Critical Study 

INFORMAL LOGIC 
XIIL2, Spring 1991 

Paul's Critical Thinking 

ALEC FISHER University of East Anglia 

Paul, Richard. (1990). Critical Thinking: 
What Every Person Needs to Survive in 
a Rapidly Changing World. Rohnert 
Park, CA: Center for Critical Thinking, 
Sonoma State University. 608 pages. ISBN 
0-944583-04-0. Paper. US$19.95. 

1. Introduction and Outline 
of the Argument 

This book collects most of Richard 
Paul's previously published papers on criti-
cal thinking (along with some other relevant 
material) in one place for the first time. 
Given Paul's leading role in this rapidly 
developing field, and given the book's con-
tents, it is certain to prove an invaluable 
source book for those working on critical 
thinking for many years. 

Paul's title is a play on E. D. Hirsch's 
Cultural Literacy; What Every American 
Needs to Know and every word Paul writes 
is opposed to Hirsch's conception. As Paul 
explains in the Foreword, all the items in the 
volume 

have been written with the express purpose of 
persuading educators and others concerned 
with education of the need to place critical 
thinking at the heart of educational reform. 

Paul's basic premiss is that the prevailing 
mode of education in schools is too didac-
tic, that it relies too heavily on rote memori-
sation, and that it makes teachers into 
authority figures. He argues that schooling 
ofthis kind fails in three respects: (I) it does 
little to develop that most desirable of 

human qualities-rationality, (2) it does lit-
tle to develop the kind of flexible thinkers 
that the modern world of work needs, and 
(3) it does not produce the kind of reflective 
citizens that are needed to ensure the proper 
functioning of democracy. His response is 
to propose radical educational reform-
reform which aims at achieving these very 
objectives by placing the teaching of critical 
thinking at the core of the curriculum. 

What Paul means by 'critical thinking' 
is best seen in the distinctions he draws 
between the 'uncritical' thinker, the 'weak' 
critical thinker, and the 'strong' critical 
thinker. The uncritical thinker is simply not 
very good at reasoning, and is easily 
deceived. The 'weak', or 'sophistical', criti-
cal thinker is skilled at reasoning, but uses 
that skill only in defence of his or her own 
interests and prejudices. By contrast, the 
'strong', or 'fairminded', critical thinker is 
skilled at reasoning and uses that skill just 
as readily when his or her own interests and 
prejudices are threatened. What Paul wants 
to place at the core of the curriculum is the 
teaching of 'strong' critical thinking. 

Paul has devoted much of his intellec-
tual energy to articulating his conception 
of strong critical thinking and to contrasting 
this with other conceptions. What dis-
tinguishes his approach from others is 
his insistence on the importance of 
'fairmindedness'-on seeing things from 
alternative points of view and taking 
those opposing views seriollsly. He 
argues that many of the problems people 
have to face-at work. at home, and as 
citizens-are ·multi-Iogkal'. and cannot he 



114 Alec Fisher 

solved within one perspective, hence the 
importance of seeing things from other per-
spectives. Many of the papers in this collec-
tion articulate these fundamental ideas and 
argue this fundamental case. 

Paul not only theorises, he also wants to 
change the educational world. He is both an 
evangelist for critical thinking, and an edu-
cational revolutionary; he has both faith and 
organisational drive! Hence, besides theo-
rising, Paul has also done three other things. 
Firstly, he has set out to rouse the educa-
tional world and to persuade it to his banner; 
to this end he has not hesitated to write what 
are essentially polemical pieces, several of 
which are to be found in this book. Sec-
ondly, he has addressed the practical prob-
lem of showing how to incorporate the 
teaching of critical thinking into an already 
crowded curriculum; here he has chosen the 
'infusion' approach rather than the 'sepa-
rate subject' approach of, for example, Mat-
thew Lipman's Philosophy for Children 
programme; again, there are several items 
on this theme in the book. Thirdly, he has 
recognised the need to produce teaching 
materials which will assist teachers to 
infuse critical thinking into the curriculum; 
for this purpose he has produced a series of 
four Critical Thinking Handbooks; there 
are several representative selections from 
these in the present volume. 

The chapters of this book then, are 
devoted to a large task and range widely in 
both content and style. Some were written 
for scholarly journals; others are mainly 
polemical pieces. Some are concerned with 
high theory; others with practical matters. 
Many of the items were written for particu-
lar audiences on particular occasions, so 
there is a good deal of overlap in their con-
tents. Many of the chapters only outline 
what is explained in more detail elsewhere 
(in general the more polemical pieces only 
outline what is detailed in the more theoreti-
cal pieces). For these reasons, the book 
should not be read as a systematic treatise 
on critical thinking, from cover to cover, but 
as a source book showing how Paul's ideas 
and the critical thinking movement have 

developed in the past decade. Given that the 
reader will want to 'dip' into the book, an 
index would have been helpful-or perhaps 
more descriptive abstracts at the head of 
each chapter. Having said that, the book 
contains a great deal of interesting reading, 
and in this review I shall heIp the reader to 
find his or her way about it. 

