividly re-
member a scholarly professor in the English Department
at Cornell University in 1968 expressing at a university
faculty meeting his contempt for the academic establish-
ment by gravely pronouncing, “We’re in bad trouble.”
“Bad trouble” is not the sort of expression I expected to
hear from a scholar in the English Department at a Uni-
versity Faculty meeting. It was protest language. To use it
in those circumstances in 1968 was a powerful expression
from within of a rejection of academia.
In that context, critical thinking struggled along,
but was not very popular because of its emphasis on
rigor, reflection, and, alternatives, as opposed to action
now. For example, the activists of the period judged that
neutrality by our educational institutions was impossible
(generally, in that period, neutrality toward the Vietnam
War, and in one instance, toward the administration in the
late 1960’s by some colleges and universities of a draft-
exemption examination, an unpopular action in the eyes
of most activists because it constituted what they felt was
complicity in the war effort). Though I opposed the war,
I disagreed with the judgment that neutrality for colleges
and universities was impossible. I argued that neutrality
on any specific issue (though not on every issue at once)
was possible, unless the argument assumed from its begin-
ning that its position and recommendation on the specific
issue were correct, in which case the argument became
essentially circular (Ennis, 1969d, an improvement on an
early version, 1959a). My argument in this case involved
an ordinary-language sensitivity to reported definition and
equivocation, sub-aspects of the definition aspect of critical
thinking to be considered later and listed in the appendix
(Abilities 9b1 and 9d).
Renewed Emphasis on Critical Thinking
In the late 1970’s, concern about critical thinking
moved back into the foreground, I believe because of the
excesses of the protest movement, because the war was
over, and because the protestor’s emphasis on relevance
had strong appeal. Howard Kahane’s popular Logic and
Contemporary Rhetoric (1971) contributed to the revival
of attention to critical thinking at the time. It “was written
. . . in an attempt to raise the level of political argument
and reasoning by acquainting students with the devices and
ploys which drag that level down” (Kahane, 1971, Pref-
ace). But the renewed emphasis on critical thinking was
7
not as part of a rejuvenation of the progressive-education
movement. Critical thinking was advocated because it
provided the rigor, reflection, and reasonableness that both
the anti- and pro-war forces had ignored, as evidenced by
Howard Kahane’s influential efforts.
Around 1980, interest in critical thinking suddenly ex-
ploded. The First International Conference on Informal Log-
ic was held at the University of Windsor in 1978. Canada,
as I understand it, had not experienced the extreme reaction
against academia that we had in the United States. Never-
theless, there was some, and emphasis on critical thinking
and informal logic was a step back to rigor and reflection.
Significant establishment institutions contributed. The
Commission on the Humanities (1980), sponsored by the
Rockefeller Foundation, placed heavy emphasis on critical
thinking, as did the Carnegie Foundation’s Ernest Boyer
(Boyer, 1983). The College Board (College Board, 1983),
which is responsible for the SAT test, specified reasoning
as one of the six basic academic competencies in Aca-
demic Preparation for College. In 1983, Executive Order
# 338 in the California State University System required
that in order to graduate from one of the State University
units, a student must have had nine hours of instruction
in communication and in critical thinking. At the Second
International Conference on Informal Logic at Windsor
in 1983, The Association for Informal Logic and Critical
Thinking (AILACT) was established, the membership of
which then consisted mostly of philosophers from Canada
and the United States — and it still does. The American
Philosophical Association’s Board of Officers (1985) urged
philosophers to help with attempts to test for critical think-
ing and attempts to include critical thinking in elementary
and secondary curricula.
This explosion of interest was neither a return to
straight subject matter exclusively, nor to the progressive-
education movement. It was a marriage of subject matter
and one important feature of the progressive movement,
critical thinking, a marriage that to this day we struggle to
implement. In going beyond straight subject-matter acquisi-
tion, The College Board exhibited this attempted marriage
in its Academic Preparation for College: “The learning
outcomes described here [including reasoning] are rigorous
as well as comprehensive” (College Board, 1983, p. 3).
The roots of three current, philosopher-led, criti-
cal-thinking-promoting organizations developed in the
1980’s. One, led by Richard Paul (and currently also
Linda Elder), developed at Sonoma State University,
California, with large annual conferences of educators at
the K-12 and university levels at which many of us in
AILACT made presentations. Its current titles are Foun-
dation for Critical Thinking, Center for Critical Think-
ing, and The National Council for Excellence in Critical
Thinking. A second, led by Robert Swartz, developed at
the University of Massachusetts-Boston with a masters
8 INQUIRY: CRITICAL THINKING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
program in critical and creative thinking, and is currently
titled the National Center for Teaching Thinking (NCTT).
I have participated in some of its workshops. A third, led
by Peter Facione, had its origins at Santa Clara Univer-
sity, California, where Facione led an effort to arrive
at an agreement by mail among forty-six specialists in
critical thinking (of which I was one) on a fairly-detailed
dispositions-and-abilities definition of ‘critical thinking.’
Facione called the results “The Delphi Report” (Facione,
1990). His organization operates under the title Insight
Assessment. The first two of these organizations focus on
teaching, and the third focuses on a conception of and on
the assessment of critical thinking, although all are con-
cerned with all three elements. All three have extensive
web sites. The first and second claim “national” status,
but I see no interaction or cooperation between them.
