V111.1, Winter 1986 Informal Logic Is Critical Thinking a Technique, Or a Means of Enlightenment? LENORE LANGSDORF Introduction This paper proposes a theoretical basis for practicing and teaching cri- tical thinking as both "technique" and "means for enlightenment." Since the current state of the art (as reflected in journal articles as well as textbooks) seems to me more advanced in devel- oping techniques, the stress here is on "enlightenment." Thus, the ideas I explore are offered as a contribution on the "basic theoretical underpin- nings" which Richard Paul recognizes are needed for "critical thinking in the 'strong' sense."[1] This is to say that I will be proposing a theoretical basis for understanding that conception of critical thinking as a means for en- lightenment. In order to do so, I will offer some thoughts on what enlighten- ment might be, why certain features in our cultural history have resulted in its atrophy, and how we might make a start toward changing that situation. The paper has three parts. Part ~ One presents the notion of "instru- mental reason" as a mode of reasoning quite different from "judgment." The former is concerned with developing techniques for achieving already- stipulated ends by utilizing already- given means. The latter is concerned with an extended sense of reasoning which examines those means and ends in the light of human needs and goals. In presenting this concept, I'll be re- lying on the work of Ian Angus, which is situated at the juncture of pheno- menology (as developed by Edmund Husserl) and the Critical Theory de- University of Texas at Arlington veloped by the Frankfurt School.[2] The inadequacies of "instrumental reason" and the prospects of "judg- ment" seem to me illustrated in Richard Paul's critique of any teaching of critical thinking that would be the mere application of techniques, rather than the cultivation of a "dialectical mode of analysis." What I'm doing in Part One, then, is associating Angus's "instrumental reason" with Paul's "critical thinking in the 'weak' sense," and Angus's "judgment" with Paul's "critical think- ing in the 'strong' sense." I hope that relating Paul's proposals to the pheno- menological and Frankfurt School traditions in this way provides us with the beginnings of a theoretical basis for "strong sense" critical thinking. In Part Two, I consider a question that seems to me comparatively ne- glected in Paul's work: why is it so difficult to reach the non-egocentric standpoint that is the starting point for the "dialectical mode of analysis" he advocates? Here and in Part Three, I rely on Paul Ricoeur's conception of "ego" as contrasted with "self" in proposing that we might be more suc- cessful in cultivating a non-egocentric standpoint if we have some under- standing of egocentricity as an inevit- able, but transcendable, starting point.[3] In Part Two, then, I suggest that an insistently pervasive techno- logy-television -suppresses a capa- city-imagination-that is crucial to any attempt to move beyond "ego" to "self." A form-and-content distinction is crucial to this suggestion: if the 2 Lenore Langsdorf portrayal given here is accurate, sup- pression of imagination occurs by virtue of television's very form, not only or even primarily because of its program- ming content. In Part Three, I propose that another technology-the printed word, which does not share television's form- stimulates rather than suppresses imagination. Ricoeur,s thesis that "ego" becomes "self" through in- volvement with "text," I suggest, pro- vides "theoretical underpinnings" for a critical thinking that responds to Paul's critique, as well as to Angus's call for an undoing of the "reversal of enlightenment" brought about by uni- versal ized instrumental reason. Part One: Instrumental Reason and Judgment The expansion of techniques which is legitimized by instrumental reason turns the objects of the life-world into mere residues ... while it reduces the subject to an untheorized plurality of ends-instrumental reason results in world alienation and self-alienation. This systematic crisis involves a new situation for philosophy.[4) I take it to be self-evident that virtually all teachers of critical thinking want their teaching to have a global 'Socratic' effect, making some significant inroads into the everyday reasoning of the stu- dent, enhancing to some degree that healthy, practical, and skilled skepti- cism one naturally and rightly asso- ciates with the rational person.[5) In this section, I propose that the pre- valence of "instrumental reason," as identified in Ian Angus's critique, is one of the powerfui factors in our cul- ture which work against our efforts at having, in our teaching of critical think- ing, the "global 'Socratic' effect" on our students that Richard Paul identi- fies. This is to say that our students come equipped with instrumental reason, since it is endemic to our cul- ture, and that this form of reason is inimical to critical thinking. Angus's critique identifies instru- mental reason as the type of reasoning which is limited to determining appro- priate means for achieving a particu- lar end. What it does not do is consider the appropriateness of either means or ends to larger contexts, such as an individual's or society's everyday or major life-decisions.[6] His term for the type of reasoning that would take up that larger-indeed, "global"- task is "judgment." In exploring both these conceptions of reasoning, Angus is expanding upon work on the nature of reason done from the perspective of the Critical Theory developed by the Frankfurt School, in that he adds the "self-reflective and critical character of phenomenology," and in particular, Husserl's emphasis upon the "consti- tution of theoretical objectivities" (such as the elements of a logical sys- tem), in order to develop a theoretical basis that would enable us to "renew the promise of enlightenment."[7] This renewal is needed, according to Angus's account, because of an his- torical paradox: the science and techno- logy which earlier philosophers and scientists expected would liberate humanity from the arbitrariness and harshness of nature, now appear to many as replacements for the domina- tion practiced prior to the rise of science in the Enlightenment by the "mythico- religious tradition."[8] This has oc- curred, he argues, as the science de- ve loped by Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo required a "transformation from the Classical question 'why' things are to the modern 'how'."[9] Angus retains both questions within his own analysis, although my focus here is on just one: how does this "reversal of enlightenment" oc- cur?[10] For considering Angus's analysis together with Paul's suggests that the critical thinking courses which many philosophy departments now find are their most popular offerings are training students in instrumental rea- son (at most), rather than cultivating that "Socratic" and "global" form of reasoning which Angus calls judgment. We are teaching instrumental rea- son rather than judgment, I suggest, insofar as we use what Paul calls the 1 r "standard modes of teaching critical thinking," based on II a fundamental and questionable assumption": that it can be taught as a "battery of technical skills" to be "mastered" and applied (as means to an end) without asking any "why" questions concerning the context in which the student (subject) or issue (object) is embedded.[11] On this model, Paul goes on to say, argu- ments are encountered "atomically," rather than as "networks" delineating "world views." In effect, what we are doing in this mode of teaching critical thinking is taking the student, who comes to us more-or-Iess well equipped by our culture with instrumental rea- son, and working to instill techniques which exercise that equipment. Paul calls this "critical thinking in the 'weak' sense," and gives us a succinct summary of its usual results. One likelihood is " 'sophistry' ": the student "learns to use technical con- cepts and techniques to maintain his most deep-seated prejudices and irra- tional habits of thought." The alterna- tive is II 'dismissal' "-outright rejection of rational modes of thought "in favor of some suggested alterna- tive-'feeling,' 'intuition,' 'faith,' or 'higher consciousness.' "[12] Both of these are a long way from the goals of teaching critical thinking that are cited at the start of this section, and there are a variety of responses we can give to this disjuncture between goals and results. I will sketch Angus's response, and then Paul's, and then suggest two inadequacies in the latter which may be remedied by incorpora- ting elements of the former. Angus finds that instrumental rea- son's restriction to the application of given means-such as logical sys- tems-to given ends is a contribution to what Husserl called "the crisis of Western humanity [which] rests on a conception of reason in which formali- zation held sway such that the genuine advances by special sciences and formal logic are severed from philo- sophical enlightenment."[13] Hus- serl's own response to that situation was to show that formalizations derive Critical Thinking 3 from (in his words, are "founded in") material conditions (in his words, again, the "lifeworld").[14] This phenomenological description of the relation between intellectual and everyday life (e.g., logic and the life- world) is incorporated into Angus's theory of "judgment" when he argues that using logical structures in a norma- tive manner within the whole of our experience does not depend upon any "cosmological intuition," or transcen- dent "organizing principle," or "tra- ditional authority" of the sort asso- ciated with "mythico-religious world- views" which have been rather dis- credited, since the onset of the Age of Science, as sources of epistemological justification or ontological valida- tion.[1S] Rather, the justification for using logic normatively has its source in evidence that results from a pheno- menological analysis of the lifeworld: Husserl's transcendental logic sets it- self the task of delineating the range and legitimate objects of traditional logic through a regressive analysis into the 'sense' of the formalizing abstrac- tion that is at its [logic's) root, and teleological inquiry into the 'truth' with which formalizing abstractions can judge about individuals.(16) For Angus as well as Husserl, the " 'sense' " found in this regressive analysis is that the formal is manifest, as inherent modes of structure and order, in the material. In other words: Husserl's work on logic and the life- world shows that the latter displays the former; that the form of our rea- soning is implicit in that content. Thus, his "redirection of philosophy [which] takers] the whole of the experienced lifeworld into thought" is a redescrip- tion of practice as always already in- formed by theory. [17] If we accept Husserl's demonstra- tion that "formalism is not self-en- closed, but rests on presuppositions of sense and teleology of truth in the lifeworld," we need not accept the "re- duction of human action to tech- nique."[18] Angus takes Husserl's demonstration of logic as embedded 4 Lenore Langsdorf within experience as the basis for his claim that insofar as logic is justifiably (rather than arbitrarily or dogmatically) applicable to theorizing in general, we are justified in extending our rea- soning beyond the limitations of instru- mental reason; he calls this expanded conception "judgment." He goes on to develop this broader notion of rea- soning as including rational considera- tion of the contexts from which issues and arguments arise, and to which techniques apply. Identifying contextualized objects as the recipients of technical action implies two further differences between instrumental reason and judgment. First, ends can now be thematized as distinct from, and perhaps problema- tically related to, objects. Also: judg- ment, in reflecting upon objects within their contexts, discovers that "it is the context from which technical ends stand out that establishes the possi- bility of a plurality of ends" which are "formulated from" their contexts and "cannot be conceived as existing prior to the formation process ."[19] Reasoning, understood as judgment, is thus revealed as an activity with two instrinsic and usually unnoticed di- mensions. It thematizes objects in the lifeworld as presentations of a parti- cular individual's "immediate expe- rience," and it thematizes them also as representations, informed by theory. In other words, this conception of rea- soning understands our reasoning as intrinsically incorporating both pre- supposed logical systems (formal iza- tion) and means-ends correlations which are supplied by cultural and individual goals, needs and values- which is to say that they are inevitably egocentric and sociocentric. In contrast to instrumental reason, judgment thematizes those unnoticed presuppo- sitions within its own activity, as well as reasoning about the objects which are instrumental reason's sole interest. In Angus's words, Both sides of this theory I life-world rela- tionship are involved in judgment. In order to overcome the crisis of reason judgment must be both representative and presentational. ... The tradition of thought cannot be taken to be exhaust- ive; we must return to the generating experiences from which thought emerges. Judgment is an inter-relation- ship of immediacy and critique .... [20] The contrast between instrumental reason and judgment deepens when we notice that judgment is intrinsically bound to a judging process, carried out by a judging self who is capable of actualizing a spectrum of possible perspectives on judged subject matter, and is also capable of reflecting upon that process. Cultivating or developing these capacities is then a force for un- doing the "reversal of enlightenment" brought about by instrumental reason's limitation to formalizations, uncon- nected to the lifeworld, and technique, connected only to means-end delibera- tions. A last, rather lengthy, quotation from Angus stresses the integration of self, process, object, and reflection in his notion of judgment, in a way that enables us to see the explicit connec- tion between his proposal and Paul's: Judgment makes the absent present .... The compatibility or contradictoriness of representations which are gathered from varying perspectives must be con- sidered; what is at issue is not the accu- racy of each one in isolation but the de- gree to which they can be combined into a comprehensive judgment. This in- volves a dual reflection: on the object as it emerges and ... on the subject which must harmonize, or comprehend the dissonance of, representations .... These considerations culminate in an indivi- dual judgment, a universalizing claim embedded in a singular statement about the public object. This claim can be contested-its journey around the ob- ject is not the only possible one .... Similarly ... the entirety of the self. .. is open to constitution in judgment.. .. The constitution of self and world by judgments is never exhausted by ex- isting judgments. It remains a particu- larization of an unlimited possibility of constituting judgments .... Judgment is critrical thinking; it proceeds as cri- tique ... both inside and outside received representations. Actual judgments ..... hand down the public realm, yet criti- cal thought measures its limitations by incorporating new elements derived from the present and forming a new individual judgment.. .. There is no method for critique .... [it) does not pro- ceed arbitrarily, but it cannot be fixed into a method.