Assuming that critical thinking dispositions are at least as important as critical thinking abilities, Ennis examines the concept of critical thinking disposition and suggests some criteria for judging sets of them. He considers a leading approach to their analysis and offers as an alternative a simpler set, including the disposition to seek alternatives and be open to them. After examining some gender-bias and subject-specificity challenges to promoting critical thinking dispositions, he notes some difficulties involved (...) in assessing critical thinking dispositions, and suggests an exploratory attempt to assess them. (shrink)

Temporal discounting is the tendency to devalue temporally distant rewards. Past studies have examined the k-value, the indifference point, and the area under the curve as dependent measures on this task. The current study included these three measures and a fourth measure, called the interest rate total score. The interest rate total score was based on scoring only those items in which the delayed choice should be preferred given the expected return based on simple interest rates. In addition, associations with (...) several individual difference measures were examined including intelligence, executive functions (inhibition, working memory, and set-shifting), thinking dispositions (Need for Cognition and Consideration of Future Consequences) and engagement in substance use and gambling behavior. A staircase temporal discounting task was examined in a sample of 99 university students. Replicating previous studies, temporal discounting increased with longer delays to reward and decreased with higher reward magnitudes. A hyperbolic function accounted for variance in temporal discounting better than an exponential function. Reaction time at the indifference point was significantly longer than at the other choice points. The four dependent measures of temporal discounting were all significantly correlated and were also significantly associated with our individual difference measures. That is, the tendency to wait for a larger delayed reward on all of the temporal discounting measures was associated with higher intelligence, higher executive functions and more consideration of future consequences. Associations between our measures of temporal discounting and outcomes related to substance use and gambling behavior were modest in our university sample. (shrink)

This paper develops a taxonomy of critical thinking dispositions using dispositional formulations identified over 40 years of research in the area. Critical thinking dispositions refer to the ‘habits’, ‘virtues’ or ‘intellectual character’ that prompts people to exercise their critical thinking skills. As such, they are as vital as the skills themselves. A person may be skilled in analysis, evaluation, or forming inferences, but without a disposition to do so, skills are impotent. Educating for critical thinking—both (...) skills and dispositions—is an increasingly important enterprise. The skills are clear enough and well-documented. However, to educate for critical thinking dispositions, we need to understand what dispositions are, and which are most important. Previous literature has been devoted to listing dispositions and categorising them, but there is much debate over the details. Attempts to reconcile various dispositional listings are limited. This paper is a step in the direction of a composite taxonomy. (shrink)

Theorists have hypothesized that skill in critical thinking is positively correlated with the consistent internal motivation to think and that specific critical thinking skills are matched with specific critical thinking dispositions. If true, these assumptions suggest that a skill-focused curriculum would lead persons to be both willing and able to think. This essay presents a researchbased expert consensus definition of critical thinking, argues that human dispositions are neither hidden nor unknowable, describes a scientific process of developing (...) conventional testing tools to measure cognitive skills and human dispositions, and summarizes recent empirical research findings that explore the possible relationship of critical thinking skill and the consistent internal motivation, or disposition, to use that skill. Empirical studies indicate that for all practical purposes the hypothesized correlations are not evident. It would appear that effective teaching must include strategies for building intellectual character rather than relying exclusively on strengthening cognitive skills. (shrink)

The execution of critical thinking depends on a set of skills and dispositions. It is unanimously accepted that skills represent the cognitive component, but consensus varies with regard to dispositions. Although most theoreticians admit that this is a complex construct integrated by motivations and mental habits, they don’t explain further. We have performed a study attempting to explore the internal structure of dispositions. We suggest a possible hypothesis of “Motivational Genesis of Dispositions,” according to which disposition would be (...) formed by motivation and by mental habits, although the contribution of each of these factors would change depending on the practice gained in critical thinking. Thus, when a person is not practised in critical thinking, motivation makes a greatercontribution than mental habits. Nevertheless, with practice and motivated exercise of the skills of critical thinking, the influence of these mental habits increases. The regression analyses carried out support such a hypothesis. (shrink)

In order to tesl for critical thinking dispositions, the presence of the requisite critical thinking abilities must first be established. Otherwise, it is always a plausible counterexplanation of failure to use certain abilities that they were not possessed. If a person spontaneously uses some ability on a task, then it is often legitimate to conclude that the person has both the ability and the disposition to use it. However, if the person does not use the ability spontaneously, (...) the conclusion is ambiguous. The person might not have the ability, or might have the ability but not the disposition to use it, or not the disposition to use it in the specific circumstances of the presented task. This paper proposes methods of critical thinking testing designed to deal with each of these possibilities. (shrink)

