Where's the Evidence?

Connie Missimer

Introduction

Many claims about critical thinking are specious. They sound important, even intimidating. However, when you begin to inquire into their concrete meanings or request evidentiary support, the answers come in the form of elaborate arguments filled with intuitive appeal, imaginary (counter)examples, quotes from other theorists who happen to agree, and a vague sense that these are the views of Aristotle and/or Plato, hence shouldn't be tampered with. The idea that these claims require evidence beyond a well-argued intuitive appeal has been largely a foreign notion, the work of Finocchiaro and Perkins being among the few limiting cases.1

Let me quickly add that I find intuition to be a most valuable starting point in considering claims. My criticism is not against intuition, but against using intuition as a final arbiter of claims. When I first became interested in critical thinking, I found many of its claims intuitively appealing, for instance that critical thinking must mean reasonably deciding to believe or to do (Robert H. Ennis's view), or that it must entail being appropriately moved by reasons (Harvey Siegel). As I tried to apply these views to specific instances of my thinking, however, I realized that I had no idea whether I was reasonably deciding by Ennis's complicated scheme, or whether I was appropriately moved by reasons in ways that Siegel would approve of. And as I read claim after claim about the critical thinker's "character," which includes scores of traits, I became uneasy, querrulous. What was the basis on which these traits were being advertised, even as ideals to which I should aspire?

On my new intuition that there was something wrong about these claims, I did some digging and came up with a number of people who by most accounts were great critical thinkers---Bertrand Russell, Isaac Newton, Richard Feynman, Karl Marx, Francis Bacon, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Sigmund Freud. By character accounts one would expect these people to have better character than the common lot, yet that is clearly not the case.2

Harvey Siegel responded to this critique by many skillful arguments3 , in which he helpfully ruled out the idea that someone like Marx could be seriously deficient in the character trait "justice" and not be a critical thinker. But Siegel injected six additional traits into the act of critical thinking, arguing that if Russell, Feynman, et al. did not manifest these traits, "we would have every reason to call their status as critical thinkers into question, despite the quality of their achievements"(p. 167). Below I show historical evidence that Newton and Darwin, intuitively appealing as these traits sound, violated most of Siegel's recent putative traits in their works, forcing Siegel into the alternative of declaring these men not critical thinkers or amending his theory.

In addition, I argue for the Alternative Argument Theory (AAT), is a social Skill View. It holds that critical thinking is the comparison of alternative theories in light of their evidence. A great critical thinker such as Newton or Darwin creates a new theory which large numbers of people choose over alternatives, some even improving that theory, and it is this social process which drives the growth of knowledge. The AAT is open to the addition of character traits and processes of critical thinking, but only if historical or experimental evidence is brought into play in support of that addition (which, on a social view, would probably be contested, and additional evidence brought to bear). Thus, the Alternative Argument Theory hues to theoretical and evidentiary standards which are acceptable across fields. Although it does not mandate empirical evidence for acts of critical thinking in the arts or in philosophy, the AAT itself is supported by empirical evidence.

Six purported traits for the process of the critical thinker

One major point of agreement between Siegel's Character View and the Alternative Argument Theory is that the character of a critical thinker is irrelevant to the determination of the quality of her theoretical products. Yet for Siegel the question of character is central to the consideration whether a person is a critical thinker. In his recent paper he writes that the management of one's character in one's life, while it affects the degree to which one is a critical thinker, is not decisive with respect to the status of the thinker as a critical thinker (pp.166,164). Yet it is decisive for him that their works manifest the six character traits he has in mind for their processes of critical thimking. If thinkers' works fail to manifest any of these six character traits, then Siegel asserts that " if these character flaws were manifested by these thinkers [famous theorists such as Russell, Bacon, Marx, Rousseau, Feynman], then we would have every reason to call their status as critical thinkers into question, despite the quality of their achievements" (p.167). This suggests the possibility that if great theoretical products don't manifest these traits, then by the Character View there could be great acts of critical thinking produced by people who were not great critical thinkers.4 That anomolous result is what I will suggest in light of some of the traits. But first a list of all six.

Siegel argues that "...in general, the character traits deemed by the Character View to be important to our conception of critical thinking are not the entire panoply of such traits, but rather only those which are involved in our efforts to think critically. [his emphasis] Thus, traits such as a willingness to follow an argument where it leads, a disposition to demand evidence for candidate beliefs, a propensity to weigh relevant evidence fairly, a tendency to believe in accordance with such evidence, a frank acknowledgement of fallibility, a willingness to take seriously the arguments of others which challenge one's own basic beliefs and commitments, and the like, are the traits emphasized by the Character View as relevant to one's status as a critical thinker"(p.166). All of these are intuitively attractive, but which do great theoretical products actually manifest ? I will take as cases in point two arguments: Isaac Newton's Principia, in which he offered his theory of motion, and Charles Darwin's Origin of Species . These would seem as uncontroversial as one could hope for by way of examples of great theories of critical thinking. Both have massive empirical support. Both have led to an engineering based on their principles. These arguments happen to be foundational to physics and biology, but the same results could be obtained with On the Subjection of Women, John Stuart Mill's argument for the equality of women. With the exception of offering evidence, none of these arguments bears the marks which Siegel supposes necessary.

