CRITICAL THINKING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF KNOWLEDGE

What characterizes the ideal critical thinker? Within the critical thinking movement, it is sometimes suggested that the ideal critical thinker is a ''constructivist knower'' who integrates objective and critical ways of knowing with subjective and creative ways of knowing. In this article it is argued that descriptions of constructivist knowers are typically consisent with two very different approaches to epistemology: one approach leads to an extreme relativism which precludes shared standards of rationality; the other approach recognizes that the individual can integrate rational and emotive thought in a way that permits common standards of rationality. This article also suggests that thinkers identified as model or exemplary constructivist knowers display critical and creative thinking in a way that underscores the existence of common standards of judgment and rationality.