While much emphasis is placed on the need to improve critical thinking (CT) among college students (Abrami, Bernard, Borokhovski, Wade, Surkes, Tamim, & Zhang, 2008, p. 1102), few studies describe precise methodologies for doing so (Behar-Horenstein & Niu, 2011, p. 36) and even fewer identify improvements in CT dispositions as a desired course outcome (Perkins, Tishman, Ritchhart, Donis, & Andrade, 2000, p. 288). This study attempts to fill a gap in the studies of CT methodologies aimed at improving CT (...) dispositions. In this study, 78 community college students enrolled in a CT course that emphasized targeted CT interventional strategies. The students took the California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory (CCTDI) as a pre-test and as a post-test. Results indicate that the targeted instruction significantly influenced overall scores, as well as four of the seven subscale categories. (shrink)

Many years ago, C.B. Martin drew our attention to the possibility of ‘finkish’ dispositions: dispositions which, if put to the test would not be manifested, but rather would disappear. Thus if x if finkishly disposed to give response r to stimulus s, it is not so that if x were subjected to stimulus r, x would give response z; so finkish dispositions afford a counter‐example to the simplest conditional analysis of dispositions. Martin went on to suggest that finkish dispositions required (...) a theory of primitive causal powers; there, I think, he was mistaken. All that they require is an improved conditional analysis, and this improved analysis can be built upon whatever treatments of properties and of laws we may favour on other grounds. (shrink)

Evidence is limited on how elementary social studies preservice teachers make sense of museum settings and the use of museum artifacts for instruction, especially while consumed with learning how to teach. This study explored 81 elementary preservice teachers’ dispositional thinking toward museum pedagogy in a teacher education program. Objectives were to determine an overall dispositional thinking profile and also investigate possible distinct dimensions. The study employed descriptive and exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to establish systematically reliable factor solutions representing (...) a profile of preservice teachers’ dispositions. Results indicate preservice teachers’ museum pedagogy dispositional thinking can be measured with three dimensions and one overall generic form of dispositional thinking. Representing the dimensions are these factor structures: (a) willingness to use museum settings and their artifacts to support social studies teaching, (b) capacity to interact with museum artifacts for K-6 social studies teaching, and (c) recognizing the prospect of museum pedagogy as an approach to enhance K-6 social studies education. Based on the factor structures, we introduce a conceptual framework to represent elementary social studies preservice teachers’ dispositional thinking about museum pedagogy. Engaging in preliminary work to first understand preservice teachers’ thoughts and dispositions, before creating or adopting curricula, may deepen and strengthen their agentic growth in museum education for social studies teaching. (shrink)

This essay offers a comprehensive vision for a higher education program incorporating critical thinking across the curriculum at hypothetical Alpha College, employing a rigorous detailed conception of critical thinking called “The Alpha Conception of Critical Thinking”. The program starts with a 1-year, required, freshman course, two-thirds of which focuses on a set of general critical thinking dispositions and abilities. The final third uses subject-matter issues to reinforce general critical thinking dispositions and abilities, teach samples of (...) subject matter, and introduce subject-specific critical thinking. Subject-matter departmental and other units will make long-range plans for incorporating critical thinking in varying amounts in subject-matter courses, culminating in a written Senior Thesis/Project involving investigating, taking, and defending a position, which reinforce critical thinking abilities and dispositions and increase subject-matter knowledge. Teaching approaches used in the program are involving and based on the principle, “We learn what we use.” Both summative and formative assessment are employed as appropriate. Coordination and support are extensive. Objections and concerns are discussed, and alternatives, including possible transitions, are considered. An extended review of research supports moving toward CTAC. (shrink)

'Why did the window break when it was hit by the stone? Because the window is brittle and the stone is hard; hardness and brittleness are powers, dispositional properties or dispositions.' Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. This book is a record of the debate on the nature of dispositions between three distinguished philosophers - D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin and U. T. Place - who have been thinking about dispositions all their working lives. Their (...) distinctive accounts cover many of the issues surrounding dispositions such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation. Dispositions illuminates this central topic in analytic philosophy and at the same time highlights deeper concerns of metaphysics. (shrink)

This paper develops two ideas with respect to dispositional properties: (1) Adapting a suggestion of Sungho Choi, it appears the conceptual distinction between dispositional and categorical properties can be drawn in terms of susceptibility to finks and antidotes. Dispositional, but not categorical properties, are not susceptible to intrinsic finks, nor are they remediable by intrinsic antidotes. (2) If correct, this suggests the possibility that some dispositions—those which lack any causal basis—may be insusceptible to any fink or antidote. Since finks and (...) antidotes are a major obstacle to a conditional analysis of dispositions, these dispositions that are unfinkable may be successfully analysed by the conditional analysis of dispositions. This result is of importance for those who think that the fundamental properties might be dispositions which lack any distinct causal basis, because it suggests that these properties, if they exist, can be analysed by simple conditionals and that they will not be subject to ceteris paribus laws. (shrink)