1. The Origin of Species and Newton's Principia do offer evidence

To read these works is to be struck by the degree to which their authors provided supportive evidence. They give abundant testament to Siegel's second trait, the demand for evidence for candidate beliefs. I would not word it quite the way Siegel has---- a disposition to produce evidence for candidate beliefs would be better. At least these works don't contain the demand that theoretical rivals produce evidence for their candidate beliefs. It is clear, however, that these men produced evidence, whether principally from an internal demand or from knowledge of the external demand which would surely come from their audience, I could not say.

2. Neither the Origin nor the Principia contain a frank acknowledgment of fallibility

An equally clear case, I think, but this time to the negative, can be made for Siegel's trait of a frank acknowledgment of fallibility. There was no acknowledgment by Darwin that his theory might be wrong. The work does, however, offer good evidence that Darwin was quite confident that he was right. For instance, here is the last part of the final paragraph of the introduction:

Although much remains obscure... I can entertain no doubt... that the view which most naturalists entertain, and which formerly entertained--- namely, that each species has been independently created---is erroneous. I am fully convinced that the species are not immutable..... Furthermore, I am convinced that Natural Selection has been the main but not exclusive means of modification. 5

If no frank acknowledgement of fallibility can be found in the Origin , should we call Darwin's status as a critical thinker into question or should we call this trait into question? Newton's theories of motion and of the calculus are also laid out without expression of fallibility. If these two works are any gauge, a number of theoretical products of high quality were produced by critical thinkers who did not exhibit this trait.

3. "Following Arguments where they lead" could mean two very different things; each of the works in question violates one of them.

The meanings of the other four traits are fuzzy in my mind. For instance, the trait of willingness to follow the arguments wherever they lead implies that if a theorist begins with the right idea, she need only follow it to its inevitable conclusion. Yet if one inspects the theories of Newton and Darwin, their struggle with aspects of their theories shows that their arguments did not unroll in the smooth way that this trait would suggest. It would seem rather that, except in the obvious deductive sense, arguments don't lead anywhere; people take arguments somewhere. At certain points a myriad of paths open up, and it's not a matter of following but of leading oneself down one of them. Thus, Darwin was wrong in his arguments about inheritance and the origin of variation, confused about varieties and species, and unable to elucidate the problem of the multiplication of species.6 That is because these arguments did not automatically "follow from" his correct theory of the basic mechanism of evolutionary change.

Then what about the simple sense of following a single deductive argument through? One might feel safe in assuming that great thinkers like Newton and Darwin would never make basic deductive mistakes, at least never in centrally important matters, and so in this sense they would to a high degree "follow arguments wherever they lead." Yet in his Principia Newton provided a highly unsound demonstration of the perfectly correct result that the moment of any quantity x (n) is proportional to nx (n-1). This is a central error; that formula is the beginning of the calculus that everyone learns." 7

Furthermore, it would seem that, as in other subjects, mathematical theories contain no inexorable path. A commentator notes that "...for all his profound intuitive grasp of the rightness and good sense of what he was doing, Newton was unable to give complete logical validity to an infinitesimal calculus, leaving cracks into which Berkeley and other critics could insert powerful destructive wedges...." 8 Newton's uncertainty how to define his fundamental concept and his diverse justifications for its usefulness in mathematics were judged by critics to be weaknesses later.9

These examples show that the trait of "following arguments wherever they lead" misses the mark for what one should expect in a great critical thinker. At least, lack of this trait as well as failure to acknowledge one's fallibility are "flaws" that by Siegel's view should compromise both Darwin and Newton's status as great critical thinkers.

4. A request to clarify the trait, "the propensity to weigh relevant evidence fairly"

Leaving aside the difficulties in defining relevance,10 this trait could mean two very different things. If fairly weighing relevant evidence means that one must choose the theory which will be shown in retrospect to hold the better evidence, then despite their errors Darwin and Newton would certainly qualify. But mandating the choice of the better theory as the fair choice would compromise the status of Newton and Darwin's theoretical rivals, some of whom are also considered great thinkers. For instance, Leibniz's reaction to Newton's concept of gravitational "attraction" in the Principia was from the start clear and critical.11 In his paper called An Essay on the causes of the heavenly motions. Leibniz set out his own, complex alternative view, which throughout his life he considered to mark as great an achievement in celestial dynamics as the Principia, and far preferable from a philosophical point of view. He yielded nothing under the skepticism of his fellow neo-Cartesian, Huygens.12 Leibniz's theory contains what now seems quite peculiar talk of "conspiring motions," of his harmonic vortex of matter that bore planets around, and various attempts to find a mechanical explanation for gravity because he found the idea of action at a distance highly unreasonable.13

A number of similar examples can be found in theorizing about evolution. The leading physicist at the time, Sir William Thomson (later Lord Kelvin), cast serious doubt on the plausibility of evolution by calculating that the earth, as a cooling body could not, on the principles of thermodynamics, have supported life for the many millions of years that the theory required. "It is quite certain that a great mistake has been made--- that British popular geology... is in direct opposition to the principles of Natural Philosophy."14 From this one could easily argue that Leibniz, Lord Kelvin, and many others did not weigh relevant evidence fairly, if "fairly" means to choose the better theory.

If, however, one wants to say that one weighs fairly if one weighs by comparison to an alternative theory, weighting more heavily what one finds more relevant, then that is what my theory of weighing alternatives also holds. By this latter view Newton and Darwin are greater critical thinkers (in the areas under discussion) because their theories drove the growth of knowledge, while Leibniz and Kelvin's views, though wrong, are still critical thinking and these thinkers played the helpful role of goading their opponents to be more precise, to find more evidence, etc.

