Reflective Judgment Research Articles

Aesthetics as philosophy of art, or Hegel’s reconciliation of Kantian dualism

Abstract Despite the extraordinary influence of Hegel’s aesthetics, the very term “aesthetics” features very seldom in his body of work. Considering both ongoing radical uncertainty as to the status of aesthetics as well as Hegel’s profound and persistent influence on aesthetics, it is worth reflecting on the reasons for, and potential alternatives to, Hegel’s use of the term “aesthetics.” This is the goal of this paper, which combines a reconstruction of Hegel’s variations on the topic with a broader perspective on what they can still teach us today. I begin by discussing Hegel’s presentations of the topic of his lectures on aesthetics (Section II). In Section III, I argue that both Hegel’s ambivalence towards aesthetics and his eventual identification of the latter with a philosophy of art are rooted in his confrontation with Kant’s seminal, yet insufficient, attempt to surmount dualism through his theory of reflective judgment. The attempt to address Kant’s unresolved dualism ultimately leads to the equivalence, both conceptual and terminological, of aesthetics and philosophy of art, and to the autonomy of art as a form of the absolute spirit (Section IV). In the concluding section, I outline the fundamental tensions left open by this equivalence as open challenges in contemporary aesthetics (Section V).

Interpretation and Truth in Kant’s Theory of Beauty

Abstract This essay argues that the interpretations we develop through the activity of reflection have a share of the truth. I argue this, first, by outlining the relationship of concepts to intuitions in Kant’s theory of cognition, which presents the measure for truth in his philosophy. I turn, second, to explicate in detail the relation of the faculties in Kant’s descriptions of the free play between the imagination and the understanding in judgments of taste. Here, we find that concepts relate to what appears in a partial but also multiple way, leading to a conclusion that our reflective judgments share in the truth. This is important, I note, for the need we have to inhabit a shared world where we can communicate with each other about the way that things are, even about things that are not objects of ‘knowledge’ proper.

Treading the Narrow Path – Rethinking Democratic Education in Times of Polarization

Abstract This essay examines the relationship between knowledge, politics, and education in the context of the global crisis of democracy and the growing prevalence of political polarization. Focusing on the issue of vaccine hesitancy, I explore how citizens’ reference to knowledge and values shapes their political judgements and argue for the importance of education in facilitating informed and reasoned decision-making. Drawing on Hannah Arendt’s dialectical account of politics and knowledge, I highlight the limitations of reducing political debates to a quest for ‘right knowledge’, arguing that it neglects the coordination of diverse values and interpretations that is essential to democratic processes. To do so, I discuss ‘educationalization’ of the political during the COVID-19 pandemic, wherein the dissemination of empirically grounded information became a strategy to generate public consent. However, my essay cautions against the hegemony of empirical knowledge, which can lead to despotic politics and the proliferation of misinformation. To ensure differentiated and reasonable judgements in uncertain situations and conflicts, I turn to Arendt’s concept of reflective and political judgement, emphasizing the ability to imagine others’ perspectives and construct general principles. The educational task, therefore, encompasses not only conveying factual knowledge but also nurturing reflective judgement that strikes a balance between factual truth and divergent interpretations, values, and interests.

An account of the relationship between critical thinking and fluid intelligence in considering executive functions

Critical thinking is often described as purposeful, reflective judgment, encompassing both skills and disposition components. Are critical thinking and fluid intelligence distinct capabilities, or do they rely on similar cognitive processes? Extensive research indicates that executive functions, which govern the cognitive control of complex, goal-oriented behavior, play pivotal roles in both critical thinking and fluid intelligence. This current study delves into the degree of overlap between critical thinking and fluid intelligence, exploring how three frequently cited executive functions—updating, inhibition, and shifting—predict each of these faculties and their overlap. Data were gathered from a sample of 232 university students (142 female; Mage = 19.70, SD age = 1.22) on measures of critical thinking skills, critical thinking dispositions, fluid intelligence and executive functions. The findings reveal that fluid intelligence exhibits a significant association with both critical thinking skills (r = 0.62) and critical thinking dispositions (r = 0.31). Furthermore, the functions of updating and inhibition significantly contribute to both critical thinking skills and fluid intelligence, jointly explaining 85 % of their common variance. However, executive functions did not emerge as significant predictors of critical thinking dispositions. These results contribute to our deeper comprehension of human intelligence by elucidating the distinctions and associations between critical thinking and fluid intelligence, while shedding light on their underlying cognitive mechanisms.