2. The History of Education 

Paul's views on the history of education 
are outlined in Chapter 1 (Chapter 2 con-
tains similar material) and summarised in 
Chapter 3 (pp. 28-30). In Chapter 1, "The 
Critical Thinking Movement in Historical 
Perspective" (1985), Paul argues that US 
education has been more concerned with 
indoctrination and training for jobs than 
with teaching people to think. This is a 
largely polemical piece, rather than a schol-
arly defence of his viewpoint. He claims 
that if the public statements of many indi-
viduals and organisations concerned with 
US education are right, 

our overemphasis on "rote memorization 
and recall of facts" does not serve us well. 
We must exchange our traditional picture of 
knowledge and learning for one that gener-
ates and rewards "active, independent, self-
directed learning" so that students can 
"gather and assess data rigorously and 
critically". We need to abandon "methods 
that make students passive recipients of 
information" and adopt those that transform 
them into "active participants in their own 
intellectual growth." (p. 6) 

He does not detail the case against existing 
educational methods, or consider possible 
criticisms of his position, though he cites 
some authorities in support of his view and 
the fact that, 

At no point along the way, even to this day, 
were, or are, prospective teachers expected 
to demonstrate their capacity to lead a dis-
cussion Socratic ally, so that. for example, 
students explore the evidence that can be 
advanced for or against their beliefs, note 
assumptions upon which they are based, 



their implications for, or consistency with, 
other espoused beliefs. (p. 5) 

3. Why Reform is Needed 

As I explained in the introduction, Paul 
gives three reasons why educational reform 
is necessary. Chapter 2, "Towards a Critical 
Society" (1984), is another mainly polemi-
cal piece, but it contains a number of classic 
statements of these reasons. For example: 

Let me clarify the conceptual foundations of 
my argument. All rational learning presup-
poses rational assent. And though we some-
times forget it, all learning is not 
automatically or even commonly rational. 
Much that we learn in everyday life is dis-
tinetly irrational. It is quite possible-and 
unfortunately most human learning is of this 
character-to come to believe any number 
of things without knowing how or why. We 
can easily believe for irrational reasons: 
because those around us believe, because we 
are rewarded for believing and punished for 
doubt, because we are afraid to disbelieve, 
because belief serves our vested interest, 
because we are more comfortable with 
belief, because we have ego-identified our-
selves, our image, or our personal being 
with belief. In all of these cases, our beliefs 
are without rational grounding, without 
good reason and evidence, without the foun-
dation a rational person demands. 

We become rational, on the other hand, 
to the extent that our beliefs and actions are 
grounded in good reasons and evidence; to 
the extent that we recognize and critique our 
own irrationality; to the extent that we are 
unmoved by bad reasons and a multiplicity 
of irrational motives, fears, desires; to the 
extent we have cultivated a passion for clar-
ity, accuracy, and fairmindedness. These 
global skills, passions, and dispositions 
integrated into a wav of acting and thinkin a 
characterize the rational, the educated pe; 
son. (p. 13) 

And again: 

If we were to make a commitment to 
become a nation of educated people, the 
result would be not only a large pool of tal-
('nted people to solve our technical and sci-
entil'i<' problems, but also a citizenry with 

Critical Study of Paul 115 

the critical facuIties and intellectual where-
withal to recognize and prevent wrong and 
wasteful allocations of life, money, and 
other resources. Imagine we had decided not 
to support a war in Vietnam some 25 years 
ago. The saving from that decision 
alone-some 200 billions of dollars, not 10 
mention hundreds of thousands of lives, 
both American and Vietnamese-cou!d 
have been used in the intervening years to 
raise the intellectual standards of our 
schools many times over. (p. 17) 

And finally: 

The key to usefulness of schooling is trans-
fer. The key to transfer is generalization. 
The key 10 justifiable generalization is criti-
cal evaluation. Learning how to think about 
facts and experiences, to critically spell out 
their implications for theory and practice, is 
a necessary condition of "educated" gener-
alization. The answer is not more vocational 
training, certainly not as traditionally con-
ceived, but rather schooling that provides 
foundational thinking skills and develops 
the critical spirit: the foundation for edu-
cated learning. (p. 9) 

Apart from these classic statements, this 
piece is programmatic and polemical and 
makes a number of points which are made 
more fully in many other places. 

4. Conflicting Theories of Knowledge 

Chapter 3, "Critical Thinking in North 
America" (1989), is one of the most theoret-
ical pieces in the collection. In it, Paul out-
lines "Two Conflicting Theories of 
Knowledge, Learning and Literacy: The 
Didactic and the Critical". In summary the 
contrast is this: on the didactic appro.lch 
students are 'tilled-up' with domain-
specitic knowledge--on the model of an 
encyclopaedia, whereas on the critical 
approach students actively engage in con-
structing their own knowledge through 
questioning-on the Socratic model. The 
didactic approach has an 'atomistic' view of 
knowledge, i.e., it sees knowledge as con-
sisting of independent hilS whi~h can he 
'added on'; it also sees 'transfer' as a side-



116 Alec Fisher 

issue. The critical view on the other hand 
sees knowledge as systemic and holistic 
(adding a bit changes already existing bits) 
and teaches for transfer (p. 27). 

