Humble in knowledge every day

What might epistemic humility mean for each of us?

Epistemic humility, and related concepts like intellectual humility, periodically receive attention in a range of discussions. It is typically framed in terms of self reflection - knowing your limits or when you know that you don’t know - and often counted as an epistemic virtue or core to wisdom. Discussions of epistemic humility often revolve around ingrained biases and other perceived flaws in our human thinking. To summarise:

we all suffer from epistemic limitations including insufficient evidence, imperfectly reliable memories, cognitive biases, epistemic peers who disagree with us, and underdeveloped cognitive skills.

This, personally focused, conception of epistemic humility differs in emphasis from the more foundational concept we have been exploring here.¹ The quotes above treat epistemic humility somewhat like an accidental flaw in human thinking that we could fix if only we were better at various things. The focus here, whether it be from the history of ideas, quantum physics or elsewhere, suggest that epistemic humility is foundational to the structure of human experience. It isn’t something an ideal human could transcend, but a core part of what it means to exist in the world.

Focusing on epistemic humility as a virtue can lead to a common pattern of thinking: it is a good thing to be virtuous, but sometimes it is a luxury we can’t afford. We often think of virtues as optional extras, rather than necessary features to succeed in life.

If, however, epistemic humility is built into the structure of existence, then accepting epistemic humility is an acknowledgement of reality and therefore should help us be better at understanding the world and uncovering knowledge. We have seen some evidence of this occurring in quantum physics. This means that epistemic humility is not just a nice way to be, but more essential for understanding reality.

For the moment, we want to think about a more immediate, practical question: what does being humble about knowledge mean for each of us everyday?

Epistemic humility for everyone

As explained previously, we will consider an attitude of epistemic humility to mean that genuine knowledge is difficult to acquire for everyone, even with the best of care and attention. In partial contrast to the self reflective approach outlined above, the fact it applies to everyone is important matters for these practical considerations.

Our attitudes and practices shift if we think that epistemic humility is primarily something for me to adopt, compared to thinking of it as something that applies to everyone else and to our societal or cultural knowledge as a whole. Many of the conclusions will be similar, but the reach and impact shifts.

I should emphasise that this post is a collection of some initial thoughts but it is neither complete nor definitive. Comments, criticisms, experiences and recommendations of other things to read are very welcome.

It is based around trying to articulate some key principles for the practical application of epistemic humility. These paint more of an ideal we should be aiming for rather than a comfortable description of every day actions. However, this ideal is not just a nice thing to do, but an approach that should enable us to know and understand more than we otherwise would.

At any point I could be wrong….

The starting point, and most foundational principle, of epistemic humility is a clear consequence of the definition:

1. As knowledge is hard, every single thing I know could potentially turn out to be wrong.

This might seem to express a profound skepticism about knowledge: that we never can know anything because it might be wrong. It is not intended to be that strong. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that we don’t have direct access to reality and that we make mistakes and get things wrong despite our best efforts. Our attitude towards what we know, on this principle, needs to be adaptable as there are things we are confident in that will turn out to be wrong. These is evidence for this, for example, in the history of science, or the suggestion that scientific facts have a half-life.

It doesn’t mean that every different thing I know has an equal chance of being wrong. There are things I know that it is extremely unlikely will turn out to be wrong - my name or what my house looks like are some obvious examples. There are other areas where what I know is highly likely to be wrong - perhaps my knowledge of advanced genomics, or Mayan religious practices.

You might think that there are things, like your name, that it is impossible for you to be wrong about. In response, I would encourage you to try to imagine a scenario, and it only needs to be possible rather than realistic, in which your knowledge turns out to be wrong. For example, it is possible that you have had a catastrophic memory failure and people are playing along with your misguided memories about your name to help you recover; or perhaps you are actually in some kind of Matrix style simulation where your memories are artificially recorded. These scenarios are unlikely to be true, but are not impossible and so it is, in some genuine sense, possible that you are mistaken.

Imagining situations or scenarios like this is an interesting exercise to try for any fact or knowledge you are confident in. Try to figure out what would have to be the case for what you think you know to turn out to be wrong. This can give you an indication of how confident you can be in your knowledge. However, if you cannot think of any way something you believe could be wrong, that is most likely a sign that your imagination is too limited rather than evidence the relevant belief is true.

….. and so could everyone else

This first principle does not simply apply to ‘me’ but to everyone, which means it has an obvious alternate version:

1a. As knowledge is hard, every single thing any particular person I can think of knows could potentially turn out to be wrong.

All the comments made above apply, not just to thinking about my knowledge, but also the knowledge of every other person I know. This is particularly important when we think about those we consider as experts in some way. Even for them, every thing they know could, in theory, turn out to be wrong. We should pay attention to experts but not trust them completely as they get things wrong too.

As it applies equally to everyone, adopting an attitude of epistemic humility does not allow us to throw our hands up and leave it to others as we get things wrong too often. Instead, it should encourage each of us to take responsibility for what we know, as everyone else is similarly likely to get things wrong.

