2. VICIOUS PRIDE AND INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY

Roberts and Wood argue that distinct species of vicious pride are all rooted in a general concern for self-importance as an end in itself.Footnote ⁸ What distinguishes these vices is the mode of satisfying this concern.Footnote ⁹ Consider first the vices of vanity, arrogance, and domination. The vain person seeks to satisfy his concern for self-importance through the positive regard of others. He strives “to be well-regarded by other people, for the social importance their regard confers” (Roberts and Wood Reference Roberts and Wood2007: 237).Footnote ¹⁰ He cares how he is perceived, wanting the attention and favor of those he considers important. He is particularly concerned with the approval of his epistemic peers and those he admires. He is disposed to feel joy when they recognize his intellectual achievements; he fears being overlooked or, worse, being perceived as epistemically deficient. He desires epistemic glory but is risk averse, recoiling from the threat of public humiliation.

Imagine, for instance, an early career philosopher who suffers from this vice. His concern for his reputation disposes him to craft an image of accomplishment and productivity. But given his fear, he is unwilling to go out on an intellectual limb. He avoids exploring topics or questions that might expose him to public disfavor. And he is reticent to say anything in public about commitments unpopular with his philosophical peers such as his commitment to particular political views or specific religious beliefs. At conferences and in his social engagements, he looks for ways to attract positive attention from important people because of the ways this bolsters his reputation.

The arrogant person seeks to satisfy his concern for self-importance through the privilege of claimed entitlement. He assumes a position of epistemic authority and takes himself to be entitled “to think, act, and feel on the basis of that claim” (Roberts and Wood Reference Roberts and Wood2007: 243).Footnote ¹¹ As a result, he excuses himself from standards and norms to which he holds other epistemic agents. He (illicitly) draws conclusions from his privileged position that confirm and reinforce his sense that he enjoys an authoritative epistemic position. The pleasure he takes in his sense of entitlement is matched only by his fear of being deprived of his epistemic privilege. As a result, he is dismissive toward others and incorrigible.

Imagine, for instance, an arrogant student who takes himself to be entitled to dismiss the comments and concerns of his peers concerning some assigned reading. He is frustrated by the fact that the teacher entertains his classmate's comments, responding as if there were a genuine ambiguity in the text. The arrogant student wonders whether the teacher's engagement with his classmate is motivated by pity; it is the only explanation he can imagine. This kind of interpersonal disdain manifested in the student's refusal to acknowledge his peers' comments can be both personally and epistemically harmful. Alessandra Tanesini (Reference Tanesini2016a) argues that this display of arrogance involves “a disrespectful attitude to others grounded in the presumption that one is exempt from the ordinary responsibilities of participants in conversations” (74).Footnote ¹²

The domineering person seeks to satisfy his concern for self-importance through his control over others' thoughts. As Roberts and Wood note, he aims “to be the determiner of other people's opinions, to take special pleasure in shaping others' minds, to be the author of such-and-such an idea that is all the rage, and to be the one who convinced so-and-so of such-and-such” (Roberts and Wood Reference Roberts and Wood2007: 241). He is anxious to influence and to shape the trajectory of thought. He seeks disciples whom he can fashion in his own image, showing preferential treatment to those who are deferential and willing to assume the mantle of his positions. He fears the loss of influence because his primary concern is to set the epistemic agenda.

Imagine, for instance, a domineering professor at a research university. Students flock to him for training because of his reputation in the field. But he favors those who agree with him and he construes defection from his views or his research agenda as an insult. He refuses to allow his doctoral students to pursue their own interests, forcing them to join him in his endeavors. If they are going to work with him and benefit from the type of training he provides, they must adopt his methods and pursue his interests. He treats those students who challenge his authority poorly, cutting them out of the most important research and refusing to consider them for important positions or awards at his institution.

These distinct vices are not only barriers to epistemic goods; they are social dispositions that consist or result in defective modes of relating to others. The vain person engages with others primarily with an eye to his epistemic glory. He is dependent for his sense of worth on their esteem. He seeks the companionship of those who will polish his reputation; he avoids those who will tarnish his glory.