In this article Paul also gives careful 
definitions of 'uncritical thinking', 'sophis-
tical (or weak) critical thinking' and 'fair-
minded critical thinking' (p. 32 ff.), and 
outlines what he calls the 'perfections and 
imperfections' of thought (clarity versus 
unclarity, etc.), discussing what they mean 
in different contexts. (It also has a useful 
bibliography. ) 

Chapter 4, "Critical Thinking: What, 
Why and How" (1988), contains a great deal 
of material which is also in the previous arti-
cle. It adds little to what is there, except that 
it does begin to discuss 'infusing' critical 
thinking into the curriculum and it contains 
a statement of the traits of mind Paul associ-
ates with the 'strong' critical thinker, 
namely intellectual humility, intellectual 
courage, intellectual empathy, intellectual 
good faith (integrity), intellectual persever-
ance, faith in reasons, and an intellectual 
sense of justice. 

5. 'Background Thinking' 

In Chapter 6, "Background Logic, Criti-
cal Thinking and Irrational Language 
Games" (1985), Paul argues that we have a 
natural tendency to think both egocentri-
cally and sociocentrically. He argues that if 
we are to be fairminded critical thinkers it is 
necessary to probe the 'background logic' 
of our manifest words and behaviour. He 
identifies and discusses four 'dimensions' 
of background logic: 

I) the dimension of our thinking temporally 
prior to what we have expressed, 2) the 
dimension of our thinking logically presup-
posed by what we have expressed, 3) the 
dimension of our thinking implied by what 
we have expressed, and 4) the dimension of 
thinking developed when our thinking is 
challenged by others. (p. 74) 

He claims that our 'background thinking' is 
not taken sufficiently seriously and offers 

the following interesting explanation: 

Another reason why background thinking is 
not taken seriously is our over-fascination 
with formal procedures and what we take to 
be scientific objectivity. In an age of science 
it seems to many that all important problems 
are questions that should be settled by some 
objective scientific process that transcends 
the "subjectivity" of thought. Our obsession 
with scientific formalism, our scientism, is 
actually quite old, ultimately traceable per-
haps to Aristotle's logic. 

Plato's method of intellectual gi ve-and-
take, of dialogical exchange between oppos-
ing viewpoints, was relegated by many to an 
inferior role, and formal syllogistic reason 
officially accepted as the exclusive means of 
acquiring true know ledge. In place of argu-
mentation between conflicting points of 
view Aristotle's followers held that definite 
methods should be developed that lead more 
or less directly and obj ectively to the truth. 
This laid a foundation for a long history of 
formal approaches to logic: logic largely 
divorced from context, from the conceptual 
problems of everyday life and dispute, and 
from the practical problems faced in an irra-
tional, multi-faceted, deeply disguised world. 

Philosophy, in contrast to science. main-
tained dialectic as its fundamental means of 
enquiry. Bring opposing philosophers 
together and it is usually necessary to test 
each of their views against the objections of 
the other. This process is at its rocts infonnal, 
for there are no hard-and-fast rules or fonnu-
las for deciding how and when to object to 
an opposing philosophical position. (p. 71) 

This is a largely discursive article, but it is 
very suggestive and its ideas deserve to be 
developed further. 

6. Strong Critical Thinking 

One of the best papers in the volume is 
Chapter 7, "Critical Thinking: Fundamental 
for a Free Society" (1984). This paper was 
written originally for Educational Leader-
ship and carefully articulates various of 
Paul's theoretical concerns besides giving 
practical advice on how to establish critical 
thinking teaching in schools (pp. 89-90). 



This paper contains many pointed state-
ments of Paul's ideas; for example, on the 
difference between 'weak' and 'strong' 
critical thinking: 

I emphasize the need to recognize and high-
light a fundamental difference between two 
distinct conceptions of critical thinking: a 
"weak" sense, understood as asetofdiscrete 
micro-logical skills extrinsic to the charac-
ter of the person, skills that can be tacked 
onto other learning; and a "strong" sense, 
understood as a set of integrated macro-
logical skills and abilities intrinsic ulti-
mately to the character of the person and to 
insight into one's own cognitive and affec-
tive processes. If we chose the latter we con-
cern ourselves not only with the develop-
ment of technical reason-skills which do 
not transform one's grasp of one's basic cog-
nitive and affective processes-but also 
with the development of emancipatory 
reason-skills and abilities which generate 
not only fundamental insight into, but also 
some command of one's own cognitive and 
affective processes. In the strong sense, we 
emphasize comprehensive critical thinking 
skills and abilities essential to the free, 
rational, and autonomous mind. In the weak 
sense, we are content to develop what typi-
cally comes down to "vocational" thinking 
skills which by themselves have little influ-
ence on a person's intellectual, emotional or 
moral autonomy. (pp. 87-88) 

