What are the Bounds of Critical Rationality in Education?

Since Dilthey we have become used to thinking of reason as having a cultural and historical setting . If we take this insight seriously, then critical rationality or critical thinking can no longer be conceived of as context‐free skills . This paper takes up the line of thought that is elaborated by Christopher Winch in his ‘Developing Critical Rationality as a Pedagogical Aim’ and seeks to explicate it by drawing on Ludwig Wittgenstein's concept of ‘language games’ and on the re‐evaluation of ‘thinking’ by Theodor Ballauff (a German philosopher of education who was influenced by Martin Heidegger) . The overcoming of a solipsistic and idealistic conception of thinking raises questions regarding the pedagogical settings and aims, as well as the problems over the limits of critique in education . A comparison of Ballauff's and Winch's positions reinforces the sense of the significance of critique: although the role of critical rationality within education is ambiguous and precarious, the investigation of autonomy (as an educational goal) shows that critique cannot be limited in any straightforward way .