The arrogant person thinks he is uniquely and authoritatively positioned with respect to epistemic goods; he relates to others as deficient epistemic agents. As Tiberius and Walker (Reference Tiberius and Walker1998) note, the arrogant person's privilege shapes his relations with others such that,

The satisfaction he feels in his position depends upon the contrast he draws between his privileged state and those whom he takes to be beneath him. But his attitude betrays a nagging worry that they might knock him from his high horse; his fear moves him to distance himself from those who are unlikely to unseat him.Footnote ¹³

Finally, the domineering person is satisfied only to the extent that he creates and sustains others' indebtedness to him. He relates to others primarily as epistemic subordinates dependent upon him for their intellectual “marching orders.” He needs their servile obedience; he collects disciples rather than forging friendships with epistemic peers.

The virtue of intellectual humility is a detachment from these varied expressions of the concern for self-importance. The humble person does not relate to others primarily as potential sources of approval or epistemic glory. He is free to relate to them as persons from whom he can receive both correction and insight. And he pursues epistemic goods without fear of damaging his reputation; he cares more for the goods at stake than he does for the approval of others. Furthermore, he is not tempted to assume a position of privileged entitlement. He engages collaboratively with others in the pursuit of truth because he cares more about intellectual goods than his position or placement within the epistemic pecking order. Finally, he feels no need to lord his influence over others. Wisdom and understanding matter more to him than credit and authority. Thus, he is free to defer to others whenever this serves the proper pursuit of epistemic goods. When one lacks the types of concern at the heart of vicious pride, virtuous epistemic concerns can take root in fertile soil. They will not be choked out by competing concerns for self-importance.

Roberts and Wood (Reference Roberts and Wood2007) do not offer detailed maps of the other forms of vicious pride they initially contrast with intellectual humility. In what remains of this section, I sketch profiles of two intellectual vices worthy of greater attention. First, consider hyper-autonomy, a vice Roberts and Wood briefly describe as a “disinclination to acknowledge one's dependence on others and to accept help from them” (Reference Roberts and Wood2007: 236). Like domination, hyper-autonomy seeks to satisfy the concern for self-importance through the exercise of control. The hyper-autonomous person is disposed to care excessively for self-authorship; he prides himself on being “self-sufficient” and “self-made.” In grasping at complete independence, he seeks to free himself from the influence of others, denying both his indebtedness to and need of others. This trait distorts his ability to acknowledge the ways he is a recipient of the knowledge, understanding, and training of others; it also cuts him off from wise counsel and collaboration. By isolating himself from others, he is answerable only to himself. He is disposed to think of his epistemic successes as a purely individual achievement. He is constitutionally averse to receiving criticism; acknowledging the substance of others' objections would require forfeiting full governance of his intellectual endeavors. He lacks gratitude because he fails to recognize the genuine intellectual debts he has incurred along the way.

For illustrative purposes, imagine the hyper-autonomous doctoral candidate who is eager to break free from the influence of his teachers. He is resentful of the constraints his course of studies has placed upon him; he begrudgingly jumped through hoops in order to launch his own career. He works by himself, refusing collaboration or submission to anyone who could exercise undue influence on his own ideas. He knows that he has to listen to his dissertation director and engage with the comments and objections of his readers in order to pass his defense. But his willingness to do these tasks is purely instrumental; he sees no inherent value in their ideas and feels no need to express gratitude for their efforts on his behalf. He relishes the thought of completion so that he can pursue his own agenda independent of the confining influence of those in his graduate program.

