Critical Thinking: Intellectual Standards Essential to Reasoning Well Within Every Domain of Human Thought, Part 3

In the last two columns in this critical thinking series we briefly introduced and discussed the concept of intellectual standards in connection with natural languages. We presented nine essential intellectual standards: clarity, precision, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, logicalness, significance, and fairness. These nine intellectual standards are part of a much broader set of intellectual standards found in all natural languages. Natural, or ordinary, languages are those languages we speak every day and are to be distinguished from technical languages such as those developed in mathematics, formal logic, and other specialized fields. Throughout recorded history, scholars within disciplines and skilled thinkers in all parts of human life have applied universal intellectual standards to human reasoning, at differing levels and to varying degrees. The concept of criticality itself presupposes adherence to relevant intellectual standards (such as accuracy, relevance, logic, and so forth).

In this column, we briefly analyze the concept of intellectual standards as an intellectual construct. Further, we explore the important realization that though humans routinely use standards to determine what to believe and how to act, these standards are not always intellectual in nature.

Exploring the Concept of Standards

Every term in the English language (and in all ordinary languages) has established uses that are found in well-researched dictionaries. Thus, to conceptualize intellectual standards, it is important to consider established uses of the terms "intellectual" and ''standards" (as well as related terms)and integrate insights from this analysis to formulate a reasonable conception of intellectual standards.

Beginning with the term standard or its synonym "criterion," consider the following definitions:

Standard applies to some measure, principle, model, etc. with which things of the same class are compared in order to determine their quantity, value, quality, etc. [standard of purity for drugs]. Criterion applies to a test or rule for measuring the excellence, fitness, or correctness of something [mere memory is no accurate criterion of intelligence]. (Wiley Publishing, 2007)

Thus standards and criteria are rules or principles used to determine the quality of something and, accordingly, whether to accept or reject it. These criteria are used to judge or decide upon something, and can usually be used synonymously for this purpose.

Standards Are Prevalent in Everyday Life

Humans routinely use judgment in determining what to accept and what...