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Intellectual traits

The final dimension of Paul’s model focuses on what it is to be a critical thinker. He has identified a number of affective traits that he considers to be essential to ‘strong sense’ critical thinking (Elder and Paul, 1998, p. 34):

•intellectual humility

•intellectual courage

•intellectual empathy

•intellectual integrity

•intellectual perseverance

•faith in reason

•fairmindedness.

These are not things a person does, but describe fundamental dispositions. These ‘traits of a disciplined mind’ are what Paul calls the affective and moral dimensions of critical thinking. Paul (1991) claims that there are many ways in which teachers can foster these traits of mind. To do this successfully, he advocates a re-conceptual- isation of the nature of teaching and learning in every context of school life, involving a move from a didactic approach to one based on a critical theory of education. Paul presents the traits of the disciplined mind as ideals to strive towards. He outlines six stages of critical thinking, moving from the unreflective thinker to the master thinker. According to Paul, master thinkers will only emerge when society begins to value and reward these qualities of thinking. Given the extent of deep social conditioning, he believes it unlikely that anyone currently meets his definition of master thinker.

Evaluation

Paul’s model of critical thinking takes account of cognitive, affective and conative components. He is aware of the importance of being sensitive to the circumstances in which thinking occurs. His lists of abilities and traits do not have any significant omissions when compared with those of Ennis (1998) or Perkins, Jay and Tishman (1993). Although Paul does not use the term ‘metacognition’, his account of intellectual integrity does recognise it implicitly through his emphasis on reflection and self-awareness.

168 Frameworks for Thinking

Nosich (2000) believes that it is because Paul’s model of critical thinking is concept-based (as opposed to having rules, procedures or steps to follow), that it is effective in curriculum development. The model is extremely flexible, applicable to any subject matter and to any level of thinking. Nosich uses Paul’s concept of evidence to illustrate his point. Asking a student to ‘identify the evidence a conclusion is based upon’ is a critical thinking step. The ability to do it well is a higher-order thinking skill, but is limited, in that there are many other things students should be able to do with evidence, such as realise that more evidence is required or balance the weight of conflicting evidence. Paul’s solution is to make the concept of evidence an essential part of all thinking processes. Nosich (2000) believes that the ability to think in terms of the concept of evidence allows one to think about evidence in a range of settings, at different levels of expertise and to gain further insight into the concept of evidence itself.

Paul is one of a number of philosophers whom Thayer-Bacon criticises for their ‘Euro-western cultural bias’ (1998, p. 125) and a belief in rational thought as the dominant mode of thinking within a critical thinking framework. It is evident from Paul’s definition of critical thinking and his other work, including the development of a taxonomy of Socratic questioning, that he sits firmly in the rationalist camp. For Paul, the spirit of critical thinking is to have the confidence in one’s ability to use reason appropriately to solve problems and answer questions. He acknowledges that there have been criticisms of critical thinking for being too Western in its orientation, not dealing with creativity, ignoring the role of emotion in thought and failing to address feminist or sociological insights. However, he claims that previous attempts to widen the scope of critical thinking to accommodate these concerns meant sacrificing some of the rigour found in formal and informal logic courses.

Paul’s major contribution to the area of critical thinking is his idea of ‘weak’ versus ‘strong sense’ critical thinking. The latter is what Paul refers to as the ability to discover and contest one’s own egocentric and socio-centric habits of thought. Paul (1991, p. 77) claims that his nine traits of thought, which are moral commitments and intellectual virtues, transfer thinking from ‘a selfish, narrow-minded foundation to a broad open-minded foundation’.

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The clear language and writing style make Paul’s work accessible without sacrificing conceptual clarity. It is unlikely that his writing would prove a barrier to anyone with an interest in critical thinking. Those already committed to teaching critical thinking will find Paul’s work helpful and possibly inspirational, given its emphasis on ‘strong sense’ thinking.

While Paul offers some teaching strategies to support the development of pupils’ thinking, his aim is not to tinker with classroom practice by proposing thinking skills programmes. His goal is a reworking of education where students construct knowledge through the application of their own reasoning rather than through transmission of information by the teacher. This calls for a re-evaluation of what is judged important in both education and more broadly valued in society.

Summary: Paul

				Relevance for
Purpose and structure		Some key features		teachers and learning
Main purpose(s):		Terminology:		Intended audience:
•	to provide a model	•	clear and	•	teachers
	of critical thinking		straightforward	•	students
•	to justify the		language
	importance of critical
	thinking in education
Domains addressed:		Presentation:		Contexts:
•	cognitive	•	through a series	•	education
•	affective		of articles and	•	citizenship
•	conative		books
Broad categories covered:		Theory base:		Pedagogical stance:
•	reflective thinking	•	philosophical	•	critical thinking needs to
•	productive thinking				underpin education and
•	building understanding				be the basis for enquiry
•	information-gathering