A very similar principle is that:

2. As everyone gets things wrong, no particular expert or group is completely reliable as a guide to truth.

This isn’t just the recognition that expertise matters but that it is not infallible and is usually domain specific. It should shift how we think about groups or ideologies.

There is a strong tendency for people to identify with, or look to, some group or ideology as the definitive account of how things are. It is easy to decide that ‘I am an X’ (perhaps a socialist, or a conservative, or a feminist, or a Christian, or an atheist, or whatever) and therefore I know Y. We can probably all think of people who define their beliefs in this way.

However, every group of people will get things wrong, and believing things just because ‘I am an X’ expresses an unfounded epistemic confidence in that particular group. They cannot be that reliable.

I should note that the situation is different if I have become convinced that certain things are true and therefore it turns out that 'I am an X'. The group identity in this case reflects a considered conclusion, not a starting point for belief. Even then, we should be aware that some of the many things that make up the list of beliefs of an X may turn out to be mistaken.

I don’t matter, but my reasons do

Being aware of how we can get things wrong should shape how we take responsibility for our own, especially because:

3. The fact that “I” believe something means no more, in itself, about whether that thing is true than the colour of the font this essay is displayed in.

We all tend to act as though our own thoughts are somehow more valuable than anyone else's. This is, at a minimum, due to a combination of availability - we know our own thoughts very well - and personal pride. However, there is no inherent reason why any one person has better access to the truth than anyone else, and especially no reason why I should have better access to the truth than anyone else.

What matters as to whether I should take something as true should be the reasons, evidence or rationale for the knowledge, not who thinks it. Some people will have better experience with and access to the reasons for certain types of knowledge, and for those reasons they are experts. But their expertise is grounded in their understanding, reasons and greater depth of knowledge - not in anything about them as a person. This obviously goes as much for me as for anyone.

What should matter to whether I think something is true is not that I think it, but rather that I have good reasons for accepting it as true. One useful way to understand this is that I have good reasons if I am convinced that someone else who has considered the same reasons in the same context would also also believe it to be true.

Others deserve respect…..

Given that others will have invariably considered different reasons in different contexts to what we have, it is likely they will have uncovered different insights and knowledge to what we have. Remember that epistemic humility means knowledge is hard and we are often wrong. This means that:

4. We should treat other people, and their ideas and arguments, with respect. There is a real chance that they know something that we don't.

This principle is well known but less well observed. It is hard to accept that I get things wrong and that anyone can potentially teach me something and show me that something I have thought is wrong. Connected to the previous principle, the key point is that we should test people’s reasons and convictions, not just judge truth based on our view of the person.

…. including our past selves

One particular class of people a lot of us don’t treat well is our past selves. Yet there are good reasons for also treating our past selves with respect:

5. It is important to give our past selves a vote and be careful about changing our minds, but make sure we do when we need to.

One obvious implication of an attitude of epistemic humility is that we know we will get things wrong and we should change our mind when the reasons or evidence demonstrate we should. However, we should also recognise how easy it is to get caught up in the moment. Just because something seems overwhelmingly convincing now, it may not always be so convincing and may not have been convincing previously.

If we have examined something in the past and come to a considered conclusion, we should make sure that conclusion continues to have weight today. I may decide that my past conclusion was wrong, but I should be looking for the reasons why I got it wrong, rather than just changing my mind quickly.

Knowledge is not just intellectual

Finally, previous posts have started to point towards a broader principle that will just be mentioned here:

6. Gaining knowledge is not just an intellectual activity, but involves experiences, emotions, actions and, in many ways, our whole selves.

I will just mention two motivations for this. The first was sketched in the post on the history of Western philosophy where it was argued that reason - i.e. intellectual activity - is not sufficient for knowledge. The second is some interesting research evidence in neurology where people who have lost the ability to feel emotions become terrible at making decisions and judgements.

Uncertainty, and humility, aren’t barriers to knowledge

This set of principles provides an approach to how we think about knowledge that is likely familiar to some. It is often expressed, for example, in accounts of scientific practice: say “Scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty -- some most unsure, some nearly sure, none absolutely certain.”

The key insight expressed in this, and similar, accounts of scientific reasoning is that uncertainty and humility are a significant advantage in the search for and application of knowledge. By acknowledging uncertainty and remaining humble about what we know, we instinctively test our knowledge more readily, uncover mistakes more quickly and adjust our understand to better match reality more effectively.

Epistemic confidence and certainty, while superficially attractive, tend to lead to individuals or groups digging in to defend what they think they know and not recognising where they have things wrong. In previous posts, we have identified ways that we have a presumed cultural confidence in our knowledge, often based on algorithmic approaches. If this account of epistemic humility is correct, our confidence is not just misplaced but harms our ability to discover and apply genuine knowledge.

This suggests that one necessary step towards creating better, and more human, societies is to breed a genuine epistemic humility. This better reflects our true human condition and therefore would help us find out what is true more effectively.

1. This broader concept of epistemic humility exists in broader philosophical literature but hasn’t been a major theme. There is a nice summary on Wikipedia, but the lack of detail there is a clear indication that it hasn’t received a lot of attention.