Dispositional essentialists argue that physical properties have their causal roles essentially. This is typically taken to mean that physical properties are identical to dispositions. I argue that this is untenable, and that we must instead say that properties bestow dispositions. I explore what it is for a property to have such a role essentially. Dispositional essentialists argue for their view by citing certain epistemological and metaphysical implications, and I appeal to these implications to place desiderata on the concept of essence (...) involved. I argue that the traditional modal theory of essence meets these desiderata, but that the resulting theory wrongly implies that certain dispositions essential to mass are essential to charge, thereby offering a new argument against modal theories of essence. I argue that dispositional essentialism requires a primitive notion of essence, and develop a primitivist theory based on Kit Fine's views. I show that the primitivist theory has all the virtues of the modal alternative, and none of the vices. I develop a novel way of thinking about the relationship between properties, laws and dispositions, and argue that it has distinct advantages over standard dispositional essentialist formulations. (shrink)

Subjects who retain their beliefs in the face of higher-order evidence that those very beliefs are outputs of flawed cognitive processes are at least very often criticisable. Many think that this is because such higher-order evidence defeats various epistemic statuses such as justification and knowledge, but it is notoriously difficult to give an account of such defeat. This paper outlines an alternative explanation, stemming from some of my earlier work, for why subjects are criticisable for retaining beliefs in the face (...) of paradigm kinds of putatively defeating higher-order evidence: they manifest dispositions that are bad relative to a range of candidate epistemic successes such as true belief and knowledge. In particular, giving up belief in response to higher-order evidence only when that evidence is not misleading would require subjects to have dispositions that discriminate between cases in which their original cognitive processes is fine, and cases in which they merely seemed to be fine. But, I argue, such dispositions are not normally humanly feasible. I show that retaining belief in putative cases of defeat by higher-order evidence is problematic irrespective of whether veritism or some form of gnosticism is true. In the end I contrast my account of dispositional evaluations with similar-sounding ideas that have been put forth in the literature, such as consequentialist views that focus on instrumental means to success. (shrink)

According to some philosophers, gender is a social role or pattern of behavior in a social context. I argue that these accounts have problematic implications for transgender. I suggest that gender is a complex behavioral disposition, or cluster of dispositions. Furthermore, since gender norms are culturally relative, one’s gender is partially constituted by extrinsic factors. I argue that this has advantages over thinking of gender as behavior, and has the added advantage of accommodating the possibility of an appearance/reality (...) dissonance with respect to one’s gender. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn has argued that science finds only dispositional properties. If true, this is surprising: we think of the world as containing categorical properties too. But Blackburn thinks that our difficulties go further than this: that the idea of a world containing just dispositional properties is not simply surprising, but incoherent. The problem is made clear, he argues, when we have a counterfactual analysis of dispositions, and then understand counterfactuals in terms of possible worlds.

Many philosophers think that dispositions are necessarily intrinsic. However, there are no good positive arguments for this view. Furthermore, many properties (such as weight, visibility, and vulnerability) are dispositional but are not necessarily shared by perfect duplicates. So, some dispositions are extrinsic. I consider three main objections to the possibility of extrinsic dispositions: the Objection from Relationally Specified Properties, the Objection from Underlying Intrinsic Properties, and the Objection from Natural Properties. These objections ultimately fail.

In this paper, I make the case for the view that there are many different kinds of dispositions, a view I call dispositional pluralism. The reason I think that this case needs to be made is to temper the tendency to make sweeping generalization about the nature of dispositions that go beyond conceptual truths. Examples of such generalizations include claims that all dispositions are intrinsic, essential, fundamental, or natural.! In order to counter this tendency, I will start by noting the (...) extent to which it is at odds with the semantics of dispositions, according to which there are many kinds of disposition ascriptions. From there, I will try to support a metaphysical claim that there are different kinds of dispositions. To bridge the gap between semantics and metaphysics, I appeal to epistemology. I'll consider the question "when do we have good reason to believe that a disposition ascription is true?" If our disposition ascriptions are true, then we are right about what kinds of dispositions things have, and what kinds of dispositions there are. I claim that our evidence for different kinds of dispositions is on a par; we have reason to believe that various kinds of dispositions are instantiated. (shrink)

