Previously I have discussed* the implications of studies which indicate that a person's basic political (and religious) orientation is influenced greatly by genetic and early developmental factors. We generally only engage in political or religious debate because we have strong ideological or religious convictions, and those convictions set the general tone and direction of our contributions. Rationality comes in only later - to help us elaborate and defend that general position which feels so true to us (but strangely not to our antagonists).
These facts (as I take them to be) are rather inconvenient. It takes all the fun out of argument if one feels obliged to be skeptical towards one's own deeply felt convictions!
But on the plus side, it allows one (I believe) better to understand what is really going in much ideological, religious and philosophical debate.
In my previous post on this site, I touched on these issues, suggesting that platonists and anti-platonists in the philosophy of mathematics may be caught up in a debate which is superficially rational but ultimately driven by non-rational factors - deep convictions similar to religious or political convictions.
If progress is to be made in any of these areas, I think there has to be an acceptance that we are less rational than we would like to think; and so we need to depend more on scientific methods (which incorporate mechanisms to counter individual biases etc.), and less on convictions (or the elaborate arguments which we have built upon them).
A boring conclusion, I know. Especially for those of us who have strong convictions and a taste for argument and debate about the big questions.
Within the (rather ill-defined) area of philosophy, history certainly seems to indicate that arguments and debates are most fruitful (albeit somewhat constrained) when the dividing line between philosophy and science is blurred or non-existent, and most pointless and futile whenever philosophy is disengaged from science.
I recognize, however, that we are inveterately ideological creatures**, and there will always be a role for those who can identify, articulate and criticize the ideological frameworks we inevitably create and seek to live by.
Could this be what will replace the bits of philosophy which are not swallowed up by the various sciences: the scientifically-informed critique of ideologies?
* For example, here and here.
** There are problems with the term 'ideology', I know. I am using it in a very broad sense to mean something like a system of beliefs involving values and prompting certain forms of action, often in concert with others who share the ideology and sometimes in opposition to those who don't. It may be that I would do better to speak of us being inveterately tribal. 'Ideology' may be just the intellectual's (way of rationalizing) tribalism.
Who do you think practices philosophy the way you think it should be practised? (I'm never sure how to spell that annoying word.)
ReplyDeleteWhat is the best method for doing this?
In the past I have suggested that the only viable forms of what might be called philosophy relate to meta-thinking within various areas of science.
DeleteBut this leaves out more general kinds of meta-thinking about human behavior and so on.
I don't know that such general reflections can ever constitute a single (or even a set of) intellectual discipline(s).
The 'critique of ideology' idea I haven't really worked out. It could take the form of a critical history of a particular ideology or set of related social and political ideas. Main Currents of Marxism by Leszek Kolakowski is a beautiful example of this.
Louis Rougier wrote some interesting critical analyses of political and economic mystiques, but this sort of thing is always value-laden and prone to individual biases. Part of the problem is that our 'ideologies' (or 'mystiques') are rarely explicit and I'm not sure one could expose and critique implicit ideologies in any systematic or scholarly way.
One worthwhile activity that comes to mind is simply trying to assess and draw out the implications of new or newish findings in areas like psychology, neuroscience, etc.
I am convinced that we live in a world of myths and illusions, but maybe my desire to get past those illusions is itself based on a myth (something like Plato's vision of the true, real world lying behind the phenomena of ordinary life).
Every man and his dog has a critique of ideology is his back pocket. It's a crowded market, and prices are at rock bottom. No doubt there are critiques of critiques of critiques. If only there was some fair and reasonable way of telling the better from the worser. A consumers guide, or ideology for dummies, should sell OK, I'd guess. But probably there's no substitute for good old-fashioned critical thinking.
DeleteI had been meaning to respond earlier, but I wanted to do a bit of background reading on critical thinking. I haven't done much but let me just say that I don't see it as old fashioned. It's a later 20th century invention, really, isn't it? (Even if thinkers from past centuries have been co-opted.)
DeleteThe main point I think I would want to make is that the traditional curricula of grammar schools and the like during the last 150 years or so didn't normally have a place for logic or reasoning or critical thinking but these schools produced critical thinkers nonetheless.
It's broadly right to say that CT dates from the 1970s and took off in the next decades. I don't know of any history of the subject. Hamblin's 1970 book on Fallacies was a kick-starter. Getting the subject recognised involved separating it from formal logic and showing that non-deductive arguments really are arguments.
DeleteOn the other hand "informal logic" is as old as Aristotle.
Whether and how far and in what way the grammar schools taught reasoning is an interesting question. I think some of them did teach the subject.
It is surely true that critical thinkers can be cultivated without formal teaching of argument. But I wonder about it. Suppose you never get taught the fallacy of ad hominem or begging the question. How in that case does one pick it up?
The classical trivium (grammar, dialectic and rhetoric) puts the emphasis on communication rather than reasoning. Eloquent and persuasive communication was the main goal, though built on a foundation of knowledge of the elements of language and argument.
DeleteAt my high school there was no subject devoted to reasoning, but arguing (e.g. debating, essay-writing and just ordinary class discussion) was a part of the subject English, for example. We knew about ad hominem arguments and begging the question, probably mainly through the debating side of things. The debates were scored and so one had to have criteria to base the scoring on. But, again, the emphasis was on rhetoric and persuasion, not explicitly on thinking or searching for the truth.
There was also a strong emphasis on the close reading and analysis of texts (literary and non-literary).
An experiment-based chemistry course taught me a lot about the scientific method.
All these things enhanced critical thinking in one way or another. I am not saying other methods or subjects may not do a better job, but I am skeptical that something so subtle and complex and multi-faceted as thinking critically can be achieved within the context of any single subject area.
Critical Thinking as a distinct subject emerged as a separate subject for university students, and has been introduced into schools only rarely.
ReplyDeleteIts role in universities is to try to ensure that students are taught some of the basics of argument. I think that in many fields the focus is on subject learning, and so it is assumed that general skills are learnt without any specialised teaching. Then we wonder why students don't understand how to construct an argumentative essay.
I was aware that Critical Thinking had been widely taught for some years as a component of certain university courses (like nursing, for example), but am not up with the latest developments.
DeleteI just read the Wikipedia article on Critical thinking. Am very wary of the values side. There is significant scope for pushing particular ideological agendas (as is clear from the article).
I see also that it is now an A-Level option in the UK school system.
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ReplyDeletelife sciences