In documents and reports on educational policy, the need for an education for critical thinking often (if not always) reappears. And yet, one cannot escape the impression that our societies   

have been increasingly turning into what some authors dub “unthinking societies.” The irruption of AI seems only to accelerate this trend and to complicate the scenarios. But what if educating for critical thinking is not sufficient? Or, more radically still: what if it turns out to be “the social malady for whose therapy it takes itself to be”? What if critical thinking is not the remedy for technological bêtise but rather its hidden kin? This does not imply denying the significance of education for thinking; rather, it calls for a reappraisal of what thinking itself means, and of the relationship between education and thinking. In this endeavour, one revives a tradition that, from Socrates to Dewey, locates at the very root of thinking not merely the attitude of critique but the attitude of care. Accordingly, it will be suggested that, as educators, we should pursue the project of an education for “thoughtfulness”, in which the note of care-fulness more clearly resounds.