Most contemporary metaphysicians think that a teleological approach to mereological composition and the whole-part relation should be ignored because it is an obsolete view of the world. In this paper, I discuss Descartes’s conception of individuation and composition of material objects such as stones, machines, and human bodies. Despite the fact that Descartes officially rejected ends from his philosophy of matter, I argue, against some scholars, that to appeal to the notion of disposition was a way for him to (...) maintain teleological reference within a mechanistic conception of nature. Through a study of Descartes’s texts, I also want to make clear why it might be difficult to entirely ignore teleological notions, when one wants to account for composition and unity of material objects. (shrink)

What is the connection between dispositions and ethics? Some might think very little and those who are interested in dispositions tend to be metaphysicians whose interests are far from value. However, we argue in this paper that dispositions and dispositionality are central to ethics, indeed a precondition. Ethics rests on a number of notions that are either dispositional in nature or involve real dispositions or powers at work. We argue for a dispositional account of value that offers an alternative to (...) the traditional fact-value dichotomy. We explain the place of value within a structure that explains the possibility of ethics. Elsewhere in this structure, we argue that moral responsibility is a precondition for ethics and that it is a dispositional notion depending critically on what Mumford and Anjum have called the dispositional modality. Moral responsibility in turn depends on there being both agency and normativity. We argue that intentionality and agency are preconditions for agency and that value is a precondition of normativity. All these notions are dispositional and make best sense if there are real dispositions or causal powers of agents. (shrink)

I begin with by discussing cases that seem to show that a range of norms – norms like Choose the best!, Believe the truth!, and even Keep your promises! – fail to map out an important part of normative space. At the core of the problem is the observation that in some cases we can only conform to these norms by luck, in a way that is not creditable to us. I outline a prevalent diagnosis of the problem of luck, (...) which I label perspectivist. According to this diagnosis, the problem with a range of objectivist norms is that they make reference to facts that may lie outside our perspectives, not being present to our minds. An agent’s perspective is a kind of representation of the world: her evidence, knowledge, beliefs, experiences, etc. The first aim of this paper is to argue that the perspectivist diagnosis of the problem of luck is not ultimately correct. The correct diagnosis, I argue, is feasibilist: in some situations it is not feasible to choose, act, or believe in ways that conformity to objectivist norms robustly depends on. That is, it is sometimes not feasible to manifest dispositions that robustly enough track what one ought to do or believe, according to norms like those listed above. The same, I argue, is true of perspectivist norms: sometimes it is not feasible to track facts about our own perspectives. This shift in focus from the limits of our perspectives to limits on what dispositions it is feasible to manifest has, I argue, deep ramifications for normative theory. My second aim is to sketch an alternative, feasibilist way of thinking about a more subject-directed kind of normativity, one that takes into account our limitations as human agents. The result is a normative picture that unifies the practical and theoretical domains. (shrink)

In_ Dispositional Properties_, David Weissman attacks a problem central to the philosophy of mind and, by implication, to the theory of being: Are there potentialities, capabilities, which dispose the mind to think in one way rather than another? The volume is arranged in the form of four arguments that converge upon a single point. First, there is an intricate discussion of the shortcomings of Hume's account of mind as ideas and impressions. Next comes a brief treatment of the arguments of (...) some of Weissman's contemporaries, including Carnap and Braithwaite. Third, Weissman discusses Wittgenstein's theories of learning and knowledge. Finally, there is a full discussion of Aristotle and his doctrine of potentialities. The question this book ultimately raises is how to steer between a doctrine of mind as no more than a series of acts, on the one hand, and a doctrine of mind as a kind of unitary object, on the other. The solution is to show first of all that there must be a potentiality in the universe, and then to show clearly and in detail that the mind is shot through with that potentiality. __. (shrink)

Two related claims have lately garnered currency: dispositional essentialism—the view that some or all properties, or some or all fundamental properties, are essentially dispositional; and the claim that laws of nature (or again, many or the fundamental ones) are metaphysically necessary. I have argued elsewhere (On the metaphysical contingency of laws of nature, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002) that the laws of nature do not have a mind-independent metaphysical necessity, but recent developments on dispositions have given these ideas a new (...) vibrancy and made them the topic of more focused discussion. So I would like to revisit this, arguing that the new work, as interesting and important as it is to our understanding of fundamental properties, powers and dispositions, should not change our minds about metaphysical necessity. One should still think necessity is conceptually or conventionally grounded. I do not argue that laws of nature are not necessary, nor that properties do not have dispositional essences, but only that if these are the case, then, like other de re or empirical necessities, they have no metaphysical weight and are based in our rules or decisions about how to talk about the world. We may have excellent reasons to talk and think in this way—but these reasons do not include, require or provide evidence of mind-independent metaphysical necessity or essences. (shrink)