[21] This reconception of our reasoning ability offers a theoretical basis for Richard Pau I' s "alternative view" of critical thinking. The '" strong' sense" of critical thinking that Paul has been developing abandons atomic skills, arguments and issues in favor of comprehending any technique as only one among "a more complex set of actual or possible moves" which enable us to "organize or conceptualize the world, and our place in it, in somewhat different terms than others do."[22] Rather than remaining within the limitation of any actual argument or issue, then, Paul would relocate the reasoning process to a realm of possible personal and so- cial world-views, actions, and judg- ments. He stresses that it is only when we (both students and teachers) come to recognize that any given argument reflects, or if justified would serve, a given interest that we can, by imaginatively entertaining a competing interest, construct an oppo- sing pOint of view and so an opposing argument or set of arguments. It is by developing both arguments dialectically that we come to recognize their strengths and weaknesses.(23) "Arguments," as he goes on to say, "are not things-in-themselves"; ra- ther, they are actual or possible pre- sentations of factual or imagined con- texts, from actual or imagined perspec- tives (world-views). The example Paul provides of how to teach "critical thinking in the 'strong' sense" seems to me to respond, in some ways, to the need to move from the actual to the possible; from a "given" situation or argument to "ima- gined" alternatives. Two films which present radically different sets of "facts" in portraying one situation- U.S. involvement in Central America- Critical Thinking 5 do provide a demonstration of Paul's recognition that "the media" typically present "a profoundly nationalistic bias," and that any" 'ego' is identified in part with the national 'ego."'[24] Exploration of that situation can be the first step toward recognizing that our usual means of reasoning-i.e., instru- mental reason-do not go beyond the "given interest" represented in any "given argument." We can then go on to make that interest itself explicit, to "imaginatively construct" others, and to develop our considerations of these alternatives in a dialectical manner. There are two aspects of the notion of judgment that are not paralleled in Paul's proposal, however. My sug- gestion that they be added is offered on the basis of agreeing with the prob- lems and dangers (e.g. "sophistry" and "dismissal") he identifies, and so proposing additional "theoretical underpinning" for effective teaching of "critical thinking in the 'strong' sense." The first aspect of judgment that I would add to Paul's procedure is sug- gested by the following remark, which occurs when he gives us "some basic theoretical underpinnings for a 'strong sense' approach": Reasoning is an essential and defining operation presupposed by all human acts. To reason is to make use of ele- ments in a logical system to generate conclusions.(25) But if we do not inquire into what appears here to be the merely "given" character of "a log ical system," we limit ourselves to the question of "how" (do I apply these "elements") and exclude the question of "why" (they should be applied). This allows a powerful feature of instrumental reason to remain within our reasoning. We need, therefore, to do some phenomenological analysis in order to discover just what logical elements are implicit in our reasoning. Although Husserl's analysis of formal systems can serve as a model for this activity, I suggest that actually carrying out this 6 Lenore Langsdorf analysis in classroom practice is pre- ferable for theoretical and pedagogical, as well as ethical, reasons. The theore- tical and pedagogical advantages de- rive from our ability to justify the "use of elements of a logical system" on the basis of identifying them as intrin- sic structures of actual arguments- rather than as independent, abstract rules which the critical thinking teacher prescribes in much the same way that the medical doctor prescribe drugs for an illness. The ethical aspect involves our ability to show why "elements in a logical system" should apply to our arguments and actions. For neglecting to justify our prescriptions places us in the rather paradoxical position of saying to our students: "If you want to be a critical th i n ker, do exactly as I say." The second aspect of judgment which I would add to Paul's proposal is sug- gested by this mention of his own con- text: I teach in the United States .... [T]he media here as everywhere reflects, and the students have typically internalized, a profoundly 'nationalistic' bias .... [T]heir 'ego' is identified in part with the national 'ego,' nevertheless they are not. .. incapable of beginning the process of systematically questioning it.[26] Despite the phrase "as everywhere" in this remark, Paul's proposal is often read as critical of our media in particu- lar; and even, as claiming that Ameri- can students and American culture in general are more national istic than others. This seems to me a misreading of his proposal which may be en- couraged by a lack of explicit attention to the question of whether he is talking about reasoning in general, or as it is present in his particular situation. The principle of charity seems appropriate here, for the overall context of his work suggests that he is talking about the nature of reasoning itself, and how to cultivate improvements to it, rather than about any particular manifesta- tion. Presentation (as contrasted to repre- sentation) is the aspect of Angus's con- ception of judgment which would be helpful here in two ways. First, it pro- vides us with a theoretical (i.e. ideal) point from which to recognize that the "constitution of self and world by judg- ment is never exhausted by existing judgments."[27] Exploring the evid- ence for this feature of judgment (as provided by our own biographies and in fiction) allows us to recognize that any world view is intrinsically- by virtue of the very nature of human reasoning-a "particularization [an actual instance] of an unlimited pos- sibilityof constituting judgments."