Critical Thinking and Social Progress: Ties that Un/Bind

By: Michael Berman PhD

Associate Professor of Philosophy, Brock University

Progress is a modern idea. It has a history, a genealogy, rising out of the unique experiences across Europe as it left the middle ages behind. Critical thinking, on the other hand, has a much longer history. Its family tree extends into the ancient world before the Common Era. While we can certainly apply the notion of progress anachronistically, finding evidence of improvement across swaths of human history, this would be nothing more than a convenient projection. There is a rapidity to progress as exemplified in the scientific, industrial, political (American and French), and now digital revolutions that are not matched in our historical records. This is different for critical thinking as its roots in the past are clearly evident, and still sprout to life today.

Many centuries ago, Socrates reportedly stated, “The unexamined life is not worth living” (Plato, Apology, 38a5–6). This famous dictum was proffered at his trial in front of the Athenian Senate in ancient Greece. Its meaning, though, reverberates through the entirety of the Western tradition of Philosophy and Western Culture. To be fair, it has parallels in other traditions of Philosophy across the world, such as in China (e.g., Confucius) and India (e.g., the Buddha), just to name a few. This imperative holds that there is a value in leading a life that is subject to reflection. On first blush, such an examination or reflection can be taken as solitary, as if the person whose life is the object of interrogation is the only one to consider their own worthiness. The second assumption, and this would garner the assent of Socrates (and Plato), is that this examination ought to be rational. For Socrates, his examination involved the intimate consultation with his daemon, his internal voice of reason and conscience. Yet, when we examine Socrates behavior, he, like his fellow sophists, spoke in the agora, in the open market, where some hoped to garner paying students, and others like Socrates simply wished to explore the avenues opened by their curiosities. Hence, this examination, even couched in the language of reflection, was performed not only in the company of others, but actually required conversing with others. This, in part, explains why we have Plato’s dialogues.

Leaping over two millennia into Socrates’ future, Immanuel Kant’s seminal essay, “The Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?” (1784) highlights these two modes of the examined life. He held that “The public use of one’s reason must always be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among [hu]mankind; the private use of reason may, however, often be very narrowly restricted, without otherwise hindering the progress of enlightenment” (Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace and Other Essays (USA: Hackett Publishing Company, 1983), 42). The public exercise of reason needs to be unrestricted as this is the means by which philosophical and epistemic enlightenment can be attained; Kant was not using “enlightenment” as a religious term in this context. Rather this enlightenment is available for both the individual and humanity as such. It requires the resolve and courage to think for oneself without allowing others or even ourselves from imposing restrictions on the deployment of one’s own cognitive capacities (what he called our faculties, reason being one of these). One might charge Kant here with an inconsistency insofar as the public use of reason would seem to preclude the individual’s exercise of their own faculties, and vice versa, for how could one engage in dialogue without taking guidance from others? Kant intended for free thinking individuals to be critical in their conversations with others and even themselves. Such critical thinking need not be negative or positive, but rather rational, and must adhere to the limits of human cognition and experience. This is the essence of Kant’s critical philosophy (which he also called transcendental idealism).

Critical thinking is performed in public. It needs to be free, not subject to the restrictions of others, but also not closed off from the input and views of others. This requires a virtuous approach to thinking for it must be more than simply tolerant, not blindly accepting, yet constructive, that is, critical thinking can serve as a catalyst for progress. This is a tall order for mere cognition and thought in general. The only way this is possible is to recognize the cultural milieu and requirements of sociality and publicity for critical thinking (from Kant, respectively, “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Intent” (1784) and “To Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch” (1795)). Hannah Arendt captures these points when she explains the fact that no person can live alone, that people are interdependent not only in their needs and cares, but also in terms of the human mind (“the highest faculty”, what Kant refers to as Gemüt), “which will not function outside of human society” (Hannah Arendt, Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy (USA: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 10). This public use of reason is a form of critical thinking that is necessarily social. Thinking is not merely or only the thought of the individual, for it is a product of the relational interdependence of the thinker with his or her conspecific cogitators. We think together. We are critical together. Our sociality is the foundation upon which cognition depends. But in order to move such thinking forward, individuals must be ever vigilant. Kant held that enlightenment would only be attained by those with resolve and courage, but this is just part of the virtues critical thinkers must perform. Critique—examination (Rene Descartes), interrogation (Maurice Merleau-Ponty), questioning (Martin Heidegger), query (Justus Buchler)—must be free; nothing should be taken for granted. When Kant admonishes humanity for its immaturity, he is scolding us for acquiescing to ignorance, superstition, ideology, and blind obedience. After all, why should any person, thing, institution, claim, or idea be deemed irreproachable and unquestionable? Appeals to the absolute are stifling and ossifying; these bind us to the past, the imaginary, or the illusory. Progress demands more of us, and has shown us multiple avenues for advancing beyond such circumscribed views. Progress is futurally directed. We move into this future collectively. This is the temporality of social progress.