In short, the strict version of this trait is, I think, unnecessarily harsh on some great critical thinkers like Leibniz and Lord Kelvin. The other version allows for what in retrospect are dead wrong theory choices based on irrelevant ideas such as celestial whirlpools. Yet this liberal version which defines fair decision about a theory in terms of choosing between theories based on individual judgment about where the greater evidence lies--- this preserves the notion that those who choose wrongly for irrelevant reasons can still be thinking critically, which is also the view of the Alternative Argument Theory.

But perhaps Siegel means some third possibility. To believe that candidate possibility I would request not only a definition, but examples with acknowledged critical thinkers to make the definition clear.

5. "The tendency to believe in accordance with such [relevant] evidence"-- Can one believe contrary to what one believes?

A lot here hinges on one's interpretation of the trait just discussed. Passing over that and assuming Newton and Darwin to have for the most part weighed relevant evidence fairly in the works under discussion, and given their awareness of the counterintuitive, unreasonable-sounding nature of their theories and the attacks that were sure to come (Darwin holding up publication of his work for twenty years for that reason), if these men didn't believe the evidence in their works, it would not be reason to question their status as critical thinkers so much as their sanity.

In any case, this trait sounds contradictory. It implies that one might weigh the evidence in one direction, yet believe in an entirely different direction. I don't see how this is possible. Of course people can deny, to others and to themselves, that the evidence for a certain side is better, but the vernacular "deep down he knows" reflects my intuitive sense that it is impossible to believe against what one knows to be the side with the stronger evidence. In the case of Leibniz, for example, one could either argue that he knew Newton had a stronger theory but denied that to himself and others--- or he believed that he had a stronger theory. In either case he (and anyone else) believes in accordance with the evidence which he considers relevant. If there is a way to believe against what one (believes one) knows, it should be spelled out, with specific examples offered.

6. Must the great works themselves manifest a willingness to take seriously the arguments of others which challenge one's own basic beliefs and commitments?

In an earlier paper I documented Newton's refusal to answer a number of his critics. The Principia itself doesn't manifest such a willingness towards other theorists; it doesn't mention alternative views. If Newton's correspondence can be counted, then some of his works manifest this willingness (towards some critics). If only the "product of high theoretical quality" can be counted, as Siegel implies, then Newton has failed in this trait as well.

The Origin does take on objections--- but given the strong language of certainty in the introduction, it's hard to say how seriously he took them. Again, does responding per se satisfy Siegel's requirement for the manifestation of seriousness? Someone could feel contempt and yet respond, or respond without feeling contempt but without feeling seriously challenged. Evidently Darwin often did discount four major groups of people who objected to this theory. 15 And Darwin frequently complained privately that competent naturalists failed to grasp what he was claiming. 16 Finally, the reception of Darwin's theory was rapid in England, Germany, and Russia, but slow in France. In one outburst he called those doubters the "horrid, unbelieving French."17 Perhaps he was just angry for the moment and did take their objections seriously; perhaps not. (The slow reception of evolution in France creates an anomoly for the Character View, as I will argue shortly.)

In any case, the Origin takes on counterarguments, the Principia doesn't, even the third version which Newton wrote, presumably after many years of criticism and anticipated criticism. Does Newton's failure of this trait make him less of a critical thinker than Darwin? Such an implication is odd. If Darwin was not serious about any criticisms against his theory, except insofar as they marked a lack of acceptance, I don't see how this makes him any less a critical thinker either.

In sum, with the exception of the production of evidence and the tautologous believing one's evidence, I don't see these other traits as occuring to any special degree when they occur at all. Therefore, I tend to doubt their validity rather than the status of Newton and Darwin . Perhaps clarification of the points I mentioned and specific evidence would force me to change my mind. Meanwhile, for these "decisive" traits as well as for the Character View as a whole, the devil is in the details. The foregoing six traits were only those which Siegel stipulated for a critical thinker in the process of critical thought. But his overall view is far more complicated, as is that of every Character View I know of except Hatcher's.18

The Alternative Argument Theory-- a social version of the Skill View

In contrast to the complexity of the Character View, this theory holds that critical thinking in all fields is the consideration of alternative arguments (theories) in light of their evidence. The single, sufficient cause of critical thought is that a person weigh two (or more) alternatives against one another. The judgment whether the critical thinking which ensues is good or not requires a second exercise in critical thinking (i.e., that the first theoretical product was good, bad, no better or worse than, another product of that type). Great critical thinking is the creation of an alternative hypothesis which, by its predictive power, ends by driving the growth of knowledge to a considerable degree. Knowledge is driven, not only by the creation of an hypothesis which is preferable to extant alternatives, but by a myriad of people thinking critically about that hypothesis. For instance, it was not only Newton and Darwin who drove the growth of knowledge, but thousands of people weighing these theories, favorably and unfavorably, which drove the quest to get more evidence for them. Another host of people built on these theories and corrected them. 19 The Alternative Argument Theory is the simplest account of critical thinking that I have seen. It is the offspring of the Platonic dialogue and Paul's notion that dialogical reasoning is an important part of critical thinking,20 though it might seem an ugly stepchild to these theorists for its (initial) detachment from the character component and its exclusive reliance on many people weighing evidence over time.

