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Critical Thinking
Paul
Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking
Elder
Charge of Your Learning and Your Life
Richard Paul Linda Elder
Third Edition
Third Edition
ISBN 978-1-29202-714-2
9 781292 027142
I N T R O D U C T I ON
Consider for a minute all of what you have learned in your life: about sports,
money, friendship, anger and fear, love and hate, your mother and father, nature,
the city you live in, manners and taboos, human nature, and human behavior.
Learning is a natural and inevitable process. We learn in many directions. One
direction in which learning is not natural is inward learning—self-knowledge,
knowledge of the workings of our own mind, of how and why we think as we do.
Begin by answering these—rather unusual—questions: What have you
learned about how you think? Did you ever study your thinking? What informa-
tion do you have, for example, about the intellectual processes involved in how
your mind thinks? More to the point, perhaps, what do you really know about
how to analyze, evaluate, or reconstruct your thinking? Where does your think-
ing come from? How much of it is of high quality? How much of it is of poor
quality? How much of your thinking is vague, muddled, inconsistent, inaccurate,
illogical, or superficial? Are you, in any real sense, in control of your thinking?
Do you know how to test it? Do you have any conscious standards for determin-
ing when you are thinking well and when you are thinking poorly? Have
you ever discovered a significant problem in your thinking and then The best thinkers make the
changed it by a conscious act of will? If someone asked you to teach study of thinking second
him or her what you have learned about thinking thus far in your life, nature.
would you have any idea what that was or how you learned it?
If you are like most people, the honest answers to these questions run along
the lines of: “Well, I suppose I don’t know much about my thinking or about
thinking in general. I suppose in my life I have more or less taken my thinking for
granted. I don’t really know how it works. I have never studied it. I don’t know
how I test it, or even if I do test it. It just happens in my mind automatically.”
Serious study of thinking, serious thinking about thinking, is rare in human
life. It is not a subject in most schools nor a subject taught at home. But if you
focus your attention for a moment on the role thinking is playing in your life, you
may come to recognize that everything you do or want or feel is influenced by your
thinking. And if you become persuaded of that, you will be surprised that humans
show so little interest in thinking. What is more, if you start to pay attention to
thinking in a manner analogous to the way a botanist observes plants, you will be
on your way to becoming a truly exceptional person. You will notice what few oth-
ers notice. You will be the rare person who is engaged in discovering what human
thinking is about. You will be the rare person who knows how and why he or she is
thinking, the rare person skilled in assessing and improving how he or she thinks.
Some things you will eventually discover are: All of us, somewhere along the way,
have picked up bad habits of thinking. All of us, for example, make generalizations
when we don’t have the evidence to back them up, allow stereotypes to influence our
thinking, form some false beliefs, tend to look at the world from one fixed point of
view, ignore or attack points of view that conflict with our own, fabricate illusions
and myths that we subconsciously confuse with what is true and real, and think de-
ceptively about many aspects of our experience. As you discover these problems in
your thinking, we hope you will begin to ask yourself some key questions: Is it pos-
sible for me to learn to avoid bad habits of thought? Is it possible for me to develop
good habits of thought? Is it possible for me to think at a high or, at least, higher level?
3
These are problems and questions that few discover or ask. Nevertheless, every
major insight you gain into good or bad thinking can enhance your life significant-
ly. You can begin to make better decisions. You can gain power, important power
that you presently lack. You can open new doors for yourself, see new options,
minimize significant mistakes, maximize potential understandings. If you’re going
to live your life as a thinker, why not get good at thinking about thinking?
1 Think for Yourself

BEGINNING TO THINK ABOUT YOUR THINKING
S ee whether you can identify any discovery you made about your thinking before you
started to read this book. If you can’t think of any, write out your best explanation of why
not. If you do think of something, explain what you learned about your thinking.
GOOD THINKING REQUIRES HARD WORK

There is a catch—there almost always is. To make significant gains in the quality
of your thinking, you will have to engage in a kind of work that most humans
find unpleasant, if not painful: intellectual work. This is the price you have to pay
if you want the gain. One doesn’t become a skillful critic of thinking overnight
any more than one becomes a skillful basketball player or dancer overnight. To
become a student of thinking, you must be willing to put the work into thinking
that skilled improvement requires. When thinking of what physical conditioning
requires, we say, “No pain, no gain!” In this case, it would be more precise to say,
“No intellectual pain, no intellectual gain!”
This means you must be willing to practice special “acts” of thinking that are,
initially at least, uncomfortable, and sometimes challenging and difficult. You have
to learn to do “moves” with your mind analogous to what accomplished athletes
learn to do through practice and feedback with their body. Improvement in think-
ing, then, is similar to improvement in other domains of performance in which prog-
ress is a product of sound theory, commitment, hard work, and practice. Although
this book will point the way to what you need to practice to become a skilled thinker,
it cannot provide you with the internal motivation to do the required work. This
must come from you. You must be willing, as it were, to be the monkey who comes
down from the trees and starts to observe your fellow monkeys in action. You must
be willing to examine mental films of your own monkeying around as well.
Let’s now develop further the analogy between physical and intellectual develop-
ment. This analogy, we believe, goes a long way and provides us with just the right
prototype to keep before our minds. If you play tennis and you want to play better,
there is nothing more advantageous than to look at some films of excellent players in
action and then painstakingly compare how they, in comparison to you, address the
ball. You study their performance. You note what you need to do more of, what you
need to do less of, and you practice, practice, practice. You go through many cycles
4
of practice/feedback/practice. Your practice heightens your awareness of the ins and

outs of the art. You develop a vocabulary for talking about your performance. Per-
haps you get a coach. And slowly, progressively, you improve. Similar points could
be made for ballet, distance running, piano playing, chess playing, reading, writing,
parenting, teaching, studying, and so on.
One major problem, however, is that all the activities of skill development
with which we are typically familiar are visible. We could watch a film of the skill
in action, but imagine a film of a person sitting in a chair thinking. It would look
like the person was doing nothing. Yet, increasingly, workers are being paid pre-
cisely for the thinking they are able to do, not for their physical strength or physi-
cal activity. Therefore, although most of our thinking is invisible, it represents one
of the most important things about us. Its quality, in all likelihood, will determine
whether we will become rich or poor, powerful or weak. Yet we typically think
without explicitly noticing how we are doing it. We take our thinking for granted.
For example, important concepts, such as love, friendship, integrity, freedom,
democracy, and ethics, are often unconsciously twisted and distorted in common
life and thought. Our subconscious interest is often in getting what we want, not
in describing ourselves or the world truly and honestly.
In any case, most of our concepts are invisible to us, although implicit in our
talk and behavior. So is much of our thinking. We would be amazed, and some-
times shocked, if we were to see all our thinking displayed for us on a large screen.
To develop as a thinker, you must think of your thinking as involving an implicit
set of structures—concepts being one important set—whose use can be improved
only when you begin to take the tools of thinking seriously. You develop as a thinker
when you explicitly notice what your thinking is doing and when you become com-
mitted to recognizing both strengths and weaknesses in that thinking. You develop
as a thinker as you build your own “large screen” on which to view your thinking.
Critical thinking, then, provides the tools of mind you need to think through
anything and everything that requires thought—in college and in life. As your
intellectual skills develop, you gain instruments that you can use deliberately
and mindfully to better reason through the thinking tasks implicit in your short-
and long-range goals. There are better and worse ways to pursue whatever you
are after. Good thinking enables you to maximize the better ways and minimize
the worse.
EXHIBIT 2 Critical thinking is the way we should approach everything we do.

Something you add
CRITICAL THINKING onto everything else
Rather
The way you do

CRITICAL THINKING everything you do
The way you shop, teach, learn, vote, relate, evaluate, and so on
5

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF CONCEPTS
S ee whether you can think of a time in which you “misused” an important concept.
Hint: Think of an idea you commonly use in your thinking, such as friendship, trust,
truthfulness, or respect. Have you ever implied you were someone’s friend but acted against
that person (such as gossiping behind that person’s back)? Write out or orally explain your
answer.
Only by applying the fundamentals to a wide range of human problems can one begin to
appreciate their power and usefulness. Think of it this way. If we were coaching you in tennis,
we would remind you again and again to keep your eye on the ball. Could you imagine saying to
your coach, “Why do I have to keep my eye on the ball? I already did that once.” The same logic
applies to the principles of skilled thinking. If you want to be proficient, you have to redirect
your eyes to the fundamentals, again and again and again.
EXHIBIT 3 Why is critical thinking so important? (A more elaborated

“definition.”)
The Problem:
Everyone thinks. It is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased,
distorted, partial, uninformed, or downright prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that
of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought.
Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought,
however, must be systematically cultivated.
Defining Critical Thinking:

Critical thinking is that mode of thinking—about any subject, content, or problem—in
which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing,
assessing, and reconstructing it.
Critical thinking is self-directed, self-disciplined, self-monitored, and self-
corrective thinking. It presupposes assent to rigorous standards of excellence and
mindful command of their use. It entails effective communication and problem-
solving abilities as well as a commitment to overcome one’s native egocentrism
and sociocentrism.
To analyze thinking:
Identify its purpose, question, information, conclusion(s), assumptions, implications, main
concept(s), and point of view.
To assess thinking:
Check it for clarity, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance, logic, and
fairness.
6
EXHIBIT 3 Continued
The Result:
A well-cultivated critical thinker
■ raises vital questions and problems, formulating them clearly and precisely;
■ gathers and assesses relevant information, using abstract ideas to interpret it
effectively;
■ comes to well-reasoned conclusions and solutions, testing them against
relevant criteria and standards;
■ thinks open-mindedly within alternative systems of thought, recognizing and
assessing, as need be, their assumptions, implications, and practical conse-
quences; and
■ communicates effectively with others in figuring out solutions to complex
problems.

BEGINNING TO CONSIDER PROBLEMS IN THINKING
E xhibit 3 shows that a big part of “the problem” critical thinking addresses is that “much
of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed, or downright preju-
diced.” Make a list of five significant problems in human life. Then see if you can identify the
problems in thinking that led to those problems. Be as specific as possible.
THE CONCEPT OF CRITICAL THINKING

The concept of critical thinking reflects an idea derived from roots in ancient
Greek. The word critical derives etymologically from two Greek roots: kriticos
(meaning “discerning judgment”) and kriterion (meaning “standards”). Etymo-
logically, then, the word implies the development of “discerning judgment based
on standards.” In Webster’s New World Dictionary, the relevant entry for critical
reads “characterized by careful analysis and judgment” and is followed by “Criti-
cal, in its strictest sense, implies an attempt at objective judgment so as to deter-
mine both merits and faults.” Considering these definitions together, then, critical
thinking may be appropriately defined as
thinking explicitly aimed at well-founded judgment, using appropriate evaluative
standards in an attempt to determine the true worth, merit, or value of something.
Critical thinking, then, has three dimensions: an analytic, an evaluative, and
a creative component. As critical thinkers, we analyze thinking to evaluate it. We
evaluate it to improve it.
7
In other words, critical thinking is the systematic monitoring of thought with

the goal of improvement. When we think critically, we realize that thinking must
not be accepted at face value but must be analyzed and assessed for its clarity, ac-
curacy, relevance, depth, breadth, and logicalness. We recognize that all reasoning
occurs within points of view and frames of reference, that all reasoning proceeds
from some goals and objectives and has an informational base, that all data when
used in reasoning must be interpreted, that interpretation involves concepts, that
concepts entail assumptions, and that all basic inferences in thought have implica-
tions. Because problems in thinking can occur in any of these dimensions, each
dimension must be monitored.
When we think critically, we realize that in every domain of human thought,
it is possible and important to question the parts of thinking and the standards
for thought. Routine questioning in the critical mind looks something like this:
Let’s see, what is the most f undamental issue here? From what point of view
should I approach this problem? Does it make sense for me to assume this? What
may I reasonably infer from these data? What is implied in this graph? What is
the fundamental concept here? Is this information consistent with that informa-
tion? What makes this question complex? How could I check the accuracy of
these data? If this is so, what else is implied? Is this a credible source of informa-
tion?
And so forth. With intellectual language such as this in the foreground, one can
come to recognize fundamental critical thinking “moves” that can be used in
reasoning through any problem or issue, class, or subject. To help you learn the
language of critical thinking and to apply it on a regular basis to your learning
and your life is a primary objective of this book. With the analytic and evalu-
ative tools of critical thinking, you can learn how to raise the quality of your
thinking.
EXHIBIT 4 Critical thinking applies to everything about which we think.
Critical Thinking About:
Teaching and learning Well-being Speaking
Creativity Listening Politics
Emotions Medicine Religion
Intuition Writing Problem solving
Habits Nursing Reading
8
EXHIBIT 5
THREE LEVELS OF THOUGHT
Level 3:
Highest Order Thinking
• Explicitly reflective • Highest skill level
• Routine use of critical thinking tools in
analyzing and assessing thinking
• Consistently fair
Level 2:
Higher Order Thinking
• Selectively reflective • High skill level
• Lacks critical thinking vocabulary
• Inconsistently fair, maybe
skilled in sophistry
Level 1:
Lower Order Thinking
• Unreflective • Low to mixed skill level
• Frequently relies on gut intuition
• Largely self-serving/
self-deceived
Lower order thinking is often distinguished from higher order

thinking. But higher order thinking can be inconsistent in quality. It
can be fair or unfair. To think at the highest level of quality, we need
not only intellectual skills, but intellectual traits as well.
BECOME A CRITIC OF YOUR THINKING

One of the most important things you can do for yourself is begin the process
of becoming a critic of your thinking. You do this not to negate or “dump on”
yourself but, instead, to improve yourself, to begin to practice the art of skilled
thinking and lifelong learning. To do this, you must discover your thinking, see its
structure, observe its implications, and recognize its basis and vantage point. You
must come to recognize that, through commitment and daily practice, you can
make foundational changes in your thinking. You need to learn about your bad
9
habits of thought and about what you are striving for: good habits of thought. At
whatever level you think, you need to recognize that you can learn to think better.
Creative improvement is the end for which critical thinkers strive.