Also in this paper, Paul carefully draws the 
distinction between 'technical' and dialogi-
cal reasoning and between the different 
associated kinds of 'problem-solving'. He 
criticises Dewey and Polya for suggesting 
that all problem solving is of the same kind: 

For example, Dewey thought that one could 
approach all problems through the follow-
ing ordered scientific steps: I) identify the 
problem, 2) establish facts, 3) formulate 
hypotheses, 4) test hypotheses, and 5) evalu-
ate results. Polya formulated a similar gen-
eral procedure: I) Understand the problem. 
What is the unknown? What data are given? 
What are the conditions? 2) Devise a plan. 
Find the connection between the data and 
the unknown. You may be obliged to con-
sider auxiliary problems if an immediate 
connection cannot be found. :n Carry out the 
plan. Check each step. Can you see dearly 

Critical Study of Paul 117 

that the step is correct? Can you prove that it 
is correct? 4) Look back. Check the result. 
Check the argument. Can you derive the 
result differently? (p. 95) 

He concludes: 

Dialectical thought is the master-principle 
of all rational experience and human eman-
cipation. It cultivates the mind and orients 
the person as technical training cannot. It 
meets our need to bring harmony and order 
into our lives, to work out an amalgamation 
of ideas from various dimensions of experi-
ence, to achieve, in short, intellectual, emo-
tional, and moral integrity. The proper doing 
of it is our only defense against cIosedmind-
edness. (p. 105) 

Again, this article contains a useful bibliog-
raphy. 

7. The Critical Person 

Chapter 8, "Critical Thinking and the 
Critical Person" (1987), is an interesting 
paper for several reasons. In this paper Paul 
stresses the value of making 'strong' critical 
thinking part of one's whole character (and 
thereby escaping egocentricity); he also 
argues the social importance of strong criti-
cal thinking (which can save us from 
sociocentricity). He characterises strong 
critical thinking succinctly (p. 110); he 
quotes from and establishes interesting con-
nections with the work of Ennis, Siegel, 
Scriven, and Peters; and he draws a clear 
picture of the Socratic ideal which so 
clearly inspires much of his thinking: 

The concept of strong sense critical think-
ing, of critical thought integrated into the 
personal and social life of the individual. is 
not new. It was introduced into Western 
intellectual tradition in the chronicles of the 
life and death of Socrates (470-399 BC), one 
of the most important and intluential teach-
ers of ancient Greece. As ;1 teacher, he was 
committed to the importance of ideas and 
their critique in the conduct of everyday 
hlllmllllife. It is to him that the precept "the 
unexamined life is not worth living" is 
attrihuted. It is in him that the ideal of con-
scientious civil disoheJiellce and critical 



118 Alec Fisher 

autonomy of thought is first to be found. He 
illustrated the possibility and the value of 
sharpness of mind, clarity of thought, and 
commitment to practical insight based on 
autonomous reason. He championed reason, 
the rational life. and a rationally structured 
ethic, the intimate fusion of reason and pas-
sion. He disclaimed authority on his own 
part but claimed the right to independently 
criticize all authoritative beliefs and estab-
lished institutions. He made it clear that 
teachers cannot be educators in the fullest 
sense unless thev can criticize the received 
assumptions of their social groups and are 
willing to nurture a climate of questioning 
and doubt among their students. (p. 113) 

In this chapter, Paul also discusses Ameri-
can sociocentricity with respect to its per-
ceptions of the Soviet Union, using some 
very instructive examples. 

8. Prejudice 

Chapter 10, "Critical Thinking and the 
Nature of Prejudice" (1988 by Paul and 
Adamson), discusses some of the literature 
on prejudice, recommending in particular 
William Graham Sumner's Folkways 
(1906), which argues that prejudiced belief 
is the norm in human societies, rather than 
the exception. By 'prejudice' is meant the 
human tendency "to form prejudgments and 
preconceptions without adequate reasons or 
before the relevant evidence is in, and then 
to feel and act accordingly to the detriment 
of others" (p. 138). 

Paul and Adamson argue that it is very 
difficult to "cultivate and nurture people 
who habitually think rationally" (p. 145) but 
that the answer is to instil the intellectual 
skills and virtues of critical thinking. For 
example, they say: 

Intellectual jairmindedness can be fostered 
by encouraging students to consider evi-
dence and reasons for positions they disa-
gree with, as well as those with which they 
agree. Students can also be encouraged to 
show reciprocity when disputes arise, or 
when the class is discussing issues, evaluat-
ing the reasoning of story characters, or dis-
cussing other cultures. (p. 160) 

It is not at all obvious to me, even on Paul's 
own terms, why this should foster fairmind-
edness, rather than skill at outwitting your 
opponents. Paul seems here to fall into the 
trap of intellectualising the emotions; it 
seems unlikely to me that, for example, 
many people's racial prejudices will be 
touched by intellectual considerations. 

