Sharon Bailin

Simon Fraser University · Faculty of Education

Posing a significant danger to society are conspiracy theories, particularly those regarding the Covid-19 pandemic. This paper argues for the crucial role of critical thinking education in ‘inoculating’ students against conspiracy theories and outlines an approach for building their defenses against these, and other, conspiracy theories. There are...

The original version of the book was inadvertently published with an incorrect chapter title as "Inoculating students again conspiracy theories: The case of Covid-19". It has now been corrected as "Inoculating students against conspiracy theories: The case of Covid-19".The chapter and book have been updated with the changes

There has been considerable recent debate regarding the possible epistemic benefits versus the potential risks of adversariality in argumentation. Nonetheless, this debate has rarely found its way into work on critical thinking theory and instruction. This paper focuses on the implications of the adversariality debate for teaching critical thinking...

"How do I figure out what to believe?" In the face of competing views, conflicting claims, distrust of expertise, and disdain for facts, this question is both understandable and pertinent. The perennial educational task of helping people to evaluate claims and compare arguments in order to engage in reasoned discourse and make reasoned judgments ta...

This paper, which focuses on rational decision-making, has a threefold purpose: to argue for a view of rational decision making that includes the evaluation of ends as well as means; to argue that properly structured group deliberation can be an effective way to foster this kind of rationality; and to offer guidelines for achieving group decision-m...

This commentary argues that creativity is best viewed in terms of significant achievement and that such achievement is best developed through promoting critical inquiry.

We argue in this paper that there is an epistemic obligation to communicate the appropriate degree of confidence when asserting conclusions in conductive argumentation. This runs contrary to the position of those theorists who contend that once the conclusion to a conductive argument is drawn, it is simply asserted in an unqualified manner. We argu...

This paper examines what constitute the virtues of argumentation or critical thinking and how these virtues might be developed. We argue first that the notion of virtue is more appropriate for characterizing this aspect than the notion of dispositions commonly employed by critical thinking theorists and, further, that it is more illuminating to spe...

This paper will describe and argue for an approach to foster critical thinking in higher education based on inquiry. This approach encompasses both critical thinking in everyday contexts and critical thinking within the disciplines.

In this paper we discuss the relevance of considering context for critical thinking. We argue that critical thinking is best viewed in terms of ‘critical inquiry’ in which argumentation is seen as a way of arriving at reasoned judgments on complex issues. This is a dialectical process involving the comparative weighing of a variety of contending po...

The claim is often made that drama is a creative enterprise and that participation in drama can foster creativity. Determining whether and in what way this may be the case poses challenges, however, as the term creativity is ambiguous in several ways. For one thing, it can be applied to a number of different referents. We speak of creative persons,...

In this paper, the second of two, we set out a conception of critical thinking that critical thinking is a normative enterprise in which, to a greater or lesser degree, we apply appropriate criteria and standards to what we or others say, do, or write. The expression 'critical thinking' is a normative term. Those who become critical thinkers acquir...

After outlining arguments for the general epistemological presumption in favour of taking into consideration alternative perspectives from other cultures, the article details several examples in which such an examination yields epistemic benefits and challenges. First, our example of alternative conceptions of art demonstrates that a western concep...

Summary 10.1002/9780470996294.ch11.abs This chapter contains sections titled: * The Nature of Critical Thinking * Critical Thinking: Skills/Abilities and Dispositions * Critical Thinking and the Problem of Generalizability * The Relationship Between Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking * “Critical Thinking” and Other Terms Referring to Thinking...

The notion of imagination is central to our contemporary western conception of and valuing of art. Yet the conception of imagination upon which this valuing rests is based on certain assumptions about art-making and about persons. Imagination refers to the creation of an idea or artifact from the mind of the creator. That a work of art arises from...

Rorty claims argument is inherently conservative and philosophical progress comes from "sparkling new ideas," not argument. This assumes an untenable opposition between the generation and the evaluation of ideas, with argument relegated to evaluation. New ideas that contribute to progress arise from critical reflection on problems posed by the trad...

It is widely held that developing critical thinking is one of thegoals of science education. Although there is much valuable work in the area, the field lacksa coherent and defensible conception of critical thinking. As a result, many efforts to foster criticalthinking in science rest on misconceptions about the nature of critical thinking. This pa...

