Critical thinking: from the Humboldt model to the FGOS

Abstract

The subject of the study in this article is the concept of liberal education in its connection with the formation of such a concept as «critical thinking». The authors believe that the basis of liberal education is a phenomenon that modern researchers call «German philosophy of the university», historically associated with the emergence of the Humboldt University model. By analyzing the texts of philosophers and educational theorists who were related to the «German philosophy of the university» the conclusion is made that the modern liberal concept of education and the concept of «critical thinking» emerge and are thematized within this tradition. Accordingly, what modern pedagogy commonly refers to as «critical thinking» as an educational outcome is inextricably linked to the context of liberal education formation. Indirect evidence of this is also the connection between the ideas of «German philosophy of the university» and the pedagogical developments of such classics of liberalism as J. St. Mill and Dewey, whose connection and continuity of ideas are also analyzed in this article. From the point of view of the authors of this article, these conclusions may help to give a more detailed understanding of what is to be understood today by «critical thinking» in contemporary pedagogy and educational discourse. Moreover, it is the historical-philosophical approach to the analysis of this notion that seems to be the most effective and topical, since it helps to understand the context of its formation and to outline the main interpretations that may help to form a conventional definition of what «critical thinking» is, the lack of which is now considered to be one of the main problems of applied pedagogy.