Critical Thinking and the Christian Perspective: A Response to Baird and Soden by Wendy Dutton, Thomas Hart and Rebecca Patten Patten College In their article, "Cartesian Values and the Critical Thinking Movement," Faculty Dialogue (Winter 1993), Dr. Forrest Baird and Dr. Dale Soden critique the critical thinking movement by suggesting that it is based on Descartes's paradigm. Unlike educators who find the advocacy of critical thinking a worrisome thing because it redefines the role of the educator as a questioner who models thinking rather than as a lecturer who prescribes knowledge, they raise questions about whether critical thinking is a viable enterprise for faculty who hope to integrate faith and learning in the classroom. As Christian educators, however, we find this to be a disturbing proposition. Certainly, there is plenty of room for reexamination of critical thinking as a discipline, but we believe critical thinking must be a part of every Christian classroom if we are to maintain our integrity. Baird and Soden state that in the critical thinking movement "there appear to be underlying values that are too often unstated" (p. 77). They go further to clearly state their position: "these values are problematic for the Christian scholar and teacher," (77) arguing that the movement is based on the "Cartesian approach to epistemology" and "therefore the methods reflect the weaknesses associated with Descartes." (77) The authors proceed to do three things: 1) They examine the Cartesian paradigm, its history and basic characteristics; 2) They maintain that the critical thinking movement is based on this paradigm; 3) Finally, they raise questions about whether critical thinking should be taught in the Christian College classroom if the movement is indeed based on this paradigm. The issue we want to raise is whether the critical thinking movement is indeed based on Descartes's paradigm. We suggest that in relating the two movements, Baird and Soden have misunderstood the purpose and intent of the critical thinking movement. First, it is inaccurate to address "critical theorists" as if they all agreed. Indeed, there are a great many approaches, systems, and even descriptions of what critical thinking is or should attempt to accomplish. As with the exploratory stages of any new movement or method of teaching, the approaches are myriad and indeed in the experimental stages. Some teachers use critical thinking to study across disciplines - science, economics, politics, art, history. (Descartes -- with his strong leanings toward math and science - was indeed a forefather of cross-discipline studies.) Some use an issue-oriented approach, applying critical thinking to everything from gender to humor, war and peace, even the media's treatment of certain issues. At the root, critical thinking is used as a tool to examine our very thinking processes - assumptions, stereotypes, biases, reasoning. Critical thinking strives to point out that there are not only two sides to every issue, but multiple sides. Critical thinkers strive to break down preconceived thinking patterns and build a more sturdy path to sound reasoning. Indeed, the most standard criticism of critical thinking today is, "Don't we all do this anyway?" In fact, we should. There is a "critical thinking movement" in which many scholars are writing and discussing critical thinking, but the result of this discussion is a wide variety of perspectives on the subject. Second, neither the critical thinking movement, generally, nor Richard Paul,* in particular, minimize history and culture in the way nor to the extent to which Baird and Soden accuse. They say, "critical theorists focus on the importance of eliminating historical or cultural bias." They cite, for example, that Richard Paul emphasizes the need for the critical thinker to develop insight into "sociocentricity" which Soden cites as Paul's definition that `the assumption that one's own social group is inherently and self-evidently superior to all others.'" (Baird and Soden; p. 81, Paul, What Every Person Needs, p. 586.) Here we suggest that Baird and Soden have misinterpreted Paul's concept of the need to be aware of one's historical and cultural bias. Indeed, Paul hopes that the critical thinker will be aware of and examine the culturally derived "mental links which if they remain unexamined, unduly influence our thinking" (Paul, A Critical Thinking Handbook, p. 39 cited by Soden, p. 81). This does not minimize history and culture, nor seek for a paradigm which "transcends" both as Baird and Soden suggest. The important factor, historically, culturally and epistemologically is that, ala Socrates, the critical thinker must be aware of the situation he is in (cultural, historical, etc.). This does not mean that history is "thrown out," but rather that the awareness of one's own situation, values, biases and assumptions are necessary for the development of clear, concise, and logical reasoning. If reasoning only follows given a particular context of history, culture, values, beliefs, etc., then a reader who may be coming from a different perspective will not agree with given conclusions. This does not mean that * Richard W. Paul is widely recognized as a major leader in the national and international critical thinking movements. He has published over forty articles and five books on critical thinking in the last five years. His views on critical thinking have been canvassed in the New York Times, Education Week, The Chronicle of Higher Education, American Teacher, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report. Besides publishing extensively in the field, he has organized two national and eight international conferences on critical thinking. He has given