AILACT, of which I am a member and past pres-
ident, is open to new members on application, has elec-
tions for its leaders, and is not publicized as well as the
above three, though it is trying to catch up. On its web site
at http://ailact.mcmaster.ca, it provides material dealing
with the nature of, teaching of, and assessment of criti-
cal thinking and informal logic, lists available consultants
from its membership, lists institutions providing advanced
instruction in critical thinking, and will be listing avail-
able critical thinking tests. AILACT also sponsors criti-
cal thinking and informal logic sessions at annual APA
meetings. More information about all four of these critical
thinking organizations can be found on their web sites.
Throughout the 1980’s there was a large amount
of activity in critical thinking: workshops, conferences,
test development, new curricula, restatement of goals,
books, articles, etc., accompanied by controversies about
all aspects of the movement. These controversies live
on, and include the basic nature of critical thinking; the
details of the nature of critical thinking; the relationship
between critical thinking and subject matter; promoting
critical thinking in the different subjects as opposed to
doing it in separate critical thinking courses (often unfor-
tunately assumed to be mutually-exclusive alternatives);
the role of metacognition (being aware of and thinking
about one’s own thinking) in critical thinking; the nature
of the deduction involved in critical thinking; the role
of persuasion in critical thinking; the relation between
critical thinking and problem solving; the degree to which
critical thinking is broader than argumentation — and
deduction, if at all; the possibility of assessing critical
thinking; how to assess critical thinking — on a large
scale and on a small scale; the possibility of teaching
critical thinking; the role of critical thinking principles
in critical thinking instruction; whether to seek and how
to achieve transfer of the learning of critical thinking to
topics other than those used in instruction; and of course,
the value of critical thinking.
The multiplicity of critical-thinking-promoting activi-
ties from 1980 through the present involved not only phi-
losophers, but also people in all subject-matter areas. The
principal academics with whom I interacted at workshops
and conferences were philosophers, psychologists, and
speech/communication experts, each with a somewhat dif-
ferent emphasis. To oversimplify, the philosophers tended
to emphasize seeking the truth (or the rightness or correct-
ness of a process or result), and using rational methods of
doing so; psychologists tended to emphasize empirical
relationships, such as what causes what, including such
processes as metacognition, transfer of critical thinking
learning to a new area of application, and problem solving.
Speech/communication experts tended to emphasize effec-
tive persuasion. But all three were generally interested at
least to some extent in the others’ emphases. During this
period I contributed to general critical thinking and criti-
cal thinking in science, and authored some 41 articles and
one book, as well as co-authoring two articles, one book,
three published tests, and several unpublished tests, each
relevant to at least one of the above-listed controversial
areas in critical thinking.
In the 1980’s, the critical thinking movement em-
phasized critical thinking in K-12, as well as at the un-
dergraduate level. Extending into the 1990’s and the first
decade of the twenty-first century, emphasis on critical
thinking increased in college and universities, at least
in mission statements. This occurred partly at the behest
of accrediting agencies and partly because people real-
ized that critical thinking is important and that existing
subject-matter acquisition generally did not adequately
prepare people to think critically in their vocational, civic,
and personal lives. All the controversies I have mentioned
continue today, though progress has been made. Because
critical thinking is so important, I have devoted much of
my career to the task.
My Contributions to the Content of the
Critical Thinking Movement
Because I am probably best known for my develop-
ment of a conception of critical thinking, and because
teaching and assessment both assume a conception of
critical thinking, the nature of critical thinking is the first
topic to be addressed. It will be followed in Part II in the
next issue of Inquiry by discussions of assessment,
teaching (including incorporation in a curriculum), and
future prospects.
The Nature of Critical Thinking
Early on I developed a definition and an associated
elaborated conception of critical thinking (Ennis, 1962).
I am here employing the distinction between ‘concept’
and ’conception’ that John Rawls offered (Rawls, 1971,
SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1
p. 5), following H. L. A. Hart (Hart, 1961, pp. 155-159):
A concept is that which different, more detailed concep-
tions of a particular idea have in common. But I use the
terms “definition” and “conception” instead of “concept”
and “conception” in order to minimize confusion. In 1962
I was not aware of the distinction and called the whole
presentation “a concept of critical thinking” (Ennis, 1962,
p. 81), though a more appropriate title might have been “a
definition and a conception of critical thinking.”
As a result not only of the intense discussions of the
late 1970s and the early 1980s, but also further investiga-
tion from 1962 to 1987 of a number of critical thinking
aspects, my first definition and conception of critical
thinking developed into a new pair (Ennis 1987b, 1991c,
1996a, 2002), which I shall call my second definition and
conception. In this section, I shall present and discuss the
features of the two pairs, the second conception having
evolved from the first, and the second definition being
radically different from the first, though they both treat
critical thinking as a term of approbation. An unexempli-
fied presentation of the total second definition/conception
can be found in the appendix to this essay.
My First Critical Thinking Definition and the
Associated First Conception of Critical Thinking
The critical thinking definition that was presented
to me as a graduate student was the one advanced by B.
Othanel Smith (Smith, 1953), my advisor, mentor, teacher,
model, and supervisor in the Illinois Project for the Im-
provement of Thinking. Smith held that critical thinking is
both determining the meaning of statements and assessing
these statements (p. 130).
For my first definition, I amended Smith’s definition
by holding that critical thinking is “the correct assessing
of statements” (Ennis, 1962, p. 83). The key change from
Smith’s definition was the addition of the word “correct.”
I felt that the determining-the-meaning part was implicit,
although I now would make it explicit because it is so
important. I added “correct” because I believed and still
do believe (somewhat under the ordinary-language influ-
ence of the later Wittgenstein) that “critical thinking,” as
used in the critical thinking movement, was not merely a
descriptive term, but also a term of approbation.
