Intellectual Humility: A Guiding Principle For The Skeptical Movement?

[Duty]

Although psychologists have yet to converge on a consensual definition of intellectual humility, most concur that it encompasses an awareness of one’s intellectual limitations and biases (Church and Samuelson 2016; Leary et al. 2017; Lilienfeld and Bowes 2020); an appreciation of alternative perspectives; and an acknowledgement that the evidentiary bases of one’s beliefs are often incomplete (Alfano et al. 2017; Whitcomb et al. 2017).

This is taken from quite a lengthy and very well referenced article in the Skeptical Enquirer: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2020/09/in...-movement/

I haven't yet read it all but I think the idea makes a lot of sense, and am reminded of the saying circa: "It is a pity that the ignorant are always so certain whereas the wise are so full of doubt."

Seems to me that intellectual humility is far more likely to win over the faith heads than professed certainty, in part due to the fact it might inspire them to examine their own beliefs from a dispassionate, non-partisan MO.

[Sal]

The converse results in walls coming up, just making believers doubling down on their credulity.

[Ranjr]

If you're not skeptical of your own skepticism, you are no skeptic.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

What if you have no reason to be humble.

Asking for a friend.

[Duty]

I'm 67.362% CERTAIN I'm the leading authority here on this topic as I doubt anybody else has made the (fairly considerable) investment of time and effort to read the whole article/paper.

[Rhizomorph13]

I'm 67.362% CERTAIN I'm the leading authority here on this topic as I doubt anybody else has made the (fairly considerable) investment of time and effort to read the whole article/paper.

What's that smell? Oh, virtue signalling.

[Duty]

Nope, I was just trying to be funny...didn't mean to cast an air of superiority, just that I've not done a proper read like that for some time. I don't want fight, in good mood I am, mushroom man.

[Belacqua]

"It is a pity that the ignorant are always so certain whereas the wise are so full of doubt."

I think that anyone who studies the world with an open mind learns to be humble.

Scientists learn how conclusions that seem completely proven by evidence can fall apart nonetheless. History shows that much of what we hold to be true today will seem laughable in the future.

Historians see that systems and ideologies which their adherents took to be inevitable to human nature pass away with time.

Religious people see that there are good people in other religions, and that their own religion doesn't guarantee goodness.

Atheists discover that the views of religious issues they had when they became atheists are overly simple.

The trouble is that people are only tenuously and sporadically rational. All these groups of people hold to their beliefs with more passion than is justified, and filter evidence to suit their preferences. Humility is always justified, and rarely accepted.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Only people as phenomenally smart as I am are able to recognize the virtue of intellectual humility. I know this is true because I thought it up and I’m never wrong.

Boru

[Angrboda]

The people for whom intellectual humility would be of use don't practice it, and those that do don't really need to do so. So where's the utility?