Students live in a world of thoughts. They accept some thoughts as true. They reject others as false. But the thoughts they perceive as true are sometimes false, unsound, or misleading. And the thoughts they perceive as false and trivial are sometimes true and significant. People don't automatically sense what is reasonable and what is unreasonable. Thought is often biased by personal agendas, interests, and values. People typically see things as they want to and twist reality to fit preconceived ideas. A system for intellectual intervention--a method for pre-empting bad thinking--is necessary: one that allows us to take rational command of our cognitive processes so we may rationally determine what to accept and what to reject. In this and the next few columns, the authors introduce an explicit foundation for thinking about intellectual standards and the words that name them. When taken seriously, such explicitness will lead to a higher level of consciousness of these standards and their importance in human life. It will enable students (and instructors) to think more effectively in every domain and subject in which, or about which, they think.