Informal Logic 
VI1.1, Winter 1985 

Paul's Critique of CRITICAL THINKING AND EDUCATION 

JOHN MCPECK University of Western Ontario 

Usually, it is unwise for an author of 
a book even to attempt responding to 
a published critique of his/her book 
with a brief rebuttal. He/she is always 
on the defense, and cannot, therefore, 
avoid appearing defensive. An essay 
in the New York Review of Books re-
cently described all such attempted re-
buttals as an "ABM" : an Author's 
Big Mistake. (I can recall one rare, 
but notable, exception to this general 
caution. It is from the famous Leibniz-
Clarke Correspondence, wherein Leib-
niz prudently responded to a lengthy 
and bitter critique by Clarke with but 
one statement: I J I deny the major 
premise." Anything more is likely to 
become an ABM.) 

In the present case, the editors of 
Informal Logic have kindly requested 
that I respond to Richard Paul's review 
of my Critical Thinking and Educa-
tion (N.Y., St. Martin Press, 1981). 
And they have specifically asked that 
I not review this Review, but rather 
restrict myself to the 'I substantive 
philosophical differences between us". 
With this restriction in mind, therefore, 
I hope it becomes clear that my com-
ments are not intended to rebut all 
of Paul's many charges. It is rather an 
attempt to uncover what I think he has 
gotten wrong, and to discuss the "sub-
stantive philosophical differences 
between us". Putting the ABM aside, 
my intent is light, not heat. 

I will treat each of Paul's more sub-
stantive points in their order of appear-
ance. 

Paul's opening comment about my 
books asserts that I made several 
"foundational mistakes", and that 
these have "serious flaws in their 
theoretical underpinnings". Little 
doubt the book might contain some of 
this. But as I examine Paul's critique, 
I find less evidence of "mistakes" and 
"serious flaws" than of misunder-
standing of my position and perhaps 
genuine disagreement. 

The first, and perhaps most perva-
sive, "mistake" that Paul finds is that 
I supposedly subscribe to "a rarefied 
form of logical atomism". It is never 
quite clear to me what, precisely, Paul 
means by "logical atomism". His 
meaning clearly differs from what most 
philosophers understand by that 
phrase, namely, the basic language 
elements in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. 
Nor is his meaning at all like Russell's 
meaning in The Philosophy of Logical 
Atomism (1918). Rather, Paul seems to 
be coining his own phrase which is 
apparently meant to refer to my view 
that not all knowledge and skills are cut 
from the same cloth. It is quite true that 
I defend the view that, for example, 
a critical mathematician possesses a 
kind of knowledge and skill that is 
different from a critical historian. 
And in general, different domains of 



46 John McPeck 

knowledge have (more often than not) 
characteristically different patterns of 
reasoning and argument that are 
peculiar to themselves. This view, in-
cidentally, is a well-trodden philoso-
phical path which leads back to Aris-
totle's Posterior Analytics, or to Witt-
genstein's Philosophical Investigations, 
particularly the notion of different 
"language games". Thus, while my 
particular statement of my position may 
or may not contain certain errors, it is, 
I think, gross overstatement to claim 
that the view contains "serious flaws 
in its theoretical underpinnings", 
or that it consists of serious "founda-
tional mistakes". Aristotle, Witt-
genstein, and I (if you'll forgive me) 
may all be wrong of course, but if so, 
it is not as obvious as Paul seems to 
think. 

The major philosophical differences 
that divide Paul and me seem to reside 
in his basic charge that my position is 
"atomistic", or "technological/special-
ist" as he sometimes calls it. However, 
it seems to me that this charge is based 
upon both a misinterpretation of my 
view, and also an honest disagreement. 
At times, I confess, I'm not sure which 
is which, but let me try to explain these 
differences as succinctly as I can. 