Population thinking is counterintuitive to anyone used to thinking in terms of ideal types

The Alternative Argument Theory (AAT), then, is silent about whether a person of only a certain sort of character can do critical thinking. That question requires alternative argument and evidence. The AAT is also noteworthy in its failure to build "reasonableness" or "appropriateness" into its intellectual tool. Evidence has been offered throughout this paper concerning the slippery nature of "reasonable" in beliefs, and there is other historical evidence that the notion of what ideas are reasonable is constantly changing.21 So the AAT is silent about what constitutes theory choice to the best belief or how such belief is justified, because those thorny questions are the purview of epistemologists and psychologists; to stay out of their hair the AAT makes the fewest precommitments possible. And those precommitments which the AAT does make are, of course, fair game for anyone who wants to use alternative arguments against them.

The most counterintuitive part of the AAT is the upshot that anyone can come up with a cockamamy reason in support of an argument and decide in favor of it against a well-established argument, and that counts as critical thinking if they have weighed the evidence on both sides .22 But it is precisely under those conditions that knowledge has grown. So counting the reasoning which sounds silly and, as it turns out, never sounds less than silly doesn't matter in the long run because it will not last, just as Leibniz's whirlpools and ether (which did not sound silly at the time but even they) did not last against the Newtonian system. And since some powerfully right views, such as Newton's, were considered very peculiar at first, Newton's even considered unscientific by others in the field,23 as were Darwin's at first considered unscientific because they were not susceptible of the evidentiary certainty of Newton's24, the AAT does not rule out the silly-seeming in advance by terms such as "reasonable" and "appropriate," which would end by canonizing currently popular theories such as impetus in the sixteenth century, or ideal types in the nineteenth as the "reasonable" ones. Of course, if by "reasonable" one means only that a person chooses on the basis of evidence which she thinks is more probative than evidence for an alternative, then that is the tool. In that sense reasonableness and fairmindedness are built into the tool But it is safer to keep such loaded terms out of the heart of critical thinking because the major, current theories in every field already hold a huge advantage: They seem intuitively obvious, hence "reasonable." And most of these central theories have intuitive attraction for good reasons (they are better alternatives than those that they replaced); yet something new and odd-sounding may be even better, and it is best to let a lot of people weigh the cockamamy thing.

Almost anything can be made to sound trivial or false; that's why alternative views are necessary for critical thinking

Siegel has criticized this view of critical thinking by the following argument:

The claim that the consideration of alternatives is necessary for critical thinking is--- like so many superficially promising philosophical claims--- either trivial or false. On a weak reading, it amounts simply to the idea that all evidence for a claim needs to be taken into account, and that evidence typically includes evidence concerning the merits of alternatives. On this reading, the claim is trivially true. All extant accounts of critical thinking, including my own, endorse it; it adds nothing to those accounts.

On a strong reading, however, the claim is that no theory or argument can be critically evaluated without explicit attention to its alternatives; that such comparison is necessary for argument evaluation to be critical. This is false. One can, for example, critically evaluate an argument, and judge it appropriately, without contemplating any alternatives. Thus on this strong reading one cannot critically determine that an argument, e.g., begs the question, or generalizes on the basis of an overly small sample, without considering alternatives. But this is transparently false.... (pp.173-174)

What does this argument refute? It is not difficult to make the same sort of argument against one of Siegel's central claims. For example, I could argue the following:

The claim that being appropriately moved by reasons is necessary for critical hinking is--- like so many superficially promising philosophical claims--- either trivial or false. On a weak reading, it amounts simply to the idea that one must be appropriately moved, i.e., moved by reasons. On this reading, the claim is trivially true. All extant accounts of critical thinking, including my own, endorse it; it adds nothing to those accounts.

On a strong reading, however, the claim is that no theory or argument has been critically evaluated without the thinker having been moved to the appropriate degree by reasons; that such appropriateness is necessary for argument evaluation to be critical. This is false. We have seen, for example, that Leibnitz and Kelvin critically evaluated theories and judged them inappropriately, and yet we consider these men to have been critical thinkers. We also saw that Darwin was wrong about a number of features of his theory, i.e., he was not moved to the appropriate degree by his reasons. In fact, the exact appropriate degree to which someone should be moved by their reasons can never be known. Thus on this strong reading Siegel's account is transparently false....

Lest someone think that these criticisms refute both the AAT and Siegel's Character View, here is the same language applied against Newton's theory of motion:

Newton's argument about the nature of motion is--- like so many superficially promising claims in natural philosophy---either trivial or false. On a weak reading, it amounts simply to the idea that the mechanics of motion are the same everywhere, both on earth and in the solar system. On this reading, the claim is trivially true. All extant accounts of motion endorse it; it adds nothing to those accounts.

On a strong reading, however, the claim that a state of rest and a state of uniform velocity are equivalent is false. One can, for example, roll a ball along a path at a consistent rate and see that it behaves differently from a ball at rest. So the idea that a state of rest and a state of uniform velocity are equivalent is transparently false.

