Where is the golden mean of intellectual humility? Comments on Ballantyne

In his admirable review, Ballantyne characterizes intellectual humility (IH) as a personal way ‘to manage evidence … in seeking truth.’ However, not every way of managing truth is virtuous. Since IH is supposed to be an intellectual virtue, we propose that IH should be understood as a ‘golden mean’ or ‘middle path’ between extremes of intellectual arrogance and lack of self-confidence (or between dogmatism and gullibility). The golden mean should not be characterized descriptively by the statistical mean of a population but instead either epistemically by accuracy in intellectual assessments of oneself and others or pragmatically by the kinds of such assessments that enable or lead to successful inquiry. This comment explains and considers advantages and disadvantages of these two ways of locating the golden mean.

Duke Scholars

Author Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Philosophy