[28] We can thereby avoid getting side- tracked into any implication that our own reasoning is being singled out as particularly or especially deficient; e.g., that the media in our society is especially biased, or that a particular individual has a psychological defi- ciency or social disadvantage which interferes with reasoning. The second way in which the shift from a focus on individual cases to a concern with general structures is helpful involves understanding how it is that we can "internalize" bias without becoming "incapable of the process of systematically question i ng. " The feature of human being which allows this to occur, I suggest, is the theore- tical reciprocity of perspectives which phenomenological analysis of the life world confirms. In practice, this is often limited; one way to understand what critical thinking teaching is about, I suggest, is as the cultivation of that capacity for reciprocity. Paul refers to this as the necessity of moving from an egocentric and sociocentric world view to a dialectical one, and notes that he is "beginning" on the "develop- ment of 'strong sense' approaches" to teaching critical thinking on the dialectical model. [29] One of the "theoretical underpin- nings" for those approaches (which also need development, I suggest) is the effect of the media on our capacity to move from the egocentric stand- points from which human beings in- evitably begin. In the following two sec- tions, then, I will consider the ways in which two of the media-television and the printed word-may influence our capacity for moving from egocen- tricity toward a more public-dialogical or dialectical-position in which we are more capable of "systematic ques- tioning." Part Two: Television and Imagination Critical thinking is possible only where the standpoints of all others are open to inspection. Hence, critical thinking while still a solitary business has not cut itself off from 'all others.' ... [By] force of imagination, it makes the others present and thus moves potentially into a space which is public, open to all sides ... To think with the enlarged mentality-that means you train your imagination to go visiting ... [30] If you decide to watch television, then there's no choice but to accept the stream of electronic images as it comes. The first effect of this is to create a passive mental attitude .... Thinking only gets in the way. There is a second dif- ficulty. Television information seems to be received more in the unconscious than the conscious regions of the mind .... The image doesn't exist in the world, and so cannot be observed as you would another person .... Perhaps th is quality of nonexistence, at least in concrete worldly form, disqualifies this image information from being subject to conscious processes: thinking, dis- cernment, analysis.[31] My theme in this section can perhaps be best stated in hypothetical form: if, as Hannah Arendt claims, the "force of imagination" is crucial to moving us from egocentricity; and if, as Jerry Mander asserts, television as a techno- logy-i.e. in its very form, rather than by virtue of its contents (the program- ming)-suppresses our "power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never be- fore wholly perceived in reality" (which is a dictionary definition of "imagina- tion"), then we have a situation in which the most pervasive technology in most of our lives, television, works against the capacities for "imagina- Critical Thinking 7 tion, discernment, [and] analysis" that are basic to thinking critically. The "four arguments for the elimina- tion of television" developed (albeit in a speculative and "nonscholarly" fashion) by Mander focus primarily on the "technology being used upon viewers" so that they-which is to say, we-can separate technique from con- tent" and examine the erroneous assumption that technologies are 'neutral.' We have not learned to think of technology as having ideology built into its very form.[32] By virtue of its form, Mander argues, television is less a communications or educational medium, as we wished to think of it, than an instrument that plants im- ages-and does so in a way that allows for no cognition, no discernment, no notations upon the experience one is having.[33] Before going on to consider Mander's claims, I want to discuss the role that imagination plays in Angus's and Paul's critiques. We can then consider Mander's claim that the form of tele- vision-television by virtue of its very technology-suppresses the develop- ment of imagination, and thus, sup- presses our capacity to "go visiting" beyond egocentricity; i.e., exercise judgment in that "public space" where dialogical thinking occurs.[34] In the course of discussing Hannah Arendt's remarks on imagination (quoted at the start of this section), Ian Angus indicates how imagination expands judgment beyond the limits of instrumental reason: The operation of representation is a function of the imagination in which the 'free play' of the mind is not limited by a definite concept. Kant describes the imagination as 'gathering together the manifold of intuition': it is not limited to actual presentations but con- sists in the combination and re-arrange- ment of previous, present, and anti- cipated presentations. This imaginative reconstruction does not take place with reference to a pre-defined purpose but rather involves a relationship to an anti- cipated singular judgment of a parti- 8 Lenore Langsdorf cular which itself implies a universaliza- tion .[35] There are three ways that imagination functions, then, which makes it essen- tial to judgment: it "gathers" the contributions of our different senses· it gives us access to presentations that are actually absent, but potentially- as "anticipated" -present; and it enables us to transcend "reference" (delimited, "pre-defined" ends) by anticipating alternative possibilities. If we consider how the mind would func- tion without these abilities, we have a close approxi mation to Angus's charac- terization of instrumental reason that limits us to actual techniques for means-end deliberation. Richard Paul's discussion of the dif- ferences between critical thinking in the" strong" and "weak" senses sug- gests that these same three functions ?f imagination are necessary if the ego IS to move beyond "atomic arguments" that are presented without any concern for context-i .e. either the individual subjects or the specific situations which give rise to those arguments. "Strong sense critical thinking" recognizes that these arguments "are in fact a limited set of moves within a more complex set of ac~ual or possible moves reflecting a variety of logically significant engage- ments in the world."[36] Since we can only evaluate the "strengths and weak- nesses of the [particular case of] rea- soning in relation to alternate pos- sibilities, "critical thinking in the 'strong' sense" simply cannot be prac- ticed within the limits of actual egocen- tric and sociocentric positions: It is only when we recognize ... that a given argument reflects ... a given interest that we can, by imaginatively entertaining a competing interest, construct an opposing point of view .... [37] Paul's "sample assignment" certainly uses the imagination in this way. For it is designed to go beyond the ego's all-too-comfortable starting point and resting place, by requiring the student to "view and analyze critically ... two incompatible world views" and then , "construct a dialogue between two of the most intelligent defenders of each of the points of view."[38] Rather than apply a technique to an actual argument, the student must generate and reflect upon possible arguments in a dialogical manner, and so trans- cend the egocentric world view from which we all begin to reason. However, the technology of tele- vision, as Mander portrays it, is one wh.ich encourages the ego to develop qUite an opposite set of reactions. "Instead of training active attention" one of the researchers he cites sa;s, "television seems to suppress it."