Feb 14 Lecture: Critical Thinking Skills Among Students

The AILACT Speakers Forum

February 14, 2025, 11:00 US Eastern Time
Zoom Link: https://wisconsin-edu.zoom.us/j/7153464115

“Mindware: A New Way of Thinking about Critical Thinking”

By Prof. John Eigenauer

Abstract:  

The general lack of critical thinking skills among students and the populace at large has long been lamented and substantiated. Books are legion about the brain’s fallibility, and our tendency toward tribalism, heuristic thinking, emotional responses and biases. But what if these flaws, however inherent to the human condition, reflected a lack of more effective thinking tools and not an insurmountable, biologically intractable condition? Using Keith Stanovich’s model of “mindware,” it is possible to reframe critical thinking as the process of using discrete, learned skills to overcome our tendency to fall back on System One thinking. This modular approach treats critical thinking as a set of clearly defined and easily mastered skills that, when taken together, can lead to the formation of habits of mind that define consistent “critical thinkers.”
John Eigenauer is an intellectual historian and professor of philosophy at Taft College in California. He holds a doctorate in Interdisciplinary Studies from Syracuse University. His work has been published in a variety of publications including the International Journal of Educational Reform, The Historian, The Harvard Theological Review, History of Intellectual Culture, The Journal of Intelligence, Thinking Skills and Creativity, and The International Journal of Educational Reform. He has spoken internationally on human rationality and offers workshops and seminars on the pedagogy of critical thinking. His book, Paris and the Birth of Public Knowledge, is available online.
Events will be recorded and archived on the AILACT YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ailactvideos