Paul marshals two separate and dis-
tinguishable arguments to support 
his charge (or characterization) of my 
position as being "atomistic", or 
"technological/specialist". The first 
argument concerns my rejection of 
generalized reasoning skills, and the 
second reflects his observation that 
most problems are in fact "multi-
categorical" and not domain-specific. 
Both of these arguments, however, are 
simply two different ways of rejecting 
my general view that critical thinking 
and rationality are primarily domain-
specific and context-dependent (there-
fore, they do not represent II general 
reasoning skills," in Paul's desired 
sense). I will treat each of Paul's argu-
ments in a moment, but I think there is 

a much larger problem that moderates 
our disagreement. This larger problem 
cannot be resolved here, but I think 
it important to recognize that it does 
exist and that it helps explain the na-
ture of our disagreement. 

As time goes on, it becomes increas-
ingly clear to me that my differences 
with the Informal Logic Movement 
(I LM) generally, may have their roots 
in a fundamentally different conception 
of how logic and language are connect-
ed to thought. This fundamental dif-
ference amounts to nothing less than a 
Kuhn-type paradigm clash about the 
nature of these connections. Thus, we 
continue to talk past one another, like 
ships passing in the night, each failing 
to be persuaded by the other's argu-
ments. This paradigm clash is between 
what I would call a Wittgensteinian 
view about the nature of logic, lan-
guage and thought that stresses the 
semantic and pragmatic features of 
logic and the more typically North 
American view which stresses the form-
ai, syntactical features of logic and 
reasoning. For Wittgenstein, logic 
inheres within language and speech 
acts themselves. For the logicist (or 
North American view) logic is an exo-
genous system of rules and principles 
into which language can be plugged-
in as a variable. While Informal Logic 
is less mathematical, or less formal 
than formal logic, nonetheless it shares 
the same syntactic preoccupation with 
rules and principles of reasoning (of a 
weaker sort) that is so characteristic 
offormallogic proper. (Hence, the per-
sistent talk abo'ut "theories of fallacy, /I 
"theories of reasoning," "theories of 
informal logic," etc., all of which seek 
generalizable canons of reasoning and 
argument in one form or other.) Witt-
genstein, on the other hand, did not 
believe such canons of reasoning were 
forthcoming, because the locus of logic 
(not mathematical or formal, however) 
resides within the speech acts them-
selves. For Wittgenstein, you can no 



more separate the logic of a speech act 
from the act itself than you can separate 
all the thread from the cloth and still 
have the cloth. To the extent that this 
view might be true incidentally, it helps 
to explain the well known difficulties 
associated with trying to accurately 
portrait the true structure of real argu-
ments with formal schemata-the more 
real the argument, the more difficult 
is the portrayal. Wittgenstein's view 
explains why this is so. I am not here 
trying to defend Wittgenstein, but 
merely trying to point out that when 
'logic' and 'reasoning' are perceived 
from these fundamentally different 
points of view much confusion and mis-
understanding is bound to ensue. 

I first saw evidence of this basic clash 
at the First International Symposium 
on Informal Logic (University of Wind-
sor, 1978) when Peter A. Minkus 
presented a paper from an avowedly 
Wittgensteinian point of view. (Its 
title was IJ Arguments That Aren't 
Arguments".) Despite the paper's 
unusual style, and at times confusing 
presentation, the amount of misun-
derstanding (and hostility) which it 
generated far surpassed any internal 
muddles it may have contained. The 

I 
two paradigms had come face-to-face: 
neither understood the otheL Further 
evidence of this clash can be found in 
Ralph Johnson's painstaking review of 
Stephen Toulmin's Introduction to 
Reasoning in this journal (March, 
1981). In his bones, Toulmin is a Witt-
gensteinian, and he views logic from 
this perspective. But in Introduction 
to Reasoning he is trying to have it both 
ways by straddling the two paradigms: 
He is trying to fit a Wittgensteinian 
view of Logic, and logical relationships, 
into semi-formalistic mold. Needless 
to say, the fit is a very awkward one at 
best-as square pegs into round holes 
always are. Johnson, indeed, has done 
a fair, and credible job showing the 
several ways in which Toulmin has 
failed in his objective. However, John-

Paul's Critique 47 

son's yardstick for measuring success 
or failure was a typically formalistic 
(e.g. North American) one. Toulmin's 
program simply does not square with 
formalistic desiderata, as Johnson 
correctly points out; but the latter Witt-
genstein would have predicted as 
much. 

The paradigm clash between Toul-
min and Johnson is at its clearest in 
Johnson's discussion of Toulmin's key 
notion of a "warrant", which is in-
tended to displace rules of' inference. 
Johnson writes: 

Of all the elements in Toulmin's 
schema, the warrant is the one I had the 
greatest problem understanding. The 
intuitive idea seems clear enough, but 
(as I will try to show) Toulmin's rather 
breezy style of exposition creates some 
of the confUSion. Then, too, this is the 
element that departs most radically 
from the trad itional schema, thereby 
forcing one to look at the structure of 
arguments in a different light. That 
takes some getting used to. (p. 21) 

Johnson also adds revealingly: 

The problem is thorny enough to make 
one hanker for the rarified climes of 
formal log ic-almost! 

The "problem of understanding" 
which Johnson has with Toulmin's 
schema is, I submit, not simply a 
matter of incomplete comprehension 
that one might find between two in-
formal logicians. It is, rather, a classic 
paradigm clash between two people 
who hold radically different views about 
the nature of the connection between 
logic, language, and thought. Such 
deep-rooted differences cannot be re-
solved by simply cleaning up a few 
terms like "warrant" or "ground", 
because these concepts have no equiva-
lent meaning in the other paradigm. 
They are part of a different philo-
sophical network. 

I might say that I share Johnson's 
dissatisfaction with Toulmin's notion 
of "warrants"; it is woolly. However, 



48 John McPeck 

I also share Toulmin's basic view about 
the nature of the connections between 
logic, language and thought (which is 
Wittgensteinian.) And this view, there-
fore, puts me in the other paradigm. 

I think this difference helps to ex-
plain: (a) much of the deeper misunder-
standings about my view, and (b) why 
my view seems to appear so a priori to 
some folks, including Richard Paul. 
It is interesting, incidentally, that in 
Great Britain, where the book was first 
published, my general position has 
been received with polite yawns, 
since it is there more or less common-
place. (This, of course, does not mean 
it is correct; but it does mean it is un-
derstood.) Enough, however, about this 
fundamental difference. It cannot be 
resolved here. But I think it important 
to recognize that it exists. 

Back to Paul's two arguments as 
promised. The first, you will recall, 
has to do with my rejection of general-
ized reasoning skills, which Paul uses 
to support his general charge about 
my view being "atomistic" or "tech-
nological/specialist." With the pos-
sible exception of general intelligence 
(or I.Q.), I do deny generalized reason-
ing skills. Or, at least, we have not dis-
covered any thus far (psychologists 
included). This rejection, however, 
does not entail nor suggest a "tech-
nological/specialist" view of human 
reasoning, as Paul implies. To say, as 
I do, that the various broad domains 
of human understanding (e.g. math, 
literature, science, morality) require 
different kinds of concepts, skills, and 
patterns of reasoning peculiar to them-
selves and not generalizable across do-
mains, is not to insist that people must 
be "specialists," as such, in any parti-
cular area. It is, rather, to point out that 
the particular ingredients of rationality 
and critical thinking are less generic 
and more idiosyncratic than any single 
set of generalized reasoning skills can 
capture, namely, the so-called "critical 
thinking skills." On my view, to 

become rational one must come to un-
derstand the different logical, concept-
ual, and epistemic differences that ob-
tain between the different kinds of 
questions and problems that there are 
(e.g. mathematical, scientific, philo-
sophic, artistic, moral, etc.). When one 
clearly understands these logical dif-
ferences, one comes to appreciate the 
different procedures (or methods) that 
might be appropriate for answering 
(and asking) questions in these do-
mains. This, indeed, is precisely the 
kind of understanding which a liberal 
education attempts to provide. And it 
is a kind of understanding and prepara-
tion for critical thinking that I have 
repeatedly advocated in my book, and 
several other papers. Whatever else 
a liberal education is, it is not "tech-
nological/specialistic." Indeed, it is 
often criticized from some quarters 
(e.g. business) precisely because it 
does not provide enough specialized 
knowledge. It should not go unnoticed, 
by the way, that training in specific 
"reasoning skills" is far more special-
ized than anything that I could have ad-
vocated. Thus, the irony in the charge 
of "technological/specialist." 

