ResearchGate Logo

Discover the world's research

  • 20+ million members
  • 135+ million publications
  • 700k+ research projects

Join for free

 Reviews

RUSSELL AND CRITICAL THINKING

D  H 

Philosophy / McMaster U.

Hamilton, , Canada  

@ .

"Bertrand Russell and Critical Thinking": a special issue of Inquiry: Critical

Thinking across the Disciplines. Vol.  ,no. (winter ): –  .  .  .

n  John Dewey published a book entitled How We Think in which he

I distinguished a type of thinking which he called "reflective thought", charac-

terized as "active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief or supposed

form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it, and the further con-

clusions to which it tends."

Dewey proposed that the education of children

develop the habit of this kind of thinking, which he associated with the scien-

tific method. His construct has become a widely recognized educational ideal,

under the label "critical thinking". An ideal "critical thinker" is characterized

not only by certain skills but also by dispositions to use the skills appropriately;

see for example the characterizations in Ennis and Facione.

In a paper presented at the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy,

William Hare pointed out that, although Russell does not use the term "critical

thinking",

this ideal is central to Russell's philosophy. Hare extracted from

Russell's social, political and educational writings a rich conception of critical

thinking, which includes not only skills and dispositions but also attitudes.

Among the skills required for what Russell called "judicial habits of thought"

(PfM ,p.) are the abilities to form an opinion for oneself, to find an impartial

solution, and to identify and question assumptions.

Among the constitutive

John Dewey, How We Think (Boston, New York and Chicago: D. C. Heath, ), p. ; italics

in original.

Robert H. Ennis, "Critical Thinking: a Streamlined Conception", Teaching Philosophy, 

(): –; Peter A. Facione, Critical Thinking: a Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of

Educational Assessment and Instruction (research findings and recommendations prepared for the

Committee on Pre-College Philosophy of the American Philosophical Association; ERIC document

ED–).

William Hare, "Bertrand Russell on Critical Thinking", Proceedings of the Twentieth World

Congress of Philosophy, http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Educ/E ducH are.htm [visited  December

]. Also published in the Journal of Thought ,  (): – .

Nor is Dewey's book in Russell's personal library in , McMaster U niv ersity.

Hare, op. cit.

Reviews 

dispositions are the habits of impartial inquiry, of weighing evidence, of

attempting to see things truly, and of living from one's own centre (Hare, ibid.),

and a readiness to act in various ways: to admit new evidence against previous

beliefs, to discard hypotheses which have proved inadequate, to adapt oneself to

the facts of the world (ibid.). Russell further identified a critical attitude, which

includes a realization of human fallibility, open-mindedness, a refusal to think

that our own desires and wishes provide a key to understanding the world, and

a tentativeness which proportions one's confidence in one's beliefs to the evi-

dence warranting them. In his World Congress paper, Hare argued that

Russell's conception of critical thinking anticipates many insights in the recent

literature on critical thinking and avoids many objections which have been

raised against recent accounts of critical thinking. In particular, Russell's

emphasis on judgment embodies the insight that critical thinking cannot be

reduced to a formula which can be routinely applied. Russell urges that critical

thinking must include critical thinking about our own attempts at criticism,

and that it should be constructive rather than destructive. Russell is well aware

of the fallibility of rationality. Further, Russell does not advocate complete

suspension of judgment or complete detachment.

Subsequently, Hare invited a number of Russell specialists to contribute to a

special issue of the journal Inquiry devoted to Bertrand Russell and critical

thinking. Besides an introduction by Hare, a caricature of Russell by Antony

Hare and an abridged version of Russell's essay "A Philosophy for Our Time"

(; Papers ), the issue includes essays by Paul Hager, A. D. Irvine, Howard

Woodhouse, Ian Winchester, Sheryle Bergmann Drewe and Nicholas Griffin.

In "Russell's Conception of Critical Thinking: Its Scope and Limits", Hager

points out that Russell himself did not regard the complex of skills, dispositions

and attitudes identified by Hare as a comprehensive elixir for all situations.

Russell's list of ten commandments for the conduct of life

includes much else.

So does his philosophical method, as Hager analyses it.

Similarly, scientific

method as Russell understood it requires skills and dispositions for designing,

carrying out and interpreting experiments which are more specific than those

which constitute critical thinking. And Russell's brief description of creative

thinking

points to a skill strategy which goes beyond the critical thinking

complex.

"My Ten Commandments", Everyman, ,no. ( April ):  , .

P aul Hager, Continuity and Change in the Development of Russell's Philosophy (London: Kluwer,

).

Russell answered a questionnaire on creative thinking in E. D. Hutchinson, How to Think

Creatively (New York, Nashville: Abingdon-Cokesbury P., ), pp.  – . Excerpted in B&R, :

–.

