How the Western “Canon" Teaches Students How to Think

A flourishing society demands citizens with strong critical thinking skills, including the ability to analyze, interpret, and evaluate information.

The argument: Engaging seriously with the great conversations of the past prepares students to analyze arguments, weigh competing claims, and reason more carefully about the challenges of the present.

WHY IT MATTERS

A well-functioning society demands intellectually serious citizens. Citizens who lack critical thinking skills are unprepared for serious civic engagement and often mistrust ideas, institutions, and processes they don’t understand. They are less able to thrive in their careers, participate in their communities, or build strong families. They are also more vulnerable to manipulation, ideological conformity, and fashionable but poorly examined ideas. Critical thinking is an essential skill to combat these shortcomings.

Unfortunately, today’s students, and often even their teachers, mistake mere criticism for genuine intellectual discernment. Students who have learned to attack ideas they dislike—even on thin emotional grounds—believe that they are “critical thinkers.” The popularity of various “critical theories” belies this trend. But the ability to reject or denounce an idea is not the same as the ability to evaluate it carefully, understand its strongest arguments, or situate it within a broader intellectual tradition. In reality, such reflexive critics lack both the intellectual tools and background knowledge necessary for true discernment.