Susan Stebbing, Common Sense, and Thinking Critically

FAIN: FEL-281677-22

Teresa Kouri Kissel
Old Dominion University Research Foundation (Norfolk, VA 23508-0369)

Research and writing leading to a book on the female logician and analytic philosopher Susan Stebbing (1885-1943).

Susan Stebbing, a female logician in the early 20th century, concerned herself more with educating the general public about logic than did her peers. For this reason, and because she was female, she has been largely omitted from the philosophical canon. My project will rectify this omission. Stebbing developed unique notions of common sense and analysis, which she used to educate the general public about logical reasoning. She was motivated by the need to help people see through a biased media, and to properly reason about the information they were being given. Over the course of the year, I will complete the last three chapters of a book project precisely defining Stebbing’s notion of common sense and using it to show how her approaches to critical thinking were based on her more academic work. In this way, I will provide new (or, rather, revitalize old) methods of teaching critical thinking in classrooms.