FROM CRITICAL THINKING TO d‐CRITICAL THINKING: RECONSTRUCTING DEWEY'S SENSE OF CRITICAL IN HOW WE THINK

Abstract

In this article, I reexamine John Dewey's original sense of critical in How We Think (first published in 1910), arguing that contemporary discourse about critical thinking reveals a process of lexicalization through which the term critical has lost its meaning. This article finds that Dewey's original sense of critical (which I term d‐Critical ) functions operatively (as a set of regulating procedures that fine‐tune bounded inquiry) and normatively (as an assessment of how safeguarded inferences made during an act of thinking are). Through a close reading and analysis of Dewey's explanatory analogies, I show that Dewey's sense of critical avoids the four dangers outlined in Johnson and Hamby's critique of current definitions of critical thinking: a) failure to capture the sense of the term critical ; b) conflation with related constructs; c) sublimation of the concept; and d) ignoring the role of belief maintenance. The result is a clarification of Dewey's meaning that distinguishes reflective thought from critical thought and portrays criticality as a property of safeguarded acts of thinking.