This approbation feature of the first definition is one
of several features of particular note in the 1962 defini-
tion/conception. Three other features are (a) emphasis on
detailed criteria, (b) emphasis on good judgment in an
imprecise environment because criteria do not automati-
cally yield critical thinking decisions, and (c) attention to
credibility of sources. I shall elaborate.
(a) Criteria
One basic idea in both the first and second of my
conceptions of critical thinking came from my high school
9
teaching experience. It is that in order to do critical think-
ing, students need criteria for making decisions. These
criteria would give them guidance that is as precise as is
feasible in making decisions. That meant, for example, not
just that students should learn or know that they should
take into account the credibility of their sources, or that
they should judge a hypothesis by looking at the evidence;
but also that they should learn or know criteria (and ac-
companying distinctions) for deciding whether a source is
credible, or for judging whether the evidence supports the
hypothesis. As a high school teacher I had no such criteria
to promote with my students.
(b) Good Judgment: Qualifications, Tolerating Lack
of Precision, and SEBKUS
One cannot expect the application of these criteria
to yield a result automatically, except in mathematics
and deductive logic. And even deductive logic in real life
applications usually has to deal with implicit or explicit
qualifying words like ‘ceteris paribus’ (other things be-
ing equal), ‘probably,’ ‘tends to,’ ‘roughly,’ etc., making
the application of criteria not logically necessary in most
cases (Ennis, 1969b); hence, in a way, imprecise or loose.
So good judgment in applying the criteria is needed
as well. Criteria used in making a good judgment are
generally aided by Sensitivity, Experience, Background
Knowledge, and Understanding of the Situation, that is,
“SEBKUS” (an acronym I developed fairly recently (En-
nis, 2004)).
These emphases on criteria and good judgment (ex-
pressed with varying degrees of qualification, and made
with SEBKUS) have permeated all my work on critical
thinking, even my work on operational definition (En-
nis, 1964a), but the basic ideas started to develop when
I was a graduate student involved in the Illinois Project
for the Improvement of Thinking. They are key features
of my 1962 concept article. Many of my articles since
then have elaborated these emphases in different contexts
and with respect to different aspects of critical thinking.
If I am right about the need for good judgment (which
often requires a tolerance of some lack of precision,
that is, tolerance of some looseness), then I see no hope
for computerizing critical thinking, though I admit that
expert computer systems can probably ((!) — See my
paper “Probably” (Ennis, 2006) for a discussion of some
details of imprecision.) do a better job in tight time limits
than many professionals.
The emphases on qualifications, tolerance of impreci-
sion, and SEBKUS are not original. For example, Aristotle
suggested them in The Nichomachean Ethics (I, 3). I have
attempted to implement them in numerous places (Ennis,
1964a, 1969b Ch. 5, 1981a, 1987a, 1987b, 1991c, 1996a,
2001, 2004, 2006, 2007). But although they seem obvious
to me, they are controversial, both in and out of philosophy.
10 INQUIRY: CRITICAL THINKING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
(c) Credibility of Sources
Another feature I introduced that was not original,
but that to my knowledge was new to the philosophical
critical thinking literature is the emphasis on judging the
credibility of sources. I introduced it in my dissertation,
leaning heavily on a legal source, John Henry Wigmore.
(Wigmore, 1942) In the first definition/conception article
(1962), I discussed credibility of sources and later, at
the time of challenges to President Nixon’s credibility,
elaborated the imprecision of credibility criteria (Ennis,
1974a). I also incorporated credibility of sources in my
second conception of critical thinking (Ennis, 1980, 1981b,
1987a, 1991c, 1996a, 2002).
Credibility of sources is now fairly widely accepted
as an aspect of critical thinking. I suspect that it was
not mentioned in early philosophical works on critical
thinking because of philosophers’ traditional emphasis
on argument and reasoning (especially deductive logic).
However, I do realize that there was some philosophical
concern with this topic, for example in consideration of
fallacies, and in Francis Bacon’s “idols,” but criteria for
judging credibility of a source (such as the desirability
of a source’s not having a conflict of interest) were not at
that time advanced in the philosophical literature (so far
as I know). However, they are in both of my conceptions
of critical thinking.
My Second Critical Thinking Definition and
Conception of Critical Thinking
Going beyond the special features of the first defi-
nition/conception, (criteria, judgment/imprecision, and
credibility of sources) my second definition/conception
has several additional special features. These are (a) the
definition itself, (b) explicit inclusion of critical thinking
dispositions, (c) qualified deduction, (d) detailing of as-
sumption ascription, (e) expansion of inference-to-best-
explanation, (f) special emphasis on equivocation, and (g)
inclusion of value judging. All of these except the first and
the last, were present in some form or were implicit in the
first conception. I shall discuss each in turn.
(a) The Definition
John Dewey provided two informative examples of
critical thinking in How We Think. The first involves what
to believe about the cause of bubbling coming from under
hot, recently-washed glasses (which involved formulat-
ing alternative hypotheses and checking predictions from
them with observations). The second concerned selecting
a subway train for a timely trip to his destination (involv-
ing alternative possible decisions, exploring their prob-
able consequences, and making one decision, which was
implemented and found satisfactory). He thus exemplified
the two main emphases (belief and action) in my second
and current definition of critical thinking:
“Critical thinking is reasonable reflective
thinking focused on deciding what to believe
or do.” (Ennis, 1987a, 1987b, 1991a, 1996a,
2002).