Actively open-minded thinking is often used as a proxy for reflective thinking in research on reasoning and related fields. It is associated with less biased reasoning in many types of tasks. However, few studies have examined its psychometric properties and criterion validity. We developed a shortened, 17-item version of the AOT for quicker administration. AOT17 is highly correlated with the original 41-item scale and has highly similar relationships to other thinking dispositions, social competence and supernatural beliefs. Our (...) analyses revealed that the AOT is not a unitary construct, but comprises four distinct dimensions, some of which concern attitudes towards knowledge, and others concern attitudes towards people. This factor structure was replicated in another data-set, and correlations with other measures in four data-sets support the criterion validity of these dimensions. Different dimensions were responsible for the AOT's relationships with other thinking dispositions. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Nature of Critical Thinking Critical Thinking: Skills/Abilities and Dispositions Critical Thinking and the Problem of Generalizability The Relationship Between Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking “Critical Thinking” and Other Terms Referring to Thinking Critical Thinking and Education Critiques of Critical Thinking Conclusion.

Dispositionality and causation are both modal concepts which have implications not just for how things are, but for how they will be or, in some sense, must be. Some philosophers are suspicious of modal concepts and would like to make do with fewer of them.1 But what are our reductive options, and how viable are they? In this paper, I try to shut down one option: I argue that dispositions are not reducible to causes. In doing so, I try not (...) to prejudice the issue by assuming a particular analysis of causation or dispositions. I make the following minimal assumptions about dispositions: they are properties of objects which have characteristic manifestations that occur in certain circumstances, and an object can have a disposition outside of the circumstances of manifestation and hence without the manifestation occurring. I think of causation primarily as a relation between events, though there can be true causal generalizations, and objects might be causes. In Section 1, I will try to clarify what it means for one kind of thing to reduce to another. I will then argue in Section 2 that dispositions do not conceptually reduce to causes, and in Section 3 that dispositions do not metaphysically reduce to causes. In Section 4, I explore other reductive possibilities, in particular that causes reduce to dispositions. (shrink)

This chapter discusses Peter John Olivi’s conception of the role of dispositions in sensory cognition from metaphysical and psychological perspectives. It shows that Olivi makes a distinction between two general types of disposition. Some of them account for the ease, or difficulty, with which different persons use their cognitive powers, while others explain why people react differently to things that they perceive or think. This distinction is then applied to Olivi’s analysis of three different psychological operations, where the notion (...) of disposition figures prominently; estimative perception, perceptual clarity, and the perception of pain and pleasure. The chapter argues that Olivi uses cognitive dispositions in an interesting way to explain individual differences between persons, and that they reveal the dynamic nature of his conception of human psychology. (shrink)

Discussions of critical thinking across the curriculum typically make and explain points and distinctions that bear on one or a few standard issues. In this article Robert Ennis takes a different approach, starting with a fairly comprehensive concrete proposal for a four-year higher-education curriculum incorporating critical-thinking at hypothetical Wisdom University. Aspects of the Program include a one-year critical thinking freshman course with practical everyday-life and academic critical thinking goals; extensive infusion of critical thinking in other (...) courses; a senior project; attention to both critical thinking dispositions and skills; a glossary of critical thinking terms; emphasis on teaching ; communication at all levels; and last, but definitely not least, assessment. Advantages and disadvantages will be noted. Subsequently, Ennis takes and defends a position on each of several relevant controversial issues, including: 1) having a separate critical thinking course, or embedding critical thinking in existing subject matter courses, or doing both ; 2) the meaning of “critical thinking”; 3) the importance of teaching critical thinking because of its role in our everyday vocational, civic, and personal lives, as well as in our academic experiences; 4) the degree of subject-specificity of critical thinking; 5) the importance of making critical thinking principles explicit; and 6) the possible threat to subject matter coverage from the addition of critical thinking to the curriculum. (shrink)

Discussions of critical thinking across the curriculum typically make and explain points and distinctions that bear on one or a few standard issues. In this article Robert Ennis takes a different approach, starting with a fairly comprehensive concrete proposal for a four-year higher-education curriculum incorporating critical-thinking at hypothetical Wisdom University. Aspects of the Program include a one-year critical thinking freshman course with practical everyday-life and academic critical thinking goals; extensive infusion of critical thinking in other (...) courses; a senior project; attention to both critical thinking dispositions and skills; a glossary of critical thinking terms; emphasis on teaching ; communication at all levels; and last, but definitely not least, assessment. Advantages and disadvantages will be noted. Subsequently, Ennis takes and defends a position on each of several relevant controversial issues, including: 1) having a separate critical thinking course, or embedding critical thinking in existing subject matter courses, or doing both ; 2) the meaning of “critical thinking”; 3) the importance of teaching critical thinking because of its role in our everyday vocational, civic, and personal lives, as well as in our academic experiences; 4) the degree of subject-specificity of critical thinking; 5) the importance of making critical thinking principles explicit; and 6) the possible threat to subject matter coverage from the addition of critical thinking to the curriculum. (shrink)

