This Article Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Ennis, R. H. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

The Extent to Which Critical Thinking Is Subject-Specific: Further Clarification

Critical Thinking Project, University of Illinois, Champaign, Illinois 61820

In this response to McPeck’s reply to my paper, I briefly summarize my earlier essay, and make four major points: (a) that the vagueness of the concepts, domain, field, and subject, is a problem when subject specificity serves as a basis for prediction, though not necessarily when it serves as a slogan or a vague warning; (b) that the distinction between the subject matter of schools and the subject matter of everyday life is a viable one, though not the mutually exclusive one that McPeck seems to attribute to me; (c) that the distinction between topic and school subject serves to help avoid a tempting equivocation that starts with the premise that all thinking is about some subject; and (d) that "relatively narrow" general thinking abilities can be very broad in the range of their application, and that many, though perhaps obvious at times to some, are not trivial, because numerous people seem not to employ them in important situations.

An underlying concern is McPeck’s apparent assumption that showing something (e.g., subject-matter knowledge) to be a necessary condition for critical thinking establishes that it is essentially a sufficient condition, or at least that all other things (e.g., general abilities) are unimportant. There is yet much research to be done before the basic issues can be resolved; I hope that this conceptual clarification will facilitate this research.

Educational Researcher, Vol. 19, No. 4, 13-16 (1990)
DOI: 10.3102/0013189X019004013


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				P. Smagorinsky and M. W. Smith The Nature of Knowledge in Composition and Literary Understanding: The Question of Specificity Review of Educational Research, January 1, 1992; 62(3): 279 - 305. [Abstract] [PDF]