The Oxford English Dictionary defines “false modesty” as “affected or pretended modesty con­cealing pride.

” In this chapter, I explore a species of false modesty, which I call false intellectual humility. After providing an analysis of false intellectual humility (Section 27.1), I’ll present an example of a species of false intellectual humility that is common in contemporary political discourse (Section 27.2). I’ll then discuss the relationships between fallibilism, skepticism, and intellectual humility ( Section 27.3), with the aim of showing how several familiar phenomena, despite a superficial resemblance to skepticism and fallibilism, are species of false intellectual humility (Section 27.4).

27.1