Abstract
It is generally assumed that critical thinking is the preferred mode of inquiry in all situations. However, Michael Huemer, in 2005, has presented an interesting and powerful challenge to this received view. He aims to establish the claim that in some contexts of inquiry, engaging in critical thinking is not epistemically responsible. If true, this implies that critical thinking should not be adopted uncritically. Several writers have objected to this counterintuitive view. In this paper, I show that those objections do not stand on close scrutiny. Secondly and more importantly, I argue that Huemer’s results, even though correct, do not undermine the significance of critical thinking.
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Notes
E.g., List and Goodin (2001).
These include a higher than average level of intelligence and/or exclusive access to crucial evidence about the issue.
For example, he raises the usual problems against the notion of peer disagreement. No doubt it is a challenge to explain the phenomenon, but its existence is beyond question.
Note that if the person can augment his epistemic status by applying CT, he is no longer subject to Huemer’s prescription as he would not fulfil assumption (a4).
Strangely, Huemer skips this obvious conclusion. He in fact argues that justification of CT based on an appeal to the possibility of biased experts fails because there is no evidence that ordinary people tend to be less biased than typical experts. But support for my conclusion clearly follows from Kornblith’s views.
EVTM is the view that truth is the fundamental epistemic good.
For an overview of virtue epistemology, see Battaly (2012).
The talk of final end is meaningful within a specific critical domain.
According to proponents of understanding (e.g. Pritchard and Jonathan Kvanvig), asking about goals is asking about values or goods.
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I thank an anonymous reviewer of JICPR for providing constructive comments on this article. Due to those comments, I believe the article has improved substantially.
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Barua, S. Critical Thinking and Epistemic Responsibility Revisited. J. Indian Counc. Philos. Res. 38, 285–299 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-021-00251-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40961-021-00251-9