Critical Thinking and Epistemic Injustice: An Essay in Epistemology of Education

Description

This book argues that the mainstream view and practice of critical thinking in education mirrors a reductive and reified conception of competences that ultimately leads to forms of epistemic injustice in assessment. It defends an alternative view of critical thinking as a competence that is normative in nature rather than reified and reductive. This book contends that critical thinking competence should be at the heart of learning how to learn, but that much depends on how we understand critical thinking. It defends an alternative view of critical thinking as a competence that is normative in nature rather than reified and reductive. The book draws from a conception of human reasoning and rationality that focuses on belief revision and is interwoven with a Bildung approach to teaching and learning: it emphasises the relevance of knowledge and experience in making inferences. The book is an enhanced, English version of the Italian monograph Epistemologia dell’Educazione: Pensiero Critico, Etica ed Epistemic Injustice. Foreword Preface Acknowledgements Contents About the Author Chapter 1: Introduction References Chapter 2: Reasoning 2.1 The Nature of Reasoning 2.2 Gilbert Harman: Reasoning and Rationality as a Change in View 2.3 Inferences. Material Inference, Reasoning, and the Non-monotonic Norm: Evaluating Conceptual Competence as an Explicit and... 2.3.1 Skills, Inferences, and Evaluation: A Case in Point 2.3.2 Robert Brandom: Formal Inference and Material Inference 2.3.3 Concepts and Understanding: The Ultimate Nature of Concepts 2.3.4 Conceptual Content, Material Inference and Non-monotonic Norms 2.4 Jan Derry: Inferentialism and the Critique of the Representational Notion of Concepts 2.5 Conclusions References Chapter 3: Ethics, Education, and Reasoning 3.1 Ethical Judgements 3.2 Virtue Ethics 3.2.1 Linda Zagzebski: Responsibility and Virtue 3.3 The Epistemology of Virtues (Virtue Epistemology) 3.3.1 Sosa: Reliability, Conditionality, and Epistemic Virtue 3.3.2 Duncan Pritchard: The Cognitive Goal Beyond Cognitive Success 3.3.3 Jason Baehr: Intellectual Virtues and Critical Thinking 3.3.4 Ben Kotzee: The Social Realism Didactic Theory Between Fluency and Realist Didactics 3.4 Critical Thinking and Ethics: Fostering a Fair-Minded Thinker 3.4.1 Side Effects of Different Conception of Thinking in Education 3.4.1.1 Epistemic Asymmetry and Rationality 3.4.1.2 Can Critical Thinking Be Intended as a Key Competence? 3.4.1.3 Critical Thinking, Key Competencies, and the Alleged Aim of `a Good Life´ 3.4.1.4 The Prototype of Society as a Criterion of Key Competence Selection and the Value of Time 3.4.1.5 Temporal Norms and a Theory of Non-alienated vs Theory of Good Life 3.4.1.6 Side Effects of Critical Thinking as a General Key Competence and Moral Values 3.4.1.7 The `Linear´ Rational Style of the Competent Society 3.4.2 The Epistemology of Education 3.4.3 Richard Paul and Linda Elder on Critical Thinking and the Purposes of Education 3.4.3.1 Fair-Minded Critical Thinking vs Selfish Critical Thinking in Education to Ethics 3.4.4 The Ability to Make Inferences 3.4.5 Assumptions 3.4.6 Inferences, Sociocentric Thinking, and Multiculturalism 3.5 Rational Imagination, Abduction, and Counterfactual Reasoning: The Non-monotonic Nature of Competence Between Knowledge Ex... 3.5.1 Timothy Williamson: Abductive Thinking, Counterfactuals, and Knowledge Extension 3.5.2 Ruth Byrne: Rational Imagination, Inferences, and Counterfactual Thinking 3.6 Reasoning and its Role in Ethics Education: The Philosophy for Children 3.6.1 Lisa´s Inner Conflict 3.7 Conclusions. Virtue and Competence, some Reflections on Advantages and Limits References Chapter 4: Critical Thinking and Epistemic Value 4.1 Varieties of Critical Thinking 4.2 The Goldman-Siegel Debate: Two Concepts of Critical Thinking in Relation to Truth, Epistemic Value, and the Purposes of Ed... 4.2.1 Goldman: Critical Thinking and the Aim of Achieving Truth 4.2.2 Siegel: Critical Thinking and the Aim of Rational Belief 4.3 The Siegel-Williams Debate on the Value of Critical Thinking 4.4 Why It Is Worth Educating in Critical Thinking: Critical Thinking and Epistemic Responsibility 4.4.1 Michael Huemer: Credulity, Reliability, and Critical Thinking 4.4.2 Martha Nussbaum: Testimony, Expertise, and Public Reason 4.4.3 Julio Ritola: Reliability, Responsibility, and the Value of Critical Thinking 4.4.4 Anand Jayprakash Vaidya: Critical Identity, Rational Assent, and Critical Thinking 4.5 Conclusions References Chapter 5: Critique of Critical Thinking: Bildung and the Value of Critical Thinking 5.1 Bildung Between Culture and Social Recognition in the Space of Reasons 5.1.1 Inferential Styles, Cognitive Processes, and Culture 5.1.2 Social Recognition: Self-Determination Detached from Merit 5.2 Paul Standish: Critical Thinking Between Bildung, Cultural Heritage and (Social) Recognition 5.3 David Bakhurst: Bildung and Education as a Process of Transformation from a First to a Second Nature 5.4 Krassimir Stojanov: Bildung vs Learnification. Education Between Recognition, Ethics, and Critical Dimension 5.5 Marina Garcés: Radical Enlightenment and Critical Thinking in the Age of the Posthumous Condition 5.6 Conclusions References Chapter 6: Critical Thinking and Epistemic Injustice in Education 6.1 Education Injustice and Minimal Teaching in the Acquisition of Virtue Competence 6.1.1 A Critique of Constructivism and Minimal Teaching: The Cognitive Load Theory 6.1.1.1 The Psychometric Approach of National and International Tests to the (Alleged) Transversal, General, Context-Free Key ... 6.1.2 The Formation of Virtue Competence Between Inferentialism, Cognitive Load Theory and Direct Instruction Theory 6.1.3 Epistemic Injustice and Critical Thinking 6.1.3.1 What Is Epistemic Injustice? 6.1.4 Education Injustice and Epistemic Injustice 6.1.5 Epistemic Injustice in Assessment and the Taking Condition Debate 6.1.5.1 Taking Condition and Inferential Relations 6.1.6 Epistemic Injustice and Constructivism in Education 6.1.7 Epistemic Injustice and the Backtracking Fallacy 6.1.7.1 Epistemic Vices and Confirmation Bias 6.1.7.2 The Backtracking Fallacy and the Businessman Argument 6.2 Back to Lipman´s Lisa: For a Revisited Conception of Critical Thinking 6.3 Conclusions References Chapter 7: Conclusions. Education Injustice and Critical Thinking Between Bildung, Cultural Heritage and Recognition References