Most metaphysicians deny that dispositions are among the fundamental constituents of the world. The solubility of salt, for example, is regarded as derivative from more basic features of reality, such as the molecular structure of salt and the laws of nature. This is an initially plausible view: a disposition seems to be essentially a characterization of what its bearer can do, which seems to be wholly dependent on what that bearer is like. ;Nonetheless, I think that the most attractive (...) view of dispositions is that they are fundamental constituents of reality---in fact, almost all real properties are irreducibly dispositional. Following D. M. Armstrong, I call this view dispositionalism. In my dissertation, I address several major difficulties for dispositionalism. For instance, it is often argued that dispositionalism makes causal relations necessary, and is thus committed to an unacceptable theory of causation. In response to this worry, I defend the thesis that causal relations are necessary. A second objection is based on C. B. Martin's "finkish" cases. It is widely accepted that some accounts of dispositions are able to escape this objection by adopting David Lewis's response to it. Contra Lewis, I argue that dispositionalism can follow in their footsteps. Finally, I consider the objection that dispositionalism, by implying that it is dispositions all the way down, leads to a vicious regress. I think that this is the most serious problem for dispositionalism, and although I do not fully lay it to rest, I make some headway. ;I also survey a wide range of competing theories of dispositions. I argue that the difficulties they face are both far greater than has been recognized, and more serious than the difficulties that beset dispositionalism. The result is not a conclusive proof of dispositionalism, but a demonstration that this underdog theory is preferable to its more popular competitors. (shrink)

McKitrick (2003) proposes that an object has a disposition if and only if there are a manifestation, the circumstances of the manifestation, a counterfactual true of the object, and an overtly dispositional locution referring to the disposition. A disposition is extrinsic if and only if an object has it, but a perfect duplicate of the object might not have it. I present an alternative definition that an object has a disposition if and only if a counterfactual (...) is true of the object that under a certain condition, it would interact with another object in a certain manner. There are three reasons for thinking that my definition is better than her definition. 1. Ockham’s razor favors my definition over McKitrick’s definition. My definition is consistent, while her definition is not, with Lewis’s and her definitions of intrinsic and extrinsic properties. 3. My definition goes well, while her definition does not, with our intuition that an object has a disposition even in a possible world where there is nothing but that object. (shrink)

This chapter discusses Peter John Olivi’s conception of the role of dispositions in sensory cognition from metaphysical and psychological perspectives. It shows that Olivi makes a distinction between two general types of disposition. Some of them account for the ease, or difficulty, with which different persons use their cognitive powers, while others explain why people react differently to things that they perceive or think. This distinction is then applied to Olivi’s analysis of three different psychological operations, where the notion (...) of disposition figures prominently; estimative perception, perceptual clarity, and the perception of pain and pleasure. The chapter argues that Olivi uses cognitive dispositions in an interesting way to explain individual differences between persons, and that they reveal the dynamic nature of his conception of human psychology. (shrink)

Elizabeth Prior claims that dispositional predicates are incomplete in the sense that they have more than one argument place. To back up this claim, she offers a number of arguments that involve such ordinary dispositional predicates as ‘fragile’, ‘soluble’, and so on. In this paper, I will first demonstrate that one of Prior’s arguments that ‘is fragile’ is an incomplete predicate is mistaken. This, however, does not immediately mean that Prior is wrong that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. On the (...) contrary, I maintain that she has offered another valid argument that does indeed establish the claim that ‘fragile’ is an incomplete predicate. I will argue further that Prior is right that ‘soluble’ is an incomplete predicate. Then does this mean that all dispositional predicates are incomplete? I don’t think so. I will suggest that there are complete dispositional predicates that have no more than one argument place. Finally, by relying on my discussion of the incompleteness of dispositional predicates, I will attempt to provide a better understanding of the context-dependence and intrinsic nature of dispositional ascriptions. (shrink)

