The Role of the Authority of the Text on Critical Thinking

Abstract

The paper puts forward the argument that critical thinking (and its teaching) should be approached by taking into critical account operations of authority that blunt the reflective disposition toward written texts. The empirical grounds of this argument have been examined by means of a specific study. The study explored in a higher-education setting the extent to which students' critical thinking was influenced by the authority of textuality. Eighty-two undergraduates were randomly divided into Group A and Group B. Two passages, extracted from internationally well-known cultural-textual sources, were compiled into two sets of materials. Set A consisted of an anonymized passage drawn from a text of fascist ideology, and Set B consisted of an anonymized passage drawn from a text of democratic theory. During the research session, students in Group A received first Set A and then Set B, and Group B received first Set B followed by Set A. Both sets of materials instructed students to read each passage, comment upon it, and explain in writing their thinking. The results indicated that students' critical thinking was influenced by the authority of textuality per se, that is, by the fact that the distributed excerpts enjoyed the aura of the printed, public, and published text. Also the very fact that the excerpts were anonymized made the students' relation to textual authority more direct and unmediated, as it excluded the impact of the authority of the author on their critical approach. The findings support the basic argument of the paper as described above and also demonstrate the need to cultivate in schools what the authors describe as the "aporetic" dimension of critical thinking. © 2012 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.