In this paper, the ® rst of two, we analyse three widely-held conceptions of critical thinking: as one or more skills, as mental processes, and as sets of procedures. Each viewis, wecontend, wrong-headed, misleadingor, atbest, unhelpful. Somewhowrite about critical thinking seemtomuddle all three views in an unenlightening me lange. Apartfromtheer...

Most current conceptions of critical thinking conceive of critical thinking in terms of abilities and dispositions. In this paper I describe a common type of problem students experience with critical thinking and argue that conceptualizations in terms of abilities and dispositions do not provide a way to understand this problem. I argue, further, t...

One of the arguments which is sometimes made about the educational value of drama is that drama involves critical thinking and that critical thinking can be promoted by work in drama. If this is the case, it is an important claim, since the ability to think critically is crucial in our complex and problematic world. But in order to support this cla...

Discussions about the nature and role of research in drama education tend to focus on research of an empirical nature, either quantitative or qualitative. One centrally important type of research is often neglected, that is, research which is philosophical in nature. Yet the kind of inquiry which philosophy embodies is of central importance to the...

Comment integrer l'enseignement de l'art dramatique dans les programmes d'etudes ? L'A. aborde le sujet problematique de l'introduction du theatre dans les classes. Apres avoir presente la dichotomie theâtre / art dramatique, il observe le role respectif du theâtre et de l'art dramatique par rapport a l'enseignement et aux enfants

Contemporary drama education theorists tend to justify drama education in terms not of theatrical knowledge and skill but of affective understanding of self and society. Moreover, it is the undergoing of the experience of drama itself that is thought to be of value in engendering the kinds of understandings at issue. I argue that there are signific...

This paper examines recent claims that the bodies of knowledge, the standards, and the methods of rational inquiry promulgated by the university are undemocratic, representing a hegemony of Western, middle-class, male culture. It argues that such a view is based on a social construction view of knowledge and points out several problems with this vi...

This commentary on Simonton's “Political Pathology and Societal Creativity” argues that although the article offers a comprehensive and illuminating account of possible connections between societal creativity and political phenomena, viewing such connections in terms of a relationship between creativity and political pathology is problematic. The n...

THE WAY of thinking about creativity which is characteristic of contemporary psychological and educational theory has been marked by a move away from an emphasis on the production of valuable products and has stressed, instead, the creative process and also the creative person. This rejection of the connection between creativity and the production...

THE VIEW of creativity which we have been developing in the course of the preceding chapters connects creativity not with arbitrary novelty, irrational processes, or rule-breaking, but rather with significant achievement viewed as a product of skills, rules and rational processes. It might be objected, however, that this view is inaccurate or at le...

ONE CENTRAL tenet of the contemporary view is that creativity necessarily involves going beyond or breaking rules, and that this is, in fact, its defining characteristic. This idea is based on the view, examined previously, that ordinary thinking is confined within rigid frameworks. These frameworks are characterized by rules which define the modes...

THE IDEA that creative achievement involves radical novelty and fundamental breaks with the past underlies another tenet of the common view of creativity, namely that the evaluation of creative products is problematic. If created works are discontinuous with the tradition out of which they arise, and if they break the rules and transcend the standa...

The Context.- The Contemporary View.- Problems with the Contemporary View.- I Originality.- Originality, Novelty, and Continuity.- Art.- Science and Technology.- Mathematics.- Problem-Solving and Originality in Everyday Life.- Summary.- II Value.- Value in Art.- Value in Science.- Art and Science.- Summary.- III Product, Process, Person.- Product.-...

The question “Is Creativity a Plausible Educational Goal?” is central to any discussion of creativity from an educational vantage point. In the period from the 1960s until now, it has been more or less taken for granted that creativity is a realistic goal of education. However, there is a variety of issues which this presupposition can cause to ari...

THE IMPORTANCE of the notion of creativity in contemporary society and the consequent impetus toward fostering originality are often manifested in terms of an emphasis on novelty and divergence. This is particulary true in the arts where unique works that deviate from existing norms are the vogue and where education is frequently geared toward indi...

This analysis has demonstrated the difficulties in viewing creativity in terms of personality or cognitive traits considered apart from products produced. The idea of creativity seems necessarily connected to that of actual creation, and so the claim that one can be creative without ever creating anything appears highly suspect, if not contradictor...

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