Conclusion
This chapter considered some recent trends in epistemology, and explored their relation to the notion of intellectual humility. Intellectual humility was characterized by a realistic estimation of one's own intellectual abilities and contributions, and an appreciation of one's epistemic dependence on others.
In contrast, intellectual pride was characterized by both illusions and ideals of self-sufficiency in the intellectual realm. In this context, epistemic internalism, evidential- ism, and epistemic individualism were criticized as embracing the ideals of intellectual pride.We ended with an approach to testimonial knowledge and knowledge transmission that embraces both the reality and value of social-epistemic dependence.As such, the view is decidedly externalist, anti-evidentialist, and anti-individualist.20Notes
For example, see Robert Roberts and Jay Wood, “Humility and Epistemic Goods” in eds. DePaul, Michael. and Zagzebski, Linda. Intellectual Virtue: Perspectives from Ethics and Epistemology (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); and Dennis Whitcomb, Heather Battaly, Jason Baehr and Daniel Howard-Snyder. (2015). “Intellectual Humility: Owning Our Limitations.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 91 (1).
In ordinary usage, the term “pride” does not always imply viciousness. I stipulate that I am here using the term as synonymous with “pridefullness,” which more explicitly marks a vice. Likewise, I am here following the literature in using “humility” to mark a virtue. If virtue hits a mean between deficiency and excess, then humility in this sense would be the mean between servility and pridefullness.
Goldberg, Sanford. Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and Justification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), p. 134.
For characterizations of reductionism and anti-reductionism, see C.A.J.
Coady, Testimony: A Philosophical Study (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Jennifer Lackey and Ernest Sosa (ed), The Epistemology of Testimony (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); Jennifer Lackey, Learning from Words (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); and John Greco. (2012). “Recent Work on Testimonial Knowledge,” American Philosophical Quarterly 49, 1: 15—28.Earl Connee and Richard Feldman, Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 204.
Cf.William P.Alston. (1986).“Internalism and Externalism in Epistemology” Philosophical Topics XIV: 179—221. Reprinted in Alston EpistemicJustification (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989).
Earl Connee and Richard Feldman, Evidentialism: Essays in Epistemology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 55.
For an extended argument that internalism entails broad skeptical results, see Greco, Putting Skeptics in Their Place: The Nature of Skeptical Arguments and Their Role in Philosophical Inquiry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). For similar worries on behalf of an internalist, see Fumerton, Richard. Metaepistemology and Skepticism (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995).
Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and ethics in Greek tragedy and philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), pp. 3—4.
Ibid., p. 9.
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, translated by H.J. Paton (New York: Harper and RowPublishers, 1964), p. 62.
Nagel,Thomas.“Moral Luck,” in Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), p. 35.
Ibid., p. 37.
For examples of externalist views, see Goldman, Alvin. (1976). “Discrimination and Perceptual Knowledge,” Journal of Philosophy 73: 771—791. Reprinted in Alvin Goldman, Liaisons: Philosophy Meets the Cognitive and Social Sciences. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1992); Goldman,Alvin.“What is Justified Belief?” in George Pappas, ed., Justification and Knowledge.
(Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1979), Greco, Achieving Knowledge: A Virtue-theoretic Account of Epistemic Normativity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Plantinga, Alvin. Warrant and Proper Function (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993); Ernest Sosa, A Virtue Epistemology:Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge, Volume 1 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Nozick, Robert. Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981); and Dretske, Fred. (1970).‘Epistemic Operators,' The Journal of Philosophy 67, 1007-1023.For more extended arguments along these lines, see my Achieving Knowledge op. cit.; and “Evidentialism and Knowledge,” in Trent Dougherty, ed., Evidentialism and Its Discontents (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
For a nice discussion here, see Alston,W The Reliability of Sense Perception. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
For discussions that emphasise social dimensions of knowledge, see Alvin Goldman. Knowledge in a Social World. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Goldberg, Sanford. Anti-Individualism: Mind and Language, Knowledge and Justification (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007); and Sanford Goldberg. Relying on Others:An Essay in Epistemology. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
For accounts of the role of trust in testimony, see Hinchman, Edward. (2005). “Telling as Inviting to Trust,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 70, no.3, pp. 562-587; Harris, Paul. Trusting What You’re Told (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012); Faulkner, P. Knowledge on Trust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); McMyler, Benjamin. Testimony, Trust, and Authority (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); and Greco, J.‘The Role of Trust in Testimonial Knowledge,' in Katherine Dormandy (ed) Trust in Epistemology (NewYork: Routledge, 2018). For an overview, see Benjamin McMyler and Adebayo Ogungbure (2018),“Recent Work on Trust and Testimony,” American Philosophical Quarterly 55, 3.
19 For more detailed presentations of the view sketched below, see my “Testimonial Knowledge and the Flow of Information,” in David Henderson and John Greco Epistemic Evaluation: Point and Purpose in Epistemology (Oxford University Press, 2015);“The Role of Trust in Testimonial Knowledge,” in Katherine Dormandy (ed) Trust in Epistemology (New York: Routledge, 2018); and The Transmission of Knowledge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
20 For helpful discussion, thanks to audiences at Biola University's Center for Christian Thought, and the Federal University of Bahia, Brazil. Research for this paper was supported by The Philosophy and Theology of Intellectual Humility Project at Saint Louis University, funded by a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.