Conclusion

False intellectual humility is affected or pretended intellectual humility concealing intellectual arrogance. There are important conceptual connections between intellectual humility, fallibi- lism, and skepticism; one consequence of this is that several familiar species of false intellectual humility are naturally described as forms of skepticism and are naturally articulated in terms of uncertainty and doubt.

Notes

1 However, other theoretical contexts may well call for the use of the terms “modesty” and “humility” to draw some useful distinction; see e.g. Driver 2001, pp. 114—5.

2 Note that “pride,” unlike “arrogance,” is an apt name for a certain virtue, namely, excellence in self­attributing strength (cf. Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book III, Part III, Section II, Hazlett 2017).

3 Cf.Whitcomb et al. 2015, pp. 530-2,Tanesini 2016, 2018.

4 Cf. Foot 1978, p. 9.

5 However, we should resist the temptation to attribute such tendencies to human nature without empirical evidence: the apparent universality of a tendency for arrogance could easily be an artifact of parochial features of the kind of people we tend to think about when we theorize about humility (cf. Hazlett 2017).

6 Cf. Nussbaum 1993, pp. 244—7.

7 June 13th, 2016, on Fox and Friends.

8 December 7th, 2015, on donaldjtrump.com.

9 March 2nd, 2008, on 60 Minutes.

10 November 14th, 2017, on Hannity.

11 Cf. Moran 2005; see also Code 1991, chapter 6.

12 Compare the way in which evidential standards are often raised in discussions of theism and atheism, e.g.

13 Cf. LeMorvan 2011, Hazlett 2016a, Hazlett 2019.

14 Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, 12.24.

15 Pierce 1955, p. 55.

16 Human Understanding, 12.25.

17 Pierce 1955, p. 55.

18 Related to this is suspicion about claims that “this, that, or the other element of science is basic, ulti­mate, independent of aught else, and utterly inexplicable — not so much from any defect in our know­ing as because there is nothing beneath it to know” (Pierce 1955, p. 55). Compare Hume's evident concern to avoid implying that a good explanation must be fundamental, e.g. the principle of custom (Human Understanding, §V) or the fact that utility pleases (Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, §V).

19 Popper 1963a, p. 22; cf 1963d, p. 479.

20 Human Understanding, 12.24.

21 In connection with this, consider also the association of fallibilism with intellectual integrity or hon­esty, as manifested by the disposition for disinterested or impartial inquiry, a willingness to abandon one's beliefs in the face of counterevidence and to seek out such counterevidence, and the tendency to “follow the argument where it leads” (cf. Pierce 1955, p. 42-54, Peirce 1905/1972, p. 291, Popper 1963b, p. 68, 1963c, p. 309, p. 323, Haack 1998, pp. 8-15, 2008, pp. 195-208, Kelly 2011).

22 Human Understanding, 12.24.

23 Pierce 1877/1955, p. 12.

24 Cf. Keeley 1999, pp. 116-7, Coady 2003, p. 199, Harris 2018, p. 236.

25 Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style.

26 See e.g. Nicols 2017.

27 Mance 2016.

28 Ibid.

29 Cf. Hazlett 2016b.

30 There is, of course, a species of propaganda which aims merely to create uncertainty or confusion, which can be deployed against science (cf. Oreskes and Conway 2010). Such propaganda no doubt plays a role in sustaining climate change “skepticism.” However, most of those who are called “climate change skeptics,” it seems to me, are not merely unsure or confused; they positively believe the negation of the scientific consensus.

31 Cf. Hazlett 2016b, pp. 148-9.

32 Thanks to Michael Lynch for comments on a draft of this chapter.

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