Paul argues that my rejection of 
generalized reasoning skills is a non-
sequitur because, he argues, that it 
does not follow from the fact that 
thought requires a specific object "X" 
(to be thought about) that there are no 
generalized reasoning skills. To show 
how "bizarre" he· thinks this reason-
ing is, he attempts to draw analogies 
with general writing skills (or "compo-
sition" ,) and "general speaking 
skills" : 

Likewise most would think bizarre 
someone who argued that because 
speech requires something specifiC 
spoken about, it, therefore, is senseless 
to set up general courses in speech and 
incoherent to talk of general speaking 
skills. 

But let us be very clear about some-
thing. I am not engaged in an analysis 



of 'writing,' nor of 'speaking': I am en-
gaged in an analysis of 'thinking,' 
which is an entirely different concept. It 
might make sense to talk about "gen-
eral writing skills," and perhaps 
"general speaking skills," but it does 
not follow from this (as Paul implies) 
that it makes similar sense to talk of 
"general thinking skills." There are 
people who can think, for example, 
but cannot write, just as there are 
people who can think but cannot speak. 
One would, therefore, expect things 
to be true of 'writing' and 'speaking' 
which might not be true of 'thinking.' 
Notice, for example, that we do some-
times say of someone that "He doesn't 
know what he is talking about," but 
it would be odd to assert that "He does 
not know what he is thinking about." 
'Thinking' and 'speaking' are simply 
different concepts, and they refer to 
different kinds of tasks. 

I would, moreover, point out that 
even in writing and in speaking the 
major portion of the task consists in 
having knowledge of what it is, specific-
ally, that one is trying to write or speak 
about. As every teacher knows (parti-
cularly "composition" teachers), a 
student cannot write intelligently about 
something he does not understand. 
Clear understanding is a necessary 
condition for clear writing-infinite 
monkeys and typewriters notwithstand-
ing. The same for speaking. Frankly, 
I have always been a touch dubious 
about General Speech courses, such as 
those Paul mentions. Unless their point 
is, as with Dale Carnegie courses, to 
somehow spruce up delivery, or elocu-
tion, I see little point to them. Because, 
in the end, what good speaking consists 
in is understanding what you are speak-
ing about-and General Speech courses 
cannot deliver this understanding. 
If Paul is suggesting that "general 
reasoning" courses make about as 
much sense as "general speech" 
courses, then I agree with him. 

One final point. If thinking is always 

Paul's Critique 49 

about something (e.g. some X), as I 
have suggested, then "critical think-
ing" per se is even more so, that is, 
more transitive. This is because critical 
thinking as such, is a kind of higher-
order thinking about things (e.g. 
problems, solutions, and questions), 
and is, therefore, parasitic upon the 
original thing being thought about. 
A person might, for example, be think-
ing about something but might yet not 
be in a position to think critically about 
that something. This is because critical 
thinking, as such, requires more than a 
minimal amount of understanding of 
that which is thought about. It is this 
consideration which leads me to hold 
that "critical thinking" is specific 
to the kind of thing being thought 
about. And insofar as there are logically 
different kinds of things to think about 
(e.g. problems and questions), it fol-
lows that there are logically different 
kinds of critical thinking. Hence, I 
oppose general critical thinking cour-
ses, which are supposed to be about 
everything in general and nothing in 
particular. I see nothing particularly 
"bizarre" in this rejection-quite the 
contrary. 

The second argument Paul marshals 
to support his charge of "atomism" 
centres around the "multi-categorical" 
character of most real problems. Paul 
argues that because I hold rationality 
and critical thinking to be domain-or 
subject-specific (i.e. atomistic, or 
specialists, he calls it), I, therefore, 
cannot handle most real, or "every-
day" problems, because such problems 
do not lie clearly in one domain or 
another, but in several at once. They 
are "multi-categorical." This is what 
I take to be the general thrust of his 
argument. 