During the early 1980s when I was developing this
definition, Gerald Nosich urged me to add “or do” to
“believe,” on the ground that decisions about actions (not
only decisions about beliefs) are a type of decision that is
ordinarily included in the concerns of people in the criti-
cal thinking movement and incorporated in their use of
the term. I appreciate his suggestion and did implement it.
It is not a precise definition, which fact befits the gen-
eral imprecision in the everyday use of the term ‘critical
thinking’ (thus illustrating the tolerance of imprecision as
suits the circumstances, which was a topic in the previ-
ous section). If the definition is a true though imprecise
report of usage in the critical thinking movement, which
is what I hold it to be, then it describes the current no-
tion of critical thinking in that movement. But it is also
positional in that in offering it I take the position that this
definition represents something worth implementing in
our education system and elsewhere. So I offer it also as
a defensible positional definition (a definition that takes a
position on some issue for which rational arguments can
be offered). I hold this position because I think that reason-
able and reflective thinking focused on what to believe or
do should be a very important part of our personal, civic,
and vocational lives, and should receive attention in our
education system.
(b) Dispositions
The first conception has been criticized for omitting
critical thinking dispositions (e.g., Siegel, 1988, p. 6), such
as the dispositions to be open-minded, to try to be well
informed, to be alert for alternatives, and to exercise one’s
critical thinking abilities. Although I believe that critical
thinking dispositions are implicit in my first conception, I
explicitly included them in the second conception because
they are so important and might otherwise be neglected.
Over the years, I have reorganized my presentation of
critical thinking dispositions (Ennis, 1987a, 1991c, 1996a,
1996b, 2002). See the latest version in the appendix. It is a
brief list with no examples, containing I believe the most
important ones.
(c) Qualified Deduction
The basic ideas of deduction are important in many
aspects of thought, as I argued in “A Conception of De-
ductive Logic Competence” (Ennis, 1981a), although
logical necessity is too strict for many practical ap-
plications (discussed under “Good Judgment” above),
and although material implication and its cohorts make
trouble and must be ignored in critical thinking (Lewis,
SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1
C. I., 1912 and Strawson, P. F., 1952). Criteria for useful
deduction have not been specified in most versions of my
second conception of critical thinking in order to save
space, but can be found in a few places (Ennis, 1969a,
1969b, 1981a, 1996a, with further application discussed
in 2004).
Deduction is usually included in attempts by phi-
losophers to teach critical thinking. What is unique in
my conception is my emphasis on qualifying deductive
reasoning so as to accommodate the implicit and explicit
use of words like ‘probably’ and ‘ceteris paribus.’ The
explicit rejection of material implication and its cohorts is
not unique, but is controversial. Keeping deduction simple
is also a feature of my approach, but it is not unique in the
field of critical thinking.
(d) Assumption Ascription
This second conception goes more deeply into types
of assumptions and criteria for ascribing assumptions than
is widely advocated, perhaps because of the complexity
of the topic. Ordinarily students are urged to identify their
and others’ assumptions, but are not told how to do this.
There are different sorts of assumptions, which need
to be distinguished from each other because different
criteria apply to each. Some are presuppositions, which
must be true for another proposition to make sense (but
see Donnellan, 1966,1968). Some are assumptions in the
pejorative sense. Some are also needed assumptions (called
“assumptions of the argument” by Hitchcock, 1985),
which, however, are not logically necessary conditions
for drawing the conclusion, as some people think. And
some are used assumptions (called “assumptions of the
arguer” by Hitchcock, 1985), that is, those that someone
cognitively used, either explicitly or implicitly. Reason-
able space limits preclude giving more details here, but the
distinctions and criteria for ascribing assumptions can be
found most completely in “Identifying Implicit Assump-
tions” (Ennis, 1982c), and to a lesser extent also in Critical
Thinking (Ennis, 1996a), “Argument Appraisal Strategy”
(Ennis, 2001), and “Applying Soundness Standards to
Qualified Reasoning” (Ennis, 2004).
(e) Inference-to-best-explanation
Although inference-to-best-explanation (IBE) is well
known in the philosophical literature as exemplified by
Gilbert Harman (Harman, 1965, 1973), a discussion by
me of one feature of Harman’s approach (Ennis, 1968)
with a reply by him, and Peter Lipton’s book (Lipton,
2004). But outside of my work (Ennis, 1996a), IBE is not
generally advocated in the critical thinking literature. There
are three features about IBE that I should mention: (1) the
confusion that might be introduced by the name, (2) its
widespread applicability in fields other than science, and
(3) its relation to causality.
11
First with regard to a confusion, IBE basically consists
of an approach to evaluation of hypotheses that considers
the explanatory power of the hypothesis and the inability
of competitors to explain evidence or the outright incon-
sistency of the alternatives with the evidence. There are
details that are more controversial. But calling it “infer-
ence” might misleadingly suggest that it is a set of rules for
generating hypotheses, that is, of inferring the hypothesis
directly from the evidence, which it is not. Rather IBE is an
approach containing a set of rules or criteria for evaluating
a hypothesis, and in many situations is the evaluation part
of the exploratory process of refining and developing a final
hypothesis, which is also evaluated by IBE.
However, ‘IBE’ can also be used as a label for the
intuitive leap from the known facts in a situation to a
hypothesis which should then be judged for its adequacy
by the rules or criteria of IBE. Thus IBE is both an intui-
tive generation and an approach to evaluating the product
resulting from this intuitive process. This dual meaning
can be confusing.
