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Other accounts of intellectual humility

Course video 3 of 25

by Dr Ian Church and Dr Peter Samuelson

Faced with difficult questions people often tend to dismiss and marginalize dissent. Political and moral disagreements can be incredibly polarizing, and sometimes even dangerous. And whether it’s Christian fundamentalism, Islamic extremism, or militant atheism, religious dialogue remains tinted by arrogance, dogma, and ignorance. The world needs more people who are sensitive to reasons both for and against their beliefs, and are willing to consider the possibility that their political, religious and moral beliefs might be mistaken. The world needs more intellectual humility. But what is intellectual humility, anyway? And why do people seem so drawn toward intellectual arrogance? Psychologists, philosophers, theologians, and educationalists are now suggesting some answers. In this course we try to define intellectual humility and intellectual virtues in general, and ask how we know who is humble. All lectures are delivered by leading specialists, and the course is organised around a number of interesting readings and practical assignments which will help you address issues related to humility in your daily life. This course is a part of a series which explores the theory, the science and the applied issues surrounding intellectual humility (the latter two coming in June and November 2017). Completing all three courses will give you a broader understanding of this fascinating topic. Look for: • Intellectual Humility: Science - https://www.coursera.org/learn/intellectual-humility-science • Intellectual Humility: Practice - https://www.coursera.org/learn/intellectual-humility-practice You can also follow us on twitter: @EdiPhilOnline and #IHMOOC

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您将学习的技能

Philosophy, Psychology, Software Testing, Self-Help

教学方

Professor Duncan Pritchard
Professor of Philosophy
Dr. Ian Church
Researcher
Dr. Emma Gordon
Postdoctoral Researcher

脚本

In this video, we'll consider the two dominant accounts of intellectual humility

in the contemporary philosophical literature.

That is, if you were to search through the philosophy journals

and the relevant philosophical books, these are the definitions

of intellectual humility that you more than likely come across.

But as we consider these dominant accounts of intellectual humility,

I also want to highlight a few worries we might have against them.

Now, the goal here is not to show that these accounts are necessarily wrong.

It might very well be possible to intelligently and

cogently disarm the worries that I'm going to raise.

Nevertheless, I hope that highlighting some of the worries facing contemporary accounts

of intellectual humility might first give us a snapshot of the ongoing debate

about what intellectual humility could be.

And secondly, that it might also incline us to consider an alternative account,

specifically what I've been calling the doxastic account of intellectual humility.

The two accounts of intellectual humility that I want to consider in this video

are first, the low concern for status account,

which has been advocated by philosophers like Bob Roberts and Jay Wood.

And secondly, the limitations owning account,

which has been advocated by philosophers like Dennis Whitcomb,

Heather Battaly, Daniel Howard-Snyder and Jason Baehr.

Now let's start with the former, the low concern for status account

of intellectual humility.

In their 2003 article 'Humility and Epistemic Goods', and their 2007 book,

'Intellectual Virtues: An Essay in Regulative Epistemolgy', Bob Roberts and Jay Wood

give us what is now the seminal account of intellectual humility

in the literature.

According to their account, the low concern for status account,

intellectual humility is viewed as merely the opposite of intellectual arrogance

or improper pride.

According to Roberts and Wood,

these vices are centered on the promotion of the social well-being of the possessor.

And as such, intellectual humility is a striking or unusual unconcern for social importance,

and thus a kind of emotional insensitivity to the issues of status.

The thought here is that the intellectually humble person isn't concerned

about the status that might be accrued by pursuing intellectual endeavors.

Instead, they pursue intellectual goods for their own sake.

Now there are quite a few things to like about this view, I think.

It seems to rightly capture a social dynamic to the virtue,

but I think it also has some serious problems.

The first question we might have is: can't someone be too humble?

I think we generally tend to think of intellectual humility as a virtue between

vices like intellectual arrogance on the one hand and

intellectual servility on the other.

Someone, it seems, can be too humble.

They can be so self-deprecating and so self-lessening that they're vicious,

not virtuous.

However, since the low concern for status accounts sees intellectual humility

as merely the opposite of intellectual arrogance,

it's not clear how you can capture this idea that someone can be too humble.

Consider the following example; this is called 'Botanist'.

Susan is a highly acclaimed botanist with a litany of scientific achievements and

an almost unmatched knowledge of orchids.

