Helping to Undo the Past: Teaching Critical Reasoning in 
SouthAlrica 

STEPHEN DE WIJZE, The University oj Manchester 

Abstract: In this paper I discuss the opportuni-
ties and difficulties of teaching critical reasoning 
in a rapidly transforming society such as South 
Africa. I argue that the real benefits for students 
of such courses outweigh the pessimism of John 
McPeck and Richard Paul that they do little, if 
any, good. This paper is based on my experi-
ence of having taught critical reasoning at school 
and university level in South Africa during the 
early 90's. 

Introduction 

Resume: Je decris dans cet article les chances et 
les difficultes de I' enseignement de la pensee cri-
tique dans une societe en rapide transformation 
comme l'Afrique du Sud. Je soutiens que les 
benefices qu 'un tel cours procure aux etudiant( e)s 
depassent les attentes pessimistes de John McPeck 
et de Richard Paul, selon lesquels ces cours 
apportent peu, a supposer meme qu' ils apportent 
quelque chose. eet article se fonde sur mon 
experience dans I' enseignement de ces cours aux 
niveaux secondaire et universitaire en Afrique du 
Sud au debut des annees 90. 

For several years now I have been teaching critical reasoning courses which John 
McPec~' argues will not provide students and scholars with the requisite critical think-
ing skills. Furthermore, largely because of time and financial constraints, the courses 
have been of the kind that Richard PauF argues are atomistic and largely unhelpful in 
developing critical thinkers. I think that both McPeck and Paul are wrong on two 
counts. First, they underestimate the extent of the skills learnt from such courses and 
the extent to which it helps students towards the goal of becoming critical thinkers. 
Second, they downplay the importance of such skills for people who are living in a 
country like South Africa which is emerging from the apartheid era and undergoing 
major social and political changes. 

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, I present an account of the particular, 
perhaps unique, conditions in which critical reasoning courses are taught in South 
Africa. Some of these conditions provide excellent opportunities to achieve what I 
take to be the aims of a critical reasoning course. I discuss these conditions which I 
have gleaned from my experiences teaching critical reasoning courses to school pupils 
and university students in the Eastern Cape noting that there are also particular diffi-
culties which arise when teaching to students who come from severely disadvantaged 
educational backgrounds. Second, I argue, counter to the views of John McPeck and 
Richard Paul, that some general reasoning skills and critical thinking dispositions are 
indeed teachable using what Robert Sternberg) refers to as a "mixed method" of teach-
ing critical thinking. I present some empirical evidence from pupil assignments and 
student course evaluations to support my claim. I begin the paper by providing some 
necessary background concerning the South African secondary education system, the 

Informal Logic Vol. 18, No.1 (Winter 1996): 57-82 ©Informal Logic 1996 



58 Stephen de Wijze 

courses I have taught and what I understand is required of a teacher of critical reason-
ing who wants to encourage the development of critical thinkers. Overall I do not 
think that I say anything new, or arrive at any startling revelations. However I do 
provide some empirical evidence to support the theoretical arguments against McPeck's 
and Paul's positions. Furthermore I hope to capture the particular ambience in which 
critical reasoning courses are taught in South Africa and the real benefit of such courses 
in a country which is moving through a period of major social and political change. 

I. Background 

Critical Thinkers And General Reasoning Courses 

Part of my brief as a lecturer at Rhodes University is to teach a course on critical 
reasoning to 1 st year philosophy students. I have taught this component of the course 
for several years now. I often begin this module, feeling brave and a little foolhardy, 
by telling the students that this module has three main aims: 1) to show them how to 
find the truth; 2) to reshape and mould their minds in (at last) the proper and correct 
way and 3) to set them free. 

These comments are meant to incite. I want vigorous protest, perhaps outrage 
about my arrogance and misplaced certainty, or perhaps from the more polite and 
retiring, expressions indicating a puzzlement if not cynicism about my intended aims 
and motives. The reaction is usually predictable for South African students (and 
perhaps for students elsewhere too): a few snigger (one or two may laugh out loud); 
some sit impassively with no sign that they have even heard what I had just said; one or 
two continue to stare longingly out the window, but the vast majority diligently write 
my comments down presumably so that they can commit them to memory later that 
day (or for the less diligent, before the first class test!) 

This annual event offers an insight into the educational backgrounds of most 
South African students. It gives a clue of where a critical reasoning course needs to 
begin and whether one can hope to achieve the aim of producing critical thinkers. I 
find Ralph Johnson's4 account of what it is to be a critical thinker the most useful 
model to follow. He contrasts a critical thinker with those of a dogmatic (uncritical) 
thinker and a creative thinker. A dogmatic thinker may be sophisticated or vulgar 
where the latter operates by mouthing slogans while the former is solely interested in 
destroying an opponent's position. Critical thinking differs from dogmatic thinking in 
that it rejects slogans and tries to enter empathetically into the other person's world 
view (or as Richard PauP puts it, "Form of Life") in order to better understand one's 
own position and where necessary improve upon it. A creative thinker differs from a 
critical thinker in that she brings a product into existence, while a critical thinker as-
sesses an intellectual product (and this mayor may not require argumentation theory). 
So to become a critical thinker requires that, first, one have an extensive background 
information/knowledge concerning the debates and facts surrounding the particular 
issue. Second, a person needs to have the correct traits, attitudes and dispositions to 
begin the process of critical thinking. Amongst these traits and dispositions is the 
desire to seek the truth, a sense of fair play, tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, 



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 59 

the capacity to accept criticism, the willingness to question one's own motives and 
basic assumptions, a sense of balance and a faith in the power and convicting force of 
rational discourse so that one is appropriately moved by reasons. Third, to be a critical 
thinker requires the skill to identify, analyze and evaluate (and perhaps to construct) 
arguments. It requires the ability to weigh evidence, construct arguments and counter· 
arguments and root out fallacious or bad arguments. 

It would be naive in the extreme to believe that a short reasoning course lasting a 
few months could produce critical thinkers. To become a critical thinker requires a 
life·time of effort. But it seems to me that in a critical reasoning course, some impor-
tant foundational reasoning skills can be taught and the correct attitudes and disposi-
tions encouraged. It is also possible to provide an in-depth study of one or two topics 
so that students can develop the essential background knowledge necessary to make 
informed reasoned judgments about certain issues and from this experience, extrapo-
late to others they will have. In a short reasoning course with school children at 
Kingswood College (a South African secondary school), the entire course focused on 
the question of whether one ought to be a vegetarian as a vehicle for discussing critical 
reasoning skills. At the end of the course, pupils began to understand (probably for the 
first time) the immense complexity of the issues involved, and were able to discuss the 
topic at a fairly sophisticated level indicating that they had achieved more than a super-
ficial insight into the question. 

To avoid any later confusion I must make it clear how I shall use the terms criti-
cal thinking, and critical reasoning. 

Critical thinking refers to a rather broad notion. It is the skills a person has who 
is capable of "reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to be-
lieve and what to do" because this person has the disposition to so behave and think 
rationally.6 Such a definition includes within it the skills of critical reasoning and much 
more. The notion of a critical thinker denotes a moral and intellectual virtue of which 
a component would be the skill of critical reasoning - the identification, analysis and 
evaluation of arguments. Also included in the notion of a critical thinker is a person 
who has a level of self-awareness, autonomy, self-sufficiency, the ability to be imagi-
native, use insight and, very importantly, the disposition to engage in the activity of 
being rational and reasonable. (Being a critical thinker is not identical with being a 
logical thinker which is a component of it.) 

Critical reasoning refers to the skills and techniques that are required to enable a 
clear and accurate analysis of arguments, deductive and inductive, to be able to break 
down problems into their component parts, spot irrelevances within the argument struc-
ture and content, identify relevant premises and assumptions while examining and 
testing inferential connections between statements. Critical reasoning skills are essen-
tial for judging the soundness or strength of arguments and form the basis of any aca-
demic inquiry. 

The courses which I taught were largely critical reasoning courses in that they 
attempted to teach some general reasoning skills and techniques. However I also un· 
dertook to encourage the dispositions and attitudes necessary for becoming a critical 
thinker. In a course to school pupils, I also attempted to give pupils a deeper under-



60 Stephen de Wijze 

standing of one topic so that they would have an insight into the complexity of issues 
and the background knowledge required to successfully evaluate arguments. 

Certain educational and socio-political conditions which exist at the moment in 
South Africa have an important effect on the possibility of successfully teaching a 
critical reasoning course. But before discussing them I must offer some background 
information pertinent to the South African school and university environment. 