Critical thinking and social progress are intimately bound together. While the former may have arisen before the latter, the latter depends on the former. In order for us to overcome the shackles we have given ourselves, the mere limits of individuality, and the darkness of our histories, human communities need to think and work together towards common, shared goals. The way to identify both the means towards these ends and the ends (in) themselves requires communication. When humans coordinate and collaborate, their efforts have reshaped and continue to reshape their world and their lives. The ideals of progress cast these changes in a positive light: empirical and material benefits, improved quality of life, and increases in general well-being are all ear-marks of progress. This is evidenced in our global economy and exponentially accelerated abilities to share information across the planet with our digital technologies. This optimistic picture of today’s world, though, as critical thinking teaches us, must not be placed on a pedestal and reified. If we are to take critical thinking seriously, to follow it wherever it leads, then even social progress must be equally subject to its scrutiny. Just as critical thinking has driven progress, it must also be brought to bear upon its partner, which again is the lesson of Kant’s critical philosophy, that it must be self-critical because it causes its own problems (e.g., transcendental illusions) due to cognition’s limitations.

There is a dark side to progress. We have seen that the benefits of progress come with a cost. While the world economies provide more material goods for humanity, economic disparities have not only persisted, but have actually been exacerbated. The differences between the have and the have nots have become even more pronounced. In this regard, we can point to the legacies of colonialism and imperialism; the impact of the West on the rest of the world is undeniable, which certainly cannot be judged as solely positive. Empirically speaking we can also evoke the effects of climate change and global warming. The economic and human costs due the changing environmental conditions on the planet are only now coming into focus. The benefits of industrialization and pleasures of mass over-consumption have paved the road to a radically different future for our descendants. Can critical thinking redress the issues that progress has foisted upon us and those yet to be born? At this point we usually call upon the very futurity mentioned above, and say to ourselves, only time will tell.

Critical thinking, though, tells us that we ought not to rest with such an aphorism. The public performance of reason is an ongoing project. It does not end with final answers or final solutions. There is an imperative built into rationality that drives us forward, to keep asking questions and seeking further results. The dangers of the past remain with us even in these endeavors. Critical thinking is a precarious project: there are always the hazards of homogenized thought, wherein one particular perspective becomes dominant at the expense of minority views. Critical thinking needs to nurture heterogeneity in thought, ideas and positions (intellectual, political, economic, etc.), for it is out of diversity and dialogue that new horizons of query will be opened.

This leads to the last point to be made here regarding critical thinking and social progress. Even with the balanced perspective of applying critical thinking to both/all sides of an issue, we must realize that there is no absolute or permanently safe haven of knowledge to be found, but this does not preclude the quest for novelty. The environmental challenges that future generations will have to face, will certainly require critical thinking. Despite the current stances in certain conservative governments that either downplay or even dismiss these issues, the growing problems are quite real and will demand responsible policies, ideally sooner rather than later. Adhering to the views of climate change deniers and claiming that one is taking a principled stance for a minority voice in the scientific community is actually a rationalization, not a rational perspective; this adherence has become a binding ideological position for these governments. A number of years ago, a late night talk show host held a panel discussion with scientists on both sides of the climate change issue, ostensibly to provide a balanced dialogue. But after a few rounds of question and answer between the scientists, the talk show host pointed out the fact that only something like 3% of scientists do not believe what the majority of scientists accept as true about the growing body of evidence regarding climate change. In order to demonstrate this balanced perspective, the talk show host called to the stage another three dozen or so scientists representing the actual numbers participating in this scientific dialogue. The ensuing discussion closed out the show, given the absurdity of so many speakers. While this was certainly humorous, it illustrates two of the points made above. There is always the danger of homogenizing a position whereby dissent is suppressed. This can have the effect of curtailing critical thinking; to recall Socrates, his admitted aspiration was never for power, but rather he sought for wisdom, even if he had to serve as a “gadfly” to the state, to openly question its policies, though not in the attempt to over-throw and replace the government with himself. Rather, he hoped that his questioning, his quest for knowledge and understanding, would prompt the state to improve itself. Hence, giving dissenters, such as the climate change deniers in the scientific community a voice is not only proper in a free society, but also necessary for critical thinking itself. Recognizing this need for dissent leads to the second point in this context: critical thinking demands that we properly weigh the given evidence. When an overwhelming majority of experts, scientists across many different fields of study refer to all kinds of publicly available evidence and proffer their considered academic opinions that point to the same general conclusions, then it seems that we ought to concur with such critically trained thinking. The important notion that guides these scientific conclusions is that the claims of the sciences are all subject to fallibility and revision, if contrary evidence appears (see Justus Buchler, Charles Peirce’s Empiricism (New York: Routledge, 2010), section 24). This is the reason that dissent is important for scientific practice, as well as critical thinking in general, but a reasonable perspective must be taken with respect to dissenting opinions in light of the evidence.

Critical thinking has nurtured the revolutions (mentioned above) that have fundamentally altered and expanded human civilization. This revolutionary thinking will almost certainly be necessary as we contend with this century’s challenges, e.g., climate change, economic disparities, etc. Humanity is, if anything, resourceful, and so there is hope that we can overcome these obstacles to progress. The public forum of reasoning is the site where we will find what Arendt refers to as natality, the human knack for new beginnings; by this, we can be revolutionary. Critical thinking is conducive to our creativity. This is the best means we have at our disposal for maintaining, advancing, and correcting the courses of humanity’s social progress.