{"ops":[{"insert":"This article was published in the Fall 2011 issue of Sonoma State University’s"},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":" Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines"},{"insert":" (vol. 26, no. 3) and was titled, “Reflections on the Nature of Critical Thinking, Its History, Politics, and Barriers, and on Its Status across the College/University Curriculum Part I.” (Part II was published in the Spring 2012 issue.)\n \nThe piece was divided into eight sections:\n\nAbstract"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"Introduction"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"I. My Intellectual Journey"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"II. Barriers to the Cultivation of Critical Thinking"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"III. Forms and Manifestations of Critical Thinking, Mapping the Field"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"IV. The Establishment of the Center and Foundation for Critical Thinking"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"V. Academic Departments, Faculty and Administrators Generally Fail to Foster Critical Thinking"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"VI Conclusion"},{"attributes":{"list":"bullet"},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":"\nThe sixth of these appears below.\n\n \n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"IV. The Establishment of the Center and Foundation for Critical Thinking"},{"insert":"\n \nWhen I was an undergraduate (1955-1960), Aristotelian Catholicism provided me with a source of serious reflections about what seemed to me to be life’s deepest and most significant questions. However by the time I was a graduate student, religious answers no longer seemed adequate, and I turned to philosophy (more broadly) for possible intellectual orientations that would help me make sense of the world. I became increasingly concerned with the difficulty of determining truth from fiction, sense from nonsense, reason from unreason, wisdom from hyperbole or distraction. I constructed my first serious independent intellectual work during my post graduate years centered on the logic of questions and their settlement conditions (i.e. on what must be done to meet the intellectual demands of questions of various and sundry types). My core idea was that if all reasoning is question-centered, the logic of the question at issue should determine what process or procedures were relevant to the settlement of any given question. I began to seek generic intellectual structures essential to all question-centered thought. Hence, instead of routinely asking: “What are my premises? And “what are my conclusions?” I asked “what is my purpose? What is the question at issue? What information or data are relevant to the settlement of the question at issue? What inferences am I making in interpreting those data? What are the key concepts I am using in my thinking? What assumptions am I making? What implications follow from the answers to the above questions? And what is the point of view from the perspective of which I am framing all of my reasoning? These eight questions became the basis upon which I developed the concept of the “elements of thought.” These eight question categories I came to see as essential to all human thought (whether the thinker came to terms with them explicitly or not). More on the elements of thought in part two of these reflections.\n \nBy 1980 my intellectual orientation became clear with the establishment of the Center and Foundation for Critical Thinking, non-profit sister organizations whose mission is educational reform through critical thinking. In 1981, the Center for Critical Thinking (under my direction) held the First International Conference on Critical Thinking and Moral Critique at Sonoma State University. The goals of the conference were two-fold: 1) to provide a forum for interested persons to develop their understanding and practice of critical thinking, and; 2) to focus scholarship on conceptualizing critical thinking as a comprehensive intellectual orientation that sheds light on, and provides the intellectual underpinnings for, all possible intellectual or mental constructs.\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"A. The First Conference Goal"},{"insert":"\nThe first conference goal has been achieved, and next year will mark the 32nd consecutive International Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform. However, we are a long way from the widespread cultivation of fair-minded critical societies — in fact none exist.\n \nIn 1990 the Foundation for Critical Thinking published an anthology of my writings ("},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing World"},{"insert":"). This collection represents, as John Chaffee put it, my “working out of the basic concepts and insights of critical thinking within an integrated theoretical framework.”\n \nWhat the field of Critical Thinking Studies has needed from the beginning and still lacks are ways to engage teachers and scholars in the challenge of intellectual work that re-conceptualizes all teaching and learning within an integrated theoretical framework that both teachers (at a moderate to high level) and students (at an entry level) could command. One essential goal of critical thinking (for those working in association with our organization) was that of successfully locating the central concepts of critical thinking within a highly flexible yet integrated theoretical framework. My anthology, "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"Critical Thinking: What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly Changing World (1990) "},{"insert":"was intended to spearhead this process. Here are some of the reviews of this book from theoreticians in the field (1990):\n \n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"John Chaffee."},{"insert":" “Paul’s book…is a milestone in the emergence of the field of critical thinking. As a pioneer and leader in this movement, Dr. Paul has, more than anyone, sought to place its central concepts and insights within an integrated theoretical framework, and this volume reveals both the extraordinary breadth and depth of his thinking… The text will serve as an invaluable resource for educators at every level, and constitutes a significant contribution to the literature and intellectual advancement of the critical thinking field.”"