Intellectual humility is the acceptance that one's beliefs and opinions could be wrong. Other characteristics which may accompany intellectual humility include a low concern for status and an acceptance of one's intellectual limitations. Intellectual humility is often described as an

intellectual virtue Intellectual virtues are qualities of mind and character that promote intellectual flourishing, critical thinking, and the pursuit of truth. They include: intellectual responsibility, perseverance, open-mindedness, empathy, integrity, intellect ...

. It is contrasted with other perceived virtues and vices such as

open-mindedness Open-mindedness is receptiveness to new ideas. Open-mindedness relates to the way in which people approach the views and knowledge of others." Jason Baehr defines an open-minded person as one who "characteristically moves beyond or temporarily sets ...

, intellectual courage, arrogance, vanity and servility. It can be understood as lying between the extremes of intellectual arrogance/servility or diffidence, and intellectual dogmatism/timidity.

Definitions

While intellectual humility as an independent and focused area of study is a recent phenomena, the presence of humility in discourse dates back many centuries. Per, Waclaw Bąk,

Socrates Socrates (; ; –399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and among the first moral philosophers of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no te ...

is a symbol of intellectual humility. Studies by Abraham Maslow,

Carl Rogers Carl Ransom Rogers (January 8, 1902 – February 4, 1987) was an American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach (and client-centered approach) in psychology. Rogers is widely considered one of the founding fathers of ps ...

and

Gordon Allport Gordon Willard Allport (November 11, 1897 – October 9, 1967) was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personali ...

discuss humility with regard to one's knowledge without using the phrase intellectual humility. In 1990, Richard Paul presented intellectual humility as a critical thinking disposition, interdependent with other traits such as intellectual courage. He defined it as, "Awareness of the limits of one's knowledge, including sensitivity to circumstances in which one’s native egocentrism is likely to function self-deceptively; sensitivity to bias and prejudice in, and limitations of one's viewpoint." Paul adds "It does not imply spinelessness or submissiveness. It implies the lack of intellectual pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit, combined with insight into the logical foundations, or lack of such foundations, of one’s beliefs." In recent times, one of the first focused studies of intellectual humility was conducted by Roberts and Woods in 2003. A lot of the literature on intellectual humility is about attempting to frame definitions. Conceptions of humility include proper belief, underestimation of strengths, low concern, limitation owning, as well as semantic clusters, cluster of attitudes, and confidence management.

Doxastic definition

Ian M. Church and Peter L. Samuelson proposed a doxastic account of intellectual humility. They considered intellectual humility as a virtue, one of valuing one's own

belief A belief is an attitude that something is the case, or that some proposition is true. In epistemology, philosophers use the term "belief" to refer to attitudes about the world which can be either true or false. To believe something is to take ...

s "as he or she ought". They argued humility is the "virtuous mean" between arrogance and self-depreciation. People are intellectually arrogant when they erroneously evaluate their intellectual capacity higher than warranted, resulting in them being more closed-minded and biased than the intellectually humble person. People who are intellectually diffident are those who fail "to appropriately recognize or appreciate their intellectual achievements." Such a person is less inclined to speak out when he or she encounters wrong information.

Definitions

Doxastic definition

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