[39] Instead of requiring the ego to use its experience and imagination to trans- cend egocentricity, this technology re- ~uires the ego to stay put-quite literally, as well as figuratively. In contrast to imagination's func- tion in "gathering" the contributions of all five senses, television engages only two, and even these are often sun- dered in a way quite alien to the pre- sentations of pre-technological life. For example: the visual and aural stimuli are often non-synchronized, as when we see people walking on a dis- tant hillside but hear their conversa- tion as though they were next to us. The natural informational balance between aural and visual has been shattered. Now, information that you take in with visual sense cannot be used to modify or help process the informa- tion from the aural sense because they have been isolated from each other and reconstructed.[ 40] This "isolation" and "reconstruction" moreover, are not a product of our o~n imagination, and so the process which accomplished them is not available to ?ur reflection. If it were, we might train our imagination to thematize other ways in which it might have been done; other products which might have resulted. Instead, we have a hidden process, instigated by an unknown author, and resulting in a product quite isolated from our own actual lived experience. The "two semi- operative senses cannot benefit from the usual mix of information that human beings employ to deduce mean- ing from their surroundings."[41] The ego is instead reinforced in its iso- lation, supplied with "implanted images," all of which "arrive in se- quence with equal val idity. "[ 42] It has passively received the product of a "process of ... dissociation and re- structuring ... which automatically con- fines real ity to itself." [43] What this isolated ego has not done is interact, both actually and imagina- tively, with pretechnologically-pro- cessed lived experience-which is the real context of both logic and logic- users. In that interaction (and in situa- tions such as Paul's sample assign- ment) the ego has opportunities to choose and develop alternative pos- sibilities, and then, to discover and de- velop logical practices in order to judge competing claims to validity. "Knowl- edge is gained," as Mander points out, "by discerning change, by noting the event that is different from all others, by making distinctions and establishing patterns. "[44] Our everyday lived experience provides opportunities for these activities, but they are absent in the processed experience (so to speak) provided by television. Although I have limited this con- sideration of television to the effect of its form upon the development of imagination, and thus on the cultiva- tion of our capacity to become critical thinkers, one remark by Mander about content is so directly relevant to critical thinking as to demand inclusion. In a study reporting on what sorts of knowl- edge viewers believe they gain from television programs, "practical knowl- edge and methods of problem-solving lead the list of knowledge reported acquired through these program."[4S] Regardless of programming content, however, the very form of television deprives the ego of the conditions for attaining knowledge which are offered by actual and imagined experience. Nor will additional technology-e.g. recorders which allow us to replay fleeting images, or pause when we wish to reflect on them-repair this lack. For we have no part in the supply Critical Thinking 9 and mix of its perspectives, no con- tribution to the internal temporal struc- ture of the finished product, and no ability to supplement it with alternative images of the same kind. My consideration of television as a form has focused on its technology as one which intrinsically suppresses the conditions needed for an ego to develop the "imaginative force" needed to re- locate from egocentricity to that dialogical "space" identified by Hannah Arendt as "public, open to all sides."[46] This should not be cons- trued as any sort of general ized re- jection of technology, or even as agree- ment with Mander's assertion that tele- vision should be "eliminated." Rather, my interest in the effects of cultural factors on reasoning capacity is insti- gated by the conviction that our at- tempts to teach "strong sense" criti- cal thinking stand a better chance of surviving those "moments of frustra- tion and cynicism" that Paul mentions if we are aware of factors in the culture which operate at cross purposes to ours. [47] Correlatively, I bel ieve that we are more apt to teach "strong sense" critical thinking effectively if we make use of factors in our culture wh ich support the development of imagination, and thus, aid in cultiva- ting our capacity to be critical thinkers. If Paul Ricoeur's thesis is correct, another technology-the printed word-provides such aid. We can now consider his proposal: the ego becomes the self-i.e., transcends its egocen- tricity-through encounter with text. Part Three: Ego, Text, and Self fiction is not an instance of reproductive imag ination, but of productive imagina- tion .... all symbolic systems have a cog- nitive value: they make reality appear in such and such a way ... they generate new grids for reading experience or for producing it.[48] appropriation is the process by which the revelat ion of new modes of bei ng ... gives the subject new capacities for knowing himself.. .. Thus appropriation 10 Lenore Langsdorf ceases to appear as a new kind of possession .... lt implies instead a mo- ment of dispossession of the narcissistic ego .... 1 should like to contrast the self which emerges from the understanding of the text to the ego which claims to precede this understanding. It is the text, with its universal power of un- veiling, which gives a self to the ego.[49] My theme in this concluding section is that at this point in human history, the ability to think critically, as non- egocentric selves, is dependent upon the encounter with texts that portray an imagined world-i.e., with literary texts. A crucial distinction must be stressed at the outset. Just as the previous sec- tion proposed that the form of tele- vision suppresses imagination, and thus opposes the very possibility of critical thinking, my argument here is that the form of literary texts sup- ports, and perhaps even fosters, the development of imagination and (there- fore) critical thinking. Since this claim is directly dependent upon Paul Ri- coeur's theory of text, I offer a sum- mary of that theory, and concl ude with a brief mention of one endeavor to teach critical thinking from the theore- tical basis I propose here, and which derives from his work. Before consider- ing Ricoeur's work, however, I begin with Mander's remarks on the techno- logy of text, in contrast to television. The persistent theme in Mander's critique of television as a technology is that its very form "implants images" that rule out depth, subtlety, and com- pari son with actual experience, and it does this all in a manner that "dis- sociates" and "restructures" those images. Thus, he argues, "discerning" their variation from sequences in the lifeworld, "making distinctions" among them, or "establishing pat- terns" that transfer rei iably to the I ife- world which they purport to represent -in short all of the acitivies which critical thi~king seeks to develop-are discouraged. Instead, "passive" re- ception of these technologically pro- duced images is encouraged.