Rhodes University And Kingswood College 

Much of the data I use in this paper arise out of critical reasoning courses I have taught 
to university students (Rhodes University) and high school pupils (Kingswood Col-
lege). I teach philosophy at Rhodes University, a small university (4000 students) in 
Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape in South Africa.7 The students come from all parts 
of the country and a few from as far afield as Zimbabwe, Zaire, Zambia, Ghana, Ma-
lawi, the UK and the USA. The reasoning course is taught as a component of the first 
year philosophy course called Introduction to Philosophy (ITP).s It normally attracts 
approximately 65 students,9 with slightly more women than men. The majority of stu-
dents (70%) are Whites with the rest being Coloured, Indians and Blacks. to All stu-
dents who register for ITP must take the reasoning course as part of this first year 
credit. This course is taught over 5 months simultaneously with a course on Philo-
sophical Problems. The critical reasoning course is always taught (when possible) in 
the first semester, as it is assumed to lay the basis, that is, provide the basic reasoning 
skills, upon which the other courses can build. 

Kingswood College ll is a private coeducational secondary school situated in 
Grahamstown. I co-taught a critical reasoning course to the most gifted Standard 9 
students (16 year olds) over a 3 month period. The class consisted of 17 pupils. There 
were 8 boys and 9 girls. Most of the students come from privileged backgrounds. An 
informal inquiry into their home backgrounds indicated that their parents were lectur-
ers, teachers, farmers and business men and women. 13 pupils speak English as their 
home language while the remaining 4 spoke either Xhosa, Sotho or Afrikaans as their 
first language. The language competence in the class varied considerably. In the last 
class mark order, which took into account comprehension tests, essay writing, letter 
writing, poetry tests and poetry presentations, their English marks ranged from 35% to 
80% None of the pupils had been previously exposed to a critical reasoning course. 
Given the short duration of the module, the background of the pupils and the nature of 
the skills this reasoning module attempted to impart only some of the critical reasoning 
skills which I believe ought to be pursued in a lengthy critical reasoning course and as 
a life long activity thereafter. 

Christian National Education (Cne) - A Brief Synopsis'2 

Due to the apartheid policy of the last 4 decades, education has been segregated with 
huge inequalities between White, Black, Coloured and Indian schools.!3 All students 
who were schooled in South Africa over the last 40 years have been subjected, to a 
greater or lesser degree, to a policy of Christian National Education (CNE). Even if 
students attended private schools, the teachers employed are likely to have been schooled 



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 61 

and trained in an environment where the influence of CNE was a dominant force. 
Consequently the impact of CNE has been enormous whether as an ideology which 
influenced the world views of Whites or as an ideology which was bitterly fought 
against (as was the case in Black education). Its legacy has consequences for educa-
tors in general and those teaching critical reasoning courses in particular. 

What is the work of an educator according to CNE? A full discussion is well 
beyond the scope of this paper but its general tenor must be given. 

Education is a particular occurrence in accordance with accepted values and norms 
of the educator and eventually also ofthe group to which he belongs. He is engaged 
in accompanying the child on the way to self-realisation, but this realisation must be 
in accordance with the demands ofthe community and in compliance with the phi-
losophy oflife of the group to which he belongs. In this way the South African child 
has to be educated according to Christian National principles. 14 

The accepted values and the demands of the community in the South African case 
were those of the White, mainly Afrikaans speaking, community as understood by the 
Nationalist government. Whites and Blacks were to be educated differently according 
to their specific cultures and allocated social positions in South African society. Edu-
cational control was to remain with the White authorities who would ensure that no 
false foreign ideologies interfered in the education process with sham goals and ideals. 
It is widely documented and hardly controversial that CNE offered an apology for a 
racist, unequal education system whose aim was to maintain and defend the ideology 
of apartheid which entrenched White privilege and power in South Africa. 

Part of the legacy ofCNE, apart from the conflict it generated and the huge waste 
of human and material resources, is that its long reign as the official educational policy, 
it has produced students of all races who exhibit (to a lesser or greater degree) many of 
the following behaviours (1-4) and attitudes (5-11): 

1) A considerable lack of any critical faculty regarding information 
they are offered in lectures/seminars or which they glean from texts. 

2) Basic inadequacy in reading and writing skills. This is exacerbated 
in the case of Black students who may be using English as their 2nd or 3rd 
language. 

3) Marked lack of investigative and research skills. 

4) Marked lack of general knowledge on a vast range of issues. 

5) A belief that every problem always has a clear, simple and right 
answer which can be given by the appropriate authority. 

6) Scholarship and the mastery of a topic is understood as rote learn-
ing of the relevant facts and figures given by the appropriate authority. 

7) A lack of empathy with different world views or value systems re-
sulting in intolerance and fear of different values, lifestyles, opinions. 

8) Fear of questioning their own fundamental assumptions and beliefs 
so that there is a naivety and innocence towards claims that originate from 
within their own world views. 

9) A marked dislike and low tolerance for complexity. There is a strong 
psychological need to simplify issues and problems. 



62 Stephen de Wijze 

10) Support for claims, theories and especially controversial political, 
ethical or social arguments are based on an attitude towards the originator of 
the claims. Loyalty rather than reasoned argument constitutes the criterion 
for support. 
11) Marked lack of faith in reason and rationality to be able to persuade 
others of one's claims. Controversial issues are understood as issues where 
persons hold irreconcilable and mutually exclusive opinions. 

The list above l5 points to an educational failure of a marked degree over the last 
few decades. Our educational system has effectively prevented or severely retarded 
pupils/students from all sectors of South Africa from developing as critical thinkers; 
that is, from developing the appropriate critical thinking skills and the disposition to 
use them. In short they lack what Postman and Weingartner caIl "a Shockproof 
Crap-Detector". 16 These attitudes and behaviours become evident in the classroom 
and provide part of the background which a critical reasoning course in South Africa 
needs to take into account. 

The Call For Critical Thinking In South Africa 

It has become the received wisdom amongst educators, employers, politicians and 
professionals over the last few years that South Africa urgently needs to begin produc-
ing critical thinkers. The caIl, it seems, emanates from two main growing concerns. 
First, there is a dearth of skilled professional and white-collar workers needed to en-
sure the growth of a modern economy. This lack of skilled persons threatens to seri-
ously retard economic growth which in turn will bring about an increase in social and 
political ills. In a recent symposium on the employability ofBA graduates, employers, 
educators and professionals made a plea for developing graduates who exhibit insight 
and competence, independent critical thought, creativity in the application of knowl-
edge, innovative thinking, openness to alternative points of view, rationality and ob-
jectivity with corresponding verbal and written communicative skills, and the improve-
ment of analytic, logical and abstract thinking skills. This new attitude is summed up 
by the director of Industrial Relations and Public Affairs of the Anglo American Cor-
poration (Mr Bobby Godsell) who claims that: "At the heart of knowledge are the 
skills and disciplines of critical thought and reasoning."17 

The second concern arises from the political needs of a country undergoing a 
very difficult transition to a non-racial democracy. As was noted in the previous sec-
tion, the education system has ill prepared students for a life of critical thinking. For a 
new South Africa to succeed the country needs a new tolerance amongst Whites and 
Blacks, an innovative approach to solving conflicts; one which will find new solutions 
to the old problems of resource distribution, education, health etc. The call for critical 
reasoning courses at university and school levels reflects concern with the ability of 
persons graduating from our schools and universities to meet the economic and politi-
cal challenges of the next decade. 

Perhaps the call for critical thinkers is also due to a realisation amongst large 
sectors of the population themselves that they need new analytical tools to understand 
the rapidly changing society around them. The recent expose of long-time govern-



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 63 

ment involvement in violence and corruption, reports of brutal behaviour in ANC train-
ing camps and the proliferation of accusations and counter-accusations amongst poli-
ticians leave the general populace bewildered if not cynical and disillusioned with the 
leaders of the country. A need arises for a neutral and objective way of assessing day-
to-day claims that are made in the press and elsewhere. Honing one's critical reason-
ing skills is seen as one possible way to rise above the muddle and confusion. In 1992, 
I asked all ITP students to fill in a questionnaire prior to taking the course and one of 
the questions asked what they hoped to learn in a critical reasoning course. The vast 
majority, well over 90%, said they hoped to learn how to think or reason better. But, 
significantly, a very large percentage also hoped that such a course would broaden 
their horizons, enable them to have a better understanding of the world around them 
and help them to understand other persons' and groups' worldviews. (See appendix 1) 
In short, there is a strong belief that philosophy in general, and critical reasoning in 
particular, will make them better thinkers and, in the end, better people. 