Second, as far as applicability is concerned, IBE ap-
plies not only to scientific hypotheses, but also to historical
claims about what happened, such as, “Napoleon died of
arsenic poisoning”; interpretive claims in literature, such
as the claim that in Othello, Desdemona’s maid, Emelia,
“never dreamed he [Iago] was a villain.” (Bradley, 1937,
p. 213 — an example suggested to me by Bruce Warner).
It also applies to test validity claims, such as a claim I have
made to the effect that a particular critical thinking test is
a substantially valid test of college-level critical thinking
ability under standard conditions (Ennis, 2009). I have
discussed the Napoleon and Emelia examples elsewhere
(Ennis, 1996a).
Third, to consider IBE in relation to causality, as I
see it, all explanatory hypotheses that account for an oc-
currence or type of occurrence are implicitly or explicitly
causal. There are some, including Bertrand Russell, who
have urged abandoning causality in our disciplined think-
ing, and there are various views about what it is and how
we identify it. This is a controversial area. In the past, I
have argued that we should not abandon causality (Ennis,
1982a), and that being a necessary condition for an effect
is not necessarily necessary (Ennis, 1982b), contrary to
necessary-condition and counterfactual analyses of specific
(singular) causal claims, e.g., the analyses of John Mackie
(1974) and David Lewis (1973). I have also tried to sketch
out a broad picture of causality (Ennis, 1973), especially
specific causal claims like ‘The bad decisions by BP caused
the 2010 Gulf oil spill’ and ‘Lack of adequate regulation
caused the spill’ (two seemingly inconsistent claims),
and am now working on a sufficient-condition speech-act
interpretation of specific causal claims. However, I am
convinced that causality itself is an irreducible notion.
There is still much work to be done here.
12 INQUIRY: CRITICAL THINKING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
(f) Equivocation
Although equivocation is a standard item in a list of
fallacies, I treat it as deserving special mention because
it is particularly insidious. In my first conception I called
it merely “ambiguity,” but actually it is more serious than
ambiguity. It is often connected with definitions, and I
usually mention it in association with definitions. As I use
the term, equivocation is the process of shifting between
two meanings of a term in an argument, generally proving
a proposition using one sense of the term and applying the
proposition using a different sense.
For example someone might charge that my concep-
tion of critical thinking is biased because it takes a posi-
tion on what makes for good thinking. In this example the
definition of ‘bias’ that is assumed is that a person is biased
if he or she has a position on something. But the applica-
tion of the term ‘bias’ seems to be a charge of unfairness
(unfairness not having been mentioned in the definition of
‘bias,’ but a characteristic ordinarily associated with the
use of the term ‘bias’). So it seems to follow that critical
thinking is unfair, if one ignores the shift in meaning. But
of course, it does not follow.
Actually, blatant cases of equivocation (in which the
arguer explicitly adopts two meanings, and deliberately
exploits the shift between them) are rare. Most actual cases
of equivocation are more subtle, and must be uncovered
by probing. One of the subtleties is in what I have called
“impact equivocation” (Ennis, 1980) which is found in
arguments that have the impact of equivocation but in
which the arguer does not explicitly adopt both of the
meanings of the crucial term. Rather the arguer adopts a
special meaning for a term that is at variance with ordinary
use of the audience, makes a statement using the term in
that special meaning, which will be taken by the audience
to assume the ordinary meaning of the term, and thus be
misleading. This sometimes happens with the word ‘bias’,
and with the word ‘reliability’, a psychometric term used
in the discussion of tests. Concern with equivocation,
including impact equivocation, is one of the good things
that was part of the ordinary-language movement inspired
by the later Wittgenstein.
(g) Value judgments
Value judgments were omitted in my first conception,
making it what I then called a “truncated” conception.
Appraising value judgments is an aspect of the second
conception, and some criteria are offered, such as getting
the facts straight (including facts about the likely conse-
quences of an action), prima facie application of acceptable
principles, and attention to alternatives. But a heavy dose
of good judgment is needed as well.
Two Overall Summaries
(a) The appendix
“The Nature of Critical Thinking: An Outline of
Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities,” which is the
appendix to this paper and is in outline form, contains all
of the above-described second-conception ideas, as well
as additional features that are fairly standard in the critical
thinking literature. This outline, though unexemplified, is
comprehensive and thorough enough to be used in plan-
ning for an overall curriculum, or as a basis for a table
of specifications for a critical thinking test or test series.
But it makes for difficult reading if read straight through,
especially for beginners, and it contains more than can be
incorporated in an introductory course in critical thinking.
(b) A brief summary of the second conception
Table 1 provides a very brief (“super-streamlined”)
overall presentation with neither listings of criteria nor
detailed listing of aspects of critical thinking. I call it
“super-streamlined” to show that it is a streamlined ver-
sion of “A streamlined conception of critical thinking”
(Ennis, 1991c) and other article-length presentations of the
second conception. It also merges critical thinking abilities
and dispositions. But it can be useful as someone’s first
encounter with critical thinking, or as a rough checklist for
a student’s paper or thesis, or for anyone’s act of deciding
what to believe or do.