invited lectures at many universities and colleges, including Harvard, University of Chicago, University of Illinois, University of Amsterdam, and the Universities of Puerto Rico and Costa Rica, as well as workshops and lectures on critical thinking in every region of the country. history is not important - it in fact means that it is crucial. Yet the critical thinker must be aware of his own history and that of his audience. For example, if a 20th century Biblical Scholar reads the Medieval Augustine from her own historical and cultural context, she may misunderstand the issues he addresses and what he is trying to say. This is not to say that one can ever totally step outside of history or culture as Soden accuses critical theorists of believing (see p. 81). Richard Paul clearly explains this when he defines "cultural assumptions" in What Every Person Needs, p. 546: "Cultural assumption: Unassessed (often implicit) belief adopted by virtue of upbringing in a society. Raised in a society, we unconsciously take on its point of view, values, beliefs, and practices. At the root of each of these are many kinds of assumptions. Not knowing that we perceive, conceive,think, and experience within assumptions we have taken in, we take ourselves to be perceiving "things as they are", not "things as they appear from a cultural assumption so that we might critically examine them is a crucial dimension of critical thinking." This definition does not call for one to "transcend time" or "move outside of history" as Baird and Soden suggest (Baird and Soden, p. 81). Rather, it calls for awareness of one's historical and cultural assumptions. Third, Baird and Soden state that the use of Descartes's methodological doubt "wields considerable influence among critical theorists" (Baird and Soden, p. 81). This is certainly true on some level. Descartes relates to critical thinking not so much in a philosophical way but through methodology. In Meditations and Discourse he writes in the first person singular in a dramatic situation, making the case that mental exercise is an individual occupation. He also insisted that philosophical discourse must start from scratch. His system of doubt advocated a rigorous examination of preconceptions. This is where critical thinking picks up the Cartesian tradition - as surely as it relies on the work of other great thinkers. According to Baird and Soden, critical theorists "are deeply committed to a mode of thinking that will bring one closer to certitude, objectivity, and dispassionate analysis" (Soden, p. 82). Further, Soden accuses critical thinking of aiming for "perfections of thought:" thinking which is clear, precise, specific, accurate, relevant, consistent, logical, deep, complete, significant, fair, and adequate. (Soden, p. 82 quotes Paul, What Every Person Needs, p. 563). Soden argues that these terms suggest "a debt to Descartes and his followers." We propose the question: has any serious thinker ever aimed for any other kind of thinking? More basically, the important issue of doubt should be examined here. First of all, according to one of Richard Paul's major works, Critical Thinking, What Every Person Needs to Survive, critical thinking has its roots in Socratic inquiry, the notion that truth can best be sought after by means of dialogical thinking ("thinking that involves a dialogue or extended exchange between different points of view or frames of reference." This kind of thinking allows one to challenge one's own individual perceptions, suspend one's historical and cultural bias, and test the strengths and weaknesses of differing points of view. Hence, the critical thinking process is not necessarily or directly based on Descartes's concept of doubt. For Paul, doubt is not a central component of critical thinking. (see What Every Person Needs, part I for a discussion of the historical roots and basic components of critical thinking). Baird and Soden relate this issue of doubt to the issue of the existence of God. Maintaining that doubt is the key to Descartes's philosophy (and therefore critical thinking), they show that, according to Descartes, one must doubt God's existence in order to prove he exists (Soden, p. 86). Regardless of whether this was actually Descartes's problem, we propose that it is not the problem of critical thinking for critical thinking strongly asserts that one should have strong reasons for why one believes in the existence of God. Paul explains "faith" as "Faith is 1) unquestioning belief in anything. 2) Confidence, trust, or reliance. A critical thinker does not accept faith in the first sense, for every belief is reached on the basis of some thinking, which may or may not be justified. Even in religion one believes in one religion rather than another, and in doing so implies that there are good reasons for accepting one rather than another. A Christian, for example, believes that there are good reasons for not being an atheist, and Christians often attempt to persuade non-Christians to change their beliefs. In some sense, then, everyone has confidence in the capacity of his or her own mind to judge rightly on the basis of good reasons, and does not believe simply on the basis of blind faith. ( What Every Person Needs, p. 550.) Again, critical thinking does not merely derive from doubt, but plainly advocates that one should have reasons for belief. Another issue we want to address is Baird and Soden's point that critical thinking and Descartes emphasize the individual whereas Christianity is based on community (Baird and Soden, p. 83). This point, according to Baird and Soden, most clearly reflects the Cartesian paradigm. But Critical Thinking is not merely based on a model that relies on the individual. For instance, when