Justifying Critical Thinking 

Despite the call from a wide range of persons and organisations for critical reasoning 
courses, such an educational aim is not universally accepted. One finds opponents of 
critical thinking across a wide spectrum in South Africa. There are those who reject 
the goal of producing critical thinkers on religious grounds. Opposition also comes 
from certain political philosophies. A crude marxism rejects the notion of a critical 
thinker as grounded in a liberal, bourgeois and ahistorical account of individuals and 
society. Far right-wing and left-wing groups pay no more than lip service to the claim 
that the problems of South Africa must be solved by negotiation and compromise. For 
them, loyalty to a leader or stated ideal is all important. Within the philosophical 
world there are those who reject the very possibility of producing critical thinkers 
using critical reasoning courses because they argue that such a project is theoretically 
impossible. Relativists claim that there are no universal standards of evaluation possi-
ble across cultural or epistemological views. Jacques Derrida, for instance, would as-
sert that to teach critical reasoning skills is to fall prey to a Iogocentric view of the 
world. Consequently there is a need to offer a justification for such a project. 18 

Such a justification, I believe, rests on the principle of respect for persons. To 
acknowledge critical thinking as a virtue presupposes that one endorses the virtues of 
self-sufficiency and autonomy as values that are good-in-themselves. Education is seen 
as a process which will equip or empower pupils/students to competently take on jobs, 
positions in their society, roles and interests that they perceive to be in their best inter-
est and which will allow them to pursue their own conception of the good life. Educa-
tion that attempts to indoctrinate persons into a particular political, social, or religious 
worldview stands in stark contrast to the main guiding idea of developing critical think-
ers. I contend that what is wanted and needed in a new South Africa is a democratic 
open society. Such a society presupposes autonomous, self-reliant individuals and so 
the task of developing critical thinkers is of paramount importance. In short, there is a 
pragmatic and a moral justification for fostering critical thinkers. Critical thinkers are 
in a much better position to defend themselves against a host of unethical ideologues, 



64 Stephen de Wijze 

advertisers and any others who wish to manipulate them. And the moral justification 
rests on the fact that critical thinking attempts to empower persons to become autono-
mous and independent thinkers; that is, to treat persons with respect as ends in them-
selves. 19 

n Teaching Critical Reasoning Courses In South Africa - The Particular 
Conditions 

There are conditions particular, perhaps even unique, to South Africa which provides 
a milieu in which attempting to nurture critical thinkers is important and rewarding but 
which also makes teaching critical reasoning skills frustrating, if not sometimes well 
nigh impossible. I am confident that these conditions do not exist in countries like the 
UK and USA (or at least not to the same degree), but they may be present in other 
countries undergoing similar changes to those occurring in South Africa. South Africa 
has a unique mix of conditions, two of which have a marked effect on the teaching of 
critical reasoning courses in particular and the attempt to nurture critical thinkers in 
general. First, South Africa is undergoing vast and far-reaching changes to its political 
and social fabric which provide a receptive environment for the teaching of critical 
reasoning courses. Second, with these changes, for the first time there is a mixing of 
students and pupils from a wide range of cultural, social and educational backgrounds 
in the same classes. r shall discuss the pros and cons of each of these conditions in 
turn. 

Rapid Social And Political Changes 

Critical reasoning courses are being taught in a time of enormous social, economic, 
political and cultural upheaval in South Africa. The old order, with its certainty and 
authority, is rapidly giving way to the new, and with this turbulent change comes 
uncertainty and instability and the consciousness amongst students and pupils that the 
understanding of political, economic and cultural issues is urgent and of immediate 
importance to their lives. Student and pupil motivation to undertake critical reasoning 
courses is high, at least initially so. This is borne out by general widespread student 
enthusiasm for such courses providing one of the possible reasons for the large in-
crease in student numbers over the last few years taking ITP (and majoring in philoso-
phy in general) at Rhodes20 with similar trends in most universities across the country. 

School pupils also expressed an interest in pursuing issues that had a direct bear-
ing on political and social issues presently being hotly debated by the country's politi-
cians. In a course evaluation given to pupils at Kingswood College after the critical 
reasoning course I asked them: 

"What other topics (besides vegetarianism) would you liked to have focused 
on?" 

The replies concentrated on the following issues: racial discrimination, current affairs, 
human rights and politics. In a follow-up questionnaire eight months later I again 
asked: 

"Would you want a critical reasoning course focusing on contemporary po-



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 65 

litical issues that concern South Africans today?" 

There was an unanimous agreement that such a course would be welcomed and very 
useful to pupils. 

This interest in attending critical reasoning courses focusing on contemporary 
South African political and social problems is not hard to explain. There is a need for, 
and a keen interest in, finding answers, (or at least a reliable, impartial and reasonable 
method for finding answers), to vexing and complex problems that will have a direct 
and lasting impact on their lives. In the USA and UK, university work is often seen as 
purely"academic." And while stability and order prevail it is an academic exercise to 
ask what would happen if a communist party took power (or had real and significant 
influence over the party in power) in 5 month's time, or whether a woman's right to 
have an abortion should be protected under a new constitution. In South Africa these 
are immediate concerns.21 

In addition, with the change in political dispensation, there is a need to find a way 
to bridge enmities which have become more and more marked and open as the struggle 
for power in South Africa intensifies. It is clear that amongst reasonable people there 
is a desire to foster a new empathy for the other's point of view so that there can be a 
meaningful and lasting solution to the conflict in the country. Until fairly recently, 
politicians, both Black and White, have remained in power, or sought power, by high-
lighting and emphasising differences between groups in the country. The views and 
goals of the other were characterised as threats to one's own cherished values: as un-
civilized or demonic or immoral. With the new political order there is a realisation that 
there is a need for a modus vivendi. This requires that, at the very least, different 
groups must learn to discuss and solve their problems using rational persuasion, bar-
gaining and where necessary compromise. If this method fails, if South Africans are 
unable to find solutions based on the power and convicting force of reason, then the 
alternative is a prolonged and bloody civil war. 22 

It is also worth noting that as the current regime's hold on power diminishes and 
other views are presented in the media, there is a new awareness that the issues and 
problems being discussed and negotiated are complex. Previously, the government 
controlled media were able to offer, with impunity, simple and often entirely false 
accounts of their opponents' positions and goals. 

With this complexity comes the realisation that to be able to competently judge 
competing views, requires some training in and understanding of reasoning skills. This 
is reflected in the comments made by pupils and students when asked why they chose 
to read philosophy and what they hoped to gain from taking a critical reasoning course. 
(see appendix 1) 

This rapid change in political and social conditions, the need to bridge enmities 
and the realisation of the complexity of issues provide fertile ground for sowing criti-
cal reasoning courses. The students require minimal motivation, and there is a wealth 
of everyday real examples to draw upon when illustrating a particular reasoning skill 
or technique. (South African politicians are skilled in non-sequiturs, the ad hominem 
and genetic fallacies!) 

However, there are also problems which arise from teaching in this milieu. First, 



66 Stephen de Wijze 

students tend to have unrealistically high expectations of a critical reasoning course. 
This is compounded by the short period of time that is spent on such courses. (My ITP 
course runs for 5 months and consists of 6 tutorials and 20 lectures and the Kingswood 
College course consisted of 10 lecture/tutorial sessionsY) Students often are disap-
pointed after completing a critical reasoning course as they have not become the criti-
cal thinkers they thought they would become. The miracle they were hoping for did 
not come to pass. The learning of a skill is a slow and frustrating process and can take 
many years. Second, the complexity of issues, short courses and the difficulty in de-
veloping a new skill tends to result in the phenomena I have called Block-out and 
Hyper-criticism. These phenomena probably also occur in countries like the UK and 
USA, but I suspect that they are more pronounced in South Africa. 

With Block-out the following occurs: Students and pupils begin the course with 
enthusiasm and soon begin to jettison their old preferred method (whatever it used to 
be - rule of thumb, intuition etc.) as inadequate for the analysis of argument. Soon, 
however, they feel that they have not picked up the new requisite skills to replace their 
old methods of judging between different arguments or world views. The result is a 
paralysis and disillusionment with their own abilities and the aims of the critical rea-
soning course. I found this phenomenon occurring both at school and university level. 
Even course participants with much experience in critical thinking and who prior to 
the course were fairly confident and capable of reading and criticising texts - graduate 
tutors for example - become convinced after a few sessions that they are incapable of 
doing any critical thinking at all. A sudden realisation of how difficult critical think-
ing can be, combined with the problems of learning new skills, tends to sap confi-
dence. If a student drops out at this stage (and many do), I believe that she is left worse 
off than before she started the course. It is as if a formal course on critical reasoning 
renders all previous experience of critically reading texts and thinking critically about 
issues, null and void. 