Recent philosophy has paid increasing attention to the nature of the relationship between the philosophy of science and metaphysics. In The Structure of the World: Metaphysics and Representation, Steven French offers many insights into this relationship (primarily) in the context of fundamental physics, and claims that a specific, structuralist conception of the ontology of the world exemplifies an optimal understanding of it. In this paper I contend that his messages regarding how best to think about the relationship are mixed, and (...) in tension with one another. The tension is resolvable but at a cost: a weakening of the argument for French's structuralist ontology. I elaborate this claim in a specific case: his assertion of the superiority of a structuralist account of de re modality in terms of realism about laws and symmetries (conceived ontologically) over an account in terms of realism about dispositional properties. I suggest that these two accounts stem from different stances regarding how to theorize about scientific ontology, each of which is motivated by important aspects of physics. (shrink)

The way that critical thinking has been framed as aneducational objective has led, on the one hand, to itssuccessful saturation of educational discourse and, onthe other, to an equation of critical thinking withdemonstrable rhetorical skills. This essay suggeststhat both critical thinking and obstacles tosuccessful critical thinking are most commonly foundin the activities of everyday life. Humans deploycritical thinking in expressions of socialimagination, illuminations of our selves andrelationship, and in ethical choices and publicengagements. By reframing critical (...) thinking,educators may find ways to enrich its exercise both inand out of the classroom. (shrink)

The central theme of this paper is the dispositional/categorical distinction that has been one of the top agendas in contemporary metaphysics. I will first develop from my semantic account of dispositions what I think the correct formulation of the dispositional/categorical distinction in terms of counterfactual conditionals. It will be argued that my formulation does not have the shortcomings that have plagued previously proposed ones. Then I will turn my attention to one of its consequences, the thesis that dispositional properties are (...) not susceptible to intrinsic finks. This thesis was first advanced by me and has ever since stirred up a big controversy, endorsed by some philosophers like Handfield, Bird, and Cohen but rejected by others like Clarke and Fara. Against this background, I will remedy my defense of the impossibility of intrinsically finkable dispositions and then refute some of apparently powerful criticisms of it. And so the upshot is that it is much more reasonable to hold on to the thesis that dispositions are intrinsically unfinkable. This will have the effect of putting the dispositional/categorical distinction on firmer and more secure ground. (shrink)

Philosophical theories about the nature of belief can be roughly classified into two groups: those that treat beliefs as occurrent mental states or episodes and those that treat beliefs as dispositions. David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature seems to contain a classic example of an occurrence theory of belief as he defines 'belief' as 'a lively idea related to or associated with a present impression' (Treatise 1.3.7.5 96). This definition suggests that believing is an occurrent mental state, such as (...) judging, or thinking about something in a particular manner. However, a number of Hume's readers claim to find elements in his writings that are suggestive of a dispositional account of belief. Moreover, these elements are sometimes taken as signs of the inadequacy of Hume's account of belief and his dissatisfaction with it. This paper argues that Hume does hold an occurrence theory of belief, that he has deep-seated reasons for doing so, and that this theory of belief has greater explanatory power than its critics generally allow. I contend in particular that beliefs play an explanatory role in Hume's Science of Man that could not be played by dispositions, but requires that beliefs be introspectible occurrent mental states. Attention to the role of belief in explaining our actions, thoughts, emotional responses, and reasoning reveals that Hume is committed to treating beliefs as occurrent states. (shrink)

According to Nozick’s tracking theory of knowledge, an agent a knows that p just in case her belief that p is true and also satisfies the two tracking conditionals that had p been false, she would not have believed that p , and had p been true under slightly different circumstances, she would still have believed that p . In this paper I wish to highlight an interesting but generally ignored feature of this theory: namely that it is reminiscent of (...) a dispositional account of knowledge: it invites us to think of knowledge as a manifestation of a cognitive disposition to form true beliefs. Indeed, given a general account of dispositions in terms of subjunctive conditionals, the two tracking conditionals are satisfied just in case the belief in question results from some cognitive disposition to form true beliefs. Recently, such a conditional account of dispositions has, however, been criticised for its vulnerability to so-called ‘masked’, ‘mimicked’ and ‘finkish’ counterexamples. I show how the classical counterexamples to Nozick’s theory divide smoothly into four corresponding categories of counterexamples from epistemic masking, mimicking and finkishness. This provides strong evidence for the thesis that satisfaction of the two tracking conditionals is symptomatic of knowledge and that knowledge is instead constituted by a dispositional capability to form true beliefs. The attempt to capture such a cognitive, dispositional capability in terms of the tracking conditionals, although providing a good approximation in a wide variety of cases, still comes apart from the real thing whenever the epistemic layout is characterised by masking-, mimicking- and finkish mechanisms. In the last part of the paper I explore the prospect of improving the tracking theory in the light of these findings. (shrink)