Let me say straightaway that I agree 
that most (but not a/l) real problems 
do lie in several domains at once, and 
are multi-textured and multi-categor-
ical. I have no problems with this ob-
servation, and have been at pains to 



50 John McPeck 

point it out myself in numerous places. 
What has gone wrong in Paul's argu-
ment is, again, to misinterpret my view 
regarding how domain-specific knowl-
edge and understanding function to 
help us solve real problems. One of the 
reasons that I have been such a strong 
advocate of liberal education to develop 
critical thinking capacity is because I 
believe such an education helps to 
anticipate the multi-categorical nature 
of most problems. A person needs 
several different kinds of knowledge 
and understanding to appreciate the 
different dimensions of most real prob-
lems. Real problems are indeed multi-
faceted and complex, and this is why 
no single set of skills, or clump of 
specific knowledge, can resolve them 
adequately. 

When I talk about "domains of 
knowledge," it should be understood 
that I have something quite broad in 
mind. They are very close to Paul 
Hirst's notion of a "form of knowl-
edge," or "form of rational discourse." 
(All of these notions originate in what 
Wittgenstein refers to as different 
"language games.") A liberal educa-
tion enables a person to understand the 
different characteristics, procedures, 
"rules," and concepts which make up 
these broad "domains of rational dis-
course": and these are what one brings 
to bear on everyday problems, Meta-
phorically, we might think of a rational 
agent coping with the world in a 
similar way as the marine crab (Le. 
the crustacean) copes with its aquatic 
environment. A crab is a single organ-
ism, yet it is composed of several dif-
ferent kinds of limbs, each deSigned 
to do a specific kind of job. It has 
pincers for holding things, antenas for 
navigating and checking-things-out, 
as well as several different pairs of 
legs, some of which are for balance, 
some for digging, and others for pro-
pulsion, Each specific kind of limb 
plays its role in enabling the crab to 
cope with its world, And more often 

than not (though not always) it uses 
several of its different kinds of limbs 
to cope with a single problem: each 
limb does its specific bit. Similarly, 
rational human beings possess several 
logically distinct kinds of knowledge/ 
understanding, And each kind (or 
kinds) of knowledge plays its particular 
role in solving particular problems. 
Should one of these domains be missing 
in a person (like a crab limb,) or even 
under-developed, we might consider 
the person seriously deficient-as a 
crab without pincers, say. Liberal 
education tries to develop overall 
rationality by teaching people to un-
derstand, and to use, the different 
forms of rational discourse (e.g. math, 
science, morality, art, philosophy, 
etc.). Each form of knowledge provides 
a different kind of understanding and, 
therefore, can do different kinds of 
jobs (like different crab limbs). None of 
this suggests, however, that problems 
fall neatly into one domain of under-
standing or another, nor that only one 
domain is required to solve any prob-
lem. 

What determines which domains 
of understanding will be required for 
any given problem depends, of course, 
on what the problem is, and what pre-
cisely you want answered. Consider, 
for a moment, Paul's putative counter 
example to my thesis. He says: 

Most of what we say and think, to put 
it another way, is not only open-but 
multi-textured as well. For example, in 
what logical domain does the (tech-
nical?) concept of alcoholism solely 
belong: disease, addiction, crime, moral 
failing, cultural pattern, life-style choice, 
defect of socialization, self- comforting 
behaviour, psychological escape, 
personal weakness, ... ? How many pOints 
of view can be used to illuminate it? 
Then, are each of them in one or many 
categories? 