Hyper-criticism occurs when students err in the other direction. Here students 
acquire a taste for criticism and soon become so critical that they find faults in per-
fectly good arguments. They forget that a critical thinker seeks to understand their 
opponent's position, learning from it and if possible improving their own understand-
ing. They forget to apply what Alec Fisher refers to as the Principle a/Charity ensur-
ing that the purpose of critical analysis is to seek the truth rather than simply destroy 
the opponent's argument. 24 

These problems can be mitigated to some extent by avoiding jargon, providing 
fairly easy assignments at the start of the course combined with continual reassurance 
that as the course progresses so their ability in critical reasoning will improve at an 
exponential rate! But most importantly, it is necessary to impress upon students that 
the critical reasoning course is only a beginning of a life-long process. 

Other factors also make the teaching of critical reasoning courses difficult. The 
immediacy of examples used, the intolerance and irrational behaviour, the strong opin-
ions of other students, and perhaps having been a victim of the policies of a view 
postulated by another student understandably tends to frighten and alienate. This is 
the negative side to local topics being interesting and relevant. Students who become 
distressed by the topic and the views expressed by others revert to emotional responses 



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 67 

and retreat into slogans. Empathy and tolerance of other's points of view and claims 
collapses and are very hard, if not impossible, to resuscitate. 

Diverse Social, Cultural And Educational Backgrounds 
.' 

The second particular condition that aids the teaching of critical reasoning courses is 
the political, social and cultural diversity of the students attending such courses. Stu-
dents come from vastly different educational, socio-political and cultural backgrounds. 
This provides excellent opportunities for a diversity of opinions, views and beliefs in 
the class. There is no need to play the devil's advocate to offer a pla1.lsible counter-
argument to a stated point of view held by an individual or group of students. It is 
likely that there will be a natural disagreement on social and political issues which can 
be exploited to illustrate reasoning skills. Capitalists and communists sit in the same 
class. Those who support the Nationalist Party sit side by side with those who support 
the African National Congress (ANC), The South African Communist Party (SACP) 
and the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC). When discussing the topic of analogies I use 
an example from Trudy Govier's book,2s an analogy employed by Glenn Babb (a South 
African government representative) and later by Ronald Reagan to show how sanc-
tions against South Africa could be detrimental to the very people they were trying to 
help. I present this example after explaining that the strength of an argument from 
analogy depends on the relevance of the similarities mentioned in the premises to the 
similarity stated in the conclusion. I then ask whether the following is a strong argu-
ment from analogy. 

There is no point in western countries applying economic sanctions to South Africa 
in an attempt to help black people there. Sure, sanctions will hurt the economy, but 
it will hurt everybody. You can see this when you think of killing a zebra. If you 
shoot him in a white stripe he will die and if you shoot him in a black stripe he will 
still die. The whole animal goes down. And so it will be with the South African 
economy. The whole country will suffer from sanctions - not just the white part of it. 

I rarely have to say more for the rest of the class except to try and contain the heated 
discussion that ensues and remind students that the object of the exercise is not to 
crush those who disagree with them but rather to establish whether Babb used a good 
argument to support his conclusion. 

Another obvious advantage is student exposure to many different strongly held 
views. This enables a broadening of perspectives and an opportunity to interact under 
safe conditions with persons who hold very different views and opinions on life. But 
again this diversity can also create problems. Different standards of secondary school-
ing, the fact that for many in the class English is a second or even third language, and 
the difficulty some students experience with the language level in the American and 
British textbooks tend to slow the pace of progress in the class. Difficulties arise both 
with the large differences in the standard of secondary schooling between Whites and 
Blacks and also from certain similarities in training. The differences tend to manifest 
in the often superior verbal and writing skills of students who attended private schools 
or the historically White schools. Students from historically Black, Coloured or Indian 
schools tend to have greater difficulty in expressing themselves, often find the texts 
difficult to understand and are perceived to be unable to acquire the skills being taught. 



68 Stephen de Wijze 

Formal logic, for example, tends to present a bigger problem for Black students who 
have had very little exposure to mathematics with its requisite skill of rigorously ma-
nipulating symbols. This difference tends to make pitching the appropriate level of the 
course and the pace at which it should be taught a difficult process. However this is 
not an insurmountable problem since these discrepancies can be compensated for by 
extra tutorials and close supervision. This difference also tends to become less marked 
as the course progresses, certainly for those students who are motivated and work 
hard. 

A far more trenchant problem is the basic education most of the students (and 
pupils) received in their secondary schools. (See above for the list on the effect of 
CNE.) It takes quite a while for students to stop believing that to understand a topic 
requires that they learn off by heart the "relevant" facts given by the lecturer. They 
become alarmed and somewhat insecure when I tell them that rote learning in a critical 
reasoning course is neither wanted nor desirable. Furthermore, students tend to hold 
strong ideological views coupled with a lack of basic knowledge on a whole range of 
issues often needed to enable a reasoned judgment between two claims on a particular 
issue. For example, a large number of students I have taught have never heard of 
Darwin's theory of evolution, a topic which has not been taught in most secondary 
schools (and is a fairly recent addition to the curriculum where it is taught) due to the 
controlling influence of Christian National Education. Consequently an article by 
Stephen Jay Goul<i on "Evolution as Fact and Theory"26 is considered to be a very 
difficult article (and for some students quite alarming) largely due to the fact that this 
may be their first exposure to the theory of evolution. 

Another immensely difficult task is to foster the disposition to be "appropriately 
moved by reasons".27 If good reasons are found to abandon a claim, then continued 
support from a sense of loyalty (all other things being equal) is misguided at best. 
Students beliefs and judgments tend to rely too heavily on group or community or 
party identification. "Viva Einstein's Theory of Relativity!", a statement made by a 
student to one of my colleagues, is an amusing reductio of this disposition. Many 
students find it difficult to understand that arguments need to be supported by good 
and relevant reasons if they are to be supported at alL 

To sum up: Teaching critical reasoning helps to undo the prejudice, ignorance 
and other destructive influences of apartheid secondary school education in South Af-
rica, albeit in a small way. I contend that it is possible to teach general reasoning skills 
and that students (both graduate and undergraduate) and school pupils benefit from 
such courses. The question of whether such general reasoning skills can be taught is 
controversial and I briefly discuss two dissenting voices in the next section. 

III Teaching General Thinking Skills 

Let us return to the claims made by McPeck and Paul concerning the teaching of criti-
cal reasoning. I briefly outline and then dismiss as misguided, or at least unduly pessi-
mistic, their claims about the possibility of teaching a general critical reasoning course. 
Furthermore, for a country like South Africa, critical reasoning courses offer a genera-
tion of students their first introduction to a rational and reasonable method of examin-



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 69 

ing controversial issues in a critical manner. The benefits of such a course tend to be 
enormous. Such courses empower students so that they experience a sense of libera-
tion from a repressive and very bias school education. 

McPeck argues that the attempt to teach general critical reasoning skills is "im-
portantly misguided."28 This is not to say that McPeck rejects the ideal of developing 
critical thinkers. As he says, "we all agree that ignorance, indoctrination and unreflective 
conformity are the enemy."29 He believes that the method of teaching a general critical 
reasoning course cannot help towards creating critical thinkers as thinking skills are 
necessarily content bound. Thinking skills are not "something different from, or over 
and above, disciplinary thinking (as implied by the thinking skills movement) but are 
in fact part and parcel of disciplinary thinking."30 In short, reasoning skills are subject-
specific and learning critical thinking skills requires the immersion approachY McPeck 
offers the following argument to support his view. 

PI Thinking must always be about some X. 

P2 Every X must be discipline specific. 

C Therefore there cannot be general thinking, that is, thinking about some 
non-discipline specific X, so there cannot be general thinking skills.32 

It seems to me that there needs to be two separate responses to McPeck's argument. 
The first is to refute his position on a theoretical level. Second, his position can be 
shown to be unconvincing when faced with practical evidence of the benefits, both in 
an acquisition of general reasoning skills and the adoption of a critical attitude towards 
claims made in texts and elsewhere. 