However, Susan cares nothing for social status or the accolades of her peers.

Frank, on the other hand, is a novice botanist at best,

but is wildly obsessed with his status amongst his peers and how much they think of him.

To make matters worse, Frank is unfortunately an idiot.

Susan and Frank know each other and each other's accomplishments very well.

And being obsessed with status and intimidated by Susan's accomplishments,

Frank is regularly antagonistic towards Susan.

Susan and Frank are at a botanical garden when they have

a disagreement about the scientific name of a certain species of orchid.

Caring nothing for her intellectual status and accolades, or Frank's negative status,

Susan takes Frank's dissent seriously and treats him as an intellectual peer.

Now if Susan is caring so little for status that she fails to recognize

her expertise over and against Frank's ignorance, and takes his dissent seriously,

treating him like a peer, then perhaps Susan's being too humble here.

Perhaps we think that it's actually vicious, not virtuous,

for Susan to take Frank to be a peer when it comes to botany.

But since intellectual humility is seen as merely the opposite of intellectual arrogance,

it's not at all clear how the low concern for status account

of intellectual humility could possibly account for this idea:

that someone can be too intellectually humble.

Now there's another worry facing the low concern for status accounts that arises when we consider

scenarios where there's no social status to be had or cared about.

While intellectual humility plausibly has an important social dimension,

the Roberts and Wood view (the low concern for status view)

seems to make a social context absolutely essential.

So consider another scenario, and this is called 'Stranded'.

Let's say tragedy has befallen Frank,

our character from the previous case (the ignorant yet wannabe botanist),

and he has been shipwrecked on a small deserted island.

He is truly and entirely alone, and with no social status to care about,

Frank can no longer be obsessed with his status amongst his peers and how much they think of him.

According to the low concern for status account of intellectual humility,

Frank, given that he is trapped on his deserted island with no social status to care about,

cannot help but be intellectually humble.

If there's no status to be cared about, Frank cannot help

but have a low concern for his social status.

And what is more, it is conceptually impossible

for Frank to be intellectually arrogant according to this view.

Because again, being intellectually arrogant requires

a concern for social status,

ad there's no social status to be concerned about

on Frank's deserted deserted island.

Aside from creating a strange asymmetry regarding when somebody can be humble or arrogant,

such a scenario might also make the low concern for status account view

seem a little bit counterintuitive.

It seems like Frank, the dunce, as he sits alone on his deserted island

telling himself that all his botanical judgments are right and true and good,

he could be rightly described as being intellectually arrogant.

But worryingly, that's not a possibility that the low concern for status view

seems to allow.

Okay, so now we've tried to show what the low concern for status view is,

and a couple of worries you might have against it.

So let's consider the limitations owning account now, and see how it fares.

According to this view, intellectual humility is a proper attentiveness to,

and owning of, one's intellectual limitations.

As Dennis Whitcomb and others have summarized,

when life calls for one to be mindful of a limitation, then and only then,

will it appear on the ideally humble person's radar.

And what goes for humility in general, goes for intellectual humility

in particular.

And thankfully, this means that intellectual humility isn't just

the opposite of intellectual arrogance.

It's a virtuous mean on this account.

If you are completely oblivious to your limitations,

then, on this view, you're going to be intellectually arrogant.

Whereas, in contrast,

if you're someone who's overly attentive to and owning of your intellectual

limitations, then you're going to be intellectually servile on this view.

You'll be too humble, so to speak.

And so it doesn't fall victim to the same sort of worries that we saw with Susan,

the botanist, in the low concern for status account.

That said however, the limitations owning account of intellectual humility

faces its own unique set of worries.

Vices like intellectual arrogance and intellectual servility

are sensitive to both intellectual strengths and intellectual limitations.

So if you fail to recognize your limitations, or you over-own

or over-attend your strengths, then you're going to be intellectually arrogant.

And if you fail to recognize your strengths, or over-own or over-attend

to your limitations then you're going to be intellectually servile.

But importantly, according to the limitations owning account,

intellectual humility is only sensitive to the attending to

and ownership of intellectual limitations.

Intellectual humility, on this view, is blind to intellectual strengths.

And all this leads to some results that

I'm not sure that we should own in a viable account of intellectual humility.

