From Critical Thinking to Criticality

A Higher Education for a Troubled World
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-04698-1
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 310 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 570 g

Reihe: World Issues in the Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education

The world is facing multiple crises and is in need of more critical thinking, but critical thinking is valued less. AI, populism, social media, ever-powerful states, a distrust of universities, the abandonment of the humanities, and a world that favours action and economic growth: all conspire to diminish critical thinking. Higher education falls in with this outlook: empirical evidence confirms a decline of interest in critical thinking even on the part of universities.

From Critical Thinking to Criticality responds to this situation. It maps out the broad social and philosophical context that diminishes critical thinking; it compares and critiques the two major contemporary approaches—the standard view of critical thinking advanced by philosophers of education and the socio-political perspective of critical pedagogy; and it forges a new framing by developing the idea of criticality.

Criticality is a total space of spaces for an infinite array of modes of criticality. It has several components—of thought, dialogue, action, being and intensity—and has implications for teaching and curricula, pointing them towards openness and transdisciplinarity. However, criticality can never be fully realised in study programmes. For that, a turn towards universities as institutions is required for they contain unrecognised resources, both to advance students’ criticality and to act as a critical conscience of society.

In the matter of critical thinking, nothing less than the fate of society and the world is at stake. Against that horizon, critical thinking needs to be re-stated and re-instated—and this book does both.

Zielgruppe

Academic, Postgraduate, and Professional Reference

Autoren/Hrsg.

Barnett, Ronald

Davies, Martin

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Pädagogik Philosophie der Erziehung, Bildungstheorie
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Universitäten, Hochschulen
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften: Allgemeines Enzyklopädien, Nachschlagewerke, Wörterbücher

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction: A troubling setting

Part I: The evaporation of critical thought

1 Heresies of critical thought

2 An algorithmic world

3 Myths of the framework

4 A critical dialectic

5 Thinking critically about critical thinking Recapitulation and development: The myopia of ‘critical thinking’

Part II: Criticality and its modes

6 The standard view of critical thinking

7 A model of criticality

8 Seven modes of criticality

Part III: Advancing criticality

9 Curriculum matters: For a critical experientiality

10 Pedagogical matters: Emergent learning and two forms of criticality

Part IV: The university—for a culture of criticality

11 Disagreeing well: the university as a space of criticality

12 The university: the world’s critical conscience Endnote: Pessimists and Optimists Unite! (At least in some ways)

References

Endorsements

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Ronald Barnett is Emeritus Professor of Higher Education, University College London, UK and Emeritus President of the Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society.

Martin Davies is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia.