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III.6 Intellectual Standards
High standards of intellectual honesty mean that one
has a conscience about what one says and what one believes. They mean that
one takes some trouble to determine what speaks for and against a view, what
the alternatives are, what speaks for and against each, and what
alternatives are preferable on these grounds.
Walter A. Kaufmann (1921-1980)
The discovery of truth is
prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and
which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers,
but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)
There can be no critical thinking without the use of intellectual standards. Richard W. Paul The free man is he who does not fear to go to the end of his thought. Léon Blum (1872-1950) The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men. Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899) Most people would rather die than think: many do. To save the world requires faith and courage--faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true. Bertrand A. Russell (1872-1970) One has to multiply [liberating] thoughts to the point where there aren't enough policemen to control them. Stanislaw Jerzey Lec (1909-66) Being direct and truthful about mistaken beliefs is the best way to be free from confusion. Anonymous Introduction A. Free Thinking Gives Knowledge and Reason Free Play B. The Tenets of Intellectual Honesty C. Strategies to Avoid Thinking for Yourself D. Escape Mechanisms E. Valuable Intellectual Virtues F. Universal Intellectual Standards Introduction To think better is to think critically; that is, one practices certain proficiencies and intellectual traits. Most of the other chapters of "The Intellectual World" are about proficiencies, while this part is about intellectual traits. For when individuals possess intellectual proficiencies alone, without the proper intellectual traits of mind, weak sense critical thinking results. Fair-minded or strong sense critical thinking, on the other hand, requires freethinking, intellectual humility, empathy, integrity, perseverance, courage, autonomy, confidence in reason, and some other intellectual habits. Thus, as one observer notes: Critical thinking without essential intellectual traits often results in clever, but manipulative and often unethical, thought. In short, the sophist, the con artist, the manipulator often uses intellectually defective but effective forms of thought. While critical thinking skills might be considered largely 'objective', few humans notice the degree to which they uncritically fail to discern their own 'subjectivity' and one-sidedness. A. Free Thinking Gives Knowledge and Reason Free Play Free thinking is "the free play of the mind on all subjects which it touches." The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next. Matthew Arnold (1822-88)
A skeptic is a philosopher who has doubted everything which he believes, and who believes what a legitimate use of his reason and senses has demonstrated to him as true. Denis Diderot (1713-1784)
Many laws, doctrines, and popular beliefs are based on unscientific but self-serving traditions. Hence, freethinkers' contrary conclusions are fiercely opposed by those who benefit from these false but commonly held views. Free thinking is what a freethinker does. He or she "is a person who forms opinions about religion, politics, morals, etc., independently of tradition, authority, or established belief." The concept of freethinking or freethought holds that individuals should neither accept nor reject ideas proposed as truth without recourse to knowledge and reason. Beliefs, conclusions, findings, and decisions should be formed on the basis of evidence and logic as in the sciences. Hence, thinking has to be unshackled from truth-distorting:
The modern freethinker applies these tenets to all areas of human inquiry as investigated by the social sciences, economics, politics, etc., and natural sciences, biology, environment, etc., as well as the humanities, religion, human rights, philosophy, etc. Until the recent past, the term freethought was applied to thinking "unrestrained by deference to authority, tradition, or established belief, esp. in matters of religion." For additional clarification of the concept of freethinking, below are two definitions of what makes a person a freethinker: Defining a Freethinker by Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910) novelist and social theoretician.
B. The Tenets of Intellectual Honesty It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it. Edmund Way Teale
The great thing to remember is that the mind of man cannot be enlightened permanently by merely teaching him to reject one particular set of superstition. There is an infinite supply of other superstitions always at hand; and the mind that desires such things--that is, the mind that has not trained itself to the hard discipline of reasonableness and honesty, will, as soon as its devils are cast out, proceed itself with their relations. Gilbert Murray (1866-1957) in Failure of Nerve
Intellectual honesty is synonymous with intellectual integrity and high standards of ethical and judicial honesty. In his work Without Guilt and Justice, Kaufmann declared the imperatives of intellectual honesty. They form what he calls the canon, that is, "the heart of rationality, the essence of the The Scientific Method and the meaning of intellectual integrity." Moreover, he explains, virtues are habits; therefore, the acquisition and practice of this method can become a habit, consequently, a virtue. Thus, when confronted with a proposition, principle, theory, etc., the canon commands us to ask seven questions:
However, Kaufmann goes on to say, honesty does not entail pedantry, but rather a sense of proportion, that is, the person does not get lost in details and then becomes a decidophobe (Kaufmann’s coinage). That is, a person who is afraid making decisions when it comes to making with open eyes the choices that give shape to one’s life. Kaufmann lists ten strategies to escape decision making (see below). C. Strategies to Avoid Thinking for Yourself Very few really seek knowledge in this world. Mortal or immortal, few really ask. On the contrary, they try to wring from the unknown the answers they have already shaped in their own minds – justification, explanations, forms of consolation without which they can’t go on. To really ask is to open the door to the whirlwind. The answer may annihilate the question and the questioner. Ann Rice (b. 1941)
D. Escape Mechanisms He who loses wealth loses much; he who loses a friend loses more; but he that loses his courage loses all. Miguel Cervantes (1547-1616) Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death. Anais Nin (1903-77)
The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1900-80) believed that freedom was an aspect of human nature that we either embrace or escape. He observed that embracing our freedom of will was healthy, whereas escaping freedom through the use of escape mechanisms was the root of psychological conflicts. Fromm outlined three main escape mechanisms;
Intellectual Empathy: Having a consciousness of the need to imaginatively put oneself in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them, which requires the consciousness of our egocentric tendency to identify truth with our immediate perceptions of long-standing thought or belief. This trait correlates with the ability to reconstruct accurately the viewpoints and reasoning of others and to reason from premises, assumptions, and ideas other than our own. This trait also correlates with the willingness to remember occasions when we were wrong in the past despite an intense conviction that we were right, and with the ability to imagine our being similarly deceived in a case-at-hand. Intellectual Integrity: Recognition of the need to be true to one's own thinking; to be consistent in the intellectual standards one applies; to hold one's self to the same rigorous standards of evidence and proof to which one holds one's antagonists; to practice what one advocates for others; and to honestly admit discrepancies and inconsistencies in one's own thought and action. Intellectual Perseverance: Having a consciousness of the need to use intellectual insights and truths in spite of difficulties, obstacles, and frustrations; firm adherence to rational principles despite the irrational opposition of others; a sense of the need to struggle with confusion and unsettled questions over an extended period of time to achieve deeper understanding or insight. Faith In Reason: Confidence that, in the long run, one's own higher interests and those of humankind at large will be best served by giving the freest play to reason, by encouraging people to come to their own conclusions by developing their own rational faculties; faith that, with proper encouragement and cultivation, people can learn to think for themselves, to form rational viewpoints, draw reasonable conclusions, think coherently and logically, persuade each other by reason and become reasonable persons, despite the deep-seated obstacles in the native character of the human mind and in society as we know it. Fairmindedness: Having a consciousness of the need to treat all viewpoints alike, without reference to one's own feelings or vested interests, or the feelings or vested interests of one's friends, community or nation; implies adherence to intellectual standards without reference to one's own advantage or the advantage of one's group. F. Universal Intellectual Standards By Linda Elder and Richard Paul, Foundation of Critical Thinking, www.criticalthinking.org. To think critically entails having command of these standards. Universal intellectual standards are standards which must be applied to thinking whenever one is interested in checking the quality of reasoning about a problem, issue, or situation. To think critically entails having command of these standards. To help students learn them, teachers should pose questions which probe student thinking; questions which hold students accountable for their thinking; questions which, through consistent use by the teacher in the classroom, become internalized by students as questions they need to ask themselves. The ultimate goal, then, is for these questions to become infused in the thinking of students, forming part of their inner voice, which then guides them to better and better reasoning. While there are a number of universal standards, the following are the most significant: CLARITY: Could you elaborate further on that point? Could you express that point in another way? Could you give me an illustration? Could you give me an example? Clarity is the gateway standard. If a statement is unclear, we cannot determine whether it is accurate or relevant. In fact, we cannot tell anything about it because we don't yet know what it is saying. For example, the question, "What can be done about the education system in America?" is unclear. In order to address the question adequately, we would need to have a clearer understanding of what the person asking the question is considering the "problem" to be. A clearer question might be "What can educators do to ensure that students learn the skills and abilities which help them function successfully on the job and in their daily decision-making?" ACCURACY: Is that really true? How could we check that? How could we find out if that is true? A statement can be clear but not accurate, as in "Most dogs are over 300 pounds in weight." PRECISION: Could you give more details? Could you be more specific? A statement can be both clear and accurate, but not precise, as in "Jack is overweight." (We don’’t know how overweight Jack is, one pound or 500 pounds.) RELEVANCE: How is that connected to the question? How does that bear on the issue? A statement can be clear, accurate, and precise, but not relevant to the question at issue. For example, students often think that the amount of effort they put into a course should be used in raising their grade in a course. Often, however, the "effort" does not measure the quality of student learning; and when this is so, effort is irrelevant to their appropriate grade. DEPTH: How does your answer address the complexities in the question? How are you taking into account the problems in the question? Is that dealing with the most significant factors? A statement can be clear, accurate, precise, and relevant, but superficial (that is, lack depth). For example, the statement, "Just say No!" which is often used to discourage children and teens from using drugs, is clear, accurate, precise, and relevant. Nevertheless, it lacks depth because it treats an extremely complex issue, the pervasive problem of drug use among young people, superficially. It fails to deal with the complexities of the issue. BREADTH: Do we need to consider another point of view? Is there another way to look at this question? What would this look like from a conservative standpoint? What would this look like from the point of view of . . .? A line of reasoning may be clear accurate, precise, relevant, and deep, but lack breadth (as in an argument from either the conservative or liberal standpoint which gets deeply into an issue, but only recognizes the insights of one side of the question.) LOGIC: Does this really make sense? Does that follow from what you said? How does that follow? But before you implied this, and now you are saying that; how can both be true? When we think, we bring a variety of thoughts together into some order. When the combination of thoughts are mutually supporting and make sense in combination, the thinking is "logical." When the combination is not mutually supporting, is contradictory in some sense or does not "make sense," the combination is not logical. Elsewhere, the above authors from "The Center for Critical Thinking" observe: Whereas society commonly promotes values laden with superficial, immediate "benefits," critical thinking cultivates substance and true intellectual discipline. Critical thinking asks much from us, our students, and our colleagues. It entails rigorous self-reflection and openmindedness — the keys to significant changes. |