Surprisingly, Paul claims: 

Critical thinking does not compel or coerce 
students to come to any particular substantive 
moral conclusions or to adopt any particular 
substantive moral point of view. Neither 
does it imply moral relativism. (pp. 179-80) 

But surely, on his own terms it ought to 
imply that racial prt:judice is wrong. Could 
one really be a racist critical thinker? As is 
well known, Paul believes one could be a 
critical thinker and either atheist or Roman 
Catholic (Cardinal Newman is one of his 
models of a critical thinker), 

There are two interesting tables on pp. 
188-89, the first listing the Moral Reason-
ing Skills and the second the Essential 
Moral Virtues. The main problem with the 
Moral Virtues is that it is not at all clear how 
one would inculcate them; as I have asked 
above, why should trying to see things from 
someone else's point of view (being fair-
minded) foster concern for them? The 
Moral Reasoning Skills correspond quite 
closely to the lists of critical thinking strate-
gies which are to be found in Paul's Critical 
Thinking Handbooks, except that they are 
related specifically to the moral domain-
'fostering moral reciprocity', 'examining 
moral assumptions', etc. Though what is 
meant by most of them is intuitively clear 
(or is explained in the Handbooks), it is not 
clear how Paul would distinguish S-16 
'engaging in Socratic discussion', S-17 
'practicing dialogical thinking' and S-18 
'practicing dialectical thinking'. 

9. Dialogical and Dialectical Thinking 

Paul says a great deal about 'dialogical' 
and 'dialectical' thinking, about 'monolog-



ical' and 'multilogical' problems, and about 
Socratic questioning, but it is not easy to see 
what the relations are between these ideas. I 
had hoped that Chapter 14, "Dialogical 
Thinking: Critical Thinking Essential to the 
Acquisition of Rational Knowledge and 
Passions" (1987) would explain what dia-
logical thinking is, but it is a mainly polemi-
cal piece, telling us what a good thing 
dialogical thinking is, rather than what it is. 
However, Paul does usefully explain that a 
'monological' problem is one which is 

settled within one frame of reference with a 
definite set of logical moves. When the right 
set of moves is made, the problem is settled. 
(p.205) 

And he then explains that 

philosophers concerned with critical think-
ing and rationality are drawn to a very differ-
ent kind of problem, 

in short, problems which are difficult to 
define, which cluster with other problems, 
which are conceptually messy, where the 
evidence is controversial and the inter-
pretation arguable, and where the appropri-
ate frame of reference is arguable too. 
Paul calls such questions 'multi logical' 
(p.205). 

Another connection among these 
related notions can be established through 
Chapter 17, "Dialogical and Dialectical 
Thinking" (1990), which is another essen-
tially polemical piece. In this paper Paul 
arg~es that didactic teaching methods, 
whIch encourage monological thinking, 
ne~d to be replaced ?y Socratic questioning 
which encourages dialogical and dialectical 
thinking. It is not easy to see what the differ-
ence is between these two, but Paul puts it 
thus: 

Dialogical and dialectical thinking involve 
dialogue or extended exchange between dif-
ferent points of view or frames of reference. 
Both are multi logical (involving ml/m' log-
ICS) rather than monological (involving lIlIe 
logiC) because in both cases there is more 
thun one line of reasoning 10 consider. more 
thunone "logic" being formulated. Dialoguc 
becomes dialectical when ideas or rcasoll-

Critical Study of Paul 119 

ings come into conflict with each other and 
we need to assess their various strengths and 
weaknesses. (p. 246) 

And at the conclusion of the article he adds: 

Socratic questioning is one form of dialogi-
cal thinking. Dialectical thinking refers to 
dialogical thinking conducted in order to 
test the strengths and weaknesses of oppos-
ing points of view. Court trials and debates 
are dialectical in form and intention. They 
pit idea against idea in order to get at the 
truth of the matter .... (p. 254) 

10. Socratic Questioning 

One of the most useful items in the col-
lection is Chapter 19, on "Socratic 
Questioning". It is clear that Socratic ques-
tioning is at the very heart of critical think-
ing, and this chapter explains what Socratic 
questioning is. The most useful part of the 
chapter is the Taxonomy of Socratic Ques-
tions (p. 276 if.) which divides typical 
Socratic questions into (I) questions of clar-
ification (e.g., What do you mean by ... ? 
~hat is your main point? etc.), (2) ques-
ttons that probe assumptions, (3) questions 
that probe reasons and evidence (Why do 
you believe that? etc.), (4) questions about 
viewpoints or perspectives (You seem to be 
approaching this issue from a ... perspec-
tive. How would it look from a ... [differ-
ent) perspective?). (5) questions that probe 
implications and consequences (What does 
that imply?), and (6) questions about the 
question (Is the question clear? Do we 
understand it? etc.). This provides a useful 
checklist of the sort of questioning one 
should employ in Socratic questioning. The 
list is derived essentially from the standard 
conception of reasoning which is employed 
by critical thinking theorists and which was 
originally articulated by Ennis ( 1962). 

