'Critical Thinking' Fails its Socratic Paternity Test

If, as I contend, 'Critical Thinking' is and always has been a critical threat to sound reasoning (it has) - why did (do) otherwise intelligent people adopt and promote it? That's partly due to what we saw in the previous post, where its deceptive claims about what CT is and will 'do' for students, are furthered by the claim that 'Critical Thinking' is directly descended from what Socrates practiced at the dawn of Western philosophy. As has already been pointed out, these claims are clearly bogus, even on the basis of the title itself, as 'Critical Thinking' stretches no further back in time than to John Dewey in the 1890's (not actually using those words until 1910), and that the first book on 'Critical Thinking' wasn't published until 1941. But what needs to be better understood, which is the purpose of this post, is that worse than simply being technically incorrect about historic details (AKA: Lying), the substance and spirit of the claim is, at best, patently absurd.

Ironically (Socrates cheers), as their Socratic paternity claim is made to lull people into not thinking about what 'Critical Thinking' really is, if we subject 'Critical Thinking' itself to just the initial questions that Socrates might have begun with, it not only reveals itself to be a mismatch on the basis of its philosophical DNA, but it reveals how fundamentally incompatible that CT is to what Socrates was doing, and to why he was doing it, and so flat-out fails the Socratic paternity test.

At the dawn of moral philosophy some 2,500 years ago (can you feel Moses waving 'hi!' from across the sea?), Socrates had begun practicing his unique form of asking questions in a manner he called the Dialectic, to clarify the meaning of the words we use, and how to use them to better understand ourselves and the world around us. As Plato recounts it, his dialectical process began with asking someone a seemingly simple question about what had been claimed or repeated by them, and whether or not an obvious implication of that was something that they thought to be true. He'd continue questioning the answers given to his questions to reveal the extent and integrated nature of that knowledge (or lack of it), in the hopes that both the questioner and the person being questioned (and those of us participating in the dialog at home) would gain a better depth of understanding of what they did and did not know about what they had presumed to be so.

One thing that practicing his dialectical reasoning upon his fellow Athenians brought out into the open, was that those terms which Socrates' fellows' lives revolved around, in everything from the seemingly mundane, to the loftiest of sentiments, were so poorly understood by them, that their own words were leading themselves astray from what they expected they could secure by using them. Worse still, their lack of understanding was being used by those amongst them, the Sophists, who understood how to cultivate their confusion in order to disorder their minds into whichever state of passionate intensity or apathetic disregard, seemed to best serve the interests of a well-positioned few.

NOTE: You shouldn't read Plato to find 'answers' (that's a bad habit from 'Critical Thinking'), but to identify the questions, and how best to pursue understanding. 

One such dialog, the Euthyphro, is set where Socrates is waiting to be arraigned on the charges of impiety that he'd soon be executed for, and it recounts the conversation that followed from Socrates asking another fellow in 'the waiting room', about what he was there for. Euthyphro answered that he was there waiting to charge his father with 1st degree murder over the accidental death of a misbehaving fieldhand, because Euthyphro thought that would be the pious thing to do.

Socrates, a bit taken back by that, asked him what he meant by Piety? To which Euthyphro, as do most of Socrates' 'victims', replied with a surface level answer:

"Piety is giving an offering to the gods, or being respectful"

, and in typical fashion, Socrates began by clarifying what he'd asked, before launching into the dialog of further questioning the answers being given:

"You misunderstand me, you've given me examples of pious behavior, but I'm interested in what it is that Piety means..."

, and the dialogs get underway with Socrates attempting - oftentimes without succeeding - to clarify what the speaker actually meant by the words and terms they'd been carelessly using to think with.

Consider, for instance, Euthyphro charging his father with murder. His father had taken an action, and his slave died following it - that was an obvious and readily apparent fact. But whose action was it that caused the death, the father's or the slave's? And what was meant by 'Caused'? And was the action Just?

Without having questioned his way past the surface level of appearances, Euthyphro could not have the knowledge that only follows from examining the depths of context surrounding an issue, and acting 'as if' you already know what you haven't bothered to examine, causes consequences that cannot be good. Can justice be served by taking action against someone 'as if' you know what you haven't bothered to understand? Can such an action be pious? By disregarding the context of what happened, Euthyphro's pious action amounted to virtue signaling the pretense of it at his father's expense - how likely was it that (Zeus? Athena? The Furies?) would look kindly upon that?

By ignoring context, we butcher our grasp of causation into a materialistic "Cause & Effect" response, which is not adequate for gaining a sound understanding of an issue. Unfortunately for Euthyphro, Aristotle's study of Causation and the four causes which that revealed (final cause, efficient cause, formal cause, and material cause), was still several decades in the future, and Aquinas's 5th 'Exemplary cause', was still a thousand years beyond that. We, however, can benefit from what Euthyphro lacked... but how many of us do? As 'Critical Thinking' gives no consideration to such concerns, it helps to ensure that those numbers are few.

