ABSTRACT
A cousin of mine, who is a businessman, recently asked me what my book on critical thinking has to say about that subject. After I gave him a brief summary of the major thesis of the book, he responded, "You mean to say that you had to write a book to say that? Boy, you academics have a way of making the obvious sound complicated!" Needless to say, I had several qualms about this response. But despite these, I confess to a certain sympathy with it. At times my general view about the nature of critical thinking seems so obvious and commonsensical to me that it is almost embarrassing that it need be said at all, particularly to the learned audience for whom it was originally intended. That audience, incidentally, is what has been called the Informal Logic Movement, which now has an official executive body, a journal, and several annual conferences in the U.S. It includes such familiar textbook authors as Michael Scriven, Robert Ennis, Howard Kahane, Perry Weddle, Walton and Woods, and a growing cadre of informal logic teachers. However, given the discussion (not to mention criticism) which my view has generated within this movement, I am beginning to feel vindicated insofar as what I took to be common sense turns out not to be so common at all. There remain some very real differences over what the ingredients of critical thinking are, and how best to teach for it.