Theoretically, McPeck's argument is shaky due to his reliance on premise 2. As 
Vermaak points out,]3 this premise seems to be false (or at least not obviously true) 
since there appears to be bits of reasoning which are clearly cross-disciplinary. Modus 
Tollens and the formal fallacy of Denying the Antecedent apply equally to reasoning 
in Sociology and Physics. Questions about the relevance of claims used to support 
conclusions and the focus on possible ambiguities in language form an important part 
of general reasoning skills whether one is thinking about, say, Chemistry or Psychol-
ogy. What is more, McPeck uses the concept ofa subject as ifit were an unproblematic 
natural boundary which separates one kind of thinking from another. But surely this is 
not the case. Do questions about the nature of the mind fall under the subjects of 
Physics, Psychology, Theology, Computer Science? And once one begins to define 
thinking skills as solely subject specific then to what degree must differences within 
say Physics, Biology or Sociology, be recognised? Do the thinking skills required in a 
study of Organic Chemistry necessarily differ from those in Inorganic Chemistry? 

McPeck's position also seems to contradict my practical experience of student 
and pupil development during and after attending a critical reasoning course.34 As-
sessing whether students have learnt general reasoning skills which they transfer to 
other aspects of their lives is very difficult indeed. I know of no comprehensive longi-
tudinal studies which have been done to show that critical reasoning skills do transfer 
eventually to other areas of a person's life. I have also seen no study to show that they 
do not. But I believe I have good anecdotal evidence derived from the many courses I 
have taught, from reported experiences of colleagues teaching similar courses, from 



70 Stephen de Wijze 

positive comments in course evaluations and in discussions with students and pupils to 
substantiate this claim. Many students strongly assert that work done in critical rea-
soning courses helped them in their understanding and analysis work in other subjects. 
Just being introduced to the language of argumentation provided them with the tools 
and awareness to begin the process of becoming critical thinkers.35 It seems to me that 
even after relatively short courses (such as the one I co-taught at Kingswood College) 
pupils were able to begin identifying, analyzing and evaluating arguments. The more 
able pupils were even beginning to develop their own arguments to support their claims. 
A clear development in language skills and the understanding of the process of critical 
reasoning is evident from the work they submitted. (I have included examples of this 
work in appendix 2.) 

What is more, students and pupils definitely begin to adopt a set of attitudes which 
begins the process for them of becoming critical thinkers. Comments in course evalu-
ations, from pupils in school to post-graduate students point out that since they have 
done a critical reasoning course they are more aware of attempts by the media, politi-
cians, advertisers and friends and relatives to use poor arguments to defend controver-
sial claims. As mentioned above, in the South African context, a critical reasoning 
course also begins to provide the insight and skills in how to find information about a 
variety of topics, to be open minded to different viewpoints and to realise the complex-
ity of many issues. These insights and skills begin to fill in the gaps left by a very poor 
schooling experience. 

This leads to my criticism of Richard Paul's position. Paul argues that we must 
teach critical thinking in the "strong sense" if we are to develop critical thinkers. The 
mixed method approaches the study of arguments atomistically (critical reasoning in 
the "weak sense") which results in a detrimental simplification of complex arguments. 
This process is unsatisfactory and is not an optimal way to effectively nurture the 
development of critical thinkers. To teach critical reasoning in the "strong sense" 
requires students to identify the world views or "forms of life" they themselves hold 
and those in which their opponent's arguments are embedded. It is by adopting a glo-
bal approach, by emphasising argument networks rather than "atomic arguments," by 
concentrating on a more dialectical and dialogical approach instead of evaluating atomic 
arguments that one develops critical thinkers.36 

Whereas Paul's ideas undoubtedly hold some truth and in an ideal world would 
be implemented, in the South African context they are wholly impractical. First, such 
courses would require an enormous outlay of time and educational resources which 
are under ever increasing pressure. To teach critical reasoning in the "strong sense" 
requires, as Paul himself points out, courses that last over years rather than months. 37 It 
is difficult enough to find the time and the finances to give short critical reasoning 
courses despite the general enthusiasm for these courses. Paul's conclusions are too 
pessimistic. Short courses do have a significant impact and in South Africa they pro-
vide many students with their first exposure to any kind of critical analysis of claims 
made by the media, politicians etc. These short courses try to both impart some gen-
eral reasoning skills and foster the necessary attitudes and dispositions which are nec-
essary conditions for becoming critical thinkers. Given the educational background 
and the changes occurring in South Africa these courses are a valuable and formative 



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 71 

experience for most of the students. 

IV Conclusion 

Critical reasoning courses need to be taught in South Africa. They should aim to 
empower students and pupils by beginning the process whereby they can more easily 
develop as critical thinkers. Such courses can be based on the "mixed method" ap-
proach which tries to impart general reasoning skills and the correct attitudes and dis-
positions for critical analysis. The changing political and social milieu makes teach-
ing such courses morally and practically imperative as South Africa needs to begin 
producing graduates who are in a position to meet the challenges of a new developing 
country trying to shake off the problems of a past unjust regime. At present the teach-
ing of critical reasoning courses is largely confined to philosophy departments which 
reach far too few students. Although critical reasoning courses cannot be a panacea 
for all South Africa's ills, if widely taught and supported by educators, the state and 
private sector, they could provide an important boost to developing a new conscious-
ness amongst the upcoming generation of South Africans; one that encourages (amongst 
others) the important civic virtues of reasonableness, tolerance and fair mindedness.38 

Appendices 

Appendix 1 

Here are some of the responses made by students in response to the question: "What 
do you hope to achieve by taking this reasoning course?". The sentiments expressed 
are representative of the vast majority of respondents of all races, male and female 
students and those ranging from 1st year to 3rd year level. 

John: "In taking this reasoning course I hope to broaden perception and understand-
ing of the more complex issues we have been led to believe while maturing (eg: reli-
gion, death, freedom) and have not given much structured thought before." 

Banikele: "From taking this course I hope to achieve a superior style of thinking that 
vests one with a feeling of maturity in dealing with either political or social issues." 

Kate: "I hope to gain a new view on life. I feel it will enable me to be more accepting 
of people and situations and I will be able to overcome certain circumstances" 

Cheryl: "I believe that it will teach me to think about life, about people and about 
everyday occurrences that we will take for granted. I will learn to think for myself 
instead of just accepting what others say." 

Jennifer: "I hope to one day realise that there are two sides, sometimes even more, to 
any and every issue. I hope to question everything my whole life through so that my 
brain doesn't decay." 

Ross: "Greater insight into the way I think and live, the way others think and live and 
perhaps both in the context of each other." 

Jane: "A clearer thinking pattern. Also an ability to view problems and other happen-
ings from a different perspective." 



72 Stephen de Wijze 

Liza: "Broadening my way of thinking. Seeing things other points of view. I believe 
that, in many areas, there are no definite answers - due to opinion & also that there 
sometimes just isn't an answer. I'd like to explore that." 

Evonne: "I hope to be more rational and I would even say wiser for it. I also want to 
be able to look at things and not just look at it from one side." 

Farah: "I hope to gain a better knowledge of how to reason and to always keep an 
open mind on all matters, even if I disagree with them." 

Appendix 2 

Pupil Essays 

I have included two of the better essays and one from the bottom of the class. The 
standard of all of them is high considering the shortness of the course, the lack of 
exposure to this type of work and enormous ignorance concerning the arguments for 
and against vegetarianism. I have reproduced three sets of essays exactly as they were 
received with their spelling, grammatical and stylistic errors. The three were chosen to 
illustrate the improvement in the work done. Tom, for example, substitutes the copy-
ing of facts from a text on vitamins for an argument even though this activity was 
explicitly mentioned as a poor way to argue. This was a common error in a number of 
the essays and I suspect results from the pupils' needs to give facts even if they are not 
directly related to the argument being made. Luke's work offers a good example of 
how this module can help someone who is intelligent and resourceful and provide 
them with a method for effectively arguing their ideas in a logical and clear manner. 
Andrew's work shows vast improvement from the 1st to the 2nd essay. He also indi-
cates a sharp and original mind. Andrew's work tends to be slightly marred by his 
sometimes poor language skills. Language skills are an essential prerequisite for any 
critical reasoning course. In doing a critical reasoning course pupils will be improving 
on their language skills. Those pupils whose language skills are very poor may not 
benefit from a critical reasoning module. However none of the pupils in this class had 
this problem. 

Title of Essay 1 (Written at the start of the course) - "Why it is right to eat meat." 
Title of Essay 2 (Written at the end ofthe course) - Pupils were asked to rewrite the 
first essay. They could argue either for or against eating meat. This was to be made 
clear in the title and the introduction of the essay. They were not given a specific 
length for the essay. It was left to them to decide how long it ought to be. 