What the Socratic dialogs that Plato left us also demonstrate, is not only how little people often understand of what they're saying, but how angry they can become when made to face their own errors & ignorance - so much so that Socrates' was ultimately executed for refusing to stop practicing his dialectic of questioning upon the people of Athens.

What is critically important for us to understand still to this day, and perhaps especially today, is that it is as easy as it is unwise to behave as if we understand something, when the underlying meaning of the words we're using amounts to what 'everyone knows!', and without the context being clear to us, we truly cannot know what we are talking about.

The painful fact is that the real drama of history often ensues from those critical misunderstandings which result from the right questions having not been asked, or having been asked, were left unheeded. In fact, tragedians, comedians, and historians have long made their living by providing their audiences with an awareness of the context which the people 'on stage' lack, and without which they lead themselves into taking those unwise positions and actions that can only lead to disaster, while 'the audience' is left to experience the agony of knowing what could have been prevented if someone, anyone, would have simply asked one or two key questions that would have unraveled the entire awful turn of events.

But unlike an audience, we here in the present cannot know what might hinge upon what it is that we do not consider, or say, and we should learn from those dramatists that real knowledge is never isolated, and only (seemingly) ethically neutral in certain contexts. And we should also realize that the sophists of every age view those who ask and pursue questions as Socrates did, as threats to those whose interests are served by such matters not being common knowledge, and they view those who teach such lessons, as Socrates did, as being... unwelcome.

But being ignorant of important facts isn't nearly the problem that being ignorant of the need to ask relevant questions, is. The inclination to assume that we cannot know what is true, or that 'knowledge' is just a matter of recalling isolated facts, combine together with our willingness to accept 'obvious' facts and 'answers' that 'everyone knows!', to leave you forever 'just asking questions!' while never gaining an understanding of what an answer to them should be, which mainly benefits those who'd prefer they remain concealed by what 'everyone knows!'.

A Critical Difference between philosophical reasoning and 'Critical Thinking'

We saw in the previous post, that when asked what 'Critical Thinking' is, CT'rs standard reply to parents and the public, was very much like that of Euthyphro's reply about what Piety is, with:

"Critical thinking is a kind of thinking in which you question, analyze, interpret, evaluate and make a judgement about what you read, hear, say, or write...."

, and with Socrates's response as an example, we can see that we should reply to those CT'rs:

"You misunderstand me, you've given me examples of 'Critical Thinking's behavior, but I'm interested in what it is that 'Critical Thinking' means..."

, but to be fair, as that is clearly not the kind of thinking that 'Critical Think'rs are familiar with, we, like Socrates, should clarify a little further about just what kind of reply it is that we're looking for, and why. When we feel ourselves being either stirred up into anger or lulled to sleep by another's words, as you feel their words taking ahold of you, you should do as he did and question the nature of the context that they're leading you into. Ask:

• What ends will the good or ill passions you're being led to feel, serve to excuse, distract you from, or accomplish?
• Is what is meant by the words being used to urge you on, going to have the same meaning when they're being applied?
• Who benefits most from the actions you're being led to take?

, and despite his famously protesting that he knew nothing, Socrates clearly understood the importance of knowing the meaning of the words you're thinking with. He knew how the overall context that those words are used in, could shift what is assumed to be meant by them, and he knew that it's only by asking and pursuing questions into that as yet shadowy context, that we can hope to understand whether the positions and actions that people are being led into taking, are of value or not, are true or false, or right or wrong, which are matters that shouldn't remain concealed through our ignorance of it.

Socrates referred to the practice of his dialectic, as Philosophy, 'the love of wisdom', and it was clear that he considered Philosophy to be - in a way that has been made nearly alien to our ears today - a deeply moral matter of consciously using our language to integrate our understanding of reality, so as to develop our knowledge of what is real & true and right & wrong to do, and without which we cannot know what it is that we're talking about.

Having a systematic approach to understanding what it was that Socrates's dialectical practice of philosophical reasoning meant and entailed, would have to wait for his philosophical son & grandson, Plato and Aristotle, to begin developing. But it was his persistent engagement of his fellows in those habits of inquiry (which (no surprise to him) would eventually cost him his life), that started the Grecco/Roman half of The West upon the path towards seeking an objective understanding of what is real & true, and right & wrong, and which, IMHO, was and is central to what enabled its Judeo/Christian counterpart to join together with it, in the forming of Western civilization.

