Loved the final piece of advice. It captures a powerful argument you are building for using epistemic humility as a way of avoiding / lessening misunderstanding between people who have alternative views. The harder test, I suspect, is whether it helps people make positive decisions in the context of an uncertain truth and differing conceptions of what that truth might be. I wonder if resolving questions critical theorists believe can only be viewed (and resolved) via the power structures of society, provide the ultimate test for any model of thinking.
Thanks. Although, for me, the ultimate test is quite different: does the proposed model (or theory) agree (as a picture) with reality - in this case of how humans live in the world. This is important as we need an accurate (or at least more accurate) model of thinking as a foundation for positive decisions and positive change. If we try to ground these on poor pictures of reality we run into trouble and I think recent history shows us clearly that we end up with perverse consequences.
The caveat on this is that getting definite agreement with reality is hard, but a model of thinking that better agrees with reality still matters.
Agree with all of this. I guess I took as read our starting point should be to get to as close a shared (justifiable) picture of reality as possible. My assumption is that, for many issues, this will not be possible. I guess where I was heading was whether epistemic humility requires decision-making humility, and what the consequences of this were. Not sure if this makes sense.
Loved the final piece of advice. It captures a powerful argument you are building for using epistemic humility as a way of avoiding / lessening misunderstanding between people who have alternative views. The harder test, I suspect, is whether it helps people make positive decisions in the context of an uncertain truth and differing conceptions of what that truth might be. I wonder if resolving questions critical theorists believe can only be viewed (and resolved) via the power structures of society, provide the ultimate test for any model of thinking.
Thanks. Although, for me, the ultimate test is quite different: does the proposed model (or theory) agree (as a picture) with reality - in this case of how humans live in the world. This is important as we need an accurate (or at least more accurate) model of thinking as a foundation for positive decisions and positive change. If we try to ground these on poor pictures of reality we run into trouble and I think recent history shows us clearly that we end up with perverse consequences.
The caveat on this is that getting definite agreement with reality is hard, but a model of thinking that better agrees with reality still matters.
Agree with all of this. I guess I took as read our starting point should be to get to as close a shared (justifiable) picture of reality as possible. My assumption is that, for many issues, this will not be possible. I guess where I was heading was whether epistemic humility requires decision-making humility, and what the consequences of this were. Not sure if this makes sense.