Student A - Tom 

Essay 1 

I think that a person should eat meat. Thinking of a nice hot roast beef sitting on the 
table makes my mouth just water. Lots of people eat meat so it therefore cant be fatal 
for a person and except for red meat you can have as much as you like when you like, 



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 73 

if you like, how you like. There is a lot of protein and iron in meat that helps your 
body. Although too much meat is a bad thing, too much of anything is a bad thing. It 
is told that if you eat lots of carrots and drink carrot juice, your hair quite quickly goes 
orange. 

There is also a variety in your diet if you are vegetarian there is only one type of 
food you can eat while if you are an omnivore there are two dishes minimum that you 
can eat though. The taste of meat is also in big contrast to that of just vegetables and it 
is so nice to be able to bite into a nice tender piece of steak. 

So the next time you are sitting at Spur, look at a nice succulant piece of spare rib 
or think of a lekka raw carrot. Make your choice. 

Essay 2 

It is good in a nutritional sense to eat meat. The vitamins in the meat including vita-
mins A,B,D,E,K are essential to the body. 

Vitamin A which is needed for vision is not found in plants and vegetables and is 
found in right proportions in meat. Vitamin A can also be administered to the body for 
the skin and for mucous membranes. A deficency of vitamin A results in various 
disorders that most commonly involve the eye. The earliest signs is the lose of night 
vision which needs a protein found in the eye that maintains it's photosensitivity only 
in the presence of vitamin A. If insufficient intake of vitamin A is prolonged, the skin 
may become dry and rough. 

Most of the B vitamins have been recognised as coenzymes, and they all appear 
to be essential in facilitating the metabolic processes of all forms of animal life. Vita-
min B, a water soluble, nitrogen containing alcohol that is necessary in the diet of all 
animals to prevent beriberi, a disease characterised by multiple nevritis, general debil-
ityand painful rigidity. Pork is one ofthe richest sources for this Vitamin. Vitamin BI 
helps the nerves, heart muscles and general metabolism of the human body. 

Vitamin B2 is an essential nutrient for the human bodies. Vitamin B2 is known to 
function as part of metabolic systems concerned with the oxidation of carbohydrates 
and amino acids and constituents of proteins. Vitamin B2 is essential to a number of 
microscopic animals, including humans. Because vitamin B2 is found in animals and 
not vegetables, complete vegetarianism may lead to deficiencies. 

The lack of Vitamin BI2 makes defective formation of the pupillae of the tongue, 
giving an appearance of abnormal smoothness. It often causes defective functions of 
the intestines resulting in indigestion and sometimes constipation. A very serious ef-
fect is degeneration of certain motor and sensory tracts of the spinal cord. Initial 
numbness and tingling of fingers or toes may, without treatment, progress to great 
instability or virtual paralysis. Deficiency may also result from competition for vita-
min B12 by the broad tapeworm or by intestinal bacteria growing in cul-de-sacs or 
above partial obstructions. 

Vitamin C a carbohydrate substance involved in certain metabolic processes of 
humans. Vitamin C is necessary in the diet of the human in order to prevent scurvy, a 
disease characterised by hemorrage, especially in the skin and mucous membranes. 



74 Stephen de Wijze 

The vitamin is known to be essential in a variety of metabolic functions including 
synthesis of a protein important in the formulation of healthy skin, tendons, bones, and 
supporting tissues and in wound healing; maintenance of the structural strength of the 
blood vessels; metabolism of certain amino acids; and the release of hormones in the 
adrenal glands. Vitamin C also plays a large part in the protection of the body against 
infections. 

Vitamin D, either of two fat-soluble alcohols important in calcium metabolism in 
animals. They are formed by ultraviolet irradiation of sterods present in the skin. 
Lack of vitamin D causes rickets. A lot of vitamin D is needed to be taken into the 
body at one time to make a person feel sick or ill. 

Vitamin E has been encouraged in the treatment of numerous diseases, including 
habitual spontaneous abortion and muscular dystrophy. Also under study is the possi-
bility that vitamin E may help prolong an active life-span by slowing the rate of oxidative 
destruction of biological membranes. The characteristics of induced vitamin E defi-
ciency vary. In females reproduction fails because of absorption of the fetus. In the 
male, sterility results from degradation of the gaminal tissues. 

Lack of vitamin K in the blood tends to an increase in clotting time of the blood. 
Blood clotting is delayed or prevented because of the lack of prothrombin, a substance 
requiring vitamin K for its synthesis in the liver. In humans deficiency may occur 
following the administration of certain drugs that inhibit the growth of the vitamins 
sythesising bacteria. 

After having a good look at all the vitamins that meat has in it, it should be clear 
that eating meat is an essential part of the human consumption. 

Student B - Luke 

Essay 1 

Man is a meat eater and so it is pointless and foolish to only eat vegetables and plants. 
The reasons for this are many and varied, but probably a very essential one is the 

fact that creatures throughout time have only begun to advance when consuming their 
organisms. 

Millions of years ago the first forms of life consisted of single celled organisms 
which did not advance beyond their simple state for a number of millennia. This is 
because their environment was so hospitable, there were no predators and no dangers 
because all the other cells photosynthesized for energy. It was only when one cell 
ingested another that the cycle of natural selection and evolution was created because 
the surviving cell then went on to create a mass of meat eating progeny, and tactics for 
avoiding these carnivorous creatures has resulted in the eventual evolution of intelli-
gence. 

Therefore we owe our advanced state as human beings to the action of absorbing. 
consuming or eating other animals. Rejecting meat also places the advancement o· 
future races in question: without the natural selection process creatures will stagnatt 
and evolution will come to a grinding halt. 



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 75 

Second, it is incredibly selfish and close minded to reject food on the basis of 
belief while thousands allover the world are starving and would do anything for a 
mere morsel of the food that the vegetarians reject. 

Many of the nutriants available in meat are simply not present in plant matter. 
Extra bulk is also needed to provide nutrition on the same level of meats and thus many 
cannot afford the added cost. 

If man had been consuming animal matter for so many centuries then an abrupt 
halt in the consumption would create catastrophic effects in the ecological cycle. Many 
different cultures believe that meat is an important and vital aspect of their society. 
We cannot infringe on their cultural identity by taking meat off the market. Try and 
imagine how many jobs would be lost if the meat market collapsed. Think how many 
people would be placed in incredible financial difficulties if their main source of in-
come went bankrupt, think about not only them but their families and children that rely 
on them as breadwinners. 

Whatever the individual vegetarians reasons for not consuming meat, whether 
they be moral, philosophical or for health, a couple of crackpot greenies will never 
make a difference because the majority of people enjoy meat. 

All in all I say to you that meat is healthy and enables one to lead a normal well 
balanced life. Vegetarianism is a pointless and meaningless pursuit and the people 
who try and spread the word that meat is bad are products of a confused and mixed up 
society. 

Essay 2 

The argument that I am going to present in this essay is one which attempts to conclu-
sively prove that eating meat is an environmentally unsound practise. 

In our increasingly environmental conscious world it seems strange that some 
still argue for meat consumption. The relevance of all other pro-vegetarian arguments 
sink to insignificance when compared to the immenent danger looming from the Green-
house effect and the Ozone depletion. I have cut down on the bulk of information and 
will present the major points. 

First, each cow produces an average oftwo hundred litres of methane a day. This 
highly toxic and flammable gas is a major contributor to the environmental occurrence 
called the Greenhouse Effect, in which the Methane in the atmosphere absorbs and 
stores far more heat than the atmosphere around it. This excess heat from solar radia-
tion remains trapped in the atmosphere and will eventually raise global temperatures 
by up to ten degrees Celsius. While this temperature change does not seem large and 
therefore not important, it will have far reaching and catastrophic effects on the way 
we live. Vast areas of arable land will be lost to the sea as the polar ice melts and the 
sea rises. There are huge amounts of methane trapped in the polar ice and so the 
Greenhouse Effect will then increase a thousandfold. 

Methane gas is also thought to speed the travel of CFC's into the upper atmos-
phere. These chemicals destroy the protective ozone layer which shields all life from 
the sun's Ultra-Violet rays. 



76 Stephen de Wijze 

Large areas of rainforest are being destroyed to make way for cattle farming. the 
depletion of these areas will have drastic effects on the Oxygen/air ratios present in our 
ecosystem. 