Socrates starts opening a can of worms with a leading sophist, in The Gorgias: ...
SOCRATES: Very good, Callicles; but will he answer our questions? for I want to hear from him what is the nature of his art, and what it is which he professes and teaches; he may, as you (Chaerephon) suggest, defer the exhibition to some other time.
CALLICLES: There is nothing like asking him, Socrates; and indeed to answer questions is a part of his exhibition, for he was saying only just now, that any one in my house might put any question to him, and that he would answer.
SOCRATES: How fortunate! will you ask him, Chaerephon—?
CHAEREPHON: What shall I ask him?
SOCRATES: Ask him who he is...."

Socrates' opponents at the time, the Sophists, OTOH, were already well aware of the misunderstandings that the misuse of language could create, and rather than attempt to clarify what our words mean and how best to use them, they thrived upon that darker form of dialectical reasoning which cultivates the ignorance & errors that result from an absence of good questions being asked, and in fact depends upon utilizing ignorance and the ambiguities of language to conceal meaning. Their skill in the manipulation of that, was what the Sophists were sought out and rewarded for.

Sophistry requires the ability to get away with treating words and terms 'as if' their meaning is disintegrated from the rest of what you know, and that depends upon a widespread view of knowledge being seen as little more than the ability to recall what's useful in one moment, and to consider that completely irrelevant to the concerns of the next moment. That Pragmatic view of knowledge as essentially having 'meaning' in name only (another variant of Nominalism), is what enables the sort of language that we accept today in phrases such as 'Truth is an illusion' and 'Truth is what works', which is critical for spurring people into taking those positions and actions that serve a given narrative which they likely know less than nothing about (hello 'stay 6' apart for social distancing'!), for a 'common good' that primarily serves the interests of those that the sophists of the Ideological Observatories serve.

And so with that contrast between Socrates' Philosophical Reasoning, and that of Rhetorical Sophistry in mind, I hope you're recalling two of the primary contentions of the Critical Thinking crowd from the previous post, which are that:

1)“...a student attains 'higher order thinking' when he no longer believes in right or wrong"

, and that that assertion is dependent upon the view of 'knowledge' that Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives has been teaching to those who've been teaching our teachers since the 1950s, that 'knowledge' is only a matter of recalling "...previously learned material...", and as such, it:

2)"...represents the lowest level of learning outcomes in the cognitive domain."

, and if so, you should now recognize - if you are thinking reasonably rather than 'critically' - that both of these beliefs that are at the heart of 'Critical Thinking', are in full opposition to the deeply integrated knowledge and moral clarity of thought that Socrates was pursuing through his Dialectic.

And seeing now why the CT'rs reply to the question of what 'Critical Thinking' is, is so much like Euthyphro's, we can compare and contrast what Socrates' purpose of using his Dialectic to pursue Philosophy was, to the nature of the 'Critical Thinking' that our modern day sophists teach in our schools, and notice just how unlike that is to Socrates' method, which sought to understand and integrate our thinking, and to expand our knowledge in order to better do what Aristotle said in the opening of the Nichomachean Ethics:

"Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good; and for this reason the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim ..."

In complete contrast to that, what the sophistry of 'Critical Thinking' aims at, is what is momentarily useful to ends that can only be unworthy, because they are achieved by diminishing the nature of our knowledge to a recalling of random facts as suitable 'answers', and with which CT'rs seek to bring about an attitude within a student's mind, that:

“...a student attains 'higher order thinking' when he no longer believes in right or wrong"

On that basis alone, any reasonable consideration of the evidence before us, shows that 'Critical Thinking' not only fully and completely fails the Socratic paternity test, but reveals that the claim could only have been made, in order to put you and your children under its power. You needn't fear that this failed paternity test will leave our 'Critical Thinkers' as philosophical orphans though, for since it was also the Sophists' primary interest to get people to act without considering whether such actions were 'right or wrong', and instead to just do 'what works', we have identified that our 'Critical Thinkers' philosophical pedigree truly lies with the Sophists.

The authentic intelligence that leads people out of the darkness of confusion and into seeking to see and do what is right, comes from turning your own attention towards actively identifying what is (Metaphysics), how you know it (through an epistemology of Causality and Logic), and what should be done in response to that (Ethics), and will reveal to you a depth of context in every aspect of your life, that can only be revealed by the light of what is real and true.

Because the Sophist's power - then and now - depends upon those manipulations of language that are only possible within a climate of subtle misunderstandings and meaningless 'knowledge', their 'Critical Thinking', like Euthyphro, blinds themselves into believing that they can see what they do not, and if we are not aware of their doing so, we put ourselves in peril.

To prevent the same old sophistry from becoming as fatal to us today, as it was to Socrates in his day, it is critical for us to stop mistaking the Artificial Intelligence of 'Critical Thinking', for the real thing, and we'll dig further into that, in the next post.