BEGINNING TO THINK ABOUT YOUR THINKING
C onsider your thinking in personal relationships, in dealing with friends, in relating to roman-
tic partners, in sports, as a reader, as a writer, as a listener to lectures, as an employee, in
planning your life, in dealing with your emotions, and in figuring out complex situations.
Complete these statements:
1. Right now, I believe my thinking across all domains of my life is of ____________
quality. I base this judgment on ______________.
2. In the following areas, I think very well:
a. ____________________________________
b. ____________________________________
c. ____________________________________
3. In the following areas, my thinking is okay, not great, but not terrible either:
a. ____________________________________
b. ____________________________________
c. ____________________________________
4. In the following areas, my thinking is probably poor:
a. ____________________________________
b. ____________________________________
c. ____________________________________
ESTABLISH NEW HABITS OF THOUGHT

Most of us get through school by modifying our thinking the hard way—through
trial and error. Most of us have little help in learning how to become a critic of
our thinking. We develop few tools for working on our thinking. The result is that
we use our native capacities to think in a largely unconscious fashion. We develop
some good habits of thought and many poor habits of thought. The productive
and unproductive habits of mind become intermixed and hard to disentangle. We
learn without a clear sense of the ideal in thinking. We are not clear about our
goals as thinkers. We treat each class like a new set of tasks to complete mechani-
cally. We fail to learn important ideas that enable us to learn how to learn better
and better.
10
To learn at a deeper level, you need to get powerful leverage on learning. You
need a clearer perspective on what you should be striving to achieve, and you need
powerful tools for upgrading your thinking and learning.
Critical thinking works. It is practical. It will enable you to be more successful,
to save time and energy, and to experience more positive and fulfilling emotions.
It is in your interest to become a better critic of your own thinking as a student,
scholar, parent, consumer, and citizen and in other roles as well. If you are not
progressively improving the quality of your life, you have not yet discovered the
true power of critical thinking. We hope this text will serve as an impetus for this
shift. Good thinking works—for everyone.

CHANGING YOUR HABITS
H ave you ever changed a habit as a result of your conscious effort and planning? What
do you have to do to change a habit? Is it easy? If not, why not? What do you think you
would have to do to change habits of thought? Write out your answer or explain orally.
DEVELOP CONFIDENCE IN YOUR ABILITY

TO REASON AND FIGURE THINGS OUT
No matter how well or poorly you have performed in school or in college, it is impor-
tant to realize that the power of the human mind, the power of your mind, is virtually
unlimited. But, if any of us are to reach our potential, we must take command of the
workings of our minds. No matter where we are as thinkers, we can always improve.
As young children going through school, we usually get the impression that
those students who are the quickest to answer questions, the quickest to turn in
their papers, the quickest to finish tests are the “smartest” students. Those stu-
dents who fall into this category often define themselves as “smart” and, therefore,
as better than other students. They consequently often become intellectually arro-
gant. On the contrary, those students who struggle often see themselves as inferior,
as incapable. And these students often give up on learning. They don’t see that the
race is to the tortoise, not the hare.
The fact is that standard measures of intelligence often impede learning. The
point is that, whatever you have learned or mislearned about what it means to
learn, you can now begin in earnest to develop your own mind, to take command
of it. Critical thinking provides the tools for you to do just that, and it levels the
playing field for all students. Some of the world’s best thinkers—thinkers such as
Einstein, Darwin, and Newton—are not the quickest thinkers. The best thinkers
may be those who plod along, who ask questions, who pursue important ideas,
11
who put things together in their minds, who figure things out for themselves, who
create connections among important ideas. They are people who believe in the
power of their own minds. They are people who appreciate the struggle inherent
in substantive learning and thinking.
Consider how Darwin (F. Darwin, 1958) articulated his own struggles with
learning:
I have as much difficulty as ever in expressing myself clearly and concisely; and this
difficulty has caused me a very great loss of time, but it has had the compensating
advantage of forcing me to think long and intently about every sentence, and thus
I have been led to see errors in reasoning and in my own observations or those of
others. (p. 55)
In pursuing intellectual questions, Darwin (1958) relied upon perseverance

and continual reflection rather than on memory and quick reflexes.
I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit . . . My power to follow a long
and purely abstract train of thought is very limited . . . My memory is extensive, yet
hazy . . . So poor in one sense is my memory, that I have never been able to remem-
ber for more than a few days a single date or line of poetry . . . I have a fair share
of invention, but not, I believe, in any higher degree . . . I think that I am superior
to the common run of man in noticing things which easily escape attention, and
in observing them carefully . . . I have had the patience to reflect or ponder for any
number of years over any unexplained problem. (p. 55)
Einstein (Clark, 1984), for his part, performed so poorly in school that when his
father asked his son’s headmaster what profession his son should adopt, the answer
was simply, “It doesn’t matter; he’ll never make a success of anything.” He showed
no signs of being a genius and, as an adult, denied that his mind was extraordinary:
“I have no particular talent. I am merely extremely inquisitive” (p. 27).

HOW DO YOU SEE YOURSELF AS A THINKER?
T hink back to your previous school or college experience. Which pattern have you typically
fallen into?
1. The quick student to whom teachers typically are drawn because you can answer the
factual questions they think are important.
2. The student who has difficulty remembering facts so that learning has been more
difficult for you.
3. The student who does pretty well because, although you are not the quickest at remem-
bering facts and answering factual questions, you still have a pretty good memory so you
have done okay in school.
4. A different pattern entirely.
12
Complete these statements:

1. Given the categories outlined here, I would say that I am the following “type” of student:
2. I have/have not typically struggled in school/college because: _____________________
3. I generally see myself as capable/incapable as a student because:___________________
4. To the extent that I see myself as incapable as a student, I can begin to change this view
of myself by realizing:____________________________________________________
EXHIBIT 6 Critical thinking: an elaborated definition.
A unique kind of in any subject area or topic,

purposeful thinking whether academic or personal
in which the thinker such as intellectual perseverance,

systematically and habitually intellectual humility, intellectual
displays intellectual traits empathy, and fairmindedness
with awareness of its

elements, such as question at
takes charge of the
issue, information, concepts,
construction of thinking
inferences, assumptions,
implications, and point of view
such as clarity, accuracy,

imposing criteria and intellectual
precision, relevance, depth,
standards on the thinking
breadth, logic, and fairness
making it more clear, accurate,

and precise; with greater depth
continually improving the
and breadth; more logical,
quality of the thinking
more relevant and significant,
and more fair
13
The best thinkers are those who systematically and carefully reason their way
through problems. They ask questions when they don’t understand. They don’t al-
low other people to define their level of intelligence. They don’t allow intelligence
tests or other standardized tests to define their level of intelligence. They realize
that, no matter how difficult or easy it is for them to “remember” facts for tests,
the real work of learning requires perseverance and commitment. The real work
of learning requires skills of mind that you can develop, if and when you decide
to. Learning these skills of mind is precisely what this book is all about.
Remember, the race is to the tortoise, not the hare. Be the tortoise.

ARTICULATE YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF CRITICAL THINKING
R ead through this chapter again, highlighting the points made in the chapter that relate
directly to the definition of critical thinking. Then complete these statements:
1. To me, critical thinking means: _____________________________________________
2. In other words (this should be at least 4–5 sentences): __________________________
3. I can apply critical thinking to my life in the following ways: ______________________
14
BECOME
A FAIRMINDED
THINKER
I
t is possible to develop as a thinker and yet not develop as a fairminded thinker.
It is possible to learn to use one’s skills of mind in a narrow, self-serving way;
many highly skilled thinkers do just that. Think of politicians, for example,
who manipulate people through smooth (fallacious) talk, who promise what they
have no intention of delivering, who say whatever they need to say to maintain
their positions of power and prestige. In a sense, these people are skilled thinkers
because their thinking enables them to get what they want, but the best thinkers
do not pursue selfish goals. They do not seek to manipulate others. They strive to
be fairminded, even when it means they have to give something up in the process.
They recognize that the mind is not naturally fairminded, but selfish, and they
recognize that to be fairminded, they also must develop specific traits of mind—
traits such as intellectual humility, intellectual integrity, intellectual courage, intel-
lectual autonomy, intellectual empathy, intellectual perseverance, and confidence
in reason.
In this chapter, we introduce what “fairminded” means, and we discuss the
traits of mind that accompany fairmindedness. If you are to develop as a fair-
minded thinker, you will have to “practice” being fairminded. You will have to
catch yourself in acts of selfishness and begin to correct your behavior. You will
have to become committed to living a rational, compassionate, contributory life,
to look outside yourself and see how your behavior affects other people. You will
have to decide, again and again, that being fairminded is crucial to your identity
as a person.
From Chapter 1 of Critical Thinking: Tools for Taking Charge of Your Learning and Your Life. Third Edition.
Richard Paul, Linda Elder. Copyright © 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
B ECOME A F AIRMINDED T HINKER
WEAK VERSUS STRONG CRITICAL THINKING
C
ritical thinking can serve two incompatible ends: self-centeredness or fair-
mindedness. As we learn the basic intellectual skills that critical thinking
entails, we can begin to use those skills in either a selfish or a fairminded
way. For example, when students are taught how to recognize mistakes in reason-
ing (commonly called fallacies), most students readily see those mistakes in the
reasoning of others but not in their own reasoning. Using their understanding of
fallacies, students develop some proficiency in making their opponents’ thinking
look bad, but they typically don’t use their understanding of fallacies to analyze
and assess their own reasoning.
Liberals see mistakes in the arguments of conservatives; conservatives see
mistakes in the arguments of liberals. Believers see mistakes in the thinking of
nonbelievers; nonbelievers see mistakes in the thinking of believers. Those who
oppose abortion readily see mistakes in the arguments for abortion; those who
favor abortion readily see mistakes in the arguments against abortion.
We call these thinkers weak-sense critical thinkers. We call the thinking
“weak” because, although it is working well for the thinker in some respects, it is
missing certain important, higher-level skills and values of critical thinking. Most
significantly, it fails to consider, in good faith, viewpoints that contradict its own
viewpoint. It lacks fairmindedness.
Another traditional name for the weak-sense thinker is sophist. Sophistry is the
art of winning arguments regardless of whether there are problems in the think-
ing being used, regardless of whether relevant viewpoints are being ignored. The
objective in sophistic thinking is to win. Period. Sophistic thinkers use lower-level
skills of rhetoric, or argumentation, by which they make unreasonable thinking
look reasonable and reasonable thinking look unreasonable. This form of think-
ing is evident in the arguments of unethical lawyers, prosecutors, and politicians
who are more concerned with winning than with being fair. They use emotional-
ism and trickery in an intellectually skilled way.