[50] One reason for discounting Man- der's portrayal, I suspect, is our recog- nition that all of our experience is "arti- ficially reconstructed" by technology. Mander holds that our only choice is between "accepting this interpreta- tion of reality as our own" and rejecting it in favor of "trying to understand the world solely through [our] own isolated mental processes." [51] A th i rd alter- native, however, would be to seek, within our technologically formed en- vironment, means that provide some assistance in transcending our socio- centric and egocentric context. Mander does note that the printed word, by virtue of its form, offers that possibil- ity: print can express much greater depth, complexity, change of mood, subtlety, detail .... Books ... can be written in much slower rhythms,_ encouraging a percep- tion that builds, state by stage, over the length of a long reading process .... [52] As one of Mander's sources noted: "The response to print may be fair- ly described as active ... while the res- ponse to television may be fairly des- cribed as passive."[53] Ricoeur's analysis of "response" as the "appropriation" moment of our interaction with printed discourse- text-identifies it as a culminating mo- ment that displaces "narcissistic ego" in favor of an emerging "self." Both the author's and the reader's egos are transcended in this moment: The relation to the world of the text takes the place of the relation to the subjectivity of the author, and at the same time the problem of the subjecti- vity of the reader is displaced. To understand is not to project oneself onto the text but to expose oneself to it; it is to receive a self enlarged by the appropriation of proposed worlds which interpretation unfolds .... fiction is ... a fundamental dimension of the subject- ivity of the reader: in reading, I 'un- realize myself.' Reading introduces me to imaginative variations of the ego.[54] In the public space of the proposed (i .e., possible or potential) world "in front of the text," then, we have "a recourse against any given reality -.~-.. ----~------------------ and thereby the possibility of a critique of the real."[55] To interact with the possible world of the text is to enlarge "reality" by including "ideality"- i.e., possibilities that transcend time, or are omni-temporally available. When the ego encounters text, then, there is a displacement from a given, actually existing egocentric situation, to a do- main of meaning which is always po- tentially available to anyone who takes up the text, reads, and may thereby become enlightened.[56] Appropriation of the text's meanings is a process that contrasts quite drama- tically to reception of television's images (as in Mander's account), or projection of the ego's world view (as in Paul's portrayal), or assimilation of the culture's values (as in Angus's critique). In Ricoeur's analysis of the nature of our interaction with text, "appropriation is the dialectical counterpart of distanciation," which is, in turn, "the condition of possibility of understanding oneself in front of the text."[57] This latter feature of the form of text is unique in our present historical situation: neither television's images nor our culture's values are distanciated; i.e. they do not appear to us as objects that are alien to us as sub- jects. In the case of television, they quite literally come to be within our perceptual processes: "the image doesn't exist in the world."[58] In the case of cultural values, they are incor- porated into ends that are assumed (by instrumental reason) to lie outside of reason's proper sphere. The evidence for Ricoeur's dialectic of appropriation and distanciation is phenomenological: i.e., it is derived from his observations of lived expe- rience. Distanciation as an essential feature (moment) of the reader's en- counter with text is documented quite vividly in reports by poetry and litera- ture teachers. They despair, at least at times, of making the content of the "great books" accessible to their stu- dents. In terms of Ricoeur's analysis: the spatiotemporal distance between the world of those texts and the situa- tions of contemporary students is such Critical Thinking 11 that appropriation of the text's world appears to be impossible. Students insist that requiring them to defend their interpretations amounts to de- nying those "feelings," "intuitions," and "higher consciousness" mentioned by Paul as common alternatives to critical thinking. Or, they refuse to encounter the texts on any level past that of plot synopsis, and that only for purposes of passing an examination. Accepting either result, if we continue to use Paul's terms, would be teaching literature in a "weak sense"; i.e. as an aid to "sophistry" or incentive for "dismissal" -despite the teacher's hope that a "global 'Socratic' effect" (even, enlightenment) would occur. Ricoeur proposes that distanciation, as a moment (essential feature) of the form of text, determines that distance of content evidenced by this classroom experience. Both types of distancing can now be understood positively, as part of the "condition of possibility of understanding" both self and world.[59] We have already looked at the nature of appropriation in that way; a correlative look at the nature of dis- tanciation will enable us to focus on a common feature in both moments and-by means of that feature-on the value of literary texts for teaching cri- tical thinking. Distanciation is Ricoeur's term for the text's presence as a perennially distant and autonomous force-an "atemporal object" that solicits tempo- ral responses.[60] This is not the sort of object that can be possessed; Ri- coeur specifically warns us that "appro- priation" is not "a new kind of posses- sion."[61] The atemporality of the text-also called omni-temporality and ideal ity - rei nforces its ch aracter as alien to us. It has an essentially distant nature which is the ruin of the ego's pretension to constitute itself as ultimate origin. The ego must assume for itself the 'imaginative variations' by which it could respond to the 'imaginative variations' on reality that literature and poetry, more than any other form of discourse, engender.[62] 12 Lenore Langsdorf In other words: faced with an object that presents alternatives to the "false evidences of everyday reality" -es- pecially its implicit claim to be the only possible reality-the reader is pushed to respond to the force of the text from a standpoi nt other than that reader's everyday reality; i.e. from a standpoint that remains centered upon, but is no longer limited to, the actual ego.[63] Given the mode of inquiry inculcated by our "scientific age" (operating with instrumental reason), the inevitable question that greets this analysis is: "how"? Ricoeur's response is to direct us towards a capacity, rather than to impose a method (technique): Are we not ready to recognize in the power of imagination, no longer the faculty for deriving 'images' from our sensory experience, but the capacity for letting new worlds shape our un- derstanding of ourselves? This power would not be conveyed by images, but by the emergent meanings in our lan- guage.[64] The less-asked question, and the one which moves us beyond instrumental reason, is: "why"? Paul's and Angus's critiques suggest the teleological res- ponse to that question: the goal of en- countering text is that "global 'Socra- tic' effect" called "enlightenment." The power of the text resides, then, in ideal (omni-temporal) meanings which originate beyond the real (tempo- rally restricted) situation of the reader. Actualizing or realizing those meanings requires exercise of the "power of imagination," if they are to have sig- nificance within the reader's particu- lar situation.[65] Correlatively, read- ers "unreal ize" (so to speak) those particular meanings in their encounter with the text's meanings. Through this process, the egocentricity of both reader and author are transcended.[66] The "ego divests itself of itself," freeing the reader for relocation "beyond the limited horizon of his own existential situation ."