Written by: Robert Nelson
Abstract: Based on a taxonomy that includes discourse and ideology as well as logic and truth, this article identifies doubt as the element most critical to critical thinking. Not only is doubt intrinsic to questioning but it has a dynamic relationship to purposeful thinking. Despite its heightened relevance in an age when the separation of truth and falsehood is deliberately blurred in media, doubt is not sufficiently recognized in scholarly literature on critical thinking and is also not favoured by contemporary syllabus design. Using philological methods, the article reveals that doubt has been handled imaginatively and positively throughout the history of ideas; and its relative marginalization in pedagogy is a historical anomaly, aligning only with the early days of Christianity. The article argues that if critical thinking is taught without doubt, the syllabus is structurally hostile to critical thinking.
Keywords: critical thinking, doubt, uncertainty, imagination, syllabus design, alignment, learning outcomes, logic, discourse, inconsistency, thought, truth