My answer to all of these questions is 
that it depends on what, precisely, 



you want to know or say about alcohol-
ism. If one is interested in how wide-
spread it is, or in which age-group, 
then it is a sociological question. If 
one wants to know if it is right or 
wrong, then it is a moral question. If 
one wants to know why people become 
alcoholics, then it is a psychological 
question. If one wants to know whether 
it is sinful, then I suppose this is a 
religious question. Many different 
kinds of things can be said and done 
with respect to alcoholism. It is simply 
one of those many things which do not 
belong to one and only one category. 
But as soon as one raises a specific 
kind of question about it, then a spe-
cific kind of answer will be appro-
priate; and one will then have to draw 
upon the specific knowledge and under-
standing they have about that kind of 
question. Moreover, one kind of knowl-
edge about things (like alcoholism) 
can often affect other bel iefs one has 
about it as well. For example, if you 
believed alcoholism to be a disease, 
then you might not view it as a sin. 
But all of these cross-influences, and 
multi-texturedness, does not gainsay 
the existence of categories through 
which we perceive, talk and think about 
things. Indeed, rational belief and 
action is often pr.edicated on seeing 
things from these different perspect-
ives; and people are not born with these 
different perspectives; they must learn 
them. Again, this is what a liberal 
education attempts to provide. 

While some concepts, then, fall into 
several categories, there are also im-
portant concepts which '!ire specific 
(or unique) to certain domains. For 
example, the notion of "moral obliga-
tion" belongs to ethics, just as "elec-
tro-magnatism" belongs to physics, 
and "chiaroscuro" to art, "deity" to 
religion, "essence" and "ontology" to 
philosophy, and "differential equa-
tion" to mathematics, etc. Thus, some 
problems and questions we might have 
are peculiar to specific domains and, 

Paul's Critique 51 

therefore, require knowledge of these 
domains in order to say anything 
intelligent about them. Of course, one 
can have varying degrees of such 
knowledge. Thus one might be able to 
say and do some things within the 
domain but not others. One's abilities 
here are a function of one's knowledge 
in the domain.[1] 

Moreover, I want to stress two fur-
ther points about this domain-specific 
knowledge. First, it is not simply eso-
teric or useless knowledge designed 
to serve the interests of academic 
specialists, but rather, education, as 
such, consists in introducing people to 
the fundamentals of this knowledge 
in order to increase their rational 
capacities. Second, very many (if not 
most) so-called "everyday problems" 
need to employ domain-specific knowl-
edge of this sort, if the discussion is to 
move beyond a superficial level. In-
deed, this is why the more perSistent 
"everyday problems" such as disarma-
ment, pollution, pornography, etc. are 
not amenable to quick solutions. They 
require several different kinds of spe-
cific knowledge and judgment, and 
sometimes in considerable amount. 
A broad liberal education is simply 
the best that we can do to bring average 
citizens up to the task of making ration-
al judgments about such problems. And 
even thiS, per force, will be incomplete 
and fallible. But it is likely to be our 
best bet. Considerations such as these 
are what prompted my comment that 
"in this age of increased special 
knowledge, there are few Renaissance 
men." It was not meant to suggest 
that all problems fall neatly into one 
specialist's domain or another, as Paul 
interprets it. 

Two brief (and final) points about 
Paul's charge of "atomism" and knowl-
edge domains. First, there have been 
13 published reviews of my book to 
date, and Richard Paul's is the first to 
construe my view as specia lis tic 
(or atomistic). It has been quite clear 



52 J oh n McPeck 

to most readers that I call for a broad 
liberal education, and that this is not 
"atomistic." I think, therefore, that his 
misinterpretation of my position is 
more his own doing than it is mine. 
Second, Paul states in several places 
that a person's "world view," or knowl-
edge "uberhaupt," plays a crucial 
role in their critical thinking capacities. 
I could not c;:tgree more. However, if 
Paul would take the time to examine 
seriously the ingredients of a person's 
"world view," I think he would find 
it composed of certain kinds of beliefs 
and knowledge structures (i.e. cog-
nitive schemata) which is precisely 
what liberal education attempts to in-
fluence and enlighten. Thus, there is 
actually more agreement here than 
Paul seems comfortable to admit. I 
just don't think his continued use of the 
phrase "world view" adds anything 
different to what we are already 
familiar with -but I have no objection 
to the phrase: 

Enough about the major philosophic-
al differences between Paul's view and 
my own. There remains one niggling 
point which I will briefly comment upon 
here only because Paul devotes so 
much space to it, and I might seem 
remiss if I omitted it. 

