Critical Thinking and Philosophy: a Dialogue with New Tunes / Javier Roberto Suárez González [And Others]
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CRITICAL THINKING AND PHILOSOPHY A Dialogue with New Tunes Colección Ética & Educación CRITICAL THINKING AND PHILOSOPHY A Dialogue with New Tunes JAVIER ROBERTO SUÁREZ GONZÁLEZ DANIELA PABÓN LLINÁS LEONOR VILLAVECES FRANCO (†) JULIO ANTONIO MARTÍN GALLEGO STUDIA Research Group – UNINORTE DeNovo Research Group – FUNDACIÓN PROMIGAS Barranquilla Metropolitan Area (Colombia), 2020 Critical Thinking and Philosophy: A Dialogue with New Tunes / Javier Roberto Suárez González [and others]. - Barranquilla, Colombia: Editorial Universidad del Norte; Fundación Promigas, 2020. 98 p. : il. ; 24 cm. Includes bibliographic references (p. 79-82) ISBN 978-958-789-133-1 (PDF) 1. Critical Thinking. 2. Philosophy of Education 3. Moral Education. I. Suárez Gonzá- lez, Javier Roberto. II. Pabón Llinás, Daniela. III. Villaveces Franco, Leonor. IV. Martín Gallego, Julio Antonio. V. Title (370.114 P418 ed. 23) (CO-BrUNB Vigilada Mineducación www.uninorte.edu.co www.fundacionpromigas.org.co Km 5, vía a Puerto Colombia, A.A. 1569 Calle 66 no. 67-123 Área metropolitana de Barranquilla (Colombia) Barranquilla (Colombia) Original title Pensamiento crítico y filosofía: un diálogo con nuevas tonadas ISBN 978-958-789-032-7 (printed) - ISBN 978-958-789-033-4 (PDF) © Universidad del Norte, 2020 © Fundación Promigas, 2020 Javier Roberto Suárez González, Daniela Pabón Llinás, Leonor Villaveces Franco (†) Julio Antonio Martín Gallego Editorial Coordinator Zoila Sotomayor O. Editorial Coordination Assistant María Margarita Mendoza Academic Review and Proofreading Lorena Elejalde Translation Tallulah Flores Copyediting Estefanía Calderón and Iván Yunis Cover and Layout Design Munir Kharfan de los Reyes Made in Colombia © All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without permission in writing from the Publisher. Violation of such rights may constitute a crime against intellectual property. Acknowledgments Our special thanks to Ángela Calvo, who was our expert advisor for the first phase of the project, for her comments and reflections regarding the theoretical construction of the proposal. Also, to Rosario Jaramillo, an expert advisor for the second phase, for her feedback on the theoretical exploration and for accompanying the work with the teachers. Likewise, we thank Paola Martínez and Katty Alzamora for their dedication and commitment to work as research assistants. In addition, our thanks go to the Department of Humanities and Philosophy at the Universidad del Norte, and the Fundación Promigas, for their invaluable support in this endeavour. Finally, and above all, we would like to thank all primary and secondary education teachers from the educational institutions that were part of the first two phases of this project, for their time and participation in the proposed activities. Table of Contents Introduction . ix Ángela Calvo de Saavedra Prologue . xvii The Research Project . .xx Critical Thinking in the Classroom as a Tool for Ethical Action in a Public World . xxii 1 . Transdisciplinary Approaches on Critical Thinking . 1 1 .1 Critical Thinking from a Cognitive Perspective . 2 1 .2 “Hermeneutics” and Critical Thinking in Latin America . 8 1 .3 Critical Thinking as Constructive Thinking . 12 1 .4 An Integrated Theory . 13 2 . Philosophical Perspectives on Critical Thinking . 17 2 .1 A Critique of Critical Thinking . 17 2 .2 The Reflective Judgment and the Inclination towards Public-Political Reason . 19 2 .3 Reflective Thinking as a Synonym for Critical Thinking . 23 2 .4 Thought and Social Reflexivity . 24 2 .5 The Practical Implications of Critical Thinking . 26 3 . Practical Areas of Critical Thinking: Ethics and Education . 28 vii 3 .1 Critical Education as a Public Issue . 28 3 .2 Education as Critical Self-Reflection . 30 3 .3 Education and Experience [Erfahrung] . 33 3 .4 Critical Education for Global Citizenship . 35 3 .5 Critical and Ethical Thought . 38 4 . “Thinking Critically to Live”: The Categories of the Sensitive as a Conceptually New Proposal . 42 4 .1 The Importance of “Relationality” and Dialogue . 43 4 .2 The Importance of Embodied and Affective Thinking . 45 4 .3 The Importance of Reflective Thinking . 47 4 .4 Categories of the Sensitive . 48 4 .5 Critical Thinking as a Lifestyle . 50 5 . Critical Thinking in the Classroom: A Dialogue on the Public Policies of Teaching Philosophy . 52 5 .1 Methodological Notes . 53 5 .2 Empirical Results . 55 5 .3 Workshops with Teachers . 58 5 .4 Institutional Policies and Public Guidelines Regarding Critical Thinking . 60 Critical Thinking and Philosophy Critical Thinking 5 .5 Empirical Data Contributions on the Notions of Critical Thinking: A Diagnosis Based on Current Reality . 