Table 1
A Super-Streamlined Conception of
Critical Thinking
Assuming that critical thinking is reasonable reflective thinking
focused on deciding what to believe or do, a critical thinker:
1. Is open-minded and mindful of alternatives
2. Desires to be, and is, well-informed
3. Judges well the credibility of sources
4. Identifies conclusions, reasons, and assumptions
5. Asks appropriate clarifying questions
6. Judges well the quality of an argument, including its reasons,
assumptions, evidence, and their degree of support for the
conclusion
7. Can well develop and defend a reasonable position, doing
justice to challenges
8. Formulates plausible hypotheses
9. Plans and conducts experiments well
10. Defines terms in a way appropriate for the context
11. Draws conclusions when warranted — but with caution
12. Integrates all items in this list
Incidentally I have argued (Ennis, 1981c) that another
brief characterization of good thinking, Benjamin Bloom’s
popular “Taxonomy of Educational Objectives: Cognitive
SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1
Domain” (Bloom, 1956) is inspiring, but not very helpful
as guidance. Among other things, its six categories do
not have useful criteria that can be applied across top-
ics and subject-matter areas. For example, his category,
analysis, covers a range of important activities that vary
considerably from, for example, chemistry to literature,
with not much in common that is worth teaching as criti-
cal thinking or “higher-order thinking” (a term in use by
Bloom’s followers). There is not much to teach in general
about analysis, making Bloom’s taxonomy vulnerable to
McPeck’s (1981, 1990a) complaints about the emptiness
of attempts to teach general thinking. However, in provid-
ing a list with a five-to-one ratio of thinking categories to
“knowledge” (Bloom behaviorally defined “knowledge”
as ‘recall,’ but most people have taken it in its ordinary
sense), his taxonomy is an apparently persuasive counter to
demands for exclusive attention to subject-matter knowl-
edge, as opposed to higher-order thinking.
Other Topics
Related to the second conception, though not explic-
itly mentioned in it, is the relationship between critical
thinking and creativity. In agreement with Sharon Bailin
(1985), I hold that they are somewhat interdependent
(Ennis, 1985). Judgments that some act of thinking is
creative generally assume a positive evaluation of the
thinking (thus requiring critical thinking). Furthermore,
creativity is needed in generating hypotheses, definitions,
and alternatives, in planning experiments, and conceiving
of counter-examples.
Another so-far-undiscussed topic in this essay is the
possibility of critical thinking’s being gender or culturally
biased (Wheary & Ennis, 1995; Ennis, 1998). My view is
that critical thinking is basically not gender or culturally
biased, as can be seen in a point-by-point examination of
the second conception in the Appendix.
Later, in the section labeled “Teaching Critical Think-
ing” in Part II, I will consider the question of whether
critical thinking is subject-specific, and the question of
the appropriate allocation of responsibility for teaching
critical thinking among various teachers, subject-matter
areas, and other units. Both questions are related to one’s
conception of critical thinking, but perhaps better consid-
ered under teaching.
[To be continued in INQUIRY Vol. 26, No. 2 (Sum-
mer 2011).]
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Web sites
AILACT Web Site: ailact.mcmaster.ca/
Ennis, Robert H. Academic Web Site: faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/rhennis
Ennis, Robert H. Critical Thinking Web Site: www.criticalth-
inking.net
Appendix
The Nature of Critical Thinking: An Outline of
Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities3
Critical thinking is reasonable and reflective think-
ing focused on deciding what to believe or do. This
definition I believe captures the core of the way the term
is used in the critical thinking movement. In deciding what
to believe or do, one is helped by the employment of a set
of critical thinking dispositions and abilities that I shall
outline. These can serve as a set of comprehensive goals
for a critical thinking curriculum and its assessment. Use-
fulness in curriculum decisions, teaching, and assessment,
not elegance or mutual exclusiveness, is the purpose of this
15
outline. For the sake of brevity, clarification in the form of
examples, qualifications, and more detail, including more
criteria, are omitted, but can be found in sources listed
below, but most fully in my Critical Thinking (1996a).
This outline is the encapsulation of many years of
work in the elaboration of the simple definition of critical
thinking given above, and it distinguishes between critical
thinking dispositions and abilities.
It is only a critical thinking content outline. It does not
specify grade level, curriculum sequence, emphasis, teach-
ing approach, or type of subject-matter content involved
(standard subject-matter content, general knowledge
content, streetwise-knowledge content, special knowledge
content, etc.). For assessment purposes it can only provide
a basis for developing a table of specifications and the
preparation of assessment rubrics.
Critical Thinking Dispositions
Ideal critical thinkers are disposed to
1. Care that their beliefs be true,4 and that their decisions
be justified; that is, care to “get it right” to the extent
possible; including to
a. Seek alternative hypotheses, explanations, conclu-
sions, plans, sources, etc.; and be open to them
b. Consider seriously other points of view than their
own
c. Try to be well informed
d. Endorse a position to the extent that, but only to the
extent that, it is justified by the information that is
available
e. Use their critical thinking abilities
2. Care to understand and present a position honestly
and clearly, theirs as well as others’; including to
a. Discover and listen to others’ view and reasons
b. Be clear about the intended meaning of what is
said, written, or otherwise communicated, seeking
as much precision as the situation requires
c. Determine, and maintain focus on, the conclusion
or question
d. Seek and offer reasons
e. Take into account the total situation
f. Be reflectively aware of their own basic beliefs
3. Care about every person. (This one is an auxiliary,
not constitutive, disposition. Although this concern
for people is not constitutive, critical thinking can be
dangerous without it.) Caring critical thinkers
a. Avoid intimidating or confusing others with their
critical thinking prowess, taking into account others’
feelings and level of understanding
b. Are concerned about others’ welfare
16 INQUIRY: CRITICAL THINKING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
Critical Thinking Abilities
The following abilities numbered 1 to 3 involve basic
clarification; 4 and 5, the bases for a decision; 6 to 8,
inference; 9 and 10, advanced clarification; and 11 and
12, supposition and integration. Abilities 13 to 15 are
auxiliary abilities, not constitutive of critical thinking,
but very helpful.