FINDING EVIDENCE OF INTELLECTUAL SOPHISTRY
I n the next week, read articles in newspapers, news magazines, and similar sources for the
purpose of identifying intellectual sophistry at work. Look for situations in which someone
deliberately hides or distorts information in pursuing a goal. Note whether the person gets away
with the sophistry.
Sophistic thinkers succeed only if they do not come up against what we

call strong-sense critical thinkers. Strong-sense critical thinkers are not easily
tricked by slick argumentation, by sophistry and intellectual trickery. The strik-
ing characteristic of strong-sense critical thinkers is their consistent pursuit of
16
the fair and just. These thinkers strive always to be ethical—to behave in ways
that do not exploit or otherwise harm others. They work to empathize with the
viewpoints of others. They are willing to listen to arguments they do not neces-
sarily hold. They change their views when faced with better reasoning. Rather
than using their thinking to manipulate others and to hide from the truth (in a
weak-sense way), they use thinking in an ethical, reasonable manner. Almost
a century ago, William Graham Sumner (1906) depicted strong-sense critical
thinkers. He said they
cannot be stampeded . . . are slow to believe . . . can hold things as possible or prob-
able in all degrees, without certainty and without pain . . . can wait for evidence and
weigh evidence . . . can resist appeals to their dearest prejudices.
We believe that the world already has too many skilled selfish thinkers, too
many sophists and intellectual con artists, too many unscrupulous lawyers and
politicians who specialize in twisting information and evidence to support their
selfish interests and the vested interests of those who pay them. We hope that you,
the reader, will develop as a highly skilled, fairminded thinker, one capable of ex-
posing those who are masters at playing intellectual games at the expense of the
well-being of innocent people. We hope as well that you develop the intellectual
courage to argue publicly against what is unethical in human thinking. We write
this text with the assumption that you will take seriously the fairmindedness im-
plied by strong-sense critical thinking.
To think critically in the strong sense requires that we develop fairminded-
ness at the same time that we learn basic critical thinking skills and, thus, begin to
“practice” fairmindedness in our thinking. If we do, we avoid using our skills to
gain advantage over others. We treat all thinking by the same high standards. We
expect good reasoning from those who support us as well as those who oppose
us. We subject our own reasoning to the same criteria we apply to reasoning to
which we are unsympathetic. We question our own purposes, evidence, conclu-
sions, implications, and point of view with the same vigor we question those
of others.
Developing fairminded thinkers try to see the actual strengths and weak-
nesses of any reasoning they assess. This is the kind of thinker we hope this text
will help you become. From the beginning, then, we are going to explore the char-
acteristics required for the strongest, most fairminded thinking. As you read the
rest of the text, we hope you notice how we are attempting to foster strong-sense
critical thinking. Indeed, unless we indicate otherwise, from this point forward,
every time we use the words critical thinking, we mean critical thinking in the
strong sense.
In the remainder of this chapter, we explore the various intellectual virtues
that fairminded thinking requires. Fairmindedness entails much more than most
people realize. Fairmindedness requires a family of interrelated and interdepen-
dent states of mind.
One final point: In addition to fairmindedness, strong-sense critical think-
ing implies higher-order thinking. As you develop your reasoning abilities and
internalize the traits of mind in this chapter, you will develop a variety of skills
and insights absent in the weak-sense critical thinker.
17
As we examine how the various traits of mind are conducive to fairminded-

ness, we also look at the manner in which the traits contribute to quality of thought
(not simply a set of values added to a set of skills). In addition to the fairness that
strong-sense critical thinking implies, it also implies depth of thinking and highly
insightful thinking. Weak-sense critical thinkers develop a range of intellectual
skills (for example, skills of argumentation) and may achieve some success in get-
ting what they want, but they do not develop the traits highlighted in this chapter.
For example, some students are able to use their intelligence and thinking skills
to get high grades without taking seriously the subjects they are studying. They
become masters, if you will, of “beating the system.” They develop test-taking and
note-taking skills. They develop short-term memory skills. They learn to appeal
to the prejudices of their teachers. They become academic sophists—skilled at
getting by and getting what they want. They may even transfer these abilities
to other domains of their lives, but they do not develop as fairminded critical
thinkers.
Let us now turn to the component traits of the strong-sense critical thinker.
In each section, we:
1. introduce an intellectual trait or virtue,
2. discuss the opposite trait,
3. point out how the trait relates to the development of critical thinking, and
4. relate the trait to fairmindedness.
First, though, let us be clear about the concept of fairmindedness.
EXHIBIT 1 Critical thinkers strive to develop essential traits or characteristics of

mind. These are interrelated intellectual habits that enable one to open, discipline,
and improve mental functioning.
Intellectual
Intellectual integrity Intellectual
autonomy humility
Intellectual TRAITS Intellectual

empathy OF THE sense of justice
DISCIPLINED
MIND
Intellectual Intellectual
courage perseverance
Intellectual
Intellectual
confidence in
fairmindedness
reason
18
EXHIBIT 2 These are the opposites of the intellectual virtues. Our natural
disposition to develop them is an important reason we need to develop
countervailing traits.
Intellectual
hypocrisy
conformity arrogance
Intellectual self- TRAITS Intellectual

centeredness OF THE unfairness
UNDISCIPLINED
MIND
cowardice laziness
distrust of disregard for
reason justice
WHAT DOES FAIRMINDEDNESS REQUIRE?
T
o be fairminded is to strive to treat every viewpoint relevant to a situation
in an unbiased, unprejudiced way. It entails a consciousness of the fact
that we, by nature, tend to prejudge the views of others, placing them into
“favorable” (agree with us) and “unfavorable” (disagree with us) categories. We
tend to give less weight to contrary views than to our own. This is especially true
when we have selfish reasons for opposing views. If, for example, we can ignore
the viewpoint of the millions of people in the world who live in extreme poverty,
we can avoid having to give up something to help them. Thus, fairmindedness
is especially important when the situation calls on us to consider views we don’t
want to consider.
Fairmindedness entails the predisposition to consider all relevant viewpoints equally, without refer-
ence to one’s own feelings or selfish interests, or the feelings or selfish interests of one’s friends,
community, or nation. It implies adherence to intellectual standards (such as accuracy, sound log-
ic, and breadth of vision), uninfluenced by one’s own advantage or the advantage of one’s group.
The opposite of fairmindedness is intellectual unfairness. To be intellectually
unfair is to lack a sense of responsibility to represent accurately and fairly view-
points with which one disagrees. When we are intellectually unfair, we almost al-
ways see ourselves as right and just. Our unfair thoughts and actions typically
have an element of self-deception. We justify ourselves, rationalize our behavior,
convince ourselves that we are “right.”
19
Because each of us is naturally egocentric, each of us falls prey to unfair

thinking. Indeed, egocentrism (and therefore unfair thinking) is the natural state
of the human mind—a point to be developed when we deal with human irratio-
nality. We simply want to stress here that the traits discussed in this chapter can
never be fully achieved by the human mind. No one is always fairminded; the
mind is naturally too egocentric, too self-interested. Any progress toward fair-
mindedness is a constant inner struggle, a struggle to be faced each and every
day, but the reward is a mind that is self-disciplined, that cannot easily be ma-
nipulated, that is able to see the truth, and that strives at all times to think fairly.
Achieving a truly fairminded state of mind, then, is an ideal we never fully
achieve. Fairmindedness requires us to be, simultaneously, intellectually humble,
intellectually courageous, intellectually empathetic, intellectually honest, intellec-
tually perseverant, confident in reason (to be persuaded by good reasoning), and
intellectually autonomous. Unless this family of traits functions in an integrated
constellation, fairmindedness is incomplete.
However, these traits, singly and in combination, are not commonly valued.
They are rarely discussed in everyday life and are rarely taught. They are not dis-
cussed on television. They are not part of the school curriculum. They are not
assessed in standardized testing. Yet, each of them is essential to fairmindedness
and inherent in strong-sense critical thinking. Let us see how and why this is so.
We begin with the fairminded trait of intellectual humility.
Intellectual Humility: Strive to Discover

the Extent of Your Ignorance
To explain intellectual humility in brief:
To be intellectually humble is to develop knowledge of the extent of one’s ignorance. Thus, in-
tellectual humility includes an acute awareness that one’s native egocentrism is likely to func-
tion self-deceptively (to tell the mind that it knows more than it does). It means being aware
of one’s biases and prejudices as well as the limitations of one’s viewpoint. It involves being
keenly aware of the extent of one’s ignorance when thinking through any issue, especially if
the issue is emotionally charged. Intellectual humility depends on recognizing that one should
not claim more than one actually knows. It does not imply spinelessness or submissiveness but
rather the lack of intellectual arrogance, pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit. It requires
identifying and assessing the foundations of one’s beliefs, looking especially for those that
cannot be justified by good reasons.
The opposite of intellectual humility is intellectual arrogance, a natural tendency
to think one knows more than one does know. Intellectual arrogance involves hav-
ing little or no insight into self-deception or into the limitations of one’s point of
view. Intellectually arrogant people often fall prey to their own bias and prejudice
and frequently claim to know more than they actually do know.
20
When we think of intellectual arrogance, we are not necessarily implying a

person who is outwardly smug, haughty, insolent, or pompous. Outwardly, the
person may appear humble. For example, a person who uncritically follows a cult
leader may be outwardly self-deprecating (“I am nothing. You are everything.”),
but intellectually, he or she believes what does not make sense to believe and is at
the same time fully confident in his or her beliefs.
Unfortunately, we are all capable of believing we know what we don’t know;
our own false beliefs, misconceptions, prejudices, illusions, myths, propaganda,
and ignorance seem to us as the plain, unvarnished truth. What is more, when
challenged, we often resist admitting that our thinking is “defective.” We then are
intellectually arrogant, even though we might feel humble. Rather than recogniz-
ing the limits of our knowledge, we ignore and obscure those limits. From such
arrogance, much suffering and waste result.
For example, when Columbus “discovered” North America, he believed that
enslaving the Indians was compatible with God’s will. He did not inwardly—as far
as we know—recognize that only through intellectual arrogance could he believe
he was privy to “God’s will.” Consider the following excerpt taken from Howard
Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States (1995):
The Indians, Columbus reported, “are so naïve and so free with their possessions
that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for some-
thing they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with any-
one. . . . ” He concluded his report by asking for a little help from their Majesties,
and in return he would bring them from his next voyage “as much gold as they
need . . . and as many slaves as they ask.” He was full of religious talk: “Thus the
eternal God, our Lord, gives victory to those who follow His way over apparent
impossibilities.” . . . Columbus later wrote, “Let us in the name of the Holy Trinity
go on sending all the slaves that can be sold.” (pp. 3–4)
Intellectual arrogance is incompatible with fairmindedness because we cannot
judge fairly when we are in a state of ignorance about what we are judging. If we
are ignorant about a religion (say, Buddhism), we cannot be fair in judging it; if
we have misconceptions, prejudices, or illusions about it, we will unfairly distort
it. We will misrepresent it to discount it. Our false knowledge, misconceptions,
prejudices, and illusions will keep us from being fair. We will be inclined to judge
too quickly and be overly confident in our judgment. These tendencies are all too
common in human thinking.
Why is intellectual humility essential to higher-level thinking? In addition to
helping us become fairminded thinkers, knowledge of our ignorance can improve
our thinking in a variety of ways. It can enable us to recognize the prejudices, false
beliefs, and habits of mind that lead to flawed learning. Consider, for example, our
tendency to learn superficially: We learn a little and (by nature) think we know a
lot; we get limited information and hastily generalize from it; we confuse memo-
rized definitions with deep learning; we uncritically accept much that we hear and
read—especially when what we hear or read agrees with our intensely held beliefs
or the beliefs of groups to which we belong.
21
The discussion in the chapters that follow encourages intellectual humility

and will help raise your awareness of intellectual arrogance. See if you, from this
moment, can begin to develop in yourself a growing awareness of the limitations
of your knowledge. Work on detecting your intellectual arrogance in action (which
you should be able to see daily). When you do detect it, celebrate that awareness.
Reward yourself for finding weaknesses in your thinking.
Consider recognition of weakness an important strength, not a weakness. As
a starter, answer the following questions:
■ Can you construct a list of your most significant prejudices? (Think of what
you believe about your country, your religion, your friends, and your family,
simply because others—parents, friends, peer group, media—conveyed these
to you.)
■ Do you ever argue for or against views when you have little evidence upon
which to base your judgment?
■ Do you ever assume that your group (your family, your religion, your nation,
your friends) is correct (when it is in conflict with others) even though you
don’t have enough information to determine that it is correct?
2, 3 Think for Yourself

INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY
N ame a person you think you know fairly well. Make two lists. In the first list, include
everything you know for sure about the person. In the second list, include everything you
know you don’t know about him or her. For example, “I know for sure that my grandmother
liked to cook, but I’m also sure that I never really understood what her fears and personal
desires were. I knew many superficial things about her, but about her inner self I knew little.”
Be prepared to back up what you claim with an explanation of your thinking.
RECOGNIZING SUPERFICIAL LEARNING
I ntellectual humility involves the ability to distinguish between learning that is deep and
learning that is superficial. In this activity, we ask you to test your ability to do this. Think
of a course you completed in which you received a high or fairly high final grade. On a blank
sheet of paper, write and elaborate on, without consulting any sources, answers to the follow-
ing questions: What is (name of subject—for example, history, biology)? What is the main
goal of studying this subject? What are people in this field trying to accomplish? What kinds
of questions do they ask? What kinds of problems do they solve? What sorts of information or
data do they gather? How do they go about gathering information in ways that are distinctive to
this field? What is the most basic idea, concept, or theory in this field? How did studying this
field change your view of the world?
22
If you find it difficult to answer these questions, consider the hypothesis that you might
have received your high grade by cramming for tests or by some other means of superficial
learning. Are you able to identify the difference between what you have learned superficially
and what you have learned deeply?
Intellectual Courage: Develop the Courage

to Challenge Popular Beliefs
A second trait of fairmindedness is intellectual courage.
Having intellectual courage means facing and fairly addressing ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints even
when this is painful. It means closely examining beliefs toward which one has strong negative
emotions and to which one has not given a serious hearing. An important part of intellectual
courage is recognizing that ideas that society considers dangerous or absurd are sometimes
rationally justified (in whole or in part) or simply matters of subjective taste. Conclusions and
beliefs inculcated in people by society are sometimes false or misleading.
To determine what makes sense to believe, one must not passively and uncritically accept what
one has learned. Having intellectual courage is especially important because ideas considered
dangerous or absurd may hold some truth, and ideas strongly held by social groups to which we
belong may hold some distortion or falsity. To be fairminded thinkers in these circumstances,
we must develop intellectual courage, recognizing that the penalties society places on us for
nonconformity can be severe.
The opposite of intellectual courage, intellectual cowardice, is the fear of ideas
that do not conform to one’s own. If we lack intellectual courage, we are afraid
to give serious consideration to ideas, beliefs, or viewpoints that we perceive as
dangerous. We feel personally threatened by some ideas when they significantly
conflict with our personal identity. We are unwilling to examine our beliefs—an
indication that there may be some problem with the justifiability of those beliefs.
Each of the following ideas or its opposite is “sacred” in the minds of some people:
■ Being a conservative/being a liberal
■ Believing in God or disbelieving in God
■ Believing in capitalism or believing in socialism
■ Believing in abortion or disbelieving in abortion
■ Believing in capital punishment or disbelieving in capital punishment
No matter what side we are on, we often say of ourselves: “I am a(an) ______
[insert sacred belief here; for example, I am a Christian. I am a conservative. I am
a socialist. I am an atheist].”
Once we define who we are through an emotional commitment to our beliefs,
we are likely to experience inner fear when those beliefs are questioned. Giving into
this fear is the first form of intellectual cowardice. Questioning our beliefs seems to
23
mean questioning who we are as persons. The intensely personal fear we feel keeps
us from being fair to opposing beliefs. When we “consider” opposing ideas, we
subconsciously undermine them, presenting them in their weakest forms so we can
reject them. We need intellectual courage to overcome self-created inner fear—the
fear we ourselves have created by linking our identity to a specific set of beliefs.
Another important reason to acquire intellectual courage is to overcome the
fear of rejection by others because they hold certain beliefs and are likely to reject
us if we challenge those beliefs. This is where we invest others with the
The best thinkers do not power to intimidate us. Many people judge themselves according to the
connect their identities to views of others and cannot approve of themselves unless others approve
their beliefs. of them. Fear of rejection often lurks in the back of their minds. Few
people challenge the ideologies or belief systems of the groups to which
they belong. This is the second form of intellectual cowardice. Both forms make it
impossible to consider either our own or others’ ideas fairly.
Instead of forming one’s identity according to one’s personal beliefs, it is far
better to define oneself according to the processes by which one formulates beliefs.
This is what it means to be a critical thinker. Consider the following resolution.
I will not identify with the content of any belief. I will identify only with the way I come to my
beliefs. I am a critical thinker and, as such, am willing to examine my beliefs and abandon any
that cannot be supported by evidence and rational considerations. I am ready to follow evidence
and reason wherever they lead. My true identity is that of being a critical thinker, a lifelong learn-
er, a person always looking to improve my thinking by becoming more reasonable in my beliefs.
When we refuse to connect our identity with our beliefs, we become more
intellectually courageous and, by implication, more fairminded. We are no longer
afraid to consider beliefs that are contrary to our present beliefs. We are
The best thinkers follow
not afraid to be proven wrong. We freely admit to having made mistakes in
evidence and reason the past. We are happy to correct any mistakes we are still making: “Tell me
wherever they lead. what you believe and why you believe it, and maybe I can learn from your
thinking. I have cast off many early beliefs. I am ready to abandon any and
all of my present beliefs that are not consistent with the way things are.” Given this
definition, how many people do you know who have intellectual courage?

INTELLECTUAL COURAGE I
S elect one group to which you belong. Complete the following statements:
1. One main belief common to members of this group that might be questioned is . . .
(here you want to identify at least one belief that may lead group members to behave
irrationally)
24
2. This belief might be questioned because . . .

3. I would or would not be able to stand up to my group, pointing out the problems with
this belief, because . . .
INTELLECTUAL COURAGE II
T ry to think of a circumstance in which either you or someone you know defended a view
that was unpopular in a group to which you belonged. Describe the circumstances and,
especially, how the group responded. If you can’t think of an example, what is the significance
of that realization?
Intellectual Empathy: Learn to Enter

Opposing Views Empathically
Now let’s consider another trait of mind necessary to fairmindedness, intellectual
empathy.
To have intellectual empathy is to put oneself imaginatively in the place of others on a routine
basis, so as to genuinely understand them. It requires one to reconstruct the viewpoints and
reasoning of others accurately and to reason from premises, assumptions, and ideas other than
one’s own. This trait requires the motivation to recall occasions when one was wrong in the
past despite an intense conviction of being right and the ability to imagine being similarly
deceived in a case at hand.
The opposite of intellectual empathy is intellectual self-centeredness, thinking
centered on self. When we think from a self-centered perspective, we are unable
to understand the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of others. This, unfortu-
nately, is the natural state of the human mind. From this perspective, most of
our attention is focused on ourselves. Our pain, desires, and hopes are most
pressing. The needs of others pale in significance to our own needs and desires.
We are unable to consider issues, problems, and questions from a viewpoint that
differs from our own and that, when considered, would force us to change our
perspective.
How can we be fair to the thinking of others if we haven’t genuinely tried
to understand their thinking? Fairminded judgment requires a good-faith effort
to put oneself into the situation or perspective of another person (or other sen-
tient creature). It requires an appreciation of the different contexts and situa-
tions within which varying perspectives emerge. Human thinking derives from
the conditions of human life, from very different contexts and situations. If we
do not learn how to take on others’ perspectives and to accurately represent their
views, we will not be able to judge their ideas and beliefs fairly. Trying to think
25
within the viewpoint of others is not easy, though. It is one of the most difficult
skills to acquire.
To develop your ability to empathize with others intellectually, practice using
the following strategies:
1. During a disagreement with someone, switch roles. Tell the person, “I will
speak from your viewpoint for 10 minutes if you will speak from mine. This
way, perhaps we can understand one another better.” Make sure you are
representing one another’s viewpoint accurately.
2. During a discussion, summarize what another person is saying, using
this structure: “What I understand you to be saying is ______. Is this
correct?”
3. When reading, say to yourself what you think the author is saying. This will
enable you to bring ideas concretely into your mind so you then can think
accurately within the author’s viewpoint. Only then are you in a position to
critique the author’s viewpoint.

INTELLECTUAL EMPATHY I
T ry to reconstruct in your mind the last argument you had with someone (friend, parent,
intimate other, supervisor). Reconstruct the argument from your perspective as well as
from that of the other person. Complete the statements below. As you do, take care that you
do not distort the other person’s viewpoint. Try to enter it in good faith, even if it means you
have to admit you were wrong. (Remember that critical thinkers want to see the truth in the
situation.) After you have completed this assignment, show it to the person you argued with to
see whether you have represented that person’s view accurately.
1. My perspective was as follows (state and elaborate your view in detail):
2. The other person’s view was as follows (state and elaborate the other person’s view
in detail):
INTELLECTUAL EMPATHY II
T hink of an international political leader who is represented negatively in the news (for
example, Castro in Cuba). Gather enough information about that person to be able to
explain how he or she might defend himself or herself against the charges made in character-
izing that person as “evil.” Then ask yourself if you have ever seriously considered the pos-
sibility that any of the “enemies” of the United States might be more justified in opposing
us than we are in opposing them. If you have never heard the defense of a national “enemy”
from that person’s point of view, how might that affect your ability to empathize with that
person?
26
Intellectual Integrity: Hold Yourself to the Same

Standards to Which You Hold Others
Let us now consider the trait of intellectual integrity.
Intellectual integrity means striving to be true to one’s own disciplined thinking and holding
oneself to the same standards that one expects others to meet. For example, it involves holding
oneself to the same rigorous standards of evidence and proof to which one holds one’s antago-
nists. It means practicing daily what one advocates for others. It requires honestly admitting
discrepancies and inconsistencies in one’s own thought and action and identifying inconsisten-
cies within one’s thinking.
The opposite of intellectual integrity is intellectual hypocrisy, a state of mind

unconcerned with true honesty and often marked by unconscious contradictions
and inconsistencies. Because the mind is naturally egocentric, it is naturally hypo-
critical, yet at the same time skillfully able to rationalize whatever it thinks and
however it leads us to act. Because of its innate need to project a positive image,
the appearance of integrity is important to the egocentric mind. Therefore, we ac-
tively hide our hypocrisy from ourselves, and although we expect others to adhere
to much more rigid standards than the standards we impose on ourselves, we see
ourselves as fair. Although we profess certain beliefs, we often fail to behave in
accordance with those beliefs.
Suppose I were to say to you that our relationship is really important to me,
but you find out that I have lied to you about something important to you. My
behavior lacks integrity. I have acted hypocritically. Yet, in my own egocentric,
self-serving mind, I have rationalized my lying by telling myself things such as,
“It’s better that she not know. It will only upset her, and it won’t help our rela-
tionship. The issue isn’t that important anyway. It’s really no big deal.” When
I rationalize in this way, I can hide my hypocrisy from myself, which is vitally
important. Although I have acted dishonestly, I can tell myself that everything I
have done is the best thing to do in the situation. In short, I can appear right in
my own mind.
To the extent that our beliefs and actions are consistent, we have intellectual
integrity. We practice what we preach, so to speak. We don’t say one thing and do
another.
Clearly, we cannot be fair to others if we are justified in thinking and acting
in contradictory ways. By its very nature, hypocrisy is a form of injustice. If we
are not sensitive to contradictions and inconsistencies in our own thinking and
behavior, we cannot reason well through ethical questions involving ourselves. We
will distort other viewpoints to come out ahead.
Consider this political example: From time to time, the media disclose highly
questionable practices by the CIA. These practices run anywhere from docu-
mentation of attempted assassinations of foreign political leaders (say, attempts
to assassinate President Castro of Cuba) to the practice of teaching police or
military representatives in other countries (say, in Central America or South
27
America) how to torture prisoners to get them to disclose information about their
associates. To appreciate how such disclosures reveal hypocrisy, we have only to
imagine how we would respond if another nation were to attempt to assassinate
our president or train American police or military in methods of torture. Once
we imagine this, we recognize a basic inconsistency in our behavior and a lack of
intellectual integrity on the part of those who plan, engage in, or approve of this
kind of behavior.
All humans sometimes fail to act with intellectual integrity. When we do, we
reveal a lack of fairmindedness on our part, and a failure to think well enough to
detect internal contradictions in our thought or life.

INTELLECTUAL INTEGRITY
D iscuss a dimension of your life that you suspect holds some inconsistencies or contradic-
tions (where you probably are not holding yourself to the same standard to which you
hold someone else). Think of a situation in which your behavior contradicts what you say
you believe. This might be in an intimate relationship, for example. Complete the following
statements:
1. The context within which I fail to have intellectual integrity is . . .
2. In this context, I would (or do) expect others to behave as follows (though I am not willing
to behave in the same way myself) . . .
3. The reason I fail to have intellectual integrity in this situation is . . .
4. To change this situation, I need to . . .
Intellectual Perseverance: Refuse to Give Up Easily;

Work Your Way through Complexities and
Frustration
Let us now consider intellectual perseverance.
Intellectual perseverance is the disposition to work one’s way through intellectual complexities
despite frustrations inherent in the task. Some problems are complicated and cannot be solved
easily. One has intellectual perseverance when one does not give up in the face of complexity
or frustration. The intellectually perseverant person understands that carefully and methodically
reasoning through complex issues and problems takes precedence over coming to conclusions
quickly. Intellectual perseverance involves adhering to rational principles firmly despite the natu-
ral tendency to go with first impressions and simplistic answers. It also entails a realistic sense
of the need to struggle with confusion and unsettled questions over an extended time to achieve
understanding or insight.
28
The opposite of intellectual perseverance is intellectual laziness, demonstrated

in the tendency to give up quickly when faced with an intellectually challenging
task. The intellectually indolent, or lazy, person has a low tolerance for intellectual
pain or frustration.
Intellectual perseverance is essential to almost all areas of higher-level
thinking because virtually all higher-level thinking involves some intellectual
challenges. Without intellectual perseverance, those challenges cannot be over-
come. Intellectual perseverance is required for high-quality reasoning in math,
chemistry, physics, literature, art—and indeed any domain. Many students give up
during early stages of learning a subject. Lacking intellectual perseverance, they
cut themselves off from the many insights available to them only when they are
willing to think through a subject. They avoid intellectual frustration, no doubt,
but they end up with the everyday frustrations of not being able to solve the com-
plex problems they face.
Students often lack intellectual perseverance for at least two important reasons.
1. The mind is naturally averse to intellectual difficulties. It much prefers things

to be easy, and it will take the simplest route to an answer when it can. This
is the natural egocentric state of the mind.
2. Intellectual perseverance is rarely fostered in school. Instead, students are
often encouraged to complete tasks quickly. Those who finish first are
seen as the smartest and brightest. Slowly and carefully working through
tasks is not usually valued. Consequently, students conclude that quick-
ness is what matters most in learning. Those who are not able to finish
tasks quickly come to view themselves as inadequate, stupid, inferior. Yet
the most important questions we will reason through in our lives most
likely will be complex and, therefore, will require not speed but diligence
and intellectual discipline. The thoroughness and attentiveness we bring to
the process will determine whether, and to what extent, we can answer the
questions.
Intellectually quick students are often the same students who give up when
the intellectual task becomes difficult. They see themselves as capable of getting
the “right” answer quickly and without intellectual pain. When the “right” answer
does not come immediately and painlessly, they frequently blame the teacher
for giving a “dumb assignment.” Indeed, these students often fail to recognize
that every question doesn’t have a “right” answer; some instead have only better
and worse answers, and there is no effective way to work through these complex
questions simply and easily.
How does a lack of intellectual perseverance impede fairmindedness?
Understanding the views of others requires intellectual work. It requires intel-
lectual perseverance—insofar as those views differ from ours or are complex in
nature. If we are unable or unwilling to work through the views of others, to con-
sider the information they use and how they interpret that information, to look
closely at their beliefs and analyze those beliefs for ourselves, to understand what
29
they are trying to accomplish and how they see the world, we will not be able to
think fairly within their viewpoint.
For example, suppose we are Christians wanting to be fair to the views of
atheists. Unless we read and understand the reasoning of intelligent and insight-
ful atheists, we cannot be fair to those views. Some intelligent and insightful athe-
ists have written books to explain how and why they think as they do. Some of
their reasoning is complicated or deals with complex issues. It follows that only
those Christians who have the intellectual perseverance to read and understand
atheists can be fair to atheist views. Of course, a parallel case could be made for
atheists’ understanding the views of intelligent and insightful Christians.

INTELLECTUAL PERSEVERANCE
M ost people have much more physical perseverance than intellectual perseverance. On the
one hand, most are ready to admit “No pain, no gain!” when talking about the body. On
the other hand, most give up quickly when faced with a frustrating intellectual problem. Think-
ing of your own responses, especially in classes, how would you evaluate your own intellectual
perseverance (on a scale of 0–10)? Explain to a classmate how you would support your score.
On what do you base your conclusion?
Confidence in Reason: Respect Evidence

and Reasoning and Value Them as Tools
for Discovering the Truth
Confidence in reason is another trait of fairmindedness.
Confidence in reason is based on the belief that one’s own higher interests and those of
humankind at large are best served by giving the freest play to reason, by encouraging peo-
ple to come to their own conclusions through the use of their own rational faculties. It is
based on the belief that, with proper encouragement and cultivation, people can learn to
think for themselves; form insightful viewpoints; draw reasonable conclusions; think clearly,
accurately, relevantly, and logically; persuade each other by appeal to good reason and sound
evidence; and become reasonable persons despite deep-seated obstacles in human nature and
social life.
When one has confidence in reason, one is moved by reason in appropriate ways. The very
idea of reasonability becomes one of the most important values and a focal point in one’s life.
In short, to have confidence in reason is to use good reasoning as the fundamental criterion by
which to judge whether to accept or reject any belief or position.
30
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DANCE ON STILTS AT THE GIRLS’ UNYAGO, NIUCHI
Newala, too, suffers from the distance of its water-supply—at least

the Newala of to-day does; there was once another Newala in a lovely
valley at the foot of the plateau. I visited it and found scarcely a trace
of houses, only a Christian cemetery, with the graves of several
missionaries and their converts, remaining as a monument of its
former glories. But the surroundings are wonderfully beautiful. A
thick grove of splendid mango-trees closes in the weather-worn
crosses and headstones; behind them, combining the useful and the
agreeable, is a whole plantation of lemon-trees covered with ripe
fruit; not the small African kind, but a much larger and also juicier
imported variety, which drops into the hands of the passing traveller,
without calling for any exertion on his part. Old Newala is now under
the jurisdiction of the native pastor, Daudi, at Chingulungulu, who,
as I am on very friendly terms with him, allows me, as a matter of
course, the use of this lemon-grove during my stay at Newala.
FEET MUTILATED BY THE RAVAGES OF THE “JIGGER”
(Sarcopsylla penetrans)
The water-supply of New Newala is in the bottom of the valley,

some 1,600 feet lower down. The way is not only long and fatiguing,
but the water, when we get it, is thoroughly bad. We are suffering not
only from this, but from the fact that the arrangements at Newala are
nothing short of luxurious. We have a separate kitchen—a hut built
against the boma palisade on the right of the baraza, the interior of
which is not visible from our usual position. Our two cooks were not
long in finding this out, and they consequently do—or rather neglect
to do—what they please. In any case they do not seem to be very
particular about the boiling of our drinking-water—at least I can
attribute to no other cause certain attacks of a dysenteric nature,
from which both Knudsen and I have suffered for some time. If a
man like Omari has to be left unwatched for a moment, he is capable
of anything. Besides this complaint, we are inconvenienced by the
state of our nails, which have become as hard as glass, and crack on
the slightest provocation, and I have the additional infliction of
pimples all over me. As if all this were not enough, we have also, for
the last week been waging war against the jigger, who has found his
Eldorado in the hot sand of the Makonde plateau. Our men are seen
all day long—whenever their chronic colds and the dysentery likewise
raging among them permit—occupied in removing this scourge of
Africa from their feet and trying to prevent the disastrous
consequences of its presence. It is quite common to see natives of
this place with one or two toes missing; many have lost all their toes,
or even the whole front part of the foot, so that a well-formed leg
ends in a shapeless stump. These ravages are caused by the female of
Sarcopsylla penetrans, which bores its way under the skin and there
develops an egg-sac the size of a pea. In all books on the subject, it is
stated that one’s attention is called to the presence of this parasite by
an intolerable itching. This agrees very well with my experience, so
far as the softer parts of the sole, the spaces between and under the
toes, and the side of the foot are concerned, but if the creature
penetrates through the harder parts of the heel or ball of the foot, it
may escape even the most careful search till it has reached maturity.
Then there is no time to be lost, if the horrible ulceration, of which
we see cases by the dozen every day, is to be prevented. It is much
easier, by the way, to discover the insect on the white skin of a
European than on that of a native, on which the dark speck scarcely
shows. The four or five jiggers which, in spite of the fact that I
constantly wore high laced boots, chose my feet to settle in, were
taken out for me by the all-accomplished Knudsen, after which I
thought it advisable to wash out the cavities with corrosive
sublimate. The natives have a different sort of disinfectant—they fill
the hole with scraped roots. In a tiny Makua village on the slope of
the plateau south of Newala, we saw an old woman who had filled all
the spaces under her toe-nails with powdered roots by way of
prophylactic treatment. What will be the result, if any, who can say?
The rest of the many trifling ills which trouble our existence are
really more comic than serious. In the absence of anything else to
smoke, Knudsen and I at last opened a box of cigars procured from
the Indian store-keeper at Lindi, and tried them, with the most
distressing results. Whether they contain opium or some other
narcotic, neither of us can say, but after the tenth puff we were both
“off,” three-quarters stupefied and unspeakably wretched. Slowly we
recovered—and what happened next? Half-an-hour later we were
once more smoking these poisonous concoctions—so insatiable is the
craving for tobacco in the tropics.
Even my present attacks of fever scarcely deserve to be taken
seriously. I have had no less than three here at Newala, all of which
have run their course in an incredibly short time. In the early
afternoon, I am busy with my old natives, asking questions and
making notes. The strong midday coffee has stimulated my spirits to
an extraordinary degree, the brain is active and vigorous, and work
progresses rapidly, while a pleasant warmth pervades the whole
body. Suddenly this gives place to a violent chill, forcing me to put on
my overcoat, though it is only half-past three and the afternoon sun
is at its hottest. Now the brain no longer works with such acuteness
and logical precision; more especially does it fail me in trying to
establish the syntax of the difficult Makua language on which I have
ventured, as if I had not enough to do without it. Under the
circumstances it seems advisable to take my temperature, and I do
so, to save trouble, without leaving my seat, and while going on with
my work. On examination, I find it to be 101·48°. My tutors are
abruptly dismissed and my bed set up in the baraza; a few minutes
later I am in it and treating myself internally with hot water and
lemon-juice.
Three hours later, the thermometer marks nearly 104°, and I make
them carry me back into the tent, bed and all, as I am now perspiring
heavily, and exposure to the cold wind just beginning to blow might
mean a fatal chill. I lie still for a little while, and then find, to my
great relief, that the temperature is not rising, but rather falling. This
is about 7.30 p.m. At 8 p.m. I find, to my unbounded astonishment,
that it has fallen below 98·6°, and I feel perfectly well. I read for an
hour or two, and could very well enjoy a smoke, if I had the
wherewithal—Indian cigars being out of the question.
Having no medical training, I am at a loss to account for this state
of things. It is impossible that these transitory attacks of high fever
should be malarial; it seems more probable that they are due to a
kind of sunstroke. On consulting my note-book, I become more and
more inclined to think this is the case, for these attacks regularly
follow extreme fatigue and long exposure to strong sunshine. They at
least have the advantage of being only short interruptions to my
work, as on the following morning I am always quite fresh and fit.
My treasure of a cook is suffering from an enormous hydrocele which
makes it difficult for him to get up, and Moritz is obliged to keep in
the dark on account of his inflamed eyes. Knudsen’s cook, a raw boy
from somewhere in the bush, knows still less of cooking than Omari;
consequently Nils Knudsen himself has been promoted to the vacant
post. Finding that we had come to the end of our supplies, he began
by sending to Chingulungulu for the four sucking-pigs which we had
bought from Matola and temporarily left in his charge; and when
they came up, neatly packed in a large crate, he callously slaughtered
the biggest of them. The first joint we were thoughtless enough to
entrust for roasting to Knudsen’s mshenzi cook, and it was
consequently uneatable; but we made the rest of the animal into a
jelly which we ate with great relish after weeks of underfeeding,
consuming incredible helpings of it at both midday and evening
meals. The only drawback is a certain want of variety in the tinned
vegetables. Dr. Jäger, to whom the Geographical Commission
entrusted the provisioning of the expeditions—mine as well as his
own—because he had more time on his hands than the rest of us,
seems to have laid in a huge stock of Teltow turnips,[46] an article of
food which is all very well for occasional use, but which quickly palls
when set before one every day; and we seem to have no other tins
left. There is no help for it—we must put up with the turnips; but I
am certain that, once I am home again, I shall not touch them for ten
years to come.
Amid all these minor evils, which, after all, go to make up the
genuine flavour of Africa, there is at least one cheering touch:
Knudsen has, with the dexterity of a skilled mechanic, repaired my 9
× 12 cm. camera, at least so far that I can use it with a little care.
How, in the absence of finger-nails, he was able to accomplish such a
ticklish piece of work, having no tool but a clumsy screw-driver for
taking to pieces and putting together again the complicated
mechanism of the instantaneous shutter, is still a mystery to me; but
he did it successfully. The loss of his finger-nails shows him in a light
contrasting curiously enough with the intelligence evinced by the
above operation; though, after all, it is scarcely surprising after his
ten years’ residence in the bush. One day, at Lindi, he had occasion
to wash a dog, which must have been in need of very thorough
cleansing, for the bottle handed to our friend for the purpose had an
extremely strong smell. Having performed his task in the most
conscientious manner, he perceived with some surprise that the dog
did not appear much the better for it, and was further surprised by
finding his own nails ulcerating away in the course of the next few
days. “How was I to know that carbolic acid has to be diluted?” he
mutters indignantly, from time to time, with a troubled gaze at his
mutilated finger-tips.
Since we came to Newala we have been making excursions in all
directions through the surrounding country, in accordance with old
habit, and also because the akida Sefu did not get together the tribal
elders from whom I wanted information so speedily as he had
promised. There is, however, no harm done, as, even if seen only
from the outside, the country and people are interesting enough.
The Makonde plateau is like a large rectangular table rounded off
at the corners. Measured from the Indian Ocean to Newala, it is
about seventy-five miles long, and between the Rovuma and the
Lukuledi it averages fifty miles in breadth, so that its superficial area
is about two-thirds of that of the kingdom of Saxony. The surface,
however, is not level, but uniformly inclined from its south-western
edge to the ocean. From the upper edge, on which Newala lies, the
eye ranges for many miles east and north-east, without encountering
any obstacle, over the Makonde bush. It is a green sea, from which
here and there thick clouds of smoke rise, to show that it, too, is
inhabited by men who carry on their tillage like so many other
primitive peoples, by cutting down and burning the bush, and
manuring with the ashes. Even in the radiant light of a tropical day
such a fire is a grand sight.
Much less effective is the impression produced just now by the
great western plain as seen from the edge of the plateau. As often as
time permits, I stroll along this edge, sometimes in one direction,
sometimes in another, in the hope of finding the air clear enough to
let me enjoy the view; but I have always been disappointed.
Wherever one looks, clouds of smoke rise from the burning bush,
and the air is full of smoke and vapour. It is a pity, for under more
favourable circumstances the panorama of the whole country up to
the distant Majeje hills must be truly magnificent. It is of little use
taking photographs now, and an outline sketch gives a very poor idea
of the scenery. In one of these excursions I went out of my way to
make a personal attempt on the Makonde bush. The present edge of
the plateau is the result of a far-reaching process of destruction
through erosion and denudation. The Makonde strata are
everywhere cut into by ravines, which, though short, are hundreds of
yards in depth. In consequence of the loose stratification of these
beds, not only are the walls of these ravines nearly vertical, but their
upper end is closed by an equally steep escarpment, so that the
western edge of the Makonde plateau is hemmed in by a series of
deep, basin-like valleys. In order to get from one side of such a ravine
to the other, I cut my way through the bush with a dozen of my men.
It was a very open part, with more grass than scrub, but even so the
short stretch of less than two hundred yards was very hard work; at
the end of it the men’s calicoes were in rags and they themselves
bleeding from hundreds of scratches, while even our strong khaki
suits had not escaped scatheless.
NATIVE PATH THROUGH THE MAKONDE BUSH, NEAR