Teaching Critical Thinking in EFL Classroom: Students and Teachers’ Perspectives

The present article investigates the perspectives of students and teachers towards the teaching of critical thinking in EFL classroom. It also explores the way teachers conceptualise the term in their teaching practices as well as the approaches and methods they adopt to teach the concept of critical thinking. In this regard, 14 Algerian English language teachers were sent an online questionnaire. Nine narrative journals have also been analyzed by means of descriptive and analytic methods with first year English degree students, at the department of English, University of Algiers 2 (Algeria).In addition, ten empirical studies which have relation with the topic under investigation have been examined to reinforce the analysis and discussion of the data obtained. The results of the questionnaire indicated that the majority of participants conceptualize critical thinking as reflective judgment and most of them do introduce the concept in their classes. For the narrative journals, the participants showed awareness of the importance of critical thinking not just in their learning processes but also in their whole life in general

Misinformation, Risk Perceptions, and Intention to Seek Information About Masks: The Moderating Roles of Gender and Reflective Judgment

ABSTRACT The current study has three main purposes: to examine 1) the impact of theory-driven corrective messages using individual vs. collective frames on information-seeking intention 2) the mediating role of risk perceptions and 3) the moderating role of reflection and gender. Our findings from a randomized experimental study and Hayes’ moderated, moderated mediation model show collective frames were associated with high-risk perceptions among women, which in turn led to higher information seeking intention. The second moderator reveals that people who scored higher on reflection were more willing to seek information. Our findings have critical implications for misinformation research by demonstrating the importance of theoretically driven messages in understanding misperceptions as well as people’s information seeking behavior.

Refining Adult Learners’ Discursive Capacities: A Response to the Current Epistemological Crisis through the Lens of Transformation Theory

The following article begins with the observation that both public discourses, as well as dialogue between adult learners within certain educational contexts, is frequently confined to competitive and strongly assertive claims, a characteristic which significantly diminishes the epistemological potential of the dialogical act. Drawing on the description of the current ‘epistemological crisis’ by Hoggan and Hoggan – Kloubert (2021), the article first attempts to show how this crisis is reflected in the understanding of the dialogical act among particular groups of adult learners. The article then tries to explore ways through which this understanding can be enriched and transformed into a more complex and multidimensional process. The central orientation of such a transition, is elaborated through the lens of Jack Mezirow’s Transformation Theory (1991, 2000), thus growing out of an examination, as well as an effort to transform, the epistemological ‘habits of mind’ which characterize the learners’ distorted perception of the dialogical act. The discussion of the learners’ epistemological habits of mind, is followed by the attempt to set up a framework of discursive activities, which help learners actualize the above transformation, specifically to the way they articulate questions of value (that is, their value priorities and value assumptions). The suggested activities are geared towards cultivating the learners’ awareness of evaluative and conceptual ‘complexity’, with the ultimate aim of allowing this awareness to strengthen their epistemic and discursive agency. The gradual cultivation of this agency is demonstrated through a range of practical examples, which are analysed in terms of their transformative, philosophical, and ethical dimensions. The learners’ renewed understanding of the dialogical act, is finally related to their capacity to activate their ‘reflective judgment’ (see also Kant, 1790 / 1987 in Hoggan and Hoggan – Kloubert, 2021).