65 6 . Critical Thinking and Ethical Decision-Making in a Public World . 69 References . 75 Annexes: Meeting Spaces: A Series of Workshops Concerning Critical Thinking Skills Through the Use of Guided Laboratory Activities . 79 About the Authors . 97 viii INTRODUCTION Ángela Calvo de Saavedra* “I think we’re in an era where both profound science and humanistic creativity are being threatened by a short-term, profit-oriented mentality. We really need to make the scientists and the humanists a common cause because it’s the deep, investigating thought, the power of the imagination, and the power of rigorous, critical thinking that we truly share.” Martha Nussbaum he invitation to introduce the book Critical Thinking and Philosophy: A TDialogue with New Tunes is, for me, a cause of joy for many reasons. In the first place, three of its four authors were my beloved students in the Faculty of Philosophy at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, but it is also thrilling to be part of their philosophical, investigative, and pedagogical flourishing, and to witness their excitement and genuine commitment to the role of philosophy to make the world a better place to live in. Sec- ondly, it was very moving for me, as a teacher, to witness the persistence of a memory that, even if it was interrupted for years, still resonates in their hearts and helped make sense of my participation as a speaker during the initial design and the public presentation of a project where both, their understanding of philosophical work and the conditions of possibility as a ix * Doctor in Philosophy from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Colombia), and Emeritus Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy in the same university, member of the Philosophy Research Group Problemas de filosofía and member of the Board of Regents. She is also part of the Executive Committee of the Hume Society and is a founding member of the Red Latinoamericana de Estudios Sobre el Reconocimiento (RELAER). Winner of two research awards: Premio Bienal al Investigador Javeriana, with the book El carácter de la “verdadera filosofía” en David Hume (2013) and Premio Bienal a la Investigación Javeriana: Vida y obra (2015). Her areas of interest are: modern philosophy, David Hume, contemporary moral and political philosophy, feelings and emotions in practical rationality, Freud, Criti- cal Theory of Society and philosophy of education. Currently, she’s a visiting professor at several universities across the country. She has published several articles and book chapters in her areas of interest. paideia, are solidified. Finally, the question that guides the investigation and the implementation of the project, the philosophical concern for training, for the cultivation of our common humanity, has constituted, from the moment I started my academic career until today, as an emeri- tus Professor, the driving passion of my career, allowing me to read this book with curiosity and compassion. Critical Thinking and Philosophy Critical Thinking The lecture given by Martha Nussbaum, on the occasion of the Kyoto Prize, which was awarded to her in 2016 for her essay called Philosophy in the Service of Humanity —and from which I borrowed the epigraph,— is a truly inspiring text for this presentation, due to its ideas about mor- al and political philosophy, a practical discipline “seeking to construct a theoretical blueprint for just and decent lives in a world full of division, competition, fear, and uncontrolled catastrophes.” Convinced, as she is, that philosophy still contributes significantly to the cultivation of hu- manity and, is more conducive to a world more likely to include more “good life” projects that can coexist and cooperate in terms of justice, she is, however, emphatic in stating that the critical task of philosophy in the face of rationality, and at the service of market objectives and cultures of competitiveness, as well as the possibility of intervening with its normative ideas in the social sphere where decisions are taken, depend on whether academia is able to exercise self-criticism: “Your challenge is to change if you want to summon young people.” The chal- lenge for those of us inhabiting the academic space, as professors and x researchers in the field of philosophy, is to ask ourselves: what kind of philosophy serves humanity? More than a direct response to concerns, Nussbaum proposes the fol- lowing guiding criteria for self-examination in the light of our practic- es: (1) rigor and transparency in evaluating the critical use of reason and argumentation, in the Socratic way; (2) respect for other disciplines; (3) respect for plurality and life orientations, be they religious belief or oth- erwise; (4) to show an interest in opening the educational canon