Ideal critical thinkers have the ability to:
(Basic Clarification, 1 to 3)
1. Focus on a question:
a. Identify or formulate a question
b. Identify or formulate criteria for judging possible
answers
c. Keep the question and situation in mind
2.Analyze arguments:
a. Identify conclusions
b. Identify reasons or premises
c. Ascribe or identify simple assumptions (see also
ability 10)
c. Identify and handle irrelevance
d. See the structure of an argument
e. Summarize
3. Ask and answer clarification and/or challenge ques-
tions, such as:
a. Why?
b. What is your main point?
c. What do you mean by______________________?
d. What would be an example?
e. What would not be an example (though close to
being one)?
f. How does that apply to this case (describe a case,
which appears to be a counterexample)?
g. What difference does it make?
h. What are the facts?
i. Is this what you are saying:__________________?
j. Would you say more about that?
(Two Bases for a Decision: 4 and 5)
4. Judge the credibility of a source. Major criteria (but
not necessary conditions):
a. Expertise
b. Lack of conflict of interest
c. Agreement with other sources
d. Reputation
e. Use of established procedures
f. Known risk to reputation (the source’s knowing of
a risk to reputation, if wrong)
g. Ability to give reasons
h. Careful habits
5. Observe, and judge observation reports. Major
criteria (but not necessary conditions, except for
the first):
a. Minimal inferring involved
b. Short time interval between observation and report
c. Report by the observer, rather than someone else
(that is, the report is not hearsay)
d. Provision of records
e. Corroboration
f. Possibility of corroboration
g. Good access
h. Competent employment of technology, if technol-
ogy applies
i. Satisfaction by observer (and reporter, if a differ-
ent person) of the credibility criteria in Ability # 4
above (Note: A third basis is your own established
conclusions.)
(Inference, 6 to 8)
6. Deduce, and judge deduction:
a. Class logic
b. Conditional logic
c. Interpretation of logical terminology, including
i. Negation and double negation
ii. Necessary and sufficient condition language
iii. Such words as “only”, “if and only if”, “or”,
“some”, “unless”, and “not both”
d. Qualified deductive reasoning (a loosening for
practical purposes)
7. Make material inferences (roughly “induction”):
a. To generalizations. Broad considerations:
i. Typicality of data, including valid sampling
where appropriate
ii. Volume of instances
iii. Conformity of instances to generalization
iv. Having a principled way of dealing with outliers
b. To explanatory hypotheses (IBE: “inference-to-
best-explanation”):
i. Major types of explanatory conclusions and
hypotheses:
a. Specific and general causal claims
b. Claims about the beliefs and attitudes of
people
c. Interpretation of authors’ intended meanings
d. Historical claims that certain things happened
(including criminal accusations)
e. Reported definitions
f. Claims that some proposition is an unstated,
but used, reason
ii. Characteristic investigative activities
a. Designing experiments, including planning
to control variables
SPRING 2011, VOL. 26, NO. 1
b. Seeking evidence and counterevidence, in-
cluding statistical significance
c. Seeking other possible explanations
iii. Criteria, the first four being essential, the fifth
being desirable
a. The proposed conclusion would explain or
help explain the evidence
b. The proposed conclusion is consistent with
all known facts
c. Competitive alternative explanations are
inconsistent with facts
d. A competent sincere effort has been made
to find supporting and opposing data, and
alternative hypotheses
e. The proposed conclusion seems plausible and
simple, fitting into the broader picture
8.Make and judge value judgments
Important factors:
a. Background facts
b. Consequences of accepting or rejecting the judg-
ment
c. Prima facie application of acceptable principles
d. Alternatives
e. Balancing, weighing, deciding
(Advanced Clarification, 9 and 10)
9. Define terms and judge definitions, using appropriate
criteria
  Three basic dimensions are form, function (act),
and content. A fourth, more advanced dimension is
handling equivocation.
a. Definition form. For criteria for 1 through 4 and
6, see Ennis (1996, Ch 12 & 13). For #5 see Ennis
(1964, 1969c).
i. Synonym
ii. Classification
iii. Range
iv. Equivalent-expression
v. Operational
vi. Example and non-example
b. Definitional functions (acts)
i. Report a meaning (criteria: the five for an ex-
planatory hypothesis)
ii. Stipulate a meaning (criteria: convenience,
consistency, avoidance of impact equivocation)
iii. Express a position on an issue (positional defini-
tions, including “programmatic” and “persua-
sive” definitions) Criteria: those for a position
(Ennis 2001)
c. Content of the definition
d. Identifying and handling equivocation (Ennis 1996)
17
10. Attribute unstated assumptions (an ability that belongs
under both basic clarification (2b) and inference (7bif)
a. Pejorative flavor (dubiousness or falsity): com-
monly but not always associated to some degree
with the different types. Criteria: See #8 above.