All of these arguments can sound compelling, even final, to someone who does not have alternatives and their evidence in mind. Ironically, the arguments above would seem to be the very sort that the Character View fears from people Siegel terms "thinkers who are adept at manipulating argumentative exchanges in such a way that they can always 'demonstrate,' or protect from challenge, those deep-seated beliefs and commitments which they are not willing to explore or reject." (p.170) But everybody who is adept at arguing, though they have the finest disposition, attitudes, and character, can wrongfully 'demonstrate' one case in isolation. That is why the AAT is unremitting in its insistence on alternatives, with evidence held up to comparison.25 Alternative argument is the ultimate weapon against reason being made into a weapon which can be abused and perverted to produce conviction rather than truth. One fights fire with more fire, in this case. Manipulations can, of course, still occur, but not to the extent that they can in an isolated argument.26 And it is many alternative arguments by many people over time which shake out the mistakes, if Newtonian mechanics and the theory of evolution are any guide.

In any case, what is the evidence for the Alternative Argument Theory?

When alternatives are forbidden, it appears that knowledge does not grow

To test the hypothesis that populations weighing alternatives over time drive the growth of knowledge, I looked for historical instances where alternatives were forbidden to see if knowledge grew. One of the best pieces of evidence is that of Soviet genetics from 1937-1964. A biologist, T.D. Lysenko, convinced Stalin that the view that acquired characteristics were inherited was the only one consistent with Marxism. Not one piece of useful knowledge came from Lysenkoism, as it came to be called. This is a particularly interesting example, because in other areas such as physics, which were unaffected by the ban, knowledge in the Soviet Union grew apace.27 A similar version of Lysenkoism, with the same results, seems to have occured in China at that time.28 These examples are not only evidence for the AAT, but they present anomalies for the Character View, at least a version such as Siegel's in which alternative argument is not necessary and where character is central. Did biologists in Russia and China suffer a sudden lapse in character over those years, only to recover it at exactly the moment that the ban on alternative theorizing was lifted?29 Similarly, did the French show a sudden lack of the critical spirit for not embracing Darwinism as fast as the Germans, the Americans, or the English? There is a more plausible explanation. Several years before the Origin appeared, the foremost paleontologist at the time, Georges Cuvier, ridiculed a mild evolutionary position put forth by Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire. As one commentator put it, "Cuvier's prestige and the bitterness of his attack have often been credited with virtually silencing discussion of transformism [evolution] in France, where the question had long been debated." 30

One might wish to argue, against all three cases, that it was because the right view was squelched and the wrong view pushed, that critical thinking was frustrated. But recall that Darwin was wrong about a number of features concerning his view. To have instantiated Darwin's theory as the only right view would have frustrated the growth of the theory of evolution as well. And an inflexible Newtonianism would not have permitted the theory of quantum mechanics.

Other evidence in support of the AAT may come from cultures where for linguistic or political reasons people were not able to invent and then weigh alternatives. I hope to elaborate on this evidence in the future.

Historical evidence provides new intuitions that fit nicely with the AAT

Some old intuitions are better served by the Alternative Argument Theory. I would assume that most people assume Newton to have been a greater critical thinker than Marcus Aurelius, which intuition fits the AAT but not (necessarily) the Character View. Most people would assume that Plato, whatever some new discovery might unveil about flaws in his character, would still be considered a greater critical thinker than Marcus Aurelius because Plato drove the growth of knowledge further.

But the historical evidence I have offered provides new intuitions, perhaps calling to mind that one's assessment of fair-mindedness shows a remarkable correlation with views with which one agrees. (How often have you heard someone say, "He was so unfairminded, so unreasonable! I talked to him for two hours and he agreed with everything I said.") So putting terms such as fair-mindedness or objectivity or reasonableness into the definition of critical thinking could build in a dangerous bias in favor of one's own view--- the AAT honors that intuition by omitting such terminology. The question then becomes, not whether another person's view seems reasonableto me, but whether I can see that he weighed alternatives in light of their evidence.31 So it is intuitively appealing to me that, as a venal person, I am prevented by the AAT from concluding that a person whose views I dislike did not thinking critically, as long as I see him weigh the view he favors against another view, even if I think he is seriously mistaken in his assessment of that other view. The AAT can't stop me from thinking that he's crazy or that he is seriously distorting my case, or that compared to mine his critical thinking isn't all that good--- and it's my intuition that these are typical reactions to having one's view criticized. So they shouldn't be allowed to be part of the judgment about whether another person has thought critically. (On the question of how good a piece of critical thought is, luckily a lot of people normally weigh in.)

The AAT also honors the intuition that, as in all other fields, in the vast majority of cases a person ought to know when she is doing that thing called critical thinking, just as in the vast majority of cases one knows she is doing mathematics or philosophy, and that there is something wrong with a subject if one is unable to readily identify a single specific instance of it. With the AAT one knows when one is thinking critically and when one is not. With the Character View on the other hand, one could set out to commit an act of critical thinking and never know whether one had reasonably decided, been just or humble or whatever enough, or had one's thought processes in all the proper gears.32 Finally, it is impressive that Socrates was "happy to be refuted," but wonderful to know that knowledge will grow whether I'm happy to be refuted or not. It is intuitively comforting that however badly I blunder in understanding an alternative case or in presenting mine, that with many people inspecting arguments over time the blunders will be erased and the cases made clear enough so that one of them is shown to be sufficiently implausible that future generations can forget it as surely as most have forgotten Descartes' objection to Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood, that blood drawn into the heart became so heated that it effervesced, causing the heart to expand, and leap of its own motion into the arteries.33 (Or a debate may not be picked up and carried on, much as the astounding one million three hundred thousand words which Newton devoted to theology do not seem to have contributed to growth in that field.34) Descartes was not correct in his theory of circulation of the blood but he thought critically and pushed Harvey's camp to make a better case. It's a relief to see that Descartes, Newton, and Leibnitz were as partial to their views as I feel to mine, that they didn't consider all relevant evidence or judge it appropriately and still they made significant contributions. They weren't especially good men making impossibly perfect judgments, the way thumbnail sketches in textbooks lead one erroneously to suppose. Their imperfections do not diminish their greatness, but to the contrary, make their prescience that much more spectacular. And it shows the enormous amount of critical thinking that needs doing by great numbers of ordinary people, small links who must weigh and add evidence in a huge chain of critical thinkers to make the enduring features of a theory become clear.