“The Most Interesting Point in the Kantian System”

Hegel’s chief criticism of Kant in his early essay Faith and Knowledge is that Kant’s philosophy introduces the dichotomy between intuition and concept, between being and thought. As a result, Kantian philosophy fails to explain how the synthesis between concepts and intuitions in experience is possible. Kant’s theory of ideas is symptomatic of this failure: Kant’s idea refers to the concept of totality, the highest expression of reason, which is nonetheless not accessible to human experience. Yet, Hegel recognizes another conception of an idea in Kant’s philosophy: the aesthetic idea in the Critique of Judgment is, according to Hegel, the “most interesting point in the Kantian System.” Kant describes the aesthetic idea as an intuition that contains much thought (conceptual content): in the aesthetic idea, then, the concept-intuition dichotomy falls away. And while Kant reduces the aesthetic idea to the subjective framework of reflective judgment, I argue that Hegel treats the aesthetic idea as something like a precursor of the speculative idea: the original unity between thought and being.

The Inversion Problem: Why Algorithms Should Infer Mental State and Not Just Predict Behavior

More and more machine learning is applied to human behavior. Increasingly these algorithms suffer from a hidden—but serious—problem. It arises because they often predict one thing while hoping for another. Take a recommender system: It predicts clicks but hopes to identify preferences. Or take an algorithm that automates a radiologist: It predicts in-the-moment diagnoses while hoping to identify their reflective judgments. Psychology shows us the gaps between the objectives of such prediction tasks and the goals we hope to achieve: People can click mindlessly; experts can get tired and make systematic errors. We argue such situations are ubiquitous and call them “inversion problems”: The real goal requires understanding a mental state that is not directly measured in behavioral data but must instead be inverted from the behavior. Identifying and solving these problems require new tools that draw on both behavioral and computational science.

Who corrects misinformation online? Self-perceived media literacy and the moderating role of reflective judgment

PurposePurpose: The main purpose of the study is to understand the factors that facilitate correction behavior among individuals. In this study the authors examine the impact of self-perceived media literacy (SPML) and reflection on participants’ correction behavior.Design/methodology/approachMethods: Data for the study were collected from Amazon's MTurk using an online survey. Data were collected after a certificate of exemption was received by the Institutional Review Board in a research university in the United States (US) Qualtrics software was used to collect data. The total number of participants was 797.FindingsFindings: The findings show that although both SPML and reflection are positively associated with rumor refutation, higher SPML alone is not enough. Reflective judgment is critical for individuals to take part in this behavior online, such that individuals with higher reflective judgment indicated that they refute rumors online, irrespective of their SPML score.Originality/valueOriginality: The authors tested the relationship of multiple variables with participants correction behavior. Although research shows the importance of social correction, there is not much knowledge about what facilitates actual misinformation correction.

Sources of knowledge and trust in authorities as prerequisites of pre-service teachers reflective judgment skills in the context of socioscientific issues

Sources of knowledge and trust in authorities as prerequisites of pre-service teachers reflective judgment skills in the context of socioscientific issues

Cognitive ability and performance in accounting students: The importance of data analytics assignments

Cognitive ability plays a key role in the success of accounting professionals. The development of this cognitive ability (i.e., critical thinking, reflective judgment, problem-solving) in accountants falls heavily on higher education. To address the limited investigation of cognitive ability in accounting students, this research seeks to better understand cognitive development in accounting education via an empirical study. The study attempts to expand the current discussion of student cognitive ability by exploring the relationship between students’ cognitive ability and academic performance by developing hypotheses focused on both lower-level memorization and higher-level analytical assignments. Data from accounting students attending a major university in the United States support the positive link between measures of cognitive ability (i.e., reflective judgment) and both overall course grades and data analytics assignment grades. These results suggest that accounting education needs to go beyond testing within the multiple-choice paradigm and shift the focus to descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, and prescriptive data analytics assignments. Further, this research provides a path forward for educators attempting to prepare today’s graduating accounting students for their future careers.