},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" "},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Perry Weddle."},{"insert":" “Paul poses a challenge not just to critical thinking instruction and education, he poses a challenge to the whole educational enterprise as presently conceived.”"},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" "},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"Michael Scriven."},{"insert":" “[Paul’s]…efforts in the field of education have led to a position of unmatched importance in the educational working out of the real meaning of critical thinking…It is fair to say that it represents the first really massive effort to deal with the huge range of pedagogical and logical issues that emerge when we really turn our critical thinking skills toward the subject of teaching critical thinking.”"},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" "},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"David Perkins."},{"insert":" “Richard Paul has contributed to the current interest in cultivating critical and creative thinking one of the simplest and most powerful notions around: the concept of “strong sense” critical thinking, that sort of critical thinking that confronts deep and genuine conflicts of values and perspectives. In doing so, Paul has given us not just a philosophical distinction but an ideal to strive for. Quite rightly pointing out that it is all too easy to settle for modest technical improvements in the practice of thinking, Paul presses the point that this is not enough — indeed, if this is all the enterprise amounts to, it is hardly worth undertaking."},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nIn the light of these highly positive reviews, it seemed that the Foundation’s intellectual reform efforts (the integration of research, theory, and practice that I and my colleagues at the Foundation for Critical Thinking were constructing) would represent a paradigm in the field. Our conference was drawing large numbers, participants were increasingly communicating in non-technical language, and there were few objecting to the three concept sets we were emphasizing (elements, standards, traits). However, in the mid to late 1980s, a variety of problems began to emerge in part of the field of Critical Thinking Studies (some in theory, some in application, and some due to vested interest).\n \n \nFor one, most philosophers focused their attention on the writing of a textbook for stand-alone courses in critical thinking conceived, often, again, as formal or informal logic. These textbooks became ends in themselves, not frameworks for critical thinking across the disciplines. For another, many of the early leaders did not seem willing to do the pedagogical experimentation necessary to bring substantive critical thinking, in any number of ways, across the disciplines.\n\nFew philosophers, even those whose courses in critical thinking represented the bulk of their instruction, focused on research in teaching critical thinking across the disciplines. Serious educational reform presupposes serious intellectual work (targeting critical thinking across the disciplines). Working out the underpinnings of the pedagogy of critical thinking (adequate for the integration of theory, research, and practice) was pursued by a relative few. Many academics coming to the conference in critical thinking and educational reform were not leaving the conference primed to do the intellectual work that results in new ways to teach and learn (across the disciplines). This leads us to our second conference goal.\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":"B. The International Conference"},{"insert":"\n"},{"attributes":{"bold":true},"insert":" "},{"insert":"\nThe goal of the International Conference was to focus scholarship on conceptualizing the idea of critical thinking in diverse directions (i.e. on developing a field of studies of critical thinking across the disciplines). Regarding this second goal, our initial efforts were unsatisfactory. By the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, it was clear to the fellows at the Foundation for Critical Thinking that the vast majority of theoreticians invited to the International Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform did not share a common agenda. Though respectful of others’ work, they appeared to us to be more concerned with developing ideas (other than ideas essential to critical thinking) from their own fields of specialization (based on technical terms from their home disciplines) rather than collaborating to develop best practices for teaching CT across the disciplines. Rather than experiencing harmony and evolution at the conference, attendees were experiencing a confusing array of approaches to critical thinking, from formal and informal logic, to cognitive psychology, to critical theory, to feminism, to a variety based explicitly on specific academic disciplines, and beyond. Much of this was alienating and divisive, and by the mid 1990’s it was no longer economically viable, nor intellectually justified, for the Foundation to finance non-convergent work. So we shifted our focus (Paul, Elder, and Nosich). We saw the shift we called for as choosing rigor and the long run over popularity and the short run.\n \nIn any case, we shifted our invitation focus to researchers who showed some interest in the problems inherent in decoding the logic of the disciplines: the logic of biology, the logic of chemistry, the logic of history, the logic of sociology, the logic of economics. In other words, we focused our emphasis on critical thinking across the disciplines. The response was initially less than satisfactory.\n \nWe found that part of the problem was that many academicians were not motivated to do research on problems not recognized as significant by journals within their home disciplines. Others were uncomfortable working beyond their home discipline. Many found it difficult to obtain funding for research that went beyond their discipline.\n \nThere were also problems generated by specialists attempting to communicate with conference attendees not in their specialty. For example, those who attended sessions designed by philosophers often found that they were passively listening to didactic lectures in (to them) confusing philosophical language.\n \nAfter much agonizing and long discussions, we made the decision to focus our attention on actual models of critical thinking across one or more disciplines or domains of thought. At the same time we focused attention not on thinking per se, but on the interplay of the affective and the cognitive.