MAHUTA
I see increasing reason to believe that the view formed some time
back as to the origin of the Makonde bush is the correct one. I have
no doubt that it is not a natural product, but the result of human
occupation. Those parts of the high country where man—as a very
slight amount of practice enables the eye to perceive at once—has not
yet penetrated with axe and hoe, are still occupied by a splendid
timber forest quite able to sustain a comparison with our mixed
forests in Germany. But wherever man has once built his hut or tilled
his field, this horrible bush springs up. Every phase of this process
may be seen in the course of a couple of hours’ walk along the main
road. From the bush to right or left, one hears the sound of the axe—
not from one spot only, but from several directions at once. A few
steps further on, we can see what is taking place. The brush has been
cut down and piled up in heaps to the height of a yard or more,
between which the trunks of the large trees stand up like the last
pillars of a magnificent ruined building. These, too, present a
melancholy spectacle: the destructive Makonde have ringed them—
cut a broad strip of bark all round to ensure their dying off—and also
piled up pyramids of brush round them. Father and son, mother and
son-in-law, are chopping away perseveringly in the background—too
busy, almost, to look round at the white stranger, who usually excites
so much interest. If you pass by the same place a week later, the piles
of brushwood have disappeared and a thick layer of ashes has taken
the place of the green forest. The large trees stretch their
smouldering trunks and branches in dumb accusation to heaven—if
they have not already fallen and been more or less reduced to ashes,
perhaps only showing as a white stripe on the dark ground.
This work of destruction is carried out by the Makonde alike on the
virgin forest and on the bush which has sprung up on sites already
cultivated and deserted. In the second case they are saved the trouble
of burning the large trees, these being entirely absent in the
secondary bush.
After burning this piece of forest ground and loosening it with the
hoe, the native sows his corn and plants his vegetables. All over the
country, he goes in for bed-culture, which requires, and, in fact,
receives, the most careful attention. Weeds are nowhere tolerated in
the south of German East Africa. The crops may fail on the plains,
where droughts are frequent, but never on the plateau with its
abundant rains and heavy dews. Its fortunate inhabitants even have
the satisfaction of seeing the proud Wayao and Wamakua working
for them as labourers, driven by hunger to serve where they were
accustomed to rule.
But the light, sandy soil is soon exhausted, and would yield no
harvest the second year if cultivated twice running. This fact has
been familiar to the native for ages; consequently he provides in
time, and, while his crop is growing, prepares the next plot with axe
and firebrand. Next year he plants this with his various crops and
lets the first piece lie fallow. For a short time it remains waste and
desolate; then nature steps in to repair the destruction wrought by
man; a thousand new growths spring out of the exhausted soil, and
even the old stumps put forth fresh shoots. Next year the new growth
is up to one’s knees, and in a few years more it is that terrible,
impenetrable bush, which maintains its position till the black
occupier of the land has made the round of all the available sites and
come back to his starting point.
The Makonde are, body and soul, so to speak, one with this bush.
According to my Yao informants, indeed, their name means nothing
else but “bush people.” Their own tradition says that they have been
settled up here for a very long time, but to my surprise they laid great
stress on an original immigration. Their old homes were in the
south-east, near Mikindani and the mouth of the Rovuma, whence
their peaceful forefathers were driven by the continual raids of the
Sakalavas from Madagascar and the warlike Shirazis[47] of the coast,
to take refuge on the almost inaccessible plateau. I have studied
African ethnology for twenty years, but the fact that changes of
population in this apparently quiet and peaceable corner of the earth
could have been occasioned by outside enterprises taking place on
the high seas, was completely new to me. It is, no doubt, however,
correct.
The charming tribal legend of the Makonde—besides informing us
of other interesting matters—explains why they have to live in the
thickest of the bush and a long way from the edge of the plateau,
instead of making their permanent homes beside the purling brooks
and springs of the low country.
“The place where the tribe originated is Mahuta, on the southern
side of the plateau towards the Rovuma, where of old time there was
nothing but thick bush. Out of this bush came a man who never
washed himself or shaved his head, and who ate and drank but little.
He went out and made a human figure from the wood of a tree
growing in the open country, which he took home to his abode in the
bush and there set it upright. In the night this image came to life and
was a woman. The man and woman went down together to the
Rovuma to wash themselves. Here the woman gave birth to a still-
born child. They left that place and passed over the high land into the
valley of the Mbemkuru, where the woman had another child, which
was also born dead. Then they returned to the high bush country of
Mahuta, where the third child was born, which lived and grew up. In
course of time, the couple had many more children, and called
themselves Wamatanda. These were the ancestral stock of the
Makonde, also called Wamakonde,[48] i.e., aborigines. Their
forefather, the man from the bush, gave his children the command to
bury their dead upright, in memory of the mother of their race who
was cut out of wood and awoke to life when standing upright. He also
warned them against settling in the valleys and near large streams,
for sickness and death dwelt there. They were to make it a rule to
have their huts at least an hour’s walk from the nearest watering-
place; then their children would thrive and escape illness.”
The explanation of the name Makonde given by my informants is
somewhat different from that contained in the above legend, which I
extract from a little book (small, but packed with information), by
Pater Adams, entitled Lindi und sein Hinterland. Otherwise, my
results agree exactly with the statements of the legend. Washing?
Hapana—there is no such thing. Why should they do so? As it is, the
supply of water scarcely suffices for cooking and drinking; other
people do not wash, so why should the Makonde distinguish himself
by such needless eccentricity? As for shaving the head, the short,
woolly crop scarcely needs it,[49] so the second ancestral precept is
likewise easy enough to follow. Beyond this, however, there is
nothing ridiculous in the ancestor’s advice. I have obtained from
various local artists a fairly large number of figures carved in wood,
ranging from fifteen to twenty-three inches in height, and
representing women belonging to the great group of the Mavia,
Makonde, and Matambwe tribes. The carving is remarkably well
done and renders the female type with great accuracy, especially the
keloid ornamentation, to be described later on. As to the object and
meaning of their works the sculptors either could or (more probably)
would tell me nothing, and I was forced to content myself with the
scanty information vouchsafed by one man, who said that the figures
were merely intended to represent the nembo—the artificial
deformations of pelele, ear-discs, and keloids. The legend recorded
by Pater Adams places these figures in a new light. They must surely
be more than mere dolls; and we may even venture to assume that
they are—though the majority of present-day Makonde are probably
unaware of the fact—representations of the tribal ancestress.
The references in the legend to the descent from Mahuta to the
Rovuma, and to a journey across the highlands into the Mbekuru
valley, undoubtedly indicate the previous history of the tribe, the
travels of the ancestral pair typifying the migrations of their
descendants. The descent to the neighbouring Rovuma valley, with
its extraordinary fertility and great abundance of game, is intelligible
at a glance—but the crossing of the Lukuledi depression, the ascent
to the Rondo Plateau and the descent to the Mbemkuru, also lie
within the bounds of probability, for all these districts have exactly
the same character as the extreme south. Now, however, comes a
point of especial interest for our bacteriological age. The primitive
Makonde did not enjoy their lives in the marshy river-valleys.
Disease raged among them, and many died. It was only after they
had returned to their original home near Mahuta, that the health
conditions of these people improved. We are very apt to think of the
African as a stupid person whose ignorance of nature is only equalled
by his fear of it, and who looks on all mishaps as caused by evil
spirits and malignant natural powers. It is much more correct to
assume in this case that the people very early learnt to distinguish
districts infested with malaria from those where it is absent.
This knowledge is crystallized in the
ancestral warning against settling in the
valleys and near the great waters, the
dwelling-places of disease and death. At the
same time, for security against the hostile
Mavia south of the Rovuma, it was enacted
that every settlement must be not less than a
certain distance from the southern edge of the
plateau. Such in fact is their mode of life at the
present day. It is not such a bad one, and
certainly they are both safer and more
comfortable than the Makua, the recent
intruders from the south, who have made USUAL METHOD OF
good their footing on the western edge of the CLOSING HUT-DOOR
plateau, extending over a fairly wide belt of
country. Neither Makua nor Makonde show in their dwellings
anything of the size and comeliness of the Yao houses in the plain,
especially at Masasi, Chingulungulu and Zuza’s. Jumbe Chauro, a
Makonde hamlet not far from Newala, on the road to Mahuta, is the
most important settlement of the tribe I have yet seen, and has fairly
spacious huts. But how slovenly is their construction compared with
the palatial residences of the elephant-hunters living in the plain.
The roofs are still more untidy than in the general run of huts during
the dry season, the walls show here and there the scanty beginnings
or the lamentable remains of the mud plastering, and the interior is a
veritable dog-kennel; dirt, dust and disorder everywhere. A few huts
only show any attempt at division into rooms, and this consists
merely of very roughly-made bamboo partitions. In one point alone
have I noticed any indication of progress—in the method of fastening
the door. Houses all over the south are secured in a simple but
ingenious manner. The door consists of a set of stout pieces of wood
or bamboo, tied with bark-string to two cross-pieces, and moving in
two grooves round one of the door-posts, so as to open inwards. If
the owner wishes to leave home, he takes two logs as thick as a man’s
upper arm and about a yard long. One of these is placed obliquely
against the middle of the door from the inside, so as to form an angle
of from 60° to 75° with the ground. He then places the second piece
horizontally across the first, pressing it downward with all his might.
It is kept in place by two strong posts planted in the ground a few
inches inside the door. This fastening is absolutely safe, but of course
cannot be applied to both doors at once, otherwise how could the
owner leave or enter his house? I have not yet succeeded in finding
out how the back door is fastened.
MAKONDE LOCK AND KEY AT JUMBE CHAURO

