Various Limitations Upon Clear Thinking in the Halpern “Thought and Knowledge”

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Inappropriate or Vague Goals
Drawing improper reasoning or invalid conclusions
Improper Analysis of arguments
Inability to evaluate consequences or pitfalls in decision making
References

Introduction

Before coming to the actual topic, let us discuss the significance of knowledge in a student’s life. Knowledge has two fundamental dimensions, one that it is simply acquired by any means, and the other which Halpern (2003) suggests is that knowledge is created every time we learn a new concept (Halpern, 2003, p. 6). What matters in acquiring knowledge is not the reliance upon the sources through which we receive thoughts, but what is important is our internal construction of cognitive knowledge structures. The state of art of understanding the acquired knowledge and our internal feedback regarding the acquired knowledge is important.

Critical thinking is defined by many psychologists in the light of open-ended reasoning, logic and meta cognition. With the help of mental processes when the internal proposed opinion or creative opinion about the knowledge incurs, it escorts the true thinker to think in several versatile ways. This versatility when combines with internally proposed arguments or conflicts about the knowledge, transforms into critical thinking. Many believe that critical thinking is critical for it presents unfavorable arguments regarding the knowledge. This might be the case as long as world politics is concerned but it is not applicable to students’ criteria where they are aimed to learn critical thinking skills.

Even many researchers and psychologists according to Halpern (2003) portray critical thinking in the light of critics as cold and impassive where there is only one decision of the problem which is based upon values, feelings, and predilections. It is the skill of improving an outcome which a wise critical thinker often sees from the perspective of other individuals. A student should never be taught to follow another’s mind or opinion, because the ones who rely on others’ views does not seem to be knowledgeable to possess their own perceptions.

Halpern (2003) suggests that critical thinking itself is an opinion regarding the acquired knowledge, and since every person possesses the right to express his or her opinion, there is no limitation upon personal views or expression. However the obstruction in clear thinking arises when individuals fail to distinguish between verifiable facts and value statements, relevant and irrelevant reasoning, or fails to determine the accuracy of a statement or credibility of a source (Duplass & Ziedler, 2002).

Inappropriate or Vague Goals

Limitations upon critical thinking encompasses those factors that obstructs somehow in determining appropriate goal direction. Therefore the first limitation is the vagueness of purpose, reason and goal about knowledge. Unclear goal is the key factor that serves as hindrance in clear thinking. That is the main reason for why a student lags behind grasping the main theoretical concepts, because he is unable to create his own opinion regarding the subject and this is due to the fact that he remains unable to get what is being taught to him.

It is due to the issue of critical empowerment, that the ability of individuals escorts them to withdraw themselves from the understood assumptions of theoretical practices and power relations with the subject. Students’ have unclear objectives, unjustified reasons and in order to exert more conscious control over their everyday understanding, what students fail to realize is that the psychological models of critical thinking requires an in depth understanding of the subject. This the students fails to address because he do not possess clear mind with focused long term objectives.

Weil & Anderson (2000) points out that rational, accurate thinking emerges from modernism’s epistemology and produces not only a congregation of nervous right-answer givers and timid rule followers, but a rather mediocre level of education unrelated to any ethical effort to constructively use our ability to reason (Weil & Anderson, 2000, p. 24). This indicates that in order to think critically, individual must aloof himself or herself from the concern of presenting right or wrong answers and think beyond the extent where he perceives his opinion to be right or wrong. What he must keep in his mind is the ultimate goal of his or her efforts towards understanding the subject.

While applying critical thinking skills in teaching professions, one must welcome good or bad remarks from the students, because encouraging students towards critical thinking requires open handed support which should not bound the student to uphold a particular opinion. The technical efforts to cultivate higher order critical thinking among teachers too often involve removing prospective practitioners from their lived worlds in order to control the variables of the situation. This can be true when they focus only on the subject while taking into account that thinking is secluded in artificial laboratory settings where passion and authentic feelings of love, hate, fear, and commitment are scientifically removed (ibid). The rational process of critical thinking are always culturally neutral and fulfill logical reasoning and valid conclusions, if critical thinking does not entail logics, it is only theoretical and not critical.

Drawing improper reasoning or invalid conclusions

The second most obvious factor that hinders in thought and critical thought is the inability to draw valid conclusions, or we can say the inability to perceive the logical reasoning of the subject. The best example of this is our inability to judge that past experience is not always a reliable guide to the future, with the result that judgments of probability must be made. Yet it is precisely in many cases that we feel comfortable in jumping to conclusions and to make sweeping generalizations that reveal our biases and prejudices, but that does not indicate that our logical understanding is infallible, since logic fits only imperfectly our everyday language and the world that surrounds us (Lipman, 2003, p. 206).