 Reviews

Irvine, in "Russell on Indoctrination", explains how Russell reconciled the

fact that education must instill beliefs with his opposition to indoctrination.

The solution is that the educator must propound beliefs for acceptance within

what Russell called a liberal or scientific outlook: one which proportions beliefs

to the strength of the evidence for them. A key part of education is thus to

inculcate such intellectual habits as curiosity, observation, belief in the possibil-

ity of knowledge, patience, open-mindedness and even courage. Russell argues

in many places that knowledge advances only through the toleration of alterna-

tive points of view, a position which echoes that of Milton, Locke and John

Stuart Mill. The critical attitude which Russell recommends is compatible with

holding beliefs, but people with this attitude hold them tentatively, in propor-

tion to the evidence for them, and are always willing to consider new evidence

and to subject their beliefs to the standards of reason.

Woodhouse's "In Praise of Idleness: Bertrand Russell's Critical Thinking

about the Global Market" elicits from Russell's collection of essays In Praise of

Idleness ( ) a critique of the contemporary global market ideology similar to

that of the Canadian philosopher John McMurtry.

In these essays Russell cel-

ebrated the contemplative habit of mind which values knowledge for the

immediate enjoyment it brings, as opposed to an exclusively instrumental view

of knowledge as serving goals of efficiency and money-making. He advocated a

reduction of the work week with no loss of pay, as a means to allow all people

to enjoy the leisure activity of acquiring useless knowledge. A corollary of this

goal is an education of all children in "fearless freedom" (OE ,p.) which

would enable them to question all knowledge claims critically.

In "Russell's Practice of Science vs. His Picture of Science and Its Place in

Liberal Education", Winchester argues that Russell's practice of scientific

method was much more interesting and original than his rather derivative

description of it as an activity of accumulating observations and inferring gen-

eral laws from them. Russell's own practice, for example in his work The Foun-

dations of Geometry ( ) and his classic paper "On Denoting" (; Papers

), was to analyse the work of his predecessors in depth so as to bring out its

unsuspected presuppositions, and then to replace those presuppositions with

ones that seemed to be better. Winchester notes that the same method was used

by Einstein in developing his special theory of relativity. The implication for

education is that knowledge of the history of science is much more important

for the development of a scientific outlook than Russell acknowledged. This

implication can be questioned, however, on the ground that the disciplines of

John McMurtry, Unequal Freedoms: the Global Market as an Ethical System (Toronto:

Garamond P., ).

Reviews 

geometry, logic and theoretical physics in which the method of identifying pre-

suppositions and altering them proved so fruitful are sciences of a different sort

than such disciplines as organic chemistry, animal ethology and volcanology,

where careful empirical observation under controlled conditions is very central.

Drewe, in "Russell in Context", points out that what Russell called "the

critical outlook" corresponds in many respects to current conceptions of critical

thinking. The skills and dispositions extracted by Hare from Russell's writings,

and listed above, overlap extensively with the skills and dispositions of a critical

thinker identified by Ennis. Russell's advocacy of a habit of impersonal thinking

which enables one to view the belief of oneself and one's groups with detach-

ment corresponds to the advocacy by noted critical thinking theorist Richard

Paul of what he calls "strong sense" critical thinking, i.e. critical thinking which

is not egocentric or sociocentric.



Russell's recognition of the need for judg-

ment sensitive to the details of a particular case corresponds to the emphasis by

Matthew Lipman on the sensitivity of critical thinking to context.



Russell's

inclusion in the liberal or scientific outlook of both a component of assessing

reasons and a contemplative habit of mind parallels Harvey Siegel's characteriz-

ation of a critical thinker as someone who is able to assess reasons and has a

critical spirit.



Russell's recognition, pointed out in Hager's contribution, that

one needs specific knowledge as well as general skills and dispositions corre-

sponds to the emphasis by John McPeck on the subject-specificity of critical

thinking



; this correspondence, however, is rather slight, since Russell did not

share McPeck's denial that there are general critical thinking skills, dispositions

and attitudes, and did not reduce the "critical outlook" to the epistemology of

the disciplines.

In a brief final note, "Russell at McMaster University", Griffin describes the

Russell Archives at McMaster Univ ersity and the work of the Bertrand Russell

Research Centre.

There is no evidence that Russell's writings had a significant influence on

contemporary work in the philosophy of education on the conceptualization of

critical thinking, or conversely that early work on this conceptualization influ-

enced Russell's thinking. But there is certainly a striking overlap of views about

education, well brought out by Hare in his  paper and by the contributors

to this special issue of Inquiry .



Richard Paul, Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing

World (Santa Rosa, Calif.: Foundation for Critical Thinking, ).



Matthew Lipman, Thinking in Education (Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., ).



Harvey Siegel, Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking, and Education (New York:

Routledge, ).



John McPeck, Critical Thinking and Education (New York: St. Martin's P., ).

ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any citations for this publication.

ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.