This is the general way of closing a house. The Makonde at Jumbe
Chauro, however, have a much more complicated, solid and original
one. Here, too, the door is as already described, except that there is
only one post on the inside, standing by itself about six inches from
one side of the doorway. Opposite this post is a hole in the wall just
large enough to admit a man’s arm. The door is closed inside by a
large wooden bolt passing through a hole in this post and pressing
with its free end against the door. The other end has three holes into
which fit three pegs running in vertical grooves inside the post. The
door is opened with a wooden key about a foot long, somewhat
curved and sloped off at the butt; the other end has three pegs
corresponding to the holes, in the bolt, so that, when it is thrust
through the hole in the wall and inserted into the rectangular
opening in the post, the pegs can be lifted and the bolt drawn out.[50]
MODE OF INSERTING THE KEY
With no small pride first one householder and then a second

showed me on the spot the action of this greatest invention of the
Makonde Highlands. To both with an admiring exclamation of
“Vizuri sana!” (“Very fine!”). I expressed the wish to take back these
marvels with me to Ulaya, to show the Wazungu what clever fellows
the Makonde are. Scarcely five minutes after my return to camp at
Newala, the two men came up sweating under the weight of two
heavy logs which they laid down at my feet, handing over at the same
time the keys of the fallen fortress. Arguing, logically enough, that if
the key was wanted, the lock would be wanted with it, they had taken
their axes and chopped down the posts—as it never occurred to them
to dig them out of the ground and so bring them intact. Thus I have
two badly damaged specimens, and the owners, instead of praise,
come in for a blowing-up.
The Makua huts in the environs of Newala are especially
miserable; their more than slovenly construction reminds one of the
temporary erections of the Makua at Hatia’s, though the people here
have not been concerned in a war. It must therefore be due to
congenital idleness, or else to the absence of a powerful chief. Even
the baraza at Mlipa’s, a short hour’s walk south-east of Newala,
shares in this general neglect. While public buildings in this country
are usually looked after more or less carefully, this is in evident
danger of being blown over by the first strong easterly gale. The only
attractive object in this whole district is the grave of the late chief
Mlipa. I visited it in the morning, while the sun was still trying with
partial success to break through the rolling mists, and the circular
grove of tall euphorbias, which, with a broken pot, is all that marks
the old king’s resting-place, impressed one with a touch of pathos.
Even my very materially-minded carriers seemed to feel something
of the sort, for instead of their usual ribald songs, they chanted
solemnly, as we marched on through the dense green of the Makonde
bush:—
“We shall arrive with the great master; we stand in a row and have
no fear about getting our food and our money from the Serkali (the
Government). We are not afraid; we are going along with the great
master, the lion; we are going down to the coast and back.”
With regard to the characteristic features of the various tribes here
on the western edge of the plateau, I can arrive at no other
conclusion than the one already come to in the plain, viz., that it is
impossible for anyone but a trained anthropologist to assign any
given individual at once to his proper tribe. In fact, I think that even
an anthropological specialist, after the most careful examination,
might find it a difficult task to decide. The whole congeries of peoples
collected in the region bounded on the west by the great Central
African rift, Tanganyika and Nyasa, and on the east by the Indian
Ocean, are closely related to each other—some of their languages are
only distinguished from one another as dialects of the same speech,
and no doubt all the tribes present the same shape of skull and
structure of skeleton. Thus, surely, there can be no very striking
differences in outward appearance.
Even did such exist, I should have no time
to concern myself with them, for day after day,
I have to see or hear, as the case may be—in
any case to grasp and record—an
extraordinary number of ethnographic
phenomena. I am almost disposed to think it
fortunate that some departments of inquiry, at
least, are barred by external circumstances.
Chief among these is the subject of iron-
working. We are apt to think of Africa as a
country where iron ore is everywhere, so to
speak, to be picked up by the roadside, and
where it would be quite surprising if the
inhabitants had not learnt to smelt the
material ready to their hand. In fact, the
knowledge of this art ranges all over the
continent, from the Kabyles in the north to the
Kafirs in the south. Here between the Rovuma
and the Lukuledi the conditions are not so
favourable. According to the statements of the
Makonde, neither ironstone nor any other
form of iron ore is known to them. They have
not therefore advanced to the art of smelting
the metal, but have hitherto bought all their
THE ANCESTRESS OF
THE MAKONDE
iron implements from neighbouring tribes.
Even in the plain the inhabitants are not much
better off. Only one man now living is said to
understand the art of smelting iron. This old fundi lives close to
Huwe, that isolated, steep-sided block of granite which rises out of
the green solitude between Masasi and Chingulungulu, and whose
jagged and splintered top meets the traveller’s eye everywhere. While
still at Masasi I wished to see this man at work, but was told that,
frightened by the rising, he had retired across the Rovuma, though
he would soon return. All subsequent inquiries as to whether the
fundi had come back met with the genuine African answer, “Bado”
(“Not yet”).
BRAZIER
Some consolation was afforded me by a brassfounder, whom I

came across in the bush near Akundonde’s. This man is the favourite
of women, and therefore no doubt of the gods; he welds the glittering
brass rods purchased at the coast into those massive, heavy rings
which, on the wrists and ankles of the local fair ones, continually give
me fresh food for admiration. Like every decent master-craftsman he
had all his tools with him, consisting of a pair of bellows, three
crucibles and a hammer—nothing more, apparently. He was quite
willing to show his skill, and in a twinkling had fixed his bellows on
the ground. They are simply two goat-skins, taken off whole, the four
legs being closed by knots, while the upper opening, intended to
admit the air, is kept stretched by two pieces of wood. At the lower
end of the skin a smaller opening is left into which a wooden tube is
stuck. The fundi has quickly borrowed a heap of wood-embers from
the nearest hut; he then fixes the free ends of the two tubes into an
earthen pipe, and clamps them to the ground by means of a bent
piece of wood. Now he fills one of his small clay crucibles, the dross
on which shows that they have been long in use, with the yellow
material, places it in the midst of the embers, which, at present are
only faintly glimmering, and begins his work. In quick alternation
the smith’s two hands move up and down with the open ends of the
bellows; as he raises his hand he holds the slit wide open, so as to let
the air enter the skin bag unhindered. In pressing it down he closes
the bag, and the air puffs through the bamboo tube and clay pipe into
the fire, which quickly burns up. The smith, however, does not keep
on with this work, but beckons to another man, who relieves him at
the bellows, while he takes some more tools out of a large skin pouch
carried on his back. I look on in wonder as, with a smooth round
stick about the thickness of a finger, he bores a few vertical holes into
the clean sand of the soil. This should not be difficult, yet the man
seems to be taking great pains over it. Then he fastens down to the
ground, with a couple of wooden clamps, a neat little trough made by
splitting a joint of bamboo in half, so that the ends are closed by the
two knots. At last the yellow metal has attained the right consistency,
and the fundi lifts the crucible from the fire by means of two sticks
split at the end to serve as tongs. A short swift turn to the left—a
tilting of the crucible—and the molten brass, hissing and giving forth
clouds of smoke, flows first into the bamboo mould and then into the
holes in the ground.
The technique of this backwoods craftsman may not be very far
advanced, but it cannot be denied that he knows how to obtain an
adequate result by the simplest means. The ladies of highest rank in
this country—that is to say, those who can afford it, wear two kinds
of these massive brass rings, one cylindrical, the other semicircular
in section. The latter are cast in the most ingenious way in the
bamboo mould, the former in the circular hole in the sand. It is quite
a simple matter for the fundi to fit these bars to the limbs of his fair
customers; with a few light strokes of his hammer he bends the
pliable brass round arm or ankle without further inconvenience to
the wearer.
SHAPING THE POT
SMOOTHING WITH MAIZE-COB
CUTTING THE EDGE