Let's consider two of these worries.

The first is that the limitations owning account of intellectual humility

allows people to be intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant

about the same thing at the exact same time.

To see this, just imagine someone who's duly attentive to and owning of

her intellectual limitations (so she's intellectually humble),

but radically overestimates

and brags about her corresponding intellectual strengths.

And insofar someone is intellectually arrogant if they radically overestimate

and brag about their strengths, then it looks like the limitations owning account

leads to this very odd conclusion:

it's possible for someone to be at once intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant

about the same thing at the exact same time,

and that might seem a reason to reject the view.

The inability to rule out someone being at once intellectually arrogant

and intellectually humble is a limitation that I'm not sure we want to own

in our accounts of intellectual humility.

Of course, a defender of the limitations owning view, might argue, and indeed

some do indeed argue that such a result is just metaphysically impossible

for an agent who is "fully internally rational".

In other words, someone might argue that if I'm appropriately attending

to my intellectual limitations,

then, if I'm "fully internally rational",

I simply can't overestimate my intellectual strengths.

Conversely, if I overestimate my intellectual strengths, then if I'm going

to be fully internally rational, then I simply can't be intellectually humble.

I can't appropriately attend to and own my intellectual limitations.

This response might seem initially unsatisfactory because sadly,

most everyone is less than fully internally rational.

So such a response doesn't do anything to disarm the result that most everyone

can be at once both intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant.

What is more, even if we grant that it'd be metaphysically impossible

for a fully internally rational agent to be both intellectually humble

and intellectually arrogant,

we might still worry, pre-theoretically, that intellectual humility should just be

incompatible with being simultaneously intellectually arrogant.

Just imagine someone said this to you:

"You need to meet Christopher.

He's such a kind and humble guy, but you've gotta watch out, though:

he's an arrogant jerk."

You'd think that whoever's just said this contradicted themselves.

You wouldn't think "Well,

I guess Christopher must be less than fully internally rational."

You'd think that whoever said such a thing is either using "humble"

and "arrogant" in an extremely unusual or unorthodox way,

or they simply don't understand the words that they're using.

It seems like there is something wrong, or maybe counterintuitive,

with a definition of intellectual humility, that does not preclude someone

(even a less than fully internally rational someone) being at once

intellectually humble and intellectually arrogant.

And if the limitations owning view gives us such a definition,

then that seems like a serious strike against it.

But there is a different, but related worry

that's lurking in this conceptual neighborhood.

The limitations owning account of intellectual humility not only allows

for someone being at once intellectually humble and

intellectually arrogant, it also allows for someone

to be at once intellectually humble and intellectually servile.

Remember, intellectual servility is sensitive to both

intellectual limitations and intellectual strengths on this view,

where someone can be intellectually servile, if they either over own

and over attend to their limitations, or if they fail to attend to their strengths.

And it's important to remember that intellectual humility here

is completely blind to intellectual strengths.

As such, someone could appropriately attend to and

own their intellectual limitations and

be intellectually humble while completely failing to attend to their corresponding

intellectual strengths, which would make them intellectually servile on this view.

And it's worth noting that appealing to a fully internally rational agent

doesn't seem to do any good here; it doesn't seem to be any help whatsoever.

Even if a fully internally rational person can't appropriately attend to

and own their limitations while overestimating their strengths, it's not at all clear

that a fully internally rational person can't appropriately attend to

and own their limitations while simply failing to attend to their corresponding strengths.

There's nothing irrational about not attending to the logical consequences

of one's beliefs.

So we've seen how the two leading theories of intellectual humility

in the philosophical literature each face two worries.

The low concern for status view faces

1. worries about the possibility of someone being too humble, and

2. worries about scenarios devoid of social status.

And the limitations owning view, faces worries about 1. allowing for cases

where someone can be, at once, intellectually humble and

intellectually arrogant, and 2. allowing for cases where someone can be,

at once, intellectually humble and intellectually servile.

To be sure, I don't intend for these to be knockdown arguments against these views.

I'm not trying to say that we just need to give up on these views.

There might very well be viable ways to disarm the worries

that I'm presenting here.

However, I raise these worries, to help motivate us to search

for other alternative accounts of intellectual humility.

In the next video, I'm going to explore one such alternative:

the doxastic account of intellectual humility.

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