Thus, the AAT has a number of intuitively appealing features that the Character View doesn't share.

The Alternative Argument Theory is an interfield theory

McPeck has argued that critical thinking is field-dependent. because, following Toulmin, evidentiary standards are field-dependent, so that the "merits to be demanded in one field will be found to be absent (in the nature of things) in another."35 With Siegel, I have argued against this view to the extent that critical thinkers can identify the structure of theorizing across dicisciplines.36

While McPeck and Toulmin are right that the type of evidence which is possible varies among fields, for example historians cannot perform controlled experiments, it is still possible---and often happens--- that a scientist can admire and agree with an historical theory as preferable to others, and vice versa . People in other fields are not generally so ill-informed that they would demand a type of evidence for a theory of critical thinking which it is impossible to obtain. For example, at the moment scientific evidence about critical thinking is not available. In a recent article in the journal Nature , Francis Crick and Edward Jones argue that little is known at the moment about the functioning of the human brain.37

I have argued that the AAT is counterintuitive to us in the humanities. But I suspect that for many in the basic and social sciences the AAT would not be counterintuitive; rather, the Character View would by comparison seem odd. For example, Siegel's recent paper argues, as its title indicates, for the centrality of character to critical thinking. He argues that to the extent that a thinker suffers from relevant character defects, to that extent the thinker fails to be a critical thinker. (p.166) He stipulates six character traits which are decisive with respect to a people being critical thinkers, without which "we would have every reason to call their status into question" (p.167). He re-emphasizes that "character traits [are] an essential component of critical thinking" (p.170).This would lead most people in most fields to infer that Siegel is claiming that character plays a causal role, most likely that it's a necessary but not a sufficient condition for critical thinking. In fact early on in a footnote he claims as a "necessary condition [for the critical thinker].... that of having, to at least some degree, some of the relevant traits."(note 8, p.175) But further in the paper Siegel writes that "the character view is not claiming anything in particular about the causes of critical thinking"(p.172)! To people in many fields it would seem strange to claim that a feature which one had insisted was central, essential, necessary and that without it you wouldn't get your effect, is not causal . 38 Even more peculiar, from the point of view of other fields, would be his claim that "...the causes of critical thinking are irrelevant to questions about its proper conceptualization. If episodes of critical thinking were caused by ingesting some chemical concoction, it would remain an open question whether the Skill or the Character View was the more adequate conception." (p.172) In light of the clear, causal conceptualization of critical thinking offered by the AAT, Siegel's argument wouldn't wash across a number of disciplines. If episodes of critical thinking were caused by ingesting some chemical concoction, neither skill nor character would have anything to do with critical thinking unless one produced evidence for some sort of connection. One cannot just announce a conceptualization and expect people to believe it. In thus undercutting his own case for the centrality of character Siegel leaves a complicated account in even greater disarray.

It has been over a decade since McPeck criticized theories of critical thinking for being long on claims and short on support.39 I believe that this criticism still stands (and take it to heart in attempting to find more evidence for the AAT). It needn't remain this way, but at the moment theories of critical thinking provide unwitting empirical support for McPeck's view that critical thinking is discipline-specific. We have been humanists arguing only to other humanists. This is an irony in critical thinking, which purports to transcend disciplinary lines.

Summary

Two types of theories about critical thinking offer a choice. The Character View seems intuitively right to many theorists. But at the moment its proponents have offered no evidence beyond the seeming obviousness of their many principles, and in fact I have shown evidence against several of Siegel's traits claimed for the process of critical thinking. This evidence forces the anomaly of accepting Newton's Theory of Motion as a great piece of critical thinking, while concluding that Newton was not (much of) a critical thinker. And similar results obtain for Darwin. Finally, the Character View is complicated. The AAT is by comparison quite clear because it is simple, it has supporting evidence, but it runs counter to some deep-seated beliefs. I would recommend for the time being against the Character View until it can build a better evidentiary case for itself, and recommend provisional acceptance of the Alternative Argument Theory. Whatever you decide, by the AAT you have done critical thinking; by the Character View, that's anybody's guess.

Endnotes

1 Maurice Finocchiaro, "Two Empirical Approaches to the Study of Reasoning," Infomal Logic, Vol XVI, No. 1, Winter 1994, in which he describes how his historical-textual approach to Galileo has afforded him similar results to the experimental-critical work of David Perkins. This work is very different from recent work on tests for students by theorists who have untested theories, about as helpful as a testing students for their grasp of phrenology.

