four page essay

INTELLECTUAL VIRTUES Critical thinking, we can all agree, is an important life skill. It's fair to say that all of us, or at least most of us, would like to get better at it. But critical thinking doesn't just happen. We can do all the information-gathering, analyzing, evaluating, and deep reasoning we want, but we're wasting our time if we don't have the right attitude going in. Attitude is everything. So what attitudes should we adopt to become better critical thinkers? According to the Foundation for Critical Thinking's Richard Paul and Linda Elder, there are eight mental virtues, or habits of mind, that help us think carefully and effectively, especially when analyzing controversial issues and arguments. Paul and Elder's list of "Essential Intellectual Traits" is reproduced below, slightly edited for the sake of brevity. "INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY: Having a consciousness of the limits of one's knowledge… [and the] bias, prejudice and limitations of one's viewpoint. Intellectual humility depends on recognizing that one should not claim more than one actually knows…." "INTELLECTUAL COURAGE: Having a consciousness of the need to face and fairly address ideas, beliefs or viewpoints toward which we have strong negative emotions and to which we have not given a serious hearing. This courage is connected with the recognition that … conclusions and beliefs inculcated in us are sometimes false or misleading… [and that] we must not passively and uncritically 'accept' what we have 'learned'…." "INTELLECTUAL EMPATHY: Having a consciousness of the need to imaginatively put oneself in the place of others in order to genuinely understand them.... This trait correlates with the ability to… reason from premises, assumptions, and ideas other than our own…." "INTELLECTUAL AUTONOMY: Having rational control of one's beliefs, values, and inferences. The ideal of critical thinking is to gain command over one's thought processes. [This] entails a commitment to analyzing and evaluating beliefs on the basis of reason and evidence, to question when it is rational to question, to believe when it is rational to believe, and to conform when it is rational to conform." "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; . . . 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." "CONFIDENCE 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, [and] persuade each other by reason…." "FAIRMINDEDNESS: Having a consciousness of the need to treat all viewpoints... 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." -- Richard Paul and Linda Elder. Critical Thinking: Concepts and Tools, 7th ed. The Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2016.