This paper considers the prospects for objectivity in reasoning strategies in response to empirical studies that apparently show systematic culture‐based differences in patterns of reasoning. I argue that there is at least one modest class of exceptions to the claim that there are alternative, equally warranted standards of good reasoning: the class that entails the solution of certain well‐structured problems which, suitably chosen, are common, or touchstone, to the sorts of culturally different viewpoints discussed. There is evidence that some cognitive (...) tasks are seen in much the same way across cultures, not least by virtue of the common run of experiences with the world of material objects in early childhood by creatures with similar cognitive endowments. These tasks thus present as similarly structured sets of claims that have similar priority: what is framed, and what is bracketed, or held constant in the background, is shown to be naturally common across cultures. As a consequence, a normative view of reasoning and, by implication, critical thinking can be defended. While this might be a modest sense of objectivity, the high level of intercultural articulation that is able to occur among people of different backgrounds suggests that it provides cognitive scaffolding for a lot of other reasoning tasks as well. (shrink)

This paper considers the prospects for objectivity in reasoning strategies in response to empirical studies that apparently show systematic culture‐based differences in patterns of reasoning. I argue that there is at least one modest class of exceptions to the claim that there are alternative, equally warranted standards of good reasoning: the class that entails the solution of certain well‐structured problems which, suitably chosen, are common, or touchstone, to the sorts of culturally different viewpoints discussed. There is evidence that some cognitive (...) tasks are seen in much the same way across cultures, not least by virtue of the common run of experiences with the world of material objects in early childhood by creatures with similar cognitive endowments. These tasks thus present as similarly structured sets of claims that have similar priority: what is framed, and what is bracketed, or held constant in the background, is shown to be naturally common across cultures. As a consequence, a normative view of reasoning and, by implication, critical thinking can be defended. While this might be a modest sense of objectivity, the high level of intercultural articulation that is able to occur among people of different backgrounds suggests that it provides cognitive scaffolding for a lot of other reasoning tasks as well. (shrink)

To identify and conceptualize research problems in science, philosophers and often scientists rely on classical accounts of problems that focus on intellectual problems defined in relation to theories. Recently, philosophers have begun to study the structures and functions of research problems not defined in relation to theories. Furthermore, scientists have long pursued research problems often labeled as practical or applied. As yet, no account of problems specifies the description of both so-called intellectual problems and so-called applied problems. This article proposes (...) a new conceptual framework of problems that accounts both for intellectual aspects of problems and for their practical or applied aspects. I illustrate the account with an example of a recent research project from evolutionary biology, and I indicate further routes by that to develop the account, especially in connection to empirical studies of science. (shrink)