In the middle of Paul's review he 
charges me with presenting critiques 
of the work of Scriven, D'Angelo, 
Ennis, and Johnson and Blair which are 
"unfair," "unsympathetic," and 
"at times highly misleading." Clearly, 
I cannot go over all of this ground again 
without writing another book. But a 
few comments, at least, are in order. 
First, if I have been "unfair" to any of 
these writers, I hereby apologize for it. 
They may rest assured that any unfair-
ness was unintentional. One does 
one's best. I might say, however, that 
I have had lengthy contact with both 
Scriven and D'Angelo since the book 
was published, and neither of them 
ever suggested that my treatment of 
them was unfair. Indeed, despite re-

malnlng differences over more tech-
nical matters, they have both thanked 
me for much of my critique. Johnson 
and Blair strongly disagree with my 
views about informal logic, but they 
have never written (nor said) that I was 
unfai r, nor seriously misrepresented 
their views. 

Ennis, apparently, does think that 
I have been unfair to his view. But dis-
agreement, which there is, does not 
amount to unfairness nor "misleading 
representation," as Paul charges. 
Ennis' so-called "range definition" re-
mains an attempt at definition, none-
theless; and one which I find deficient 
for all the reasons which I provided. 
Its core ingredient consists in a list of 
"general reasoning skills" which I 
reject. Moreover, Ennis still clings to 
the idea that "general reasoning 
skills" should be taught in order to 
improve critical thinking. He reiterates 
this point again and again in several 
recent publications. I think he is wrong 
about this for all the reasons I have 
given in the book, here, and elsewhere. 
This disagreement is not "misrepre-
sentation," but a bona fide difference 
of opinion. 

With respect to Ennis leaving out 
any treatment of value judgments, and 
making that clear to his reader, I 
specifically discuss this point on p. 54 
of my book. Indeed, I explicitly quote 
Ennis' own words explaining why he 
left it out; moreover, it does not appear 
in a footnote somewhere, but in the 
middle of the text itself. So there is no 
attempt at "misrepresentation" here. 
I then go on to point out that it is a 
serious omission because his "prag-
matic dimension" of critical thinking 
necessarily requires making value 
judgments. I still think this is correct. 
But even if Paul (or perhaps Ennis) 
disagrees with this observation, it is 
not misrepresentation. 

To conclude, I want to address two 
relatively minor, but interesting, com-
ments of Paul's. The first comment ap-



pears in Paul's final, but lengthy, foot-
note. Here, Paul questions and criti-
cizes the appropriateness of a book 
on critical thinking devoting an entire 
chapter to Edward de Bono's work on 
thinking. Paul makes several points: 
(1) de Bono does not explicitly treat 
critical thinking as most of us under-
stand that phrase (rather, he treats 
"problem solving" and "creativity" 
more than anything else); (2) de Bono 
is not in the same theoretical league as 
Scriven, Ennis, et al.; and (3) perhaps 
de Bono was only included for his 
"celebrity." I must remind Richard 
Paul (and possibly the reader) that I 
consider myself a philosopher of educa-
tion and I write from that perspective. 
Indeed, the title of my monograph is 
Critical Thinking and Education. Thus, 
whatever Richard Paul's particular 
theoretical pretences, it just happens 
to be the case that de Bono's thinking 
programs are widely used in schools 
throughout the world and, therefore, 
have direct educational relevance. 
Moreover, these programs are very 
commonly used in many schools as 
bona fide critical thinking programs. 
Thus, first, if I had not treated deBono 
at some length, educators (the major 
audience) would have found the omis-
sion indeed very strange; and, second, 
my purpose was to expose the inherent 
weaknesses in de Bono's programs for 
educators and philosophers alike. I 
still believe this needed to be done for 
educators, and this is the kind of 
contribution that philosophers of educa-
tion often make. Interestingly, I have 
received several letters from ph i 10-
sophers of education in Great Britain, 
where de Bono's programs are widely 
used, who were greatly appreciated of 
that chapter in particular. (Antony 
Flew also has commented to this effect 
in the Times Educational Supplement, 
29, 1, 1982.) These, then, were the 
reasons for treating de Bono's work at 
some length. And finally it remains a 
mystery to me why Richard Paul, 

Paul's Critique 53 

given his reservation about de Bono's 
status, invited him to speak at his 
Sonoma conference on thinking, though 
I am happy that he did so. 