This very helpful article could he even 
more so if Paul explained where factual 
questions helong in the process of gaining 
knowledge through questionin!! (e.!! .. 
'What is the moleeular structure o(water'~') 
and descrihed related kinds of questioning 



120 Alec Fisher 

which are not Socratic. Both of these 
would help to clarify the idea by drawing 
contrasts. 

n. Strategies for Teaching 
Critical Thinking 

One of the best places to begin reading 
in this collection is Chapter 21, "Strategies: 
Thirty-Five Dimensions of Critical 
Thinking". Given the tasks Paul has set him-
self, (1) to change educational objectives, 
and (2) to change what teachers do, it is 
clear that Paul has to detail what must be 
done and why. The main way in which he 
has done this is to write four Critical Think-
ing Handbooks (K-3, 4-6, 6-9, and High 
School) which actually guide teachers and 
help them to remodel their lessons so that 
they can realise the objectives of teaching 
for critical thinking. Each of these four 
volumes contains something like the list of 
strategies presented in this chapter. Each 
volume then goes through a large number of 
lesson plans and shows the teacher how to 
remodel them, employing these strategies 
in appropriate places. Examples showing 
this are presented in Chapters 22-25, 
and slightly revised versions of these 
chapters are now to be found, along with 
many other examples, in Paul's Critical 
Thinking Handbooks, so these chapters give 
a good sense of the details of Paul's 
approach. 

12. Lesson Plan Remodelling 

In sixteen succinct and compelling 
pages, Chapters 27 and 28 spell out Paul's 
approach to developing staff skills with 
a view to infusing critical thinking into the 
curriculum. The objective is both to develop 
the critical thinking of teachers themselves 
and to help them transform their teaching 
from a didactic to a critical, dialogical 
model. Paul aims to achieve this through 
his Critical Thinking Handbooks which 

explain the basic ideas and then exemplify 
them in numerous remodelled lesson plans, 
and through running extensive in-service 
training courses for teachers. 

The basic idea behind lesson plan remode-
ling as a strategy for staff development in 
critical thinking is simple. Every practicing 
teacher works daily with lesson plans of one 
kind or another. To remodel lesson plans is 
to critique one or more lesson plans and to 
formulate one or more new lesson plans 
based on that critical process. It is well done 
when the remodeler understands the strate-
gies and principles used in producing the 
critique and remodel, when the strategies 
are well-thought-ollt, and when the remodel 
clearly follows from the critique. The idea 
behind our particular approach to staff 
development in lesson plan remodeling is 
also simple. A group of teachers or a staff 
development leader with a reasonable 
number of exemplary remodels and 
explanatory principles can design practice 
sessions that enable teachers to begin 
to develop new teaching skills as a result of 
experience in lesson remodeling. (p. 379) 

Chapter 28, "The Greensboro Plan", was 
written by Janet Williamson, a practicing 
English teacher, who took a leave of 
absence to write a Ph.D. under Robert Ennis 
in Illinois, and then returned to Greensboro, 
North Carolina, to lead a project aimed at 
infusing critical thinking into the curricu-
lum. This chapter makes compulsive read-
ing, mainly because the whole project is 
teacher directed and implemented. The 
project began by taking seriously the prob-
lems of the teacher in the classroom, their 
anxieties, doubts, and hopes; the teachers 
themselves then chose to use Paul's lesson 
remodelling approach; the paper is an 
inspiring account of the careful and tenta-
tive way in which one school district found 
its own way forward, entirely in accord 
with the precepts of critical thinking (and 
with the help of Paul's guidance). It will 
ring true with schoolteachers and should be 
compulsory reading for anyone who is 
interested in infusing critical thinking into 
the curriculum. 



13. McPeck's Mistakes 

Three of the most theoretically interest-
ing articles in the collection are grouped 
under the heading "Contrasting View-
points". The first of these is a critical review 
of John McPeck's Critical Thinking and 
Education; it is called "McPeck's Mistakes: 
Why Critical Thinking Applies Across Dis-
ciplines and Domains" (1985). 

McPeck's key argument against the 
possibility of critical thinking, as is well 
known, is this: 

It is a matter of conceptual truth that think-
ing is always thinking about X, and that X 
can never be "everything in general" but 
must always be something in particular. 
Thus the claim "I teach my students to think" 
is at worst false and at best misleading. 

Thinking, then, is logically connected to 
an X. Since this fundamental point is rea-
sonably easy to grasp, it is surprising that 
critical thinking should have become reified 
into a curriculum subject and the teaching of 
it an area of expertise of its own .... 