b. Types:
i. Presuppositions (required for a proposition to
make sense)
ii. Needed assumptions (needed by the reasoning
to be at its strongest, but not logically necessary
(Ennis 1982)), (called “assumptions of the argu-
ment” by Hitchcock (1985))
iii. Used assumptions (judged by hypothesis-testing
criteria, Ennis 1982), called “assumptions of the
arguer” by Hitchcock (1985)
(Supposition and Integration, 11 and 12)
11. Consider and reason from premises, reasons, assump-
tions, positions, and other propositions with which
they disagree or about which they are in doubt, without
letting the disagreement or doubt interfere with their
thinking (“suppositional thinking”)
12. Integrate the dispositions and other abilities in making
and defending a decision
(Auxiliary abilities, 13 to 15)
13. Proceed in an orderly manner appropriate to the situ-
ation:
a. Follow problem solving steps
b. Monitor their own thinking (that is, engage in
metacognition)
c. Employ a reasonable critical thinking checklist
14. Be sensitive to the feelings, level of knowledge, and
degree of sophistication of others
15. Employ appropriate rhetorical strategies in discussion
and presentation (oral and written), including employ-
ing and reacting to “fallacy” labels in an appropriate
manner. Examples of fallacy labels are “circularity,”
“bandwagon,” “post hoc,” “equivocation,” “non se-
quitur,” and “straw person”
Summary and Comments
In brief, the ideal critical thinker is disposed to try to
“get it right,” to present a position honestly and clearly, and
to care about others (this last being auxiliary, not constitu-
tive); furthermore the ideal critical thinker has the ability
to clarify, to seek and judge well the basis for a view, to
infer wisely from the basis, to imaginatively suppose and
integrate, and to do these things with dispatch, sensitivity,
and rhetorical skill.
18 INQUIRY: CRITICAL THINKING ACROSS THE DISCIPLINES
In presenting this outline of critical thinking disposi-
tions and abilities, I have only attempted to depict, rather
than defend, them. The defense would require much more
space than is available, but would follow two general paths:
1) examining the traditions of good thinking in existing
successful disciplines of inquiry, and 2) seeing how we go
wrong when we attempt to decide what to believe or do.
In any teaching situation for which critical thinking
is a goal, whether it be a separate critical thinking course
or module, or one in which the critical thinking content
is infused in (making critical thinking principles explicit)
or immersed in (not making critical thinking principles
explicit) standard subject-matter content, or some mixture
of these; all of the dispositions, as well as the suppositional
and integrational abilities (# 11 and #12) and auxiliary
abilities (#13 through #15) are applicable all the time and
should permeate the instruction to the extent that time and
student ability permit.
I have only attempted to outline a usable and de-
fensible set of critical thinking goals, including criteria
for making judgments. Space limitations have precluded
exemplifying their application to curriculum, teaching, and
assessment, though I have done so elsewhere.5 However,
goals are the place to start. I hope that this outline provides
a useful basis on which to build curriculum, teaching, and
assessment procedures.
Sources of exemplification, elaboration, and more
criteria.
The meaning, significance, and application of some
of the above aspects might not be apparent to some, who
might find the following items, which contain many ex-
amples, to be of help. Furthermore criteria for deduction,
assumption ascription and definition are not provided in
the above outline of the nature of critical thinking because
they are too complex for a brief listing. Elaboration of
these criteria and this conception by me are listed in “Ref-
erences” (above): 2007, 2006, 2004, 2002, 2001, 1991c,
1987a, 1987b, 1982b, 1982a, 1981a, 1980, 1974a, 1974b,
1973, 1969a, 1969b, 1969c, 1968, 1964a, 1964b, and
1962, but most comprehensively in three others (1996a,
1991, 1987a.)
Endnotes
1. I deeply appreciate the suggestions for this essay made
by Jennie Berg, Lindley Darden, and Frank Fair. I also
appreciate the fact that my two universities, Cornell
and Illinois, provided me the research time to work
on critical thinking, the fact that the United States
Department of Education and the Center for Advanced
Study in the Behavioral Sciences each provided me
a year of study, the research grants from New York
State and the United States Department of Education
for critical thinking research, and the invaluable help
of my students and colleagues at both universities and
in AILACT.
2. ‘Assessing,’ not ‘assessment,’ thus avoiding the pro-
cess-product ambiguity of ‘assessment,’ an ambiguity
that John McPeck (1981, pp. 44-46), and others in his
footsteps have tried to exploit after misquoting me as
saying “assessment”. If one says “assessment” and
assumes the result (product) sense of “assessment,”
then “correct assessment,” if it were in the definition,
would fail “to recognize that what makes some bit of
thinking critical is a function not of the result but of
the way in which a particular result is pursued” (p.
44). After misquoting me, McPeck (p. 44) mistakenly
attributed this sort of failure to my first definition.
3. This is a thoroughly revised version of a presentation
at the Sixth International Conference on Thinking at
MIT, Cambridge, MA, July, 1994. Last revised Janu-
ary, 2011. Developed by Robert H. Ennis, University
of Illinois. rhennis@illinois.edu
4. With respect to epistemological constructivism (the
view that truth is constructed): In expressing a concern
about true belief, this conception of critical thinking
accepts the view that our concepts and vocabulary
are constructed by us, but also that (to oversimplify
somewhat) the relationships among the referents of
our concepts and terms are not constructed by us. We
can have true or false beliefs about these.
With respect to pedagogical constructivism (the view
that students learn best when they construct their own
answers to problems and questions): For some (but not
all) goals and types of learning, this view has empirical
support, but it should not be confused with episte-
mological constructivism. In particular, the validity
of pedagogical constructivism (to the extent that it is
valid) does not imply the validity of epistemological
constructivism. They are totally different ideas.
5. My complete list of publications is to be found in
the publications sections of my academic web site,
faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/rhennis