FINISHING THE BOTTOM
LAST SMOOTHING BEFORE

BURNING
FIRING THE BRUSH-PILE

LIGHTING THE FARTHER SIDE OF
THE PILE
TURNING THE RED-HOT VESSEL
NYASA WOMAN MAKING POTS AT MASASI

Pottery is an art which must always and everywhere excite the
interest of the student, just because it is so intimately connected with
the development of human culture, and because its relics are one of
the principal factors in the reconstruction of our own condition in
prehistoric times. I shall always remember with pleasure the two or
three afternoons at Masasi when Salim Matola’s mother, a slightly-
built, graceful, pleasant-looking woman, explained to me with
touching patience, by means of concrete illustrations, the ceramic art
of her people. The only implements for this primitive process were a
lump of clay in her left hand, and in the right a calabash containing
the following valuables: the fragment of a maize-cob stripped of all
its grains, a smooth, oval pebble, about the size of a pigeon’s egg, a
few chips of gourd-shell, a bamboo splinter about the length of one’s
hand, a small shell, and a bunch of some herb resembling spinach.
Nothing more. The woman scraped with the
shell a round, shallow hole in the soft, fine
sand of the soil, and, when an active young
girl had filled the calabash with water for her,
she began to knead the clay. As if by magic it
gradually assumed the shape of a rough but
already well-shaped vessel, which only wanted
a little touching up with the instruments
before mentioned. I looked out with the
MAKUA WOMAN closest attention for any indication of the use
MAKING A POT. of the potter’s wheel, in however rudimentary
SHOWS THE a form, but no—hapana (there is none). The
BEGINNINGS OF THE embryo pot stood firmly in its little
POTTER’S WHEEL
depression, and the woman walked round it in
a stooping posture, whether she was removing
small stones or similar foreign bodies with the maize-cob, smoothing
the inner or outer surface with the splinter of bamboo, or later, after
letting it dry for a day, pricking in the ornamentation with a pointed
bit of gourd-shell, or working out the bottom, or cutting the edge
with a sharp bamboo knife, or giving the last touches to the finished
vessel. This occupation of the women is infinitely toilsome, but it is
without doubt an accurate reproduction of the process in use among
our ancestors of the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
There is no doubt that the invention of pottery, an item in human
progress whose importance cannot be over-estimated, is due to
women. Rough, coarse and unfeeling, the men of the horde range
over the countryside. When the united cunning of the hunters has
succeeded in killing the game; not one of them thinks of carrying
home the spoil. A bright fire, kindled by a vigorous wielding of the
drill, is crackling beside them; the animal has been cleaned and cut
up secundum artem, and, after a slight singeing, will soon disappear
under their sharp teeth; no one all this time giving a single thought
to wife or child.
To what shifts, on the other hand, the primitive wife, and still more
the primitive mother, was put! Not even prehistoric stomachs could
endure an unvarying diet of raw food. Something or other suggested
the beneficial effect of hot water on the majority of approved but
indigestible dishes. Perhaps a neighbour had tried holding the hard
roots or tubers over the fire in a calabash filled with water—or maybe
an ostrich-egg-shell, or a hastily improvised vessel of bark. They
became much softer and more palatable than they had previously
been; but, unfortunately, the vessel could not stand the fire and got
charred on the outside. That can be remedied, thought our
ancestress, and plastered a layer of wet clay round a similar vessel.
This is an improvement; the cooking utensil remains uninjured, but
the heat of the fire has shrunk it, so that it is loose in its shell. The
next step is to detach it, so, with a firm grip and a jerk, shell and
kernel are separated, and pottery is invented. Perhaps, however, the
discovery which led to an intelligent use of the burnt-clay shell, was
made in a slightly different way. Ostrich-eggs and calabashes are not
to be found in every part of the world, but everywhere mankind has
arrived at the art of making baskets out of pliant materials, such as
bark, bast, strips of palm-leaf, supple twigs, etc. Our inventor has no
water-tight vessel provided by nature. “Never mind, let us line the
basket with clay.” This answers the purpose, but alas! the basket gets
burnt over the blazing fire, the woman watches the process of
cooking with increasing uneasiness, fearing a leak, but no leak
appears. The food, done to a turn, is eaten with peculiar relish; and
the cooking-vessel is examined, half in curiosity, half in satisfaction
at the result. The plastic clay is now hard as stone, and at the same
time looks exceedingly well, for the neat plaiting of the burnt basket
is traced all over it in a pretty pattern. Thus, simultaneously with
pottery, its ornamentation was invented.
Primitive woman has another claim to respect. It was the man,
roving abroad, who invented the art of producing fire at will, but the
woman, unable to imitate him in this, has been a Vestal from the
earliest times. Nothing gives so much trouble as the keeping alight of
the smouldering brand, and, above all, when all the men are absent
from the camp. Heavy rain-clouds gather, already the first large
drops are falling, the first gusts of the storm rage over the plain. The
little flame, a greater anxiety to the woman than her own children,
flickers unsteadily in the blast. What is to be done? A sudden thought
occurs to her, and in an instant she has constructed a primitive hut
out of strips of bark, to protect the flame against rain and wind.
This, or something very like it, was the way in which the principle
of the house was discovered; and even the most hardened misogynist
cannot fairly refuse a woman the credit of it. The protection of the
hearth-fire from the weather is the germ from which the human
dwelling was evolved. Men had little, if any share, in this forward
step, and that only at a late stage. Even at the present day, the
plastering of the housewall with clay and the manufacture of pottery
are exclusively the women’s business. These are two very significant
survivals. Our European kitchen-garden, too, is originally a woman’s
invention, and the hoe, the primitive instrument of agriculture, is,
characteristically enough, still used in this department. But the
noblest achievement which we owe to the other sex is unquestionably
the art of cookery. Roasting alone—the oldest process—is one for
which men took the hint (a very obvious one) from nature. It must
have been suggested by the scorched carcase of some animal
overtaken by the destructive forest-fires. But boiling—the process of
improving organic substances by the help of water heated to boiling-
point—is a much later discovery. It is so recent that it has not even
yet penetrated to all parts of the world. The Polynesians understand
how to steam food, that is, to cook it, neatly wrapped in leaves, in a
hole in the earth between hot stones, the air being excluded, and
(sometimes) a few drops of water sprinkled on the stones; but they
do not understand boiling.
To come back from this digression, we find that the slender Nyasa
woman has, after once more carefully examining the finished pot,
put it aside in the shade to dry. On the following day she sends me
word by her son, Salim Matola, who is always on hand, that she is
going to do the burning, and, on coming out of my house, I find her
already hard at work. She has spread on the ground a layer of very
dry sticks, about as thick as one’s thumb, has laid the pot (now of a
yellowish-grey colour) on them, and is piling brushwood round it.
My faithful Pesa mbili, the mnyampara, who has been standing by,
most obligingly, with a lighted stick, now hands it to her. Both of
them, blowing steadily, light the pile on the lee side, and, when the
flame begins to catch, on the weather side also. Soon the whole is in a
blaze, but the dry fuel is quickly consumed and the fire dies down, so
that we see the red-hot vessel rising from the ashes. The woman
turns it continually with a long stick, sometimes one way and
sometimes another, so that it may be evenly heated all over. In
twenty minutes she rolls it out of the ash-heap, takes up the bundle
of spinach, which has been lying for two days in a jar of water, and
sprinkles the red-hot clay with it. The places where the drops fall are
marked by black spots on the uniform reddish-brown surface. With a
sigh of relief, and with visible satisfaction, the woman rises to an
erect position; she is standing just in a line between me and the fire,
from which a cloud of smoke is just rising: I press the ball of my
camera, the shutter clicks—the apotheosis is achieved! Like a
priestess, representative of her inventive sex, the graceful woman
stands: at her feet the hearth-fire she has given us beside her the
invention she has devised for us, in the background the home she has
built for us.
At Newala, also, I have had the manufacture of pottery carried on
in my presence. Technically the process is better than that already
described, for here we find the beginnings of the potter’s wheel,
which does not seem to exist in the plains; at least I have seen
nothing of the sort. The artist, a frightfully stupid Makua woman, did
not make a depression in the ground to receive the pot she was about
to shape, but used instead a large potsherd. Otherwise, she went to
work in much the same way as Salim’s mother, except that she saved
herself the trouble of walking round and round her work by squatting
at her ease and letting the pot and potsherd rotate round her; this is
surely the first step towards a machine. But it does not follow that
the pot was improved by the process. It is true that it was beautifully
rounded and presented a very creditable appearance when finished,
but the numerous large and small vessels which I have seen, and, in
part, collected, in the “less advanced” districts, are no less so. We
moderns imagine that instruments of precision are necessary to
produce excellent results. Go to the prehistoric collections of our
museums and look at the pots, urns and bowls of our ancestors in the
dim ages of the past, and you will at once perceive your error.
MAKING LONGITUDINAL CUT IN
BARK
DRAWING THE BARK OFF THE LOG
REMOVING THE OUTER BARK

BEATING THE BARK
WORKING THE BARK-CLOTH AFTER BEATING, TO MAKE IT

SOFT
MANUFACTURE OF BARK-CLOTH AT NEWALA

To-day, nearly the whole population of German East Africa is
clothed in imported calico. This was not always the case; even now in
some parts of the north dressed skins are still the prevailing wear,
and in the north-western districts—east and north of Lake
Tanganyika—lies a zone where bark-cloth has not yet been
superseded. Probably not many generations have passed since such
bark fabrics and kilts of skins were the only clothing even in the
south. Even to-day, large quantities of this bright-red or drab
material are still to be found; but if we wish to see it, we must look in
the granaries and on the drying stages inside the native huts, where
it serves less ambitious uses as wrappings for those seeds and fruits
which require to be packed with special care. The salt produced at
Masasi, too, is packed for transport to a distance in large sheets of
bark-cloth. Wherever I found it in any degree possible, I studied the
process of making this cloth. The native requisitioned for the
purpose arrived, carrying a log between two and three yards long and
as thick as his thigh, and nothing else except a curiously-shaped
mallet and the usual long, sharp and pointed knife which all men and
boys wear in a belt at their backs without a sheath—horribile dictu!
[51]
Silently he squats down before me, and with two rapid cuts has
drawn a couple of circles round the log some two yards apart, and
slits the bark lengthwise between them with the point of his knife.
With evident care, he then scrapes off the outer rind all round the
log, so that in a quarter of an hour the inner red layer of the bark
shows up brightly-coloured between the two untouched ends. With
some trouble and much caution, he now loosens the bark at one end,
and opens the cylinder. He then stands up, takes hold of the free
edge with both hands, and turning it inside out, slowly but steadily
pulls it off in one piece. Now comes the troublesome work of
scraping all superfluous particles of outer bark from the outside of
the long, narrow piece of material, while the inner side is carefully
scrutinised for defective spots. At last it is ready for beating. Having
signalled to a friend, who immediately places a bowl of water beside
him, the artificer damps his sheet of bark all over, seizes his mallet,
lays one end of the stuff on the smoothest spot of the log, and
hammers away slowly but continuously. “Very simple!” I think to
myself. “Why, I could do that, too!”—but I am forced to change my
opinions a little later on; for the beating is quite an art, if the fabric is
not to be beaten to pieces. To prevent the breaking of the fibres, the
stuff is several times folded across, so as to interpose several
thicknesses between the mallet and the block. At last the required
state is reached, and the fundi seizes the sheet, still folded, by both
ends, and wrings it out, or calls an assistant to take one end while he
holds the other. The cloth produced in this way is not nearly so fine
and uniform in texture as the famous Uganda bark-cloth, but it is
quite soft, and, above all, cheap.
Now, too, I examine the mallet. My craftsman has been using the
simpler but better form of this implement, a conical block of some
hard wood, its base—the striking surface—being scored across and
across with more or less deeply-cut grooves, and the handle stuck
into a hole in the middle. The other and earlier form of mallet is
shaped in the same way, but the head is fastened by an ingenious
network of bark strips into the split bamboo serving as a handle. The
observation so often made, that ancient customs persist longest in
connection with religious ceremonies and in the life of children, here
finds confirmation. As we shall soon see, bark-cloth is still worn
during the unyago,[52] having been prepared with special solemn
ceremonies; and many a mother, if she has no other garment handy,
will still put her little one into a kilt of bark-cloth, which, after all,
looks better, besides being more in keeping with its African
surroundings, than the ridiculous bit of print from Ulaya.
MAKUA WOMEN

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Critical Thinking: Pearson New

International Edition: Tools for Taking

1 Think for Yourself

GOOD THINKING REQUIRES HARD WORK

of practice/feedback/practice. Your practice heightens your awareness of the ins and

EXHIBIT 2 Critical thinking is the way we should approach everything we do.

The way you do

2 Think for Yourself

EXHIBIT 3 Why is critical thinking so important? (A more elaborated

Defining Critical Thinking:

3 Think for Yourself

THE CONCEPT OF CRITICAL THINKING

In other words, critical thinking is the systematic monitoring of thought with

EXHIBIT 4 Critical thinking applies to everything about which we think.

Critical Thinking About:

Teaching and learning Well-being Speaking

Creativity Listening Politics

Emotions Medicine Religion

Intuition Writing Problem solving

Habits Nursing Reading

Lower order thinking is often distinguished from higher order

BECOME A CRITIC OF YOUR THINKING

4 Think for Yourself

ESTABLISH NEW HABITS OF THOUGHT

5 Think for Yourself

DEVELOP CONFIDENCE IN YOUR ABILITY

In pursuing intellectual questions, Darwin (1958) relied upon perseverance

6 Think for Yourself

Complete these statements:

2. I have/have not typically struggled in school/college because: _____________________

3. I generally see myself as capable/incapable as a student because:___________________

EXHIBIT 6 Critical thinking: an elaborated definition.

A unique kind of in any subject area or topic,

in which the thinker such as intellectual perseverance,

with awareness of its

such as clarity, accuracy,

making it more clear, accurate,

7 Think for Yourself

2. In other words (this should be at least 4–5 sentences): __________________________

3. I can apply critical thinking to my life in the following ways: ______________________

WEAK VERSUS STRONG CRITICAL THINKING

1 Think for Yourself

Sophistic thinkers succeed only if they do not come up against what we

As we examine how the various traits of mind are conducive to fairminded-

EXHIBIT 1 Critical thinkers strive to develop essential traits or characteristics of

Intellectual TRAITS Intellectual

Intellectual self- TRAITS Intellectual

WHAT DOES FAIRMINDEDNESS REQUIRE?

Because each of us is naturally egocentric, each of us falls prey to unfair

Intellectual Humility: Strive to Discover

When we think of intellectual arrogance, we are not necessarily implying a

The discussion in the chapters that follow encourages intellectual humility

2, 3 Think for Yourself

RECOGNIZING SUPERFICIAL LEARNING

Intellectual Courage: Develop the Courage

4, 5 Think for Yourself

2. This belief might be questioned because . . .

Intellectual Empathy: Learn to Enter