In isolation it neither refers to nor 
denotes any particular skill. It follows from 
this that it makes no sense to talk about criti-
cal thinking as a distinct subject and that it 
therefore cannot profitably be taught as 
such. To the extent that critical thinking is 
not about a specific subject X, it is both con-
ceptually and practically empty. The state-
ment "1 teach critical thinking", simpliciter, 
is vacuous because there is no generalized 
skill properly called critical thinking. (in 
Paul, pp. 412-13) 

Paul rightly dismisses this argument with 
the observation that one might as well argue 
against the possibility of teaching general 
writing or speaking skills on the ground 
that one always has to write or speak about 
some particular thing! On McPeck's 
account, it would seem to follow that 
because one has to learn to drive in a partic-
ular car, one doesn't learn general driving 
skills! 

Paul also criticises McPeck for resting 
too much on 'conceptual analysis': 

He does not consider the full range or uses of 
the word '\:ritical" as they relale 10 variolls 

Critical Study o/Paul 121 

everyday senses of the predicate "thinks 
critically". He does not consider the history 
of critical thought, the various theories of it 
implicit in the works of Plato, Aristotle, 
Kant, Hegel, Marx, Freud, Weber, Sartre, 
Habermas, and so forth. He does not consider 
the implications of such classic exemplars 
as Socrates, Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas 
Paine, Henry David Thoreau, or even of an 
H. L. Mencken, or Ivan IIlich, to mention a 
few that come to mind. He fails to ask 
whether their critical thinking can or cannot 
be explained by, or reduced to, specialized 
knowledge or domain-specific skills. He 
neglects the rich range of programs that have 
recently been developed in the field (he has 
it in mind that in principle there cannot be a 
field of research here). (p. 415) 

He rightly criticises McPeck's picture, 
wherein only 'experts' can judge issues, 
partly because this suggests no one 
could judge the kind of 'multi-categorical' 
problem which Paul sees as being at the 
heart of the 'considered life' and partly 
because: 

It depends upon the plausibility of placing 
any line of thought into a "category", 
"domain", "subject area", or "field", which 
placement provides, implicitly or explicitly. 
criteria for judging that line of thought. It 
tacitly assumes that all thinking is in one and 
only one category, that we can, without 
appealing to an expert or experts, tell what 
the appropriute category is. and thus what 
specialized information or skills ure unique 
to it. Each discrete category requires 
specialized concepts. experience. skills, etc. 
Thus. only some limited set of people can 
develop the necessary wherewithal to think 
critieally within it. Since there are l11.my 
logical domuins and we can be trained only 
in a few oflhem. it follows thaI we mUSllise 
our crilical judgment mainly 10 sllspend 
judgmenl and defer 10 experts when we 
ourselves lack expertise. (p. 417) 

He also rightly cntlclses l\kPeck's 
treatment of Ennis, D' Angelo. and Scriyen. 
This is a good statement of the case against 
McPeck's arguments--all the more 
important hecause they still haye a wide 
following (at least on this side of Ihl' 
Atlantic!). 



122 Alec Fisher 

14. Bloom's Taxonomy and 
Critical Thinking 

Chapter 31, "Bloom's Taxonomy and 
Critical Thinking Instruction: Recall is Not 
Knowledge" (1985), carefully charts some 
points of agreement and disagreement 
between Bloom's famous taxonomy and 
ideas in the critical thinking tradition, espe-
cially concerning 'analysis, synthesis, and 
evaluation'. The main point of disagree-
ment concerns the relationship between 
recall and knowledge. Two points of agree-
ment are worth mentioning, firstly, what 
Bloom says about analysis: 

Skill in analysis may be found as an objec-
tive of any field of study. It is frequently 
expressed as one of their important objec-
tives by teachers of science, social studies, 
philosophy, and the arts. They wish, for 
example, to develop in students the ability to 
distinguish fact from hypothesis in a com-
munication, to identify conclusions and 
supporting statements, to distinguish rele-
vant from extraneous material, to note how 
one idea relates to another, to see what 
unstated assumptions are involved in what is 
said, to distinguish dominant from subordi-
nate ideas or themes in poetry or music, to 
find evidence of the author's techniques and 
purposes .... (Cognitive Domain. p. 144, in 
Paul, p. 423) 

Secondly, on higher-order thinking in the 
Affective Domain. Bloom advocates that the 
student: 

Deliberately examines a point of view on 
controversial issues with a view to forming 
opinions about them. 

[Develops] faith in the power of reason in 
methods of experimental discussion. 

Weighs alternative social policies and prac-
tices against the standards of the public wel-
fare rather than the advantage of specialized 
and narrow interest groups. 

[Achieves] readiness to revise judgments 
and to change behavior in the light of evi-
dence. 

Judges problems and issues in terms of situ-
ations, issues, purposes, and consequences 
involved rather than in terms of fixed, dog-

matic precepts or emotionally wishful 
thinking. 

Develops a consistent philosophy of life. 
(pp. 181-85, in Paul, p.424) 

-which sounds very like Paul speaking! 