2 Connie Missimer, "Perhaps by Skill Alone," Informal Logic XII..3, Fall 1990.

3 Harvey Siegel, "Not by Skill Alone: The Centrality of Character to Critical Thinking," Informal Logic, Vol. XV, No. 3, Fall 1993. Page references in the body of the paper refer to this article by Siegel.

4 Siegel claims, in fact, that "...a piece of thinking, construed propositionally, can be of high quality without the thinker in question having reasoned, procedurally, particularly well." (p.167) This is unlikely, and requires historical examples. In any case, could the theoretical products of Plato, Descartes, or Russell have been produced this way? The likelihood would appear to be low. Or cf. p.167, where Siegel argues that ..."a worthy product can be achieved by the most uncritical of means: a theorist can...even fail to think at all." Such an astonishing claim requires evidence.

5 Darwin, Charles. On the Origin of Species, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1964, p.6.Darwin does not declare his infallibility, but is ready to admit that there are no doubt errors in some details (p.2), and of fourteen chapters he does offer the sixth on Difficulties of Theory. But there, he also remains convinced. While admitting of difficulties "so grave that I can never reflect on them without being staggered; but to the best of my judgment, the greater number are only apparent, and those that are real are not, I think, fatal to my theory. p.171. One might imagine he had a private sense of fallibility about his species theory. But this is not the case. In a letter to his wife, he writes... If, as I believe, my theory in time be accepted even by one competent judge, it will be a considerable step in science." Foundations of the Origin of Species, p.xxi, from The Works of Charles Darwin, Paul Barrett & R.B. Freeman, Eds., Vol. 10, London: William Pickering, 1986.

6 Ibid., in the introduction by Ernest Mayr, p.viii.

7 Hall, A.R., Philosophers at War, Cambridge University Press, 1980 p.32. When Siegel reiterates the six traits, to that of frank acknowledgment of fallibility he adds (oddly, at least I don't see the connection) "and therefore careful scrutiny of their own arguments (and potential counter-arguments) in an effort to render those arguments as strong as they could. So Newton, who presumably did not scrutinize this central lemma carefully, would be flawed on this account too.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid.

10 Blair, T. Premise-Relevance, A paper prepared for the Workshop on Norms in Argumentation, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, 1988.

11 Hall, op. cit, p. 152.

12 Ibid., p.151.

13 Butterfield, op.cit.,

14 Burkhardt, F., "England & Scotland: Learned Societies," in The Comparative Reception of Darwinism, Thomas F. Glick, ed., University of Texas Press, p.45.

15 Hodge, M.J.S., England, in Ibid., p.24. Hodge writes: "Indeed Darwin and his principal associates, Hooker and Huxley, often did discount four major kinds among early English reactions: those from long-standing opponents of Lyell, such as Sedgwick, Owen, and Whewell, who were predictably hostile...; those from anyone like Hopkins, who, as a physicist, measured theoretical innovations in biology against the arguably irrelevant standards of Newtonian science...; those from unambitious, conservative naturalists...; and finally, those from popular, religious, or literary critics...."

16 Ibid., p.10

17 Stebbins, R. E., "France," in Ibid., p.122.

18 cf. Hatcher, D., "Critical Thinking and the Conditions for Rational Evaluation," 1992,in which he posits four rational principles on which critical thought can be founded along with one character trait, honesty, without [which] the community of inquiries cannot build upon the results reported by others. I believe that the notion of inspection of alternatives in light of their evidence implies weighing to see where the truth lies, and entails to that extent honesty. The AAT does not sanction willful misuse of information.

19 In the admiration for great thinkers it is easy to forget the many who came after. On the reception of Darwinism in the United States, E.J. Pfeifer quotes a hostile contemporary that "Darwinism was in reality, he said spreading among scientists "like the measles in a school." Ibid., p.198. Or more abstractly, "the ultimate victory of Newton ..vindicated the alliance of geometry with the experimental method.....The clean and comparatively empty Newtonian skies ultimately carried the day....",(Butterfield, p.170)--- an elliptical allusion to the thousands of critical thinkers who carried the theory forward.

20 The ATT builds on Paul's claim that by developing arguments dialectically we can come to recognize their strengths and weaknesses. But the stress here is on arguments weighed in light of their evidence whenever possible, the latter point implicit in Paul but not, I think, emphasized. I do not agree with his view that "people as they are now largely constituted...are deeply irrational..." Paul, R. (1982) Teaching Critical Thinking in the "Strong" Sense: A Focus on Self-Deception, World Views, and a Dialectical Mode of Analysis. Informal Logic Newsletter, 4,2: 2-7; and Paul, R.(1985) "Background Logic, Critical Thinking, and Irrational Language Games." Informal Logic 7,1: 9-18.

21 In an extremely well-documented chapter on reason and reasonableness, historian Christopher Hill shows how ideas about the divine right of kings, the inappropriateness of making interest on one's money or owning property all underwent shifts from unreasonable to reasonable. If anything, our lifetimes have seen more numerous shifts. "Reason and Reasonableness," in Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century England, Harvard University Press, 1975. The historian J.H. Hexter comments on the extraordinary erudition of this chapter of twenty-one pages which lays claim to over 150 different works cited. cf On Historians, Harvard University Press, 1979, pp.228-229.