Richard Paul argues for the individual's responsibility within the business community, he implicitly argues for a form of collaboration, not individuals working in isolation: When procedures are designed to bring the maximum degree of constructive critical thinking to bear on the problems of productions, virtually everyone has a potential contribution to make. The quality of the contribution will not be a function of the worker's position in the hierarchy (our italics) but the quality of the critical thinking he or she brings to bear on the problem. This, again, requires the paradigm shift that American businesses seem reluctant to make" (What Every Person Needs, 3rd ed.,p. 11) Clearly, this style of critical thinking is not based on a Cartesian paradigm of doubt, nor is it solely concerned with requests for certainty. It asks rather for alternatives and change in strategies that would keep up with morality, cultural values, and the varying contexts of our environment and technology--in short, individuals within a community who can be self-critical before being certain of anything. Thus, the key concept to critical thinking -- autonomous thinking -- is the call for independent shared thinking (Baird and Soden, p. 83). Intellectual autonomy is so important to critical thinking that indeed, one could say it is central. However, by over-emphasizing the Cartesian method, Baird and Soden have, in our opinion, mistakenly characterized the critical thinking movement. Descartes' emphasis on the self is a distinctly different concept than Richard Paul's concept of autonomous thinking. Whereas the self is Descartes' undoubtable starting point for explaining existence, autonomous thinking "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..." (What Every Person Needs, p. 553). Moreover, the authors mistakenly accept the notion that critical thinking "is simply a method for enabling better analysis" (p.77). Claiming that "weaknesses" exist (p. 79), they compare and associate the Cartesian Paradigm with Richard Paul's style of critical thinking by connecting it to certain strands of similarities and analogies meant to hold together Descartes's approach to philosophy with "our manner of doing natural science' (in Taylor, p. 81). However, to accept that, we must believe that critical thinkers behave like scientists and scientists only. In fact, Richard Paul argues that if students study in a scientific discipline, such as biology, then those biology students should strive to think scientifically (p. , 1993). Content is not quite "irrelevant," as the authors believe, but instead driven by its own logic. It is by unpacking the logic of content that students understand subject matter. Critical thinking is not a discreet method or even a remaking of the so called "scientific method." Rather, as Paul puts it himself, it is a systematic (our italics) way to form and shape one's thinking. It functions purposefully and exactingly. It is thought that is disciplined, comprehensive, based on intellectual standards, and as a result, well reasoned...(and) distinguishable from other thinking because the thinker is thinking with the awareness of the systematic nature of high quality thought, and is continuously checking up on himself or herself, striving to improve the quality of thinking. As with any system, critical thinking is not just a random series of characteristics or components. All of its components--its elements, principles, standards, and values--form an integrated working network that can be applied effectively not only to academic learning, but to learning in every dimension of living (3rd ed., p. 22). In order for the student to "shape" thinking, only analyzing or following the "scientific method" won't be adequate. The student must learn to take charge of his or her own thinking and must practice being an autonomous thinker. In other words, autonomous thinking is the process by which one evaluates and decides the logic of what to believe. The authors cite Richard Rorty's criticism of "epistemological foundationalism" (p. 80), in order to illustrate that certainty is a problematic notion, and we agree. But to use another of Richard Rorty's contrastive studies between ways of seeing critical theory (see Contingency, Irony and Solidarity, p. 73-78), the models or paradigms that Descartes and Richard Paul reflect are again, worlds apart. Descartes strives to reach what Rorty would call a "final vocabulary" (Rorty) and uses it to analyze old descriptions with the aid of other, even older descriptions. But Richard Paul knows that traditions can be redescribed and that vocabularies are subject to change. He is not worried about reaching a truth that he believes resides in us already. Unlike Descartes' credo, "I think, therefore I am," which leads to a single affirmation of being, critical thinking defines a systematic development and process of reasoning that is driven by discipline and intellectual standards, not just any old kind of "thinking." Education and society can be seen as divided by traditions, not necessarily by indubitable, indisputable academic disciplinarities. As Richard Paul points out: "We must sooner or later abandon the traditional attempt to teach our fellow citizens what to think. Such efforts cannot prepare us for the real world we must concentrate instead on teaching ourselves to think for ourselves, critically, fairmindedly, and deeply. We have no choice, not in the long haul, not in the face of the irrepressible logic of accelerating change and increasing complexity" (p. 16, 1993, 3rd ed.). Furthermore, while Descartes believes that he has built-in criteria that lets him recognize "the right final vocabulary," critical thinking means constantly asking to find