Relativizing the A Priori By Way of Reflective Judgement

AbstractAn influential strand in philosophy of science claims that scientific paradigms can be understood as relativized a priori frameworks. Here, Kant’s constitutive a priori principles are no longer held to establish conditions of possibility for knowledge which are unchanging and universally true, but are restricted only to a given scientific domain. Yet it is unclear how exactly a relativized a priori can be construed as both stable and dynamical, establishing foundations for current scientific claims while simultaneously making intelligible the transition to a subsequent framework. In this article, I show that important resources for this problem have been overlooked in Kant’s theory of reflective judgement in the third Critique. I argue that Kant accorded the task of formulating new scientific laws to reflective judgement, which is charged with forming new ‘universals’ that guide the experience of nature. I show that this is the very task attributed to the relativized a priori: the constitution of a given conceptual framework, not of the conditions for object-reference as such. I conclude that Kant’s considered conception of science encompasses the operations of both reflective and determining judgement. Relativizations of the a priori should follow Kant’s lead.

The ‘Whole’ Truth about Biological Individuality in Kant’s Account of Living Nature

AbstractGiven the central place organisms occupy in Kant’s account of living nature, it might seem unlikely that his claims about biological wholes could be relevant to current debates over the problem of biological individuality. These debates acknowledge the multiple realizability of biological individuality in vastly different forms, including parts of organisms and complex groups of organisms at various levels of the biological hierarchy, sparking much controversy in attempts to characterize a biological individual. I argue that, far from being irrelevant to this controversy, Kant’s account provides a key insight for addressing the multiple realizability problem. I show how the reciprocal causality between a self-organizing whole and its parts, which Kant thinks characterizes a natural end, is not limited to organisms but is exhibited by numerous types of beings in living nature. Self-organizing wholes of various kinds, and at various biological levels, may count as biological individuals, depending on the degree to which their functionally integrated parts are represented by reflective judgement as a natural end.

Problem-Based Learning in the Area of Law: Systematic Review

The review addresses the issue of problem-based learning in the field of law, which is defined as a problem-solving approach to the learning process, which is developed from the critical and reflective judgment of the law student. Law autonomously, the same that allows the resolution of the problem and with it, the development of skills and competencies in its training process until its application in the exercise of the profession. The objective of the study focuses on conducting a systematic review about the importance of problem-based learning in the area of law. From the methodology, a quantitative investigation was applied through the use of the PRISMA method, taking into consideration articles that are related to the topic of study, such as Scielo, Dialnet and Redalyc. Among the main results, it was observed that, of the 8,058 initial articles analyzed, a total of 10 articles were included that address the problem from different areas of law. It is conclusive for the authors that the problem-based learning methodology constitutes a fundamental tool that contributes to the teaching-learning process of the law or specialty student. Likewise, it is supervised that its application not only allows the development of critical thinking, but also skills, abilities, values for the resolution of legal or legal problems.

An Evaluative Review of Barriers to Critical Thinking in Educational and Real-World Settings.

Though a wide array of definitions and conceptualisations of critical thinking have been offered in the past, further elaboration on some concepts is required, particularly with respect to various factors that may impede an individual's application of critical thinking, such as in the case of reflective judgment. These barriers include varying levels of epistemological engagement or understanding, issues pertaining to heuristic-based thinking and intuitive judgment, as well as emotional and biased thinking. The aim of this review is to discuss such barriers and evaluate their impact on critical thinking in light of perspectives from research in an effort to reinforce the 'completeness' of extant critical thinking frameworks and to enhance the potential benefits of implementation in real-world settings. Recommendations and implications for overcoming such barriers are also discussed and evaluated.