[67] And this is precisely where he needs to be, Richard Paul argues, if "critical thinking in the 'strong' sense" is to occur. Not coincidentally, the college within which I teach is developing a concep- tion of teaching literature, critical thinking, and writing in an integrated manner, so that our students (and we ourselves) can reflect upon our ego- centric situations from within the public space-the world-constituted by the text.[68] We would like to reverse the culturally-implanted presupposi- tion that books, logic, and composi- tion are things that have a quasi- existence in the classroom, at best. Our hypothesis is that the way to accomplish that reversal is to thematize the origins of these "things" in, and their applicability to, the lifeworld of readers, writers, and thinkers. The aim is to integrate philosophy, literature and composition within the context of the students' lives, rather than pre- sent them as abstract entities to be applied as techniques or seen as con- ducive to some form of "higher con- sciousness"-and thus limited to an inner, ego logical situation. The multi- plicity of interpretations arising from reading texts can be used, in that inte- grated context, to thematize the appro- priateness of a "logic of probability" for validation (in contrast to verifica- tion) of conflicting claims as to the na- ture of reality in the imaginatively- constituted world of the self and the text.[69] When students enter the writing process, then, we expect them to do so as selves, rather than as egos (using both of these terms in Ricoeur's sense). The enlightened position we hope to encourage is described by Ricoeur as one in which, when "arguing about the meaning of an action [or a text,] I put my wants and beliefs at a distance and submit then to a concrete dialectic of confrontation with opposite points of view."[70] That dialogue of selves within the public sphere established by text is critical thinking as a force for enlightenment. [71] r Notes [1] Richard Paul, "Teaching Critical Thinking in the 'Strong' Sense: A Focus on Self-Deception, World Views, and a Dialectical Mode of Analysis," Informal Logic News- letter 4: 2-7 (May 1982). Hereafter, cited as "Paul." [2] The most relevant texts would be: for Angus, Technique and Enlight- enment: Limits of Instrumental Reason (Washington D.C.: Center for Advanced Research in Pheno- menology and University Press of America, 1984). Hereafter, cited as "Angus." For Husserl, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, trans. D. Carr (Evanston: North- western University Press, 1970) and Formal and Transcendental Logic, trans. D. Cairns (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1969). For Critical Theory, Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, trans. J. Cumming (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972) and Max Horkheimer, "Traditional and Critical Theory," in Critical Theory, trans. M. O'Connell et. al. (New York: Herder and Herder, 1972). [3] The most relevant text would be: Paul Ricoeur, Hermeneutics and the Human Sciences: Essays on Language, Action, and Interpreta- tion, trans. J .B. Thompson (Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Hereafter, cited as "Ricoeur." For a discussion of egocentricity as inevitable but transcendable, see my "Egocentri- city: What it is and Why it mat- ters ," presented at the Fourth I nternational Conference on Cri- tical Thinking and Educational Reform, Sonoma State University, August 1986. [4] Angus, 94 (my emphasis). [5] Paul, 3. [6] As he notes (in his footnote 24, Critical Thinking 13 p. 12), "while it is legitimate to attribute the term 'instrumental reason' to Horkheimer, it is by no means his favored one." The term is used quite generally in the Frankfurt School tradition; Angus's correlative term, "judg- ment," is equally common in the Kantian and Husserlian tradi- tions. [7] Angus, 17. [8] Angus, 56, 67, 121, 135-137, 140-141. Although Angus's analy- sis denies the possibility of any such grounding, Husserl's places any such claim "under the epo- che." That is, the possibility is not denied, but it is rigorously re- moved from consideration. [9] Angus, 4; d. 12,48,51,85. [10] This phrase is used throughout Angus's book to refer to the his- torical effect of "universalized instrumental reason." [11] Paul, 3. [12] Paul,2. [13] Angus, 19. [14] These "translations" between Marxian and Husserlian vocabu- laries are accurate, I would argue; but that argument cannot be given here. I use them as if they were unproblematic, for heuristic pur- poses: i.e., to stress the conver- gence between some strands of neomarxist analysis (such as Critical Theory) and Husserlian phenomenological analysis. Also, I use them to reinforce the recipro- city of evidence Angus finds in Husserl's analysis of lived ex- perience as the origin and telos of ideal structures (theoretical entities), and neomarxian (even, perhaps, Marx's) analysis of eco- nomic base and ideological super- structure. [15] Angus, 56; d. footnote 8. [16] Angus, 33. 14 Lenore Langsdorf [17] Angus, 20. [18] Angus, 93. [19] Angus, 126-127 (my emphasis). [20] Angus, 125. This accessibility of objects as both presented in indivi- dual, immediate experience and represented in systems is a major difference between Husserl's analysis and those semiotic and hermeneutic traditions which hold that we have access only to objects as constituted by sys- tem. For these latter trad itions, our reflection can only capture ex- perience as already limited by sys- tems (and so, informed by theory and history); it cannot also en- counter immediately present facets of a pre-theoretical life- world. [21] Angus, 142-143 (my emphasis). [22] Paul, 3-4 (my emphasis). [23] Paul, 5 (my emphasis). [24] Paul, 5. In keeping with the per- sistently self-critical character stressed in the notion of judgment; I would note that the instructions (given to the students who are to analyze the "incompatible world views" represented in these films) are heavy with cultural assump- tions. Paul characterizes the two positions as "a right-wing think- tank film alleging ... " and a "World Council of Church's [sic] film in defense ... " (Angus, 6). [25] Paul, 4. [26] Paul, 5. [27] Angus, 143 (quoted in context in the quotation identified in foot- note 21). In Husserlian terms, this step would be the "transcendental reduction"; i.e., the focus on "any subjectivity whatever" or on the' very possibility of reasoning- rather than on any particular, indi- vidual reasoning process. [28] Angus, 143. [29] Paul, 7. [30] Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind, Vol. 2 (New York: Harcourt, 1978), 257 (my emphasis). Quoted by Angus (page 107). [31] Jerry Mander, Four Argum.e~ts For The Elimination of TeleVISion (New York: Quill, 1978, 200-201 (my emphasis). Hereafter cited as Mander. [32] Mander, 310, 350. [33] Mander, 204 (my emphasis). [34] Arendt, 257; quoted in context at the start of Part Two. [35] Angus, 105; see footnote 20 and accompanying text for "repre- sentation ." The enclosed quota- tion is from Immanuel Kant, Critique of Judgment, trans. J .H. Barnard (New York: Collier Mac- millian, 1974), 15. The suggestion arising even from this very brief treatment of the connection between the subject's use of imagination to transcend "ego" in a movement toward "self"- as prerequisite for the practice of critical thinking/judgment- is that "pure reason" may be dependent upon "judgment." (That is: the First Critique may be grounded in the Third.) Obviously, this is a proposition requiring