Areas dominated by cattle ranching are areas experiencing the most erosion and 
topsoil loss. Overgrazing in many parts of the world, especially Africa, has so de-
pleted the grass and plants whose roots keep the soil in check, that millions of tons of 
topsoil are lost every year. If we lose this thin life sustaining soil layer we will lose all 
farming potential in our country. The economic and social effects that this loss will 
have is incalculable. 

The advent of large scale cattle farming in the African continent and elsewhere 
threatens the very existance of the varied forms of life which used to exist naturally 
and in harmony with their environment. The competition for food has depleted the 
herbivores and has resulted in a corresponding depletion in the larger predators, such 
as the leopard and the lion. These animals can only be found in game parks, little or 
none of the species remain in the wild. 

This is the direct result of cattle farming and can only be remedied if the farming 
is either stopped altogether or severely cut back. 

The argument has been used that the economic burden is too great to halt meat 
production. This argument looks at term prospects and completely ignores the fact 
that while the problem can be hidden way for a short while, sooner or later we are 
going to suffer because of our inaction. Any damage to the environment eventually 
rebounds back onto mankind in general. This danger outweighs all other pro-meat 
eating arguments because of the implications for our species. 

To produce one pound of meat, a number of pounds of grain is needed. Seeing 
that not all the cow is used for consumption, food or potential food is being lost. This 
drastic loss in the foodchain, multiplied by the amount of cattle in the world, creates an 
imbalance in the ecology which affects our environment at grass roots level. 

In this essay I have produced enough evidence to support the conclusion that 
eating meat is environmentally unsound and in fact in the long run, dangerous to man-
kind as a whole. 

Student C - Andrew 

Essay 1 

I think that eating meat is good and being a vegetarian is not bad, but it is pointless. If 
you do not have meat in your diet you have to carefully plan your diet so that your 
body will receive sufficient of the correct nutrients which it would have got from meat 
in order to live a healthy life. 

The most important reason why I eat meat is that it supplies our bodies with 
protein. This protein gives you energy and so that you can become more active and 
alert in the classroom as well as on the sports field. In order to get the same amount of 
protein from vegetables as you do from meat you need to eat a larger quantity than you 
do for meat. this is time wasting and it also takes up energy. 



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 77 

Another important factor is that there is nothing more delicious than sitting down 
to a medium-rare rump steak, served with vegetables and a baked potato. Just thinking 
about it makes my mouth water and I'm sure even you are beginning to wonder which 
is better a rump steak or a bowl of salad. 

So you are probably thinking that how can you kill an animal and eat it when you 
have all these wonderful vegetables. But, isn't that the way of nature to kill prey to 
survive. Well that is just what we are doing except it seems different just because we 
are more advanced. 

So in order to live a much more enjoyable life remembering that you only live 
once, it is a good idea for all you vegetarians to start eating meat. 

Essay 2 

In this essay I will argue that eating meat is ok as long as their is no cruelty inflicted 
during the raising and slaughtering. 

Raising animals in their most natural environment as possible would be an exam-
ple of raising an animal correctly Le. A natural habitat for a flock of sheep would be a 
large open area where they could roam around which also had a good water supply. 

Many of the South Africans have large farms and what has just been described in 
the last paragraph is an exact replica of what the South African farmers give to their 
flocks of sheep. 

Someone may say that breeding animals in captivity is cruel no matter what the 
circumstances. As you can clearly see that this claim is untrue as wild sheep wont be 
looked after and they may not have a constant supply of water or grass. When these 
necessities run out the farmer will move them to the next paddock whereas a wild flock 
of sheep would die out. 

Raising chickens in batteries where they are unable to stand up or even stretch 
their wings is cruel. Although chickens do not use their wings to fly they do have 
muscles and will therefore get cramps. On the other hand if chickens kept in a fairly 
large closed off area where they are able to walk around is a natural habitat for a 
chicken so this way of breeding chickens is not cruel. 

These chickens would also benefit from being in captivity as they would have a 
constant supply of food and water, they would be able to run around and also have a 
safe place to lay their eggs where they will be out of harms way. Unlike the wild 
where they would have to constantly fend for the eggs. 

Now that we have discovered that breeding in captivity, as long as it is not cruel 
is alright and it can and is being done by many farmers. 

The next claim is that as long as slaughtering is done as humanely as possible 
meaning that it is predominately painless and as quick as possible ensuring that animal 
suffers for the least amount of time it is not cruel and is acceptable. 

A counter-claim for this would be that no matter how you slaughter an animal it is 
cruel as it is taking the life of another animal and there is no way that you can slaughter 
an animal without being cruel to it 

First it would be much better for the animal to be taken to the abitoir to be slaugh-



78 Stephen de Wijze 

tered than to become old and sick in the wild and die a slow death of starvation or to be 
hunted down by a pride of lions. 

The other counter counter claim is that you are able to slaughter an animal with-
out being cruel to it. First you must render the animal unconscious intravenously. 
Then they should shoot the animal int he head with a captive bolt pistol. (This is a 
simple pistol which has a large spring which drives the bullet into the animal.) This has 
been found to be the best method of slaughtering an animal. 

This method clearly shows that the animal wont suffer any pain as it is uncon-
scious when the pistol is fired. The method of making the animal unconscious before 
slaughtering is not cruel. Any other form would be unacceptable as the animal would 
be able to feel the bullet penetrate before it died. 

In this essay I argued that eating meat is ok as long as their is no cruelty inflicted 
during raising and slaughtering. to support this conclusion I have used the claims that 
raising an animal in its most natural environment will be uncruel. I have also shown 
that the counter-claim that breeding animals in captivity is cruel is unacceptable. 

To support the other part of the conclusion on slaughtering I used the claim that 
as long as slaughtering is done humanely as possible meaning that it is predominantly 
painless and as quickly as possible ensuring that the animal suffers for the least amount 
of time it is not cruel and should be acceptable. I have also shown that the counter 
claim that you cannot slaughter an animal and not be cruel is not true. 

Notes 

I "I intend to defend the view that the standard (or familiar) disciplines are the most direct route, 
ifnot the only efficacious route, to teaching critical thinking. A consequence ofthis view is 
that most ofthe so-called thinking skills programs, which are so pervasive today, are impor-
tantly misguided." (John McPeck in "Teaching Critical Reasoning through the Disciplines: 
Content versus Process" in Richard A Talaska (ed.) Critical Reasoning in Contemporary 
Culture, Chapter 2, 3 I). 

1 "The alternative view (critical thinking in the strong sense) rejects the idea that critical thinking 
can be taught as a battery of atomic technical skills independent of egocentric beliefs and 
commitments, Instead of 'atomic arguments' (a set ofpremises and a conclusion) it empha-
sizes argument networks (worldviews); instead of evaluating atomic arguments it empha-
sizes a more dialectical and dialogical approach." (in "Teaching Critical Reasoning in the 
Strong Sense: Getting Behind Worldviews" in Richard Talaska (ed.) Critical Reasoning in 
Contemporary Culture. chapter 7, 1139-142). 

3"Questions and Answers about the Nature and Teaching of Thinking Skills" in Teaching Thinking 
Skills, Theory and Practice, (eds.) Joan BoykoffBaron and Robert J Sternberg (New York, 
Freeman: 1987) 255. 

4 "Critical Reasoning and Informal Logic" in Richard Talaska(ed.) Critical Reasoning in Con-
temporary Culture. 

5Paul, 142. 

6This is Robert Ennis's definition. See J.A. Blair and R.H. Johnson "Misconceptions oflnformal 
Logic: A Reply to McPeck" in Teaching Philosophy Volume 14, March 1991, Number 1, 
11. 

1Grahamstown is situated about 900 kilometres (550 miles) from Cape Town and 1000 kilome-



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 79 

tres (600 miles) from Johannesburg. It is 120 kilometres (70 miles) north of Port Elizabeth 
which is the nearest large city. 

BThe Philosophy Department teaches another first year course - entitled "Logic and the Philoso-
phy of Science" - which has a module on formal logic and a module on informal logic. 
This course was introduced recently. Its aim is to attract senior students from the science and 
social science faculties. For various reasons concerning degree curricula of science students, 
it has not proved very popular - student numbers have not exceeded lO. 

9Students who register for ITP are mostly in the Arts Faculty but there are some from the Com-
merce and Science Faculties reading ITP as a credittowards their degrees. This course can 
be taken by 2nd and 3rd year students who want a first year credit towards their BA, BComm 
or BSc degree. 

