INSIDE THE LIBERAL ARTS: Critical Thinking and Citizenship

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 

PREFACE​

1. THE LIBERAL ARTS IDEA

  • First Thoughts

  • The Liberal Arts in Crisis

  • Cultural Contradictions

  • What are the “Liberal Arts”?

  • The Nature of Knowledge

  • Deconstructing the Ivory Tower

2. THE LIBERAL ARTS AND TRIANGULAR CITIZENSHIP

  • Triangular Citizenship

  • Democracy First

  • Critical Thinking and Citizenship

3. THE LIBERAL ARTS AS CRITICAL INQUIRY

  • Defining “Critical Inquiry”

  • The Tyranny of Terminology

  • The Uses and Limits of Philosophy

  • Six “Gateway Concepts” of Critical Inquiry, Give or Take

  • Critical Inquiry is Curvilinear

​4. LANGUAGE LESSONS

  • Why Words Matter

  • Chasing the Wild Goose of Definition

  • Language is Reflexive and Recursive

  • Language is Imperfect but Perfectible

  • Language is Pragmatic and Economic

  • Language is Complex, Multivalent, and Linear

  • Language is Philosophical- and We’re All Philosophers

  • Conclusion: Clarity is Almost Everything

​5. THE RANGE OF RATIONALITY

  • Defining Rationality: The Core Features

  • Three Modes of Rationality

  • The Limits of Rationality

  • Inference and Induction Make the World Go Around

  • Summary: Rationality is the Grammar of Citizenship

​6. DEFINING CRITICAL THINKING

  • What is Critical Thinking?

  • Further Steps Toward Definition

  • Long-form Definitions of Critical Thinking

  • Summary: The Multiple Facets of Critical Thinking

  • The Ghost of Philosophy, and Citizenship Revisited

7. THE SPECTRUM OF CRITICAL THINKING

  • ​Logic is Where We Start From

  • Other Senses of “Logic”

  • Informal Logic: A Passing Glance at Facts and Arguments

  • Informal Logic, Continued: The Mental Quicksand of Blinders, Blunders, and Biases

  • Appearance and Reality

  • The Art of Asking Questions
    Critical Thinking and Critical Inquiry

8. ANALYSIS 101

  • Systemic and Systematic Thinking

  • Music, Recursion, and the Analytic Mind

  • Analysis, Synthesis, and Dialectic

  • Horses, Zebras, and Poems: A Closer Look at Distinctions and Connections

  • Beyond Binary Thinking

9. ANALYSIS AND AMBIGUITY

  • Analogies Drive the Mind

  • Language, Metaphor, and Analysis

  • Consciousness is Combinatorial

  • Family Resemblance

  • The Upside of Ambiguity

  • Conclusion: Analytic Thinking as Critical Inquiry

10. THE USES OF COMPLEXITY

  • What We Mean by “Complexity” and Why We Mean It

  • Logic and Analytical Complexity

  • Systems and Complexity

  • Appearance and Reality Revisited

  • Complexity and Critical Thinking

11. TRUTH AND CONSEQUENCES

  • Introduction: What is Truth?

  • The Dual Aspect of Truth

  • The Varieties of Truth

  • Beyond Certainty and Objectivity

  • Veridical Communities, and the Specter of Relativity

  • Truth is Pragmatic

  • Skepticism and Relative Certainty

  • The Binocular Pursuit of Truth

12. THE RIDDLE OF CAUSALITY

  • ​Introduction: Life is a Causal Bazaar

  • Causation and Causality

  • Logic and Causality

  • Consciousness and Causality

  • Free Will and Determination: Causality Begins at Home

  • History and Causal Complexity

  • Causal Complexity and Critical Thinking

13. THE MORAL LENS AND THE LIBERAL ARTS

  • The Moral Dimension and the Liberal Arts

  • Six Axes of Moral Engagement

  • The Policy Axis

  • Language as a Moral Arena

  • In the Curriculum: Morality as a Gateway Concept

  • The Learning Process and Moral Community

  • Character and Citizenship: The Student as a Moral Agent

  • Truth, Civility, and the Limits of Neutrality

  • Speech is Special

14. CRITICAL MORAL THINKING: SOME STARS TO STEER BY

  • Distinctions Guide Us

  • Facts & Values

  • Moral vs. Non-moral Values

  • The Moral and the Political

  • Rights and Duties

  • Consensus and Contestability

  • I and Thou

  • The Ambiguity of ‘Moral’

  • Explanation vs. Justification

  • Victims and Heroines

  • Above and Beyond

  • Moral Responsibility and Moral Imagination

  • Moral Intelligence

  • Gravity and Complexity

  • Conscience and Conformity

  • Conclusion

​15. THE POLITICAL LENS AND THE LIBERAL ARTS

  • “Paths of Laudable Pursuit”: The Liberal Arts in Context

  • The Liberal Arts and STEM Revisited: Cost, Class, and Inequality

  • Science and Liberal Learning

  • The View from the Campus Gate

  • Last Words

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