Preliminaries to a Metalinguistic Analysis of the Disagreement Regarding Intellectual Humility

Abstract

Is the disagreement about the definition of intellectual humility genuine? Dunnington (2017) argues that it is not, as there is no common concept of intellectual humility in use across different theories. Instead of disagreeing about the necessary and sufficient conditions of a single concept of intellectual humility, philosophers are, arguably, using "intellectual humility" in different senses. Therefore, the project of analyzing intellectual humility would be poorly conceived, destined to not reach a consensus on the correct definition. Is it true that the debate about intellectual humility lacks unity regarding the expressed concept? If so, does this imply that the disagreement about the term’s analysis cannot be genuine? These questions will be addressed based on the notion of metalinguistic negotiation, as proposed by Plunkett and Sundell (2013), aiming to argue that the disagreement about intellectual humility can be genuine even while acknowledging that there are various concepts of intellectual humility in contention. While genuine disagreements that are canonical involve a dispute over a single concept, and the words have the same meaning for all participants, metalinguistic disagreements involve various concepts and different uses of the same words. The metalinguistic analysis of the debate about intellectual humility can provide an in-depth understanding of the current state of philosophical research on intellectual humility and the possibility of reaching a rational consensus on what intellectual humility is. Following this approach, one can argue that the disagreement in question can be genuine.