considera- tion in a very different essay, which must also consider the con- nections and discrepancies bet- ween Kant's use of "imagination" and the term as used by Angus, Arendt, Mander, Paul, and Ri- coeur. [36] Paul, 3. [37] Paul, 4-5 (my emphasis). [38] Paul, 6. Although the two films are the primary sources of informa- tion for these imaginative con- structions, Paul notes that they are supplemented by a variety of sen- sory stimulation and include the reading of texts. Furthermore, l Mander argues that film techno- logy, although it makes use of some of the same surface tech- niques as television (e.g., high- contrast scenes and a predomi- nance of close-ups) is not as restricted to them; nor does the film rely on the same neurophysio- logical techniques (e.g., projec- tion of "non-existent" images). [39] Mander, 209. [40] Mander, 276 (my emphasis). [41] Mander, 168 (my emphasis). [42] Mander, 291. [43] Mander, 198. [44] Mander, 300. [45] Mander, 254. He identifies the re- port as Television and Social Be- havior, Vol. 4, "prepared by the National Institute of Mental Health for the Department of Health, Education, and Wel- fare." [46] These phrases from Arendt are quoted in context at the start of this section. [47] Paul, 3. [48] Ricoeur, 292-293 (my emphasis). Ricoeur notes that he is using Nelson Goodman's term, "sym- bolic systems," interchangeably with" fiction." [49] Ricoeur, 192-193 (author's empha- sis). [50] The terms in quotation marks are from Mander, 132-133, 197-198, 200-201, 300; all are quoted in context elsewhere in the text. [51] Mander, 87. [52] Mander, 336; d. 202-203. [53] Mander, 208; quoting Herbert Krugman. [54] Ricoeur, 94 (my emphasis); d., 188 and footnote 35. Critical Thinking 15 [55] Ricoeur, 93 (my emphasis); d., 142-143. [56] Ricoeur, 192. My allusion is to St. Augustine's account of his conver- sion (Confessions, Books Eight and Nine). Translated into the vocabulary of this paper: after years of wandering in civilization as an ego, he encounters a text which instigates the replacement of ego with self and retires to the countryside to integrate this trans- formation. The publ ic man ifesta- tion of this private enlightenment is a change of occupation: he re- signs his rhetoric professorship and takes Holy Orders. [57] Ricoeur, 92. [58] Mander, 201; quoted in context at the start of Part Two. [59] Ricoeur, 94. [60] Ricoeur, 185. [61] Ricoeur, 192; quoted in context at the start of Part Three. [62] Ricoeur, 113-114 (author's empha- sis). [63] Ricoeur, 113. [64] Ricoeur, 181. [65] I follow E.D. Hirsch, Jr. in using "meaning" and "significance" in this way, to differentiate the world-of-the-text from the en- larged world-of-the-subject who appropriates that text. See, e.g., Validity in Interpretation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1967), and The Aims of Interpreta- tion (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1976), 1-6. [66] Ricoeur, 94. The dialectical nature of this process must be stressed. In Hegelian terms: the ego extern- alizes itself in an objective moment (the text) that originates beyond ego and resists ego's attempt to reduce the text to its own projec- tion. Yet in being understood, 16 Lenore Langsdorf sublation (die Aufhebung) occurs: self, as the unification of subject (reader) and object (text) comes into being. This essential persistence of the text as a perennially available mo- ment of objectivity is crucial to Ricoeur's text theory, and thus, to the conception of enlighten- ment I propose with that theory as basis. As a structural feature that insists upon the availability of objective meaning, it provides a sharp contrast to that variant of the "power of imagination" which I would call the "power of deconstruction," as originated by Jacques Derrida. By discouraging passivity toward the text, deconstruction provides a force against the inges- tion of any system that would limit an ego to instrumental rea- son, i.e., render it incapable of judging beyond established, "given," means-ends complexes. Thus, deconstruction seems to use the distanciation moment (or move) in Ricoeur's dialectic, perhaps even to the point of the disappearance of the subject(s) (the author and/or reader) as well as the object (the text) into an all-encompassing process: the technique called deconstruction. However, insofar as deconstruc- tion as a technique does reach that point, it is incapable of practicing the appropriation moment in Ri- coeur's dialectic. For it has brought about the destruction of the text as an objective resource, i.e., as an omni-temporal meaning, potentially available for an infi- nitude of actualizations by subjects who read it. I n other words, the ego, in explaining the text as a humanly-created process, had explained away the text as object- ive ideality. As a result, there is no non-egocentric world to appro- priate in understanding as the new, imaginatively constructed locus for constituting a self. The ultimate result is then limitation to technique (the deconstructive process) and the reversal of en- lightenment (by eliminating the conditions for the possibility of constituting self and world). There is another way to look at the deconstructing process which also results in the frustration of Ricoeur's dialectic. This occurs if the process is understood as originating in the ego, rather than in the encounter with the text. Ricoeur's critique of the subject- ivizing tendency which he finds beginning in Descartes and con- tinuing into Cadamer then be- comes relevant. (See Ricoeur, 190-192, 66-68.) The process be- gins and ends with ego; deprived of object (text) as the external mo- ment to be encountered, self can- not emerge: there is no opportu- nity to "exchange the me, master of itself, for the self, disciple of the text." (Ricoeur, 113; d. C.W.F. Hegel. The Phenomeno- logy of Spirit, Section B.4.A.) [67] Ricoeur, 191. [68] The project, entitled "CACTIP: Composition, Analysis of Text, Critical Thinking Integrated Pro- gram," has been funded by the Division of Educational Programs, National Endowment for the Humanities, for implementation June 1985 - May 1987. [69] Ricoeur, 211-213; d., 175. Ricoeur mentions his reliance upon Hirsch's theory of text here; see footnote 65. [70] Ricoeur, 214. [71] This paper was presented at the Th i rd I nternational Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform, Sonoma State University, July 1985. An earlier version was read at the APA Pacific Division meeting in San Francisco, March 1985. I would like to thank Harold Alderman for his thoughtful and detailed comments on that paper. Briefer versions of this paper ~ .• --.---___ ';;"';;';;O"O~ ......... iooiiiiioi ......... _____________ ..... r (which present Section Two in a self-contained form) were read at the AILACT session, APA Eastern Division meeting in Washington, D.C., December 1985; Christopher Newport College Conference on Critical Thinking, April 1986; and the I nternational Conference on Argumentation in Amsterdam, June 1986. I would like to acknowledge an especially extensive debt to these colleagues, students, and teachers with whom I've discussed various parts of the paper in its Critical Thinking 17 several versions: Ian Angus, Ron Bloomquist, Dennis Danvers, Jacques Derrida, Ralph Johnson, Robert E. Longacre, Tom Mc- Cormick, Nancy McKenzie, Richard Paul, Susan Lynn Peter- son, Kenneth L. Pike, Thomas E. Porter, Harry Reeder, and Paul Ricoeur. Dr. Lenore Langsdorf, Department of Philosophy, The University of Texas at Arlington, P.O. Box 19527, Arling- ton, Texas 76019. D