Teaching Students to Understand Knowledge: Stress‐Testing the ‘Justified True Belief Account’ for Critical Thinking

ABSTRACT This conceptual essay, grounded in a close reading of Plato's Theaetetus , argues that before educators can effectively operationalise critical thinking as the rigorous evaluation ('stress‐testing') of competing knowledge claims, university students must first understand foundational epistemological principles rooted in Plato's tripartite account of knowledge as ‘justified true belief with an account’ (201d‐210a). Central to critical thinking is the imperative to think critically about a certain subject. The subject at stake here, I propose, is knowledge, framed here as the nature, scope and limitations of what one can justifiably claim to know. Because academic disciplines are characterised as ‘critical conversations’, to be part of a ‘critical conversation’, university students must be introduced to what it means to be ‘critical’, and, by extension, ‘think critically’. Before all this, however, students must understand knowledge—more precisely—the principles underpinning sufficiently acceptable and defective or inadequate justifications for knowledge claims. Because all knowledge claims are grounded in reasons, students need a basic grounding in epistemology to properly scrutinise those claims and, ipso facto , think critically. Although extensive empirical studies support the general claim that structured epistemic training significantly enhances critical thinking, this paper focuses specifically on developing a strong conceptual argument advocating epistemic education (accurately determining the nature, scope and limits of all claims to knowledge via reasons) as foundational to higher education pedagogy.