'O'fhis racial composition is expected to change rapidly over the next few years. Rhodes Univer-
sity is an English medium institution, previously classified as a White university, which due 
to apartheid laws, consisted of mostly White students and a few Coloured, Indian and Black 
students who were able to obtain permits to study at Rhodes from the Minister of Education. 

lIPrivate schools in South Africa refer to schools which are not funded by the South African 
government. Most private schools are funded by religious communities for example, the 
Anglican, Catholic and Jewish communities. Kingswood College is a Methodist private 
school although one does not need to be a Methodist to attend. These schools have a greater 
degree of freedom to choose a curriculum and write external examinations (such as the 
English A and 0 levels) which differs from those prescribed and administered by the various 
provincial governments. This system of education will probably undergo significant changes 
after the new government is elected on April 27th 1994. 

12 An extensive bibliography on the effects of apartheid on education can be found in Kalloway, 
Peter (ed) Apartheid and Education: The Education of Black South Africans, (Raven Press, 
Johannesburg: 1988). A book that requires special mention is Ken Hartshorne's Crisis and 
Challenge: Black education 1910-1990 (Oxford University Press, 1992). I offer no explicit 
critique of CNE in this paper as my interest is to extract some of the consequences of this 
educational policy and the problems and possible advantages it provides for those wanting 
to teach a critical reasoning course. 

I30n the brink of a new political dispensation huge inequities in education spending and class-
room conditions still exist. In 1992 the government spent 23 billion rands (6.39 billion 
US$) or 21 % oftheir budget on education. This spending was allocated as follows: RI248 
(347 US$) per Black student, R2701 (750 US$) per Coloured student and R4448 (1236 
US$) per White student. The teacher:pupil ratio in the Western Cape was White 1: 17, Col-
oured 1 :23, Indian 1 :20 and Black 1 :50. (Source: Special Section of The Argus Friday 18 
March 1994 - "A Voter's Guide to the Election in the Western Cape"). 

'
4Viljoen, TA and Pienaar, JJ Fundamental Pedagogics (Durban and Pretoria: 1971) 95. 

15See Hartshorne's Crisis and Challenge, especially chapters 2,3 and 4, for an excellent account 
ofthe conditions in the education system which gave rise to the failure to produce critical 
thinkers. 

16See Postman and Weingartner Teaching as a Subversive Activity, (Penguin Books, 
Harmondsworth: 1981), chapter l. 

'7The information in this paragraph and the quote from Bobby Godsell is taken from a Human 
Sciences Research Council (HSRC) publication on a symposium and workshop concerning 
the employability of South African BA graduates. This publication takes the entire issue of 
Afrika 2001 Vol2 (1) 1993. 

'SEven if the goal offostering critical thinkers were universally accepted as an educational goal, 



80 Stephen de Wijze 

it would still need to be justified. This is especially true of a educational goal that has as its 
aim the teaching of reason and rationality. To ignore claims against it would be to become 
dogmatic, ideological and clearly contrary to the spirit of what it is to be a critical thinker. 

19See Harvey Siegel's article "Education and the Fostering of Rationality" in Talaska, 100-101. 

2°Student enrolment in philosophy courses at Rhodes University from 1985 - 1993. 

'Ifj S) 'ffI 'It! 'If) W IJI 91 93 

Introduction to 
34 45 5S 5) 9) ~ 1m m 105 

Philoosophy 

Philosophy 2 Zl ~ II 33 18 42 61 67 51 

Philosophy 3 6 8 10 14 12 6 21 34 43 

21 From April 27, 1994 South Africa will have an interim constitution which will serve the 
country while negotiations take place for the development of a final constitution - hopefully 
to be implemented by 1996. 

22 As I write the breakdown in the negotiations concerning certain constitutional issues which are 
of concern to the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) has plunged the province of Natal and part of 
the Transvaal into a low intensity civil war. 

23Educational authorities do not want to allocate more time and financial resources to critical 
reasoning courses even though they are enthusiastic about the benefits such courses will 
bring to their students and pupils. Part ofthe reason is that the curriculum is already crowded 
and partly due to the present severe tightening of funds in all educational institutions in 
South Africa. 

24See Fisher, Alec The Logic of Real Arguments, (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1990), 
17/18. 

25 A Practical Study of Arguments, (Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont California: 1992), 
173. 

26 In McDonald, Daniel The Language of Argument, (Fourth Edition) (Harper & Row, New 
York: 1983),17-24. 

27Siegel, 98. 

2B"Teaching Critical Reasoning through the Disciplines: Content versus Process", 31. 
29 Ibid, 33. 

30Ibid,31. 

31 See Ennis' article "Conflicting Views on Teaching Critical Reasoning" in Talaska, 7-9. 

32This characterisation of McPeck's argument I have taken from M Vermaak's paper "Transfer-
able Thinking Skills?" published in the Proceedings of the 7th Conference of the South 
African Associationfor Academic Development (SAAAD), 3-5 December 1992. 

33Vermaak, 140. 

341n an assessment of the module given to pupils at Kingswood College evidence that the mod-
ule was considered useful was obtained from the pupils and class teacher herself. I also 



Teaching Critical Reasoning in South Africa 81 

wanted to establish whether the writing of argumentative essays was considered to be an 
appropriate skill for pupils given the demands of the Matric syllabus and the skills required 
to excel in a Matric English examination. I was concerned that the type of essays required 
for success in an English Matric examination were quite different from that which is ex-
pected from a critical argumentative essay. The former stressing creativity, lateral thinking 
and the expressing of personal feelings while the latter strongly emphasised essay structure, 
logical reasoning and simple, clear, unambiguous language. Consequently, 1 asked the class 
teacher to read the essays and indicate whether she found these essays to be either: 

a) An improvement on their normal work; 

b) Of the same standard; 

c) A retrogression in the standard of work normally received. 

Her comments were very encouraging. Ofthe 17 pupils, 15 fell into categories a and b above 
either maintaining their normal standard or substantially improving their standard of work. 
Penny describes some of the 2nd essays in glowing terms: 

"Essay 2 is much better than essay 1. I am impressed that Julia has applied herselfto researching 
as thoroughly as she obviously has for essay 2" 

"Essay 2 is probably the most coherent piece of work produced to date." 

"Essay 2 is certainly in line with what 1 expect Luke to produce - perhaps better than normal as 
it has required him to take a more structured approach rather than simply rely on his lan-
guage skills." 

"Essay 2 is surprisingly coherent - hopefully this indicates a general improvement." 

"Essay 2 much better. Probably the best thing Andrew has produced to date." 

Pupils themselves also perceived the module to be useful. In a module evaluation the pupils 
were asked if they found this module useful for their other school subjects, for a general 
understanding of the world and for their everyday activities. The replies of those that re-
sponded to this question were: 

"Yes, it helps how to write this type of essay, especially for subjects such as history and biol-
ogy." 

"Yes, because now 1 know how to argue properly." 

"Yes. It helped with history." 

"Yes, English and History argumentative skills were improved and further refined. 1 found that 
my ability to promote ideas were strengthened." 

"Yes it helps you to look at the pros and cons of different points." 

"Yes, I now have reference as to how to argue properly, and compromise, which I think is 
essential for the future." 

"No, not at the moment. It may be useful later though." 

When asked if they would recommend that a module of this kind be taught to other pupils at 
Kingswood, all but one of the respondents agreed that it would be a good idea. 

Concerning students, the increase in numbers opting to do philosophy at Rhodes can in part be 
explained by their belief that philosophy will teach them critical reasoning skills. This belief 
derives partly from talking to previous year students who claimed such courses have indeed 
helped them and from the popular general idea that philosophy teaches people how to think. 
(Students make these points in a questionnaire they complete when registering for ITP course 
at the beginning of the academic year.) 

35 Michael Scriven in a lecture at the 2nd British Co'!ference on Critical Thing and Education 
(6-8 April at University of East Anglia) in a paper entitled "Defining and Assessing Critical 
Thinking" points out that just learning the standard 60 terms oflogical enquiry (words such 



82 Stephen de Wijze 

as validity, presupposition, assumption etc.) is to learn knowledge which is important for 
developing the ability to become a critical thinker. 

3
6Paul,143-144. 

31Paul, ] 51. 

3sI am indebted to Julia Segar for useful comments on an earlier draft. I am especially indebted 
to Marius Vermaak for useful comments on this paper and who has taught a number of 
critical reasoning courses with me over the last few years. 

STEPHEN DE WIJZE 
DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT 

THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER 
OXFORD ROAD 
MANCHESTER 

MI39PL 
UNITED KINGDOM 

msrgssw@/sI.ec.man.ac.uk 

o