Intellectual humility and argumentation

Abstract

In this chapter I argue that intellectual humility is related to argumentation in several distinct but mutually supporting ways. I begin by drawing connections between humility and two topics of long-standing importance to the evaluation of informal arguments: the ad verecundiam fallacy and the principle of charity. I then explore the more explicit role that humility plays in recent work on critical thinking dispositions, deliberative virtues, and virtue theories of argumentation. Argumentum ad VerecundiamModern textbook treatments of informal fallacies offer "argumentum ad verecundiam" as an alternative name for "appeal to illegitimate authority" (for example, Copi et al., 2007, p. 51). However, "verecundiam" is not Latin for illegitimate authority; it is Latin for modesty, reverence, shame, or, perhaps, humility. Together with argumentum ad hominem and argumentum ad ignorantiam, argumentum ad verecundiam owes its name to John Locke. Locke does not explicitly characterize any of these arguments as fallacies, but he does say that they are "arguments, that men, in their reasonings with others, do ordinarily make use of, to prevail on their assent; or, at least, so to awe them, as to silence their opposition" (Locke, 1836, IV.xvii.19). As Locke explains, the trick to ad verecundiam argumentation, is to allege the opinions of men, whose parts, learning, eminency, power, or some other cause has gained a name, and settled their reputation in the common esteem with some kind of authority.When men are established in any kind of dignity, it is thought a breach of modesty for others to derogate any way from it, and question the authority of men, who are in possession of it. This is apt to be censured as carrying with it too much of pride, when a man does not readily yield to the determination of approved authors, which is wont to be received with respect and submission by others: and it is looked upon as insolence for a man to set up and adhere to his own opinion against the current stream of antiquity, or to put it in the balance against that of some learned doctor, or otherwise approved writer. Whoever backs his tenets with such authorities, thinks he ought thereby to carry the cause, and is ready to style it "impudence" in any one who shall stand out against them. This I think may be called argumentum ad verecundiam (ibid.). Locke diagnoses the weakness of such argumentation as taking "another man's opinion to be right, because I, out of respect, or any other consideration but that of conviction, will not contradict him" (ibid.). In modern treatments of this argument, as the fallacy of appeal to illegitimate authority, it is implicitly contrasted with a non-fallacious pattern of argument: appeal to legitimate authority, or more commonly, appeal to expert opinion. Hence modern treatments of the

The Fallacy Fallacy: From the Owl of Minerva to the Lark of Arete

“…This sensitivity to circumstance requires help from other virtues, either as part of a web of interacting virtues or by appeal to regulatory virtues. With respect to argumentation, there are several candidates for the latter role, including humility (Aberdein 2016c(Aberdein , 2020 and phronesis (Aberdein 2021). In either case, this suggests that becoming argumentatively virtuous enough to routinely argue in virtuous ways is no small task.…”