an improved final vocabulary over the one we have--one that is clearer, more precise, more relevant, and so forth. Descartes is looking for contradictions between propositions in order to make a distinction that resolves an issue. For Descartes, rationality means finding a grand convergence of theories. But in substituting new vocabularies for old ones, Richard Paul is ironically asking us to ask questions about our thinking rather than to discover "facts." Critical thinking discards old platitudes about itself--such as, "critical thinking is available to anyone, who, at any given moment, wills to use it" (viii, 1993). With critical thinking we would use appeals to reason, that, as Rorty argues further, propose "distinctions between contingently existing sets of practices or strategies" rather than to offer some sort of "natural order of justification for beliefs or desires," as Descartes does. (Rorty, in a footnote, p. 83). Yet in their conclusion, Baird and Soden posit four major objections to critical thinking in Christian classrooms, posing a series of final questions: Is a Cartesian emphasis on timeless truths consistent with a faith based on an historical text like the Bible? Is a desire for certainty consistent with a belief in the sinfulness of human beings? Are there really foundational propositions which can form the basis of thinking? Should our emphasis in the classroom be on developing autonomous learners apart from community? (88) Again, here Soden and Baird have Descartes pegged, but not critical thinking. Critical thinking is not concerned with "timeless truths" and a "desire for certainty." Some of the "foundational propositions" that critical thinking embrace are the questioning of certainty* and the shattering of tired modes of thinking. Ultimately the critical thinker will begin to ask, "Can I really be sure of anything? Is there any such thing as truth?" Such existential questions are indeed the very seeds of faith and are critical for Christian students' development. "The leap of faith" required by Christianity is actually critical thinking at its best. But leaps of faith have nothing to do with Descartes (see Kierkegaard). He was a certainty man, scrambling for rocky footholds. Critical thinkers -- and often Christians too -- stand on a brink and are not afraid to jump. But it is their fourth question that troubles Soden and Baird the most, and us as well. They state, "We believe that knowing and thinking are best done in communities, not is isolation." (88) By "communities" we can assume Soden and Baird are referring to church communities, though they could also be referring to academic communities. In the academic setting, critical thinking is always contingent on community - since it involves such tactics as * Richard Paul Comments: I believe there is a timeless element to critical thinking in the area of the elements of thought and the standards of thought as well as in the abilities. For example, whenever people will try to figure things out for all time and eternity, they will try to do so for some purpose. They will of necessity pursue an answer to a question: they will of necessity use information. They will of necessity interpret that information in some way, making some assumptions. Their inferences will have implications and they will do so within some perspective. This I think is unavoidable and therefore timeless by the same token they must always strive for clarity, for accuracy, for precision appropriate to their purpose. They must strive to include only what is relevant to the issue. They must strive for depth, in so far as there is complexity in an issue, so far as there is broadmindedness, and so far that there are different ways to view the issue. So in some sense, then, there is a timeless element because as far as I can see, it is unintelligible to negate any of those, and it would not make any sense because teachers in the future might not ask any question or gather information or would be indifferent to the question. collaborative learning, reaching a consensus, respecting other people's points of views, etc. Hence, in the church setting critical thinking should in no way be seen as anything less than integral, but if autonomous thinking is seen as a threat, the old misconception of Christians as people more interested in Church doctrine than personal beliefs is reinforced. For as surely as group thinking can be enlightening, it can also be dangerous because it can reinforce embattled, linear thinking that relies on indoctrination rather than commitment. Critical thinking gives us the tools to examine this. Perhaps it is ironic that the authors worry about hidden values in critical thinking which in fact do reflect rather closely the values they claim for Christianity: Reliance on Communities, Systematic Learning, Non-Foundational Knowledge, and Historicity of Thought. Even more ironic is that by calling for us to "reexamine," critical thinking, they advocate critical thinking. So is evaluating and analyzing one's own basis for belief antithetical to the faith community? Shouldn't a community be made up of individuals who have autonomous reasons for what they believe? A community of individuals - by utilizing critical thinking, by analyzing and evaluating their own positions and considering other points of view - actually enhances community - as individuals in a community of faith interact, they strengthen each other in their faith. For us, the importance of critical thinking is foundational to Patten College (a Christian Liberal Arts College) as reflected in our founding motto: "Study to show yourself approved unto God... so that you can critically analyze, evaluate and apply the Word of Truth (paraphrase ours)." (2 Timothy 2:15)