We may value the hyper-autonomous person's zealous desire for self-authorship. His unflagging attempts to take full responsibility for his own epistemic endeavors, his refusal to farm out the intellectual efforts associated with important epistemic achievements, his independence – all of these seem admirable. But there are important liabilities in his controlling spirit. More than anything, hyper-autonomy is a social vice. It is a dispositional refusal to depend upon others because of an excessive concern for self-authorship. The hyper-autonomous person sets himself apart from and against his epistemic community in order to see himself as self-made. He falsely construes all forms of dependence as an epistemic hindrance. Hyper-autonomy involves a failure to appreciate the epistemic value of trust and reliance upon others. The isolation it promotes reflects a refusal to appreciate the importance of the shared pursuit of common intellectual goods. The hyper-autonomous person refuses to take to heart his epistemic needs, the vulnerabilities to which he is subject, and his epistemic position as one who has received much of what he knows.

In this respect, there may be important connections between hyper-autonomy and intellectual arrogance. Although the hyper-autonomous person's refusal to acknowledge his epistemic needs and indebtedness may be rooted in his concern for intellectual control, he may be convinced of his capacity for this kind of control because he thinks of himself as uniquely positioned vis-à-vis epistemic goods. This kind of entitlement effectively immunizes him from any potential challenge to his self-conception as the sole author of his intellectual life.Footnote ¹⁴

The intellectually humble person lacks the concern for self-importance grounding this insistence on intellectual control. And, for this reason, the intellectually humble person does not construe epistemic dependence as an obstacle to his development. He does not see an inherent incompatibility between dependence upon others and responsibility for his intellectual endeavors.Footnote ¹⁵ He does not act as if epistemic responsibility requires complete freedom from the influence, direction, or guidance of others. Perhaps, most importantly, the humble person is disposed to embrace his need of others in the pursuit of important epistemic aims. He perceives how his epistemic efforts are deepened and strengthened by his reliance upon and trust in others. He is disposed to acknowledge and value the shared pursuit of epistemic excellence.

Let's turn now turn to the vice of presumption, a vice Roberts and Wood describe as the disposition “to act without proper respect for the limits of one's powers, competence, or social station” (Reference Roberts and Wood2007: 237). The presumptuous person is disposed to overestimate his current level understanding, to idealize his epistemic position relative to a question under investigation, and to be overconfident in his intellectual abilities because of the satisfaction he derives from privileging his perspective. Presumption is not the mere lack of awareness of one's limitations; it is a motivated failure to see or to appreciate the scope of one's epistemic vulnerabilities because of the importance one attaches to one's current perspective.Footnote ¹⁶ This reliance upon or trust in his epistemic powers, competencies, or social position provides a deep sense of security or assurance about one's epistemic state. For this reason, presumption involves a disposition to disregard, ignore, or downplay any evidence concerning epistemic limitations. The presumptuous person acts, thinks, and feels as if he can rest from his epistemic labors because of the assurance he derives from privileging his current perspective. He is habitually inclined to ignore his limitations, enjoying the confidence he places in his current knowledge, skills, and epistemic position. Consequently, he feels no need to engage in on-going inquiry. He is insensitive to his blinkered understanding and fails to feel the weight of his epistemic vulnerability because of his false sense of security. By privileging his current perspective, the presumptuous person enjoys the precipitous satisfaction of an (illusory) epistemic achievement.

Given that presumption and arrogance both involve satisfying the concern for self-importance through the vehicle of privilege, it is worth pausing to dwell on a connection between these intellectual vices. The arrogant person seeks to satisfy the concern for self-importance through an assumed privilege from which he draws illicit inferences concerning his and others' epistemic responsibilities. The arrogant person may exempt himself from particular epistemic demands even though they are perfectly general norms. As Tanesini (Reference Tanesini2016a: 75) notes, arrogant people presume that their “alleged or genuine superior intellectual authority entitles them to a range of privileges which they deny to others.” But arguably one can be presumptuous without being arrogant. The presumptuous person assumes that he is safe placing complete trust in his current epistemic position. And he satisfies his concern for self-importance by the mere enjoyment that this (false) sense of security produces. He does not seek further satisfaction from the sense of entitlement he could draw from this presumption about his privilege over others.