In recent research, dual-process theories of cognition have been the primary model for explaining moral judgment and reasoning. These theories understand moral thinking in terms of two separate domains: one deliberate and analytic, the other quick and instinctive. -/- This book presents a new theory of the philosophy and cognitive science of moral judgment. Hanno Sauer develops and defends an account of "triple-process" moral psychology, arguing that moral thinking and reasoning are only insufficiently understood when described in terms (...) of a quick but intuitive and a slow but rational type of cognition. This approach severely underestimates the importance and impact of dispositions to initiate and engage in critical thinking – the cognitive resource in charge of counteracting my-side bias, closed-mindedness, dogmatism, and breakdowns of self-control. Moral cognition is based, not on emotion and reason, but on an integrated network of intuitive, algorithmic and reflective thinking. -/- Moral Thinking, Fast and Slow will be of great interest to philosophers and students of ethics, philosophy of psychology and cognitive science. (shrink)

This study investigates all available literature related to critical thinking in business education in a survey of publications in the field produced from 1990-2019. It conducts a thematic analysis of 787 articles found in Web of Science and Google Scholar, including a specific focus on 55 highly-cited articles. The aim is to investigate the importance of critical thinking in business education, how it is conceptualised in business education research, the business contexts in which critical thinking is situated, (...) and the key and more marginal themes related to critical thinking outlined in the business and business education literature. The paper outlines six key areas and topics associated with those areas. It suggests future directions for further scholarly work in the area of critical thinking in business education. (shrink)

John Buridan uses the concepts of actus and habitus in his psychology to explain the difference between actual or occurrent thoughts and the dispositions to think those same thoughts. But since mental qualities are immaterial, Buridan must finesse his account of material qualities to save the psychological phenomena. He argues that thoughts and dispositions are really distinct from the human soul and from each other, and that because a thought and its corresponding disposition are different kinds of quality, we (...) cannot say that they differ merely in terms of intensity. This leaves him with the unresolved problem of explaining how one kind of psychological quality can be caused by another that is qualitatively distinct from it. (shrink)

In the late 20th century theorists within the radical feminist tradition such as Haraway highlighted the impossibility of separating knowledge from knowers, grounding firmly the idea that embodied bias can and does make its way into argument. Along a similar vein, Moulton exposed a gendered theme within critical thinking that casts the feminine as toxic ‘unreason’ and the ideal knower as distinctly masculine; framing critical thinking as a method of masculine knowers fighting off feminine ‘unreason’. Theorists such as (...) Burrow have picked up upon this tradition, exploring the ways in which this theme of overly masculine, or ‘adversarial’, argumentation is both unnecessary and serves as an ineffective base for obtaining truth. Rooney further highlighted how this unnecessarily gendered context results in argumentative double binds for women, undermining their authority and stifling much-needed diversity within philosophy as a discipline.These are damning charges that warrant a response within critical thinking frameworks. We suggest that the broader critical thinking literature, primarily that found within contexts of critical pedagogy and dispositional schools, can and should be harnessed within the critical thinking literature to bridge the gap between classical and feminist thinkers. We highlight several methods by which philosophy can retain the functionality of critical thinking while mitigating the obstacles presented by feminist critics and highlight how the adoption of such methods not only improves critical thinking, but is also beneficial to philosophy, philosophers and feminists alike. (shrink)

The California Critical Thinking Dispositions Inventory is a commonly used tool for measuring critical thinking dispositions. However, research on the efficacy of the CCTDI in predicting good thinking about students’ own deeply held beliefs is scant. In this paper we report on preliminary results from our ongoing study designed to gauge the usefulness of the CCTDI in this context.

Resumen Este artículo representa un esfuerzo por pensar problemáticas recurrentes de relaciones internacionales y, específicamente, en el contexto de la Globalización, desde la perspectiva de los conceptos que Foucault desarrolló en sus textos como son la gubernamentalidad, la biopolítica y los dispositivos. Se presentan las categorías centrales del análisis foucaultiano y los desarrollos generados para las relaciones internacionales buscando comprender su especificidad y la relevancia que revisten para el análisis discursivo en torno a los Estados fallidos. Este trabajo representa un (...) avance conceptual e interpretativo para la comprensión de problemáticas que muestran la vigencia del análisis foucaultiano.The article represents an effort to think recurrent problems in international rela-tions in the context of globalization, from the perspective of concepts developed by Foucault, such as governmentality, biopolitics and dispositive. We present the central conceptions of Foucault in the field of international relations, trying to understand the importance that they have in the discourse analysis concerning failed states. This work represents an advance in the comprehension of problems that can be analyzed from a foucauldian perspective. (shrink)