22 Contra Siegel's characterization, this theory would not count my weighing in favor of a theory because it will advance my career (p.29). This theory would only count my weighing in favor of a theory because I believe that there is more evidence for that theory than for another. If I really believed that a theory was more probative because it would advance my career, or had even numbers of words, or was advanced by Jews, who else could I convince on these bizarre bases without additional evidence that these bases were not bizarre? These examples are odd in what they imply about the thinking of ordinary people.

23 Butterfield notes that "...many people---especially those who were under the influence of Descartes---regarded Newton as unscientific in that he brought back on to the stage two things which had been driven out as superstitious---namely, the idea of a vacuum and the idea of an influence which could operate across space between bodies that did not touch one another [gravity]." p.169

24 Hodge, M.J.S., in op.cit., p.23 "On one common mid-century interpretation, Newtonia physics met just those demands for intelligibility that Carpenter [prominent at University College, London] found unsatisfied by natural selection. A commitment to Newton and God could, then, lead very directly to a rejection of Darwin."

25 Interestingly, the null hypothesis in statistical analysis fulfills this alternative function.

26 An example of the distortion which can come from a highly skilled criticism is Darwin on Trial, by Phillip E. Johnson, a law professor at UC Berkeley who specializes in the logic of arguments. Johnson is very knowledgeable and accurate about the theory of evolution, about its unsolved puzzles and theoretical struggles, concluding that the theory is severely lacking in confirmatory evidence "from the point of view of logic and the canons of scientific research." The book is extremely well-argued, it is highly skillful, there is little in it which one might term "waak-sense thinking" per se, but by the AAT such thinking is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to drive the growth of knowledge because it is a critique without an alternative. That is, such critiques may have played a role in the growth of knowledge, but the AAT predicts that their role is minor. Had Newton merely written a critique of the impetus theory he could not have driven the growth of knowledge as he did. Of course, the person reading Johnson or Newton's Principia must hold an alternative and its evidence in mind to think critically. I assume Newton's readers did so, but fear that it doesn't occur to Johnson's readers to ask what the predictive power of Genesis is. cf Johnson, InterVarsity Press, 1991.

27 Medvedev, Z.A., The Rise and Fall of T.D. Lysenko, I. Michael Lerner, tr., New York, Columbia University Press, 1969, p,170 and passim].

28 cf. Laurence A. Schneider, Lysenkoism in China, M.E. Sharpe Inc., and John Z. Bowers ed. Science and Medicine in Twentieth Century China. University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies.

29 This is not only unlikely, but a violation of theoretical simplicity. Elliott Sober notes: "A frequently expressed intuition about the role of simplicity in hypothesis choice that... hypotheses which say that a given class of individuals is uniform and homogeneous are simpler than those which say that the class is nonuniform and heterogeneous." Here the sudden switch in character makes the Character View more complicated. p.38, Simplicity, Elliott Sober, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1975.

30 Stebbins, in op.cit., p.118.

31 cf. "Testing Fairmindedness" Fisher, Informal Logic 13: 1, Winter 1991, on the difficulties of a fair-mindedness test. His account inspired the thought of making up such a test for Newton and Leibnitz on motion: Would one bias it towards a better score for Newton?

32 Add to that Siegel's claim that "many people who are practiced in and skilled at critical thinking nevertheless fail, at least occasionally but often routinely and systematically, to think critically."(p.22) It is this sort of claim which gives the Character View an arcane, elitist flavor. One longs for substantiation.

33 Butterfield, op.cit., p.127.

34 McLachlan, H. Sir Isaac Newton: Theological Manuscripts, Liverpool at the University Press, 1950, p.1.

35 McPeck, J. Critical Thinking and Education, Martin Robertson, 1981 p.32. McPeck is close to my account of critical thinking when he claims that it is a "skepticism that does not take truth for granted. Instead it considers alternative hypotheses." I am not sure that he would go so far as to claim that all conditions for critical thinking are thereby fulfilled, as I have.

36 Missimer, C. "Why Two Heads Are Better Than One: Philosophical and Pedagogical Implications for a Theory of Critical Thinking," Proceedings of the Philosophy of Education Society 1988, pp.397-398.

37 "Backwardness of human neuroanatomy," in Nature 361: 109-110. 14 Jan 1993.

38 Siegel argues that philosophers frequently make claims using this sort of language, but that they are not causal but constitutive (p.25). He offers four examples.

1. In order to be a physical object, an entity must have extension.

( That is a definition. It is not a causal claim, but it is something a lot more specific than a "constitutive claim.")

2. Democracy requires a free press.

( That claim involves causality: A free press is a necessary condition for a democratic society; without a free press the society is no longer democratic.)

3. Justice demands treating like cases alike.

( That claim involves causality. Treating like cases alike is a necessary- -or maybe sufficient condition, depending on the context-- for a just society, family, etc.)

4. Critical thinking requires the comparing of alternative theories in light of their evidence.

(That is causal too. It is a sufficient condition for critical thinking that a person compare alternative theories in light of their evidence.)

Siegel writes of these claims he calls constitutive that "These claims suggest rather that these properties are necessary (and sometimes sufficient conditions) for the relevant states to be successfully realized." (p.25) Yes. And those realized relevant states are the effects, with the necessary and sufficient conditions their causes. The term "conceptualization", in its lack of specificity, appears to be a catch-all term by which one could embrace any favored idea and give it seeming authority.

39 McPeck, op.cit., pp.1,2, and passim..