Thinking Critically About Critical Thinking: an unskilled inquiry into Quinn and McPeck

Victor Quinn advocates teaching critical thinking as a curriculum subject. He has accused Professor John E. McPeck, a vehement critic of such proposals, not only of being wrong but also of being in need of such a critical thinking course himself. In this paper we examine the five supposed critical thinking weaknesses of which McPeck is accused and consider what Quinn's arguments tell us about critical thinking, its skills, its priorities and its claims to subject status.     

From West to East and Back Again: Faith,Doubt and Education in Hermann Hesse's Later Work

This paper examines Hermann Hesse's penultimate novel, The Journey to the East, from an educational point of view. Hesse was a man of the West who turned to the idea of ‘the East’ in seeking to understand himself and his society. While highly critical of elements of Western modernism, Hesse nonetheless viewed ‘the East’ through Western lenses and drew inspiration from other Western thinkers. At the end of The Journey to the East, the main character, H.H., believes he has found the solution to his despair. This paper argues that he has not, at least not in the fullest sense Hesse came to see was possible. H.H. relies too heavily on faith and abandons reason too quickly in seeking to become ‘absorbed’ into the Other that he regards as his higher self. An answer to H.H.'s existential angst can be found in Hesse's final novel, The Glass Bead Game, where educational growth through the development of a critical, questioning, inquiring attitude is a central theme.     

Extrabudgetary Funding and Institutional Relationships between Higher Education,Industry, and Social Partners

Close co-operation between higher education institutions and industry is the best instrument for the application of research and the use of R&D outcomes in economic processes. It is the basis for the development of new products, techniques, and services. Such co-operation helps to develop the economy and society, and, therefore, to enhance structural change in regions in which higher education institutions are located. At the same time, any income earned through this process (third-party funds) for a higher education institution means that the institutional budget provided by the state can be used to meet additional challenges. A second result deriving from this form of co-operation is higher quality teaching and learning at the given higher education institution, as well as the development of innovative course programmes for undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing education.