On Kant doing philosophy and the Peircean alternative

Abstract In my work on Kant’s Transcendental epistemology, I criticize his three Critiques and show that none of them can solve the problems that Kant endeavored to solve; and he even, in a way, admitted it. In the first Critique, Kant attempts to solve the difficulties of the Cartesian Idealism and Humean Empirism, in combining them mechanically in his own Transcendental formalism and Sensual matter without being able to bridge the gap between them. In the second Critique, Kant endeavored to make his Practical Reason of the a priori pure fact of formal morality into free moral conduct to materialize his ideal commonwealth of ends, but he could not bridge this gap. In his third Critique, Kant attempted to make the aesthetic reflective judgment of beauty objective, including of artworks, but failed to do so. The Peircean pragmaticist method can save the theory of knowledge both from the dogmatism of the metaphysical realists and from the inconsistency of the phenomenalists and holists. Peirce developed his epistemological realism in response to the difficulties of Kant’s transcendental epistemology, especially that of his three Critiques. It seems that in his late research Kant tries to follow Spinoza in the distinction between the causality in nature and the human inner causality as one’s Moral freedom and yet for Kant they operate in different domains to keep human freedom absolute, while the Spinozist conception of human freedom is in Nature and relative to human knowledge of reality and one’s relative power in Nature. Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View is a continuation of his Transcendental critical philosophy, but also his intended empirical epistemology by which to develop a practical deviation from his Copernican Revolution in the direction of the Peircean contra-revolution in Pragmaticist epistemology.

Connected learning: An approach for teaching nature of science aspects and argumentation components

AbstractThe study investigated the influence of a connected learning approach for explicit nature of science (NOS) instruction and explicit argumentation instruction, in comparison with a non‐connected approach, on students' NOS conceptions and argumentation skills. Participants comprised 42 students enrolled in two sections of grade 10 that were randomly assigned (flip of a coin) into two groups: Connected (22 students) and non‐connected (20 students). Participants in both groups were taught by the same teacher. The duration for the treatment was 2 months and one unit about plants was addressed. Participants in one group received explicit NOS and explicit argumentation instruction and learned about NOS and argumentation components as connected and at the same time, while participants in the other group received explicit NOS instruction and explicit argumentation instruction as non‐connected and learned about them as separate. An open‐ended questionnaire, together with individual semi‐structured interviews, were administered at the beginning and conclusion of the study to assess participants' NOS conceptions and argumentation components in socioscientific contexts. The results showed that the connected group outperformed the non‐connected group in generating arguments and counterarguments. As for NOS, the results revealed that both the connected and non‐connected approaches showed a general enhancement of the conceptions of the NOS aspects. These results are interpreted in terms of the reflective judgment model, argumentation as a framework, an explicit approach, cognitive load theory, and curriculum coherence.

Kant’s Favorite Argument for Our Immortality

Kant’s claim that we must postulate the immortality of the soul is polarizing. While much attention has been paid to two standard arguments in its defense (one moral-psychological, the other rational), I contend that a favorite argument of Kant’s from the apogee of his critical period—namely, the teleological argument—deserves renewed attention. This article reconstructs the argument and exhibits what makes it unique (though not necessarily superior) in relation to the other arguments. In particular, its form (as third-personal or descriptive, beginning from observations) and related force of assent (as a subjectively universal reflective judgment) set it apart from the other arguments. My goal is to establish that any engagement with Kant’s immortality postulate must include equal consideration of the teleological argument to be complete.

Hermeneutic Responsibility in Political Judgement. Retrieving Factual Truth From Direct Interaction

"In this paper I am arguing for hermeneutic responsibility in political judgment, as it can be attributed to Arendt’s work. Political judgment is reflective judgment relying on representation by imagination and therefore only has exemplary validity. Along the line of Arendt’s Lectures on Kant’s Political Philosophy I point out her argument for a different generality in politics than the generality of concepts. This generality of political judgment always refers back to the particular. Only by this reference to the particular, namely to facts and situations of direct interaction, can the spectator, who undertakes the political judgment, create the public realm where action takes place. However, this task attributed to the spectator also implies the task of reshaping the public realm. These acts of giving an account of and reconsidering all over again facts handed over by narration and testimony imply the hermeneutic responsibility to unceasingly retrieve factual truth which is rooted in direct interaction. Keywords: Hannah Arendt, factual truth, reproductive imagination, political judgment, hermeneutic responsibility. "