Arguments for epistemic humility

Clarifying different arguments and differing concepts

It is satisfying to see that the main concept I’ve been exploring, epistemic humility, keeps popping up across a range of publications and contexts - even if my reach here is nowhere near large enough to have had any effect (although please do keep spreading the word!). While different authors naturally vary in how they treat epistemic humility, there are a couple of arguments that are commonly advanced. Notably, these differ from the approach I’ve been building here at Humble Knowledge.

As an aside, the different approaches crystallised for me when writing a reply to a comment on a previous post. So I want to thank those who have been commenting and emphasise that I'm keen to hear from more people - either in the comments or by email.

The aim for this post is simply to look the different types of arguments, including my own approach. My hope is that it will clarify and strengthen the case for epistemic humility - but it may end up better illuminating the flaws. Either way, setting out the structure of my arguments matters philosophically - although it may feel like logical nitpicking to some.

Different arguments

One common argument for greater epistemic humility is moral: it will make us better people and lead to a better society. To pick one example:

So not only do we assume we have all the knowledge needed for every possible subject, we assume others do as well. This is part of what can make social media, and by extension, every day conversations so toxic. We aren’t allowed to not know.

As in this example, the moral argument typically relies on observations about what happens when epistemic humility is missing. Given this often leads to toxic debates, relationships and social fracturing, the implication is that greater humility is a moral positive and will make us all better.

A second type of argument is focused on instrumental or practical benefits of epistemic humility: how acknowledging our biases and being more open to learning ensures we can actually know more and/or be better at our jobs. There are versions of this argument on LinkedIn, in medical journals and psychological research. All of them argue for some version of this sentiment:

everybody will be epistemically better off for having, and having associates who have, epistemic humility.¹

Both the moral and instrumental arguments justify epistemic humility by means of its effects: we should adopt it as it leads to better people or enables us to gain more knowledge. However, while I agree with these as conclusions, they provide evidence for epistemic humility rather than being primary reasons for accepting it. If anyone has been paying attention across the posts so far, they might have noticed a different argument being repeated.

For example, the second article on the history of philosophy argued:

Intellectual certainty about our knowledge and basic things like the existence of the world is a false hope. Doubts are always possible and cannot be definitively ruled out. The solution is not to try and remove doubt but recognise it is a fundamental part of existence and knowledge.

Or as the article sketching out a theory of truth based on analogy with pictures suggested:

Treating statements, and language more broadly, as pictures of reality provides an alternative, and more nuanced, way of thinking about truth. Statements, as pictures, can only ever be partial, or incomplete, descriptions of reality.

A more explicit version is in the article on the scientific method:

We have been arguing here that epistemic humility accurately describes the state of us as humans and our knowledge. Given this, as scientific methods embody a disciplined humility, they are built on a more accurate understanding of how human knowledge works than other methods.

In other words, the argument for epistemic humility is that it better represents the way that we, as humans, exist in the world, process information and figure out what is true or not. Various structural features of our existence, such as being tied to a particular place and having limited energy, necessarily mean that knowledge is hard to obtain. Denying epistemic humility therefore, if the argument is correct, depends on misunderstanding structural facts about human existence.

One argument to explain them all

This is a strong claim and it is up to readers to decide how well it has been established. Importantly, it provides a far more philosophically robust justification for epistemic humility than the other types of arguments mentioned. Epistemic humility isn’t just a good attitude to have for moral or pragmatic reasons, but it better reflects the nature of human existence.

This doesn’t negate the various benefits identified by the other arguments but neatly explains them. If it is a structural fact about human existence that knowledge is hard, then being careful about what we think we know is a recognition of reality that will naturally lead to more accurate results. Similarly, if knowledge is genuinely hard, there may be lots of genuine, or even good, reasons why others may disagree with me. Adopting more epistemic humility and listening closely is likely to lead to better social outcomes.

In both cases, epistemic humility provides benefits as working with the grain of reality works better than fighting against it. However, I should raise a pragmatic word of caution. We cannot rely on always realising the individual practical benefits, as we spend much of our lives navigating socially constructed systems that only partially match the underlying ontological and physical reality.

1. See p. 255 of the article. Much of the article is focused on motivating the idea that humility drives people to be better at acquiring genuine knowledge.