The ‘Reasons’ Conception of Critical Thinking

Although the practice of critical thinking goes back at least to the time of Socrates, and the theory of it at least to 1941 with the publication of Edward M. Glaser's An Experiment in the Development of Critical Thinking, the phenomenon has now acquired some of the trappings of a “movement,” and in fact some of its leading exponents do not hesitate to speak of it by using this label (Paul 1985). Interest in critical thinking has always had, and continues to have a strong pedagogical orientation (Ennis 1962, 1980, 1981; McPeck 1981; Paul 1982, 1984, 1985), but recently the phenomenon has begun to receive epistemological and methodological scrutiny. An excellent example of this relatively novel approach to critical thinking is Harvey Siegel's book Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking, and Education (1988). This work moves the discussion of critical thinking to a qualitatively higher level of sophistication, and it does so with intelligence, breadth of preparation, and a touch of inspired zeal. We therefore have two sets of reasons for paying attention to this work.

The focus of Siegel's book is the notion of critical thinking, which gives it the following structure. He begins with an account and constructive criticism of three conceptions of critical thinking, those of Robert Ennis, Richard Paul, and John McPeck. These lead to Siegel's own account, which he calls the ‘reasons’ conception, and which he articulates primarily in terms of reason assessment and the practice of the critical spirit.