Educators show sympathies to students’ claims that classroom materials serve as meaningless and irrelevant to them when they realize that the pragmatic principle could have a special significance in their schools. Students’ critical thinking skills would be better if they could be provided with conditions that would encourage the application of their thinking to the world in which they live. There are other major consideration of critical thinking which needs clear thinking skills in context with the fact that general rules or principles, are applied.

Improper Analysis of arguments

Halpern (2003) points out that in order to analyze a proper argument, we must be clear about the technical meaning of the word argument which is different from its everyday meaning. Argument in everyday terminology refers to a dispute or a quarrel where we perceive two people having an argument when they disagree about something in and emotional way. This is in contrast with the technical definition of argument which suggests that an argument consists of one or more statements that are used to provide support for a conclusion and the statements that provide the support for a conclusion are called the reasons or premises of the argument (Halpern, 2003, p. 183). It is through these reasons or premises that when presented in order to persuade the reader or listener escorts that the conclusion is true or probably true.

Harman (1999) suggests that improper analysis of any argument is due to unclear reasoning which is here taken to be distinguished from proof or argument in a logician’s sense (Harman, 1999, p. 46). Providing appropriate reasoning is a process of modifying antecedent beliefs and intentions, perhaps by adding some new ones, perhaps by deleting some of the original ones, normally by adding some and deleting others (ibid). An argument or proof is sometimes relevant to reasoning in this sense but is never an instance of it, since an argument supports a hidden or revealed proof which is more like an explanation than an instance of reasoning. Argument has its own limitations and some intermediate steps whereas reasoning has no premises unless we are to say that the ‘premises’ comprise all of the antecedent beliefs and intentions and that the ‘conclusion’ is the resulting set. But often it seems that way of speaking critically misleads other, particularly those who analyzes our arguments, since reasoning often leads to abandoning some ‘premises’ (Harman, 1999, p. 46).

The theory of reasoning is often vague in mind for we are not fully capable of providing logic to our mind, which supports a theory of argument or proof. Logic is not directly a supportive of reasoning but since it is relevant to factual information, there is a connection between reasoning and explanation and explanation often takes the form of an argument.

Inability to evaluate consequences or pitfalls in decision making

Halpern (2009) perceives decision making as an ability which involves making a choice among a set of several possible alternatives. Intelligent choices requires proper argument analysis on the basis of its pitfalls for example in order to reach a decision, one must consider the way in which reasons support or refute a conclusion. Hastie (2001) view decision making as alternative courses of action, consequences, and uncertain conditioning events (Hastie, 2001).

Inability to perceive upcoming consequences in decision making escorts to miss one of or all three essential components, alternative actions, consequences, and uncertain events. While making decisions, individual must consider consequences related to the subject that pertains to evaluative reactions that are easily measurable on a good-bad, gain-loss scale and is associated with each outcome.

Decisions are usually uncertain since there is a high probability that we cannot know in advance the consequences of our actions as well as reactions. Therefore much of the difficulty when making decisions lies in judging which alternative is most likely to turn out best (Halpern, 2003, p. 311). In situations where decisions are made with missing information and guesses and predictions about future events are at high risk of thinking critical. Such decisions entails a recursive or recycling process because the nature of the decision may change as more alternatives are generated and evaluated and since decision also requires an action, although it may not be an overt movement, one could decide whom or what to believe, or to do nothing at all.

All of these processes occur whenever the decision maker has got some ability to think creatively in a context that influences what happens and relies heavily on the information he brings along to the decision and the information that is obtained during the decision-making process.

References

Duplass A. James & Ziedler L. Dana, (2002) ‘Critical Thinking and Logical Argument’, Social Education. Volume: 66. Issue: 5, p. M10.
Halpern F. Diane, (2003) Thought & Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, N.J.
Harman Gilbert, (1999) Reasoning, Meaning and Mind: Clarendon Press: Oxford.
Hastie R., (2001) ‘Problems for Judgment and Decision Making’, Annual Review of Psychology, p. 653.
Lipman Matthew, (2003) Thinking in Education: Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England.
Weil Danny & Anderson Holly Kathleen, (2000) Perspectives in Critical Thinking: Essays by Teachers in Theory and Practice: Peter Lang: New York.

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