15. Against Hirsch 

The third of the "Contrasting View-
points" pieces (1989) critiques E. D. 
Hirsch's Cultural Literacy: 

Hirsch argues that there is a discrete, rela-
tively small body of specific information 
possessed by all literate Americans and that 
this information is the foundation not only 
of American culture but also the key to liter-
acy and education. Hirsch reasons as fol-
lows. Because there is a "descriptive list of 
the information actually possessed by liter-
ate Americans" (xiv), and because "all 
human communities are founded upon spe-
cific shared information" (xv) and because 
"shared culture requires transmission of 
specific information to children" (xxvii), it 
follows that "the basic goal of education in a 
human community is acculturation" (xvi). 
Furthermore, because, 

Books and newspapers assume a "com-
mon reader", that is, a person who knows 
the things known by other literate per-
sons in the culture, ... Any reader who 
doesn't possess the knowledge assumed 
in a piece he or she reads will in fact be 
illiterate with respect to that particular 
piece of writing. (p. 13) 

In his reasoning, Hirsch links the having of a 
discrete body of information not only with 
learni ng to read but also with becoming edu-
cated and indeed with achieving success. 
("To be culturally literate is to possess the 
basic information needed to thrive in the 
modern world.") (xiii) Hirsch plays down 
the need for critical thinking and empha-
sizes instead that the information needed for 
cultural literacy does not have to be deeply 
understood. 

The superficiality of the knowledge we 
need for reading and writing may be 
unwelcome news to those who deplore 
superficial learning and praise critical 



thinking over mere information. (p. 15) 
[Paul, p. 429 ff.J 

Needless to say, Paul is sharply critical of 
this appalling view. 

16. Concluding Comment 

In summary, 'There's gold in them there 
hills' but you have to dig it out! It is worth 
noticing that most of this book's forty-one 
chapters and nearly six hundred pages have 
been written since 1985, so it represents a 
formidable amount of work in a short time. 
Paul is a man in a hUrry. He has a vision and 
he wants to do something about it-now! 
His drive and energy are well known, as are 
his organisational skill and his crusading 
zeal. These are sources of strength in many 
respects, but they can lead to too much 
haste. This book certainly deserves and will 
repay careful scrutiny but, especially in 
view of the diverse, polemical, and overlap-
ping nature of its various chapters, it is a 
pity that more editorial work was not done 
in pulling the material together as a book. In 
particular it is to be hoped that any second 
edition will contain an index (it already con-
tains a very useful Glossary of terms) and 
will prune out much of the repetition and at 
least some of the polemic. Even better, Paul 
will find the time to produce a careful and 
systematic theoretical statement of his 
position-which draws together the threads 
in his thinking which I have identified 
above. Much of the raw material is here in 
this volume (though important questions 

Critical Study of Paul 123 

remain to be answered) and it is time Paul 
addressed this need. Gerald Nosich has 
written an excellent Introduction to the 
present collection, which focusses on the 
theoretical issues surrounding Paul's writ-
ings and which indicates some of the con-
troversies which need to be addressed. 

Of course, the acid test for Paul is 
whether his proposals work. The passion 
and the commitment are unmistakable. So 
are the sheer hard work and remarkable pro-
ductivity. Besides writing much of the 
material in the book, he organises a huge 
annual conference on critical thinking and 
has conducted scores of in-service training 
sessions for teachers in North America and 
abroad. However, it is safe to assume that 
Paul would be the first to grant that the real 
test is whether his approach works, whether 
teachers can be taught to use his strategies, 
whether pupils can acquire them, and 
whether fairminded critical thinking 
results. So far as I am aware, there has not 
yet been any independent evaluation of the 
results of implementing Paul's ideas, 
though this would be very interesting (and 
Paul himself has initiated some work in this 
direction-see Fisher (1991)). Perhaps 
Greenboro would provide a good test-bed? 
Just as Matthew Lipman's Philosophy for 
Children Program has been subjected to 
scrutiny by Educational Testing Service, 
with notably favourable results, so it is to be 
hoped that the results of implementing 
Paul's ideas will soon be similarly evalu-
ated. His work has progressed far enough 
now for this to be feasible and he deserves to 
be taken thus seriously. 

References 

Ennis, R. H. (1962). "A Concept of Critical Think-
ing", Harvard Educational Review. Vol. 32, 
No. I, 81-11 I. 

Fisher, A. E. (1991). "Testing Fairmindedness", 
Informal Logic. Vol. XIII, No. I (Winter 1991), 
31-35. 

Paul, R., Rinker, A. J. A., & Charbonneau, M. 
(1986). Critical Thillkillg Halldbook K-3. 

Rohnert Park, CA: Center for Critical Thinking 
and Moral Critique, S0l10l11U State University. 

ALEC FISHER 
IJEPARTMENTOF PHILOSOPHY 
SCHOOL OF ECONOMIC ANO SOCMI. STUf)fES 
UNIVERSITY OF EASTANGUA 
NORWICH NR.J TTJ ENGL\ND :.J