Science and Teaching Reasoning (original) (raw)

These papers all had their origin in meetings of the Informal Logic and Critical Thinking held at American Philosophical Association conventions in 1995Association conventions in , 1996Association conventions in and 1997. I invited people who had, in my opinion, done some of the most interesting work in philosophy of science, history of science, and science studies to reflect on a simple question: What would our teaching of informal logic, critical thinking, or scientific reasoning look like if we took seriously some of the challenging work done in philosophy of science, history of science, and science studies in the last generation? The papers presented here are not part of any single movement, and my discussing them together should not mask significant areas of disagreement and divergence of approach. All share a concern for improving the teaching of reasoning by taking seriously recent philosophy of science, but what lessons they draw vary widely.