The second minor point to be treated 
here relates, similarly, to Paul's ap-
parent ignorance about developments 
in the field of philosophy of education 
proper. Paul quotes a statement of 
mine about education and schooling 
that he apparently finds so cockeyed 
that it doesn't even warrant a counter-
argument by him. He just confidently 
states that his reader will not be 
"comfortable" with it either. He quotes 
my saying "there is nothing in the logic 
of 'education' that requires that schools 
should engage in education" and 
"nothing contradictory in saying 'This 
is a fine school, and I recommend it 
to others, even though it does not en-
gage in education.' " To Paul, such a 
locution sounds patently absurd; 
to me, it is almost trivially true. This 
conflict of opinion is a dramatic exam-
ple of something which Harvey Siegel 
has drawn to people's attention in 
several recent papers, namely: that it 
"is high time that the Informal Logic 
Movement confront the philosophy of 
education." (See his "Educating Rea-
son: Critical Thinking, Informal Logic 
and the Philosophy of Education" in 
the APA Newsletter on Teaching 
Philosophy, Special Issue on Informal 
Logic and Critical Thinking, Spring-
Summer, 1985, p. 10.) It is quite clear 
to Siegel, and myself, that the I LM con-
tinues to proceed along its high-profile 
path without the slightest knowledge of 
the more serious literature in the 
philosophy of education. To anyone 
who had read R.S. Peters or Paul 
Hirst, or Robert Dearden, or a number 
of contemporary American philo-
sophers of education, they would imme-
diately understand that 'schooling' and 
'education' are conceptually different 
things, and neither one entails the 
other. There are ballet schools, barber 
schools, flight schools, and numerous 



54 John McPeck 

other kinds of schools whose purpose 
is not education in the normal (or tra-
ditional) sense r but rather training of 
some kind. A highly trained barber may 
or may not be educated. In short, some 
schools are avowedly not in the busi-
ness of producing "educated people." 
They are teaching something else, 
e.g., different job skills, etc. The pur-
pose of schools in many Third-World 
countries is to teach improved agricul-
tural skills, road-building, hygiene, 
and the like r perhaps so that they might 
eventually have the luxury of educating 
their populations in the more traditional 

sense. What schools are for is a social 
decision which varies from place to 
place r and sometimes from school to 
school. Thus, there is nothing parti-
cularly strange, nor contradictory, in 
my saying "there is nothing in the logic 
of 'education' that requires that 
schools should engage in 'education'." 
Much goes on in schools which has 
nothing to do with 'education,' as such; 
and conversely, much 'education' 
(e.g. self-education) does not take 
place in schools. Philosophers of educa-
tion know this. 

Note 

1. An extensive review of recent 
psychological investigations into 
reasoning and reasoning skills has 
been published by Robert Glaser 
(University of Pittsburgh) in The 
American Psychologist r February 
1984 r entitled "Education and 
Thinking: The Role of Knowledge." 
This paper points out that most of 
the responsible research in this field 
strongly supports the view that 
domain-specific knowledge is the 
major determinant of reasoning 
skill. Even Artificial Intelligence 
(AI) research is making stronger 
progress since it has turned away 

from a II general strategies ap-
proach" and toward a "knowledge-
based approach." (See also Minsky, 
M. and Papert, S. (1974) Artificial 
Intelligence. Eugene OR: Oregon 
State System of Higher Education.) 
Much rhetoric to the contrary, de-
fenders of generalized reasoning 
skills (e.g. the ILM) are defending 
a rear-guard action and not a new 
break-through. 

Dr. John McPeck, Faculty of Educa-
tion, Althouse College, University of 
Western Ontario, London, Ontario 
mA3V 0