\n \nWe were also keen to model instructional strategies that foster critical thinking in teaching and learning. Such modeling is essential to bringing critical thinking across the disciplines.\n \nThese decisions caused an apparent grievance for some (who apparently took the changes personally); and I have been "},{"attributes":{"italic":true},"insert":"persona non grata "},{"insert":"with some others (mainly informal logicians) ever since. My work, which was previously favorably reviewed (by such people as Siegel, Weddle, Johnson. Blair, Barell, Ruggiero, Scriven, Fisher, Michelli, Weinstein) seemed to drop from the critical interest of the informal logic and philosophical reasoning cadre. My consolation was that, ultimately, the intellectual “black ball,” if that is what it is, seems confined to a relatively small and specialized few.\n \nIn the meantime, and not unaffected by these realities, the need to develop critical thinking across the disciplines had been left by many to languish. Due to a system of education (including teacher training programs) which does not embrace a substantive conception of critical thinking, few teachers can articulate or cite evidence of teaching for critical thinking (see, e.g. Paul, 1997; Thomas, 1999);\n evidence continues to mount that most students are not learning it either (see, e.g. Cas-Lotto, J. and Benner, M., 2006; Bok 2006; Blaich, 2007; Arum and Roksa, 2011). While many philosophers and others continue to re-hash theoretical debates with little practical value to teachers, students, or individuals trying to live self-examined lives, the Foundation for Critical Thinking fellows focus on the contextualizations called for in systematically applying critical thinking across the disciplines.\n \nThe fact is that those philosophers who purport to be interested in critical thinking but who fail to make the concept accessible to people interested in developing critical thinking skills, abilities and traits, who say they are interested in the advancement of critical thinking but do nothing to foster a substantive and accessible conception of it across the disciplines, who develop theory and write articles focused on a narrow, specialized interest, thus conceptualizing critical thinking in a narrow, specialized manner, collectively stand in the way of the development of critically-centered universities and societies. The work of the Foundation for Critical Thinking, then, is largely ignored by a cadre of Informal logicians and various other philosophers whose Interest in critical thinking is not in the development of critical societies, or in the art of living an examined life, or in the process of bringing critical thinking realistically and effectively across the disciplines.\n \nAs mentioned, in the 1980s a number of well-known philosophers critiqued my work in highly positive terms (see the appendix for more examples), but in the past two decades a number of these have largely ignored my work, as they have ignored the work of my colleagues Linda Elder, Gerald Nosich, Enoch Hale and Rush Cosgrove.\n \nI give these examples, not because the work of the Foundation for Critical Thinking fellows is dependent on the imprimatur approval of informal logicians, or philosophers in general, come to that. Here is some general information that documents the recognition of the work of the Foundation fellows and scholars (Richard Paul, Linda Elder, Gerald Nosich, Enoch Hale, et al. in the national and international educational communities):\n \nThe Foundation for Critical Thinking receives more than 150,000 unique visits per month on our website, from more than 100 countries. It reaches out to educators at all levels, in all subjects and disciplines, and develops curriculum materials to achieve this end. The Foundation for Critical Thinking generates and publishes critical thinking books and guides for those interested in developing their reasoning abilities. In the past 32 years, scholars at the Foundation for Critical Thinking have collectively written eleven books and twenty-three thinker’s guides on critical thinking. Moreover, the Foundation sponsors conferences, academies, seminars and workshops in critical thinking. Tens of thousands of educators have attended the Foundation’s conferences and workshops since its inception. Each year the Foundation for Critical Thinking sends out complementary thinker’s guides to somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000 educators to introduce them to a rich concept of critical thinking. In the past 10 years, more than a million such thinker’s guides have been sent to educators. Approximately 700,000 have been sold (to educators at all levels in all major disciplines). The written works of the Foundation for Critical Thinking fellows have been translated into languages such as Spanish, French, Japanese, Chinese, German, Turkish and Arabic. Many of these translations can be downloaded at no charge from the Foundation website."},{"attributes":{"indent":1},"insert":"\n"},{"insert":" \nThe visibility and out-reach of the Foundation for Critical Thinking continues to grow through its integrated approach to the theory, research, and pedagogical application of critical thinking, and in the light of its emphasis on fostering critical thinking across the curriculum. We believe we have now developed more instructional books, thinker’s guides and materials than any other group of theoreticians. We have more resources freely accessible on our website, and we offer more professional development programs, and on-line courses, and have reached more educators with our work than any other internationally active critical thinking organization.\n \nIt is ironic, then, in the light of the professional commendation that was accorded to the integration of our early work (particularly the integration of research, theory, and practice) that I was peremptorily removed from the advisory board of AILACT (the informal logic association), with no explanation. (The device used was the “removing” of everyone from the board to be followed by most of them being returned routinely).\n \nWhat is significant in this transparent marginalization? In my view it stands as “proof” that academic politics are very much alive. Even academics supposedly committed to fair-minded critical thinking are not above some small blows below the belt.\n"}]}