To illustrate this profile, one might argue that the character of Euthyphro from Plato's dialog The Euthyphro exemplifies the vice of presumption. At the outset of the dialog, he tells Socrates that his knowledge of the nature of piety justifies his decision to prosecute his father for murder. And it is evident that Euthyphro enjoys the privilege of his current epistemic state; he thinks it is secure from any doubts that could be raised. As their conversation unfolds, however, it becomes clear that Euthyphro lacks an awareness of his ignorance, not to mention knowledge of the essential nature of piety. Socrates's questions may have drawn his attention to his epistemic shortcomings, but it is unclear whether he takes these lessons to heart. Plato leaves the reader to wonder whether he will relinquish his claim to understand piety and abandon the prosecution of his father.

Like other vices of pride, presumption is a social vice. The presumptuous person removes himself from the social conditions crucial to intellectual growth. He closes himself off from those who can call attention to the limits of his knowledge, understanding, and intellectual powers. He isolates himself from those who can help him feel the need to refuse the false rest of presumption. Presumption prevents a person from benefiting from the insights of others whose perspectives do not mesh with his own. By forestalling inquiry, presumption forecloses the person's ability to learn from the intellectual challenges others advance. As a result, the presumptuous person forfeits the opportunity to learn how to develop and defend his views. Intellectual growth is a deeply social process; epistemic maturation involves recognizing how one's growth is dependent upon and extended by the epistemic efforts of others. Thus, the privileging of one's current epistemic position stunts one's intellectual development.

The virtue of intellectual humility detaches the person from the concern for self-importance that manifests itself in the privileging of his current epistemic perspective. The humble person is able to cultivate a clear vision of both the scope and limits of his perspective. Intellectual humility clears space for a dispositional vigilance in one's self-assessment – a disposition guarding against inducements to a false sense of epistemic invulnerability. And, perhaps most importantly, humility frees a person from the ways his attachment to his current perspective prevents him from relating to others as companions in intellectual development.

3. HOPE AND REGULATIVE EPISTEMOLOGY

The aims of the previous section were to map the contours of several species of vicious intellectual pride. Most importantly, I developed novel profiles of two vices: hyper-autonomy and presumption. But how does one cultivate the forms of humility opposed to these vices? In what follows, I maintain that the social processes by which individuals develop and exercise the virtue of hope can help to curb the concerns at the heart of these prideful vices. But before I can make this argument, I must offer a brief profile of hope as an intellectual virtue – that is, a virtue oriented toward the attainment of intellectual goods a person construes as possible but beyond his immediate ability to secure.Footnote ¹⁷

It will be helpful at the outset to consider several examples of hope's role in the pursuit of epistemic goods. In each of the following cases, hope takes as its object the realization of some important but difficult to attain intellectual good such as competence in an intellectual skill, knowledge, evidence, justification, coherence, understanding, or practical wisdom. Consider, for instance, the college student who hopes to cultivate foreign language proficiency through an immersive study-abroad program. Or, consider the scientist who conducts a set of experiments in order to isolate the key causes of some effect hopes to add to the corpus of scientific knowledge. He also hopes that his experimental procedures produce robust evidence of the causal processes under investigation. A prominent bioethicist may hope to advance an argument sufficient to justify legalizing physician-assisted suicide. A historian of philosophy who wrestles with an important set of seemingly inconsistent texts may hope to unravel an interpretive knot, offering an account showing the underlying coherence of the passages he is studying. Finally, the mayor of a small town may engage in a careful study of the socioeconomic implications of several proposals in the hope that he will be able to understand their effects for his town. He hopes that studious consideration of these proposals will enable him to make a prudent choice that will benefit the city.

The hopeful person recognizes that there is no guarantee he will be able to secure a particular epistemic good, but he sees the value in the pursuit of this possibility. Hope motivates and sustains his efforts to secure this good. It is important to note, however, that hope is an intellectual virtue only if its object is a genuine epistemic good. I may hope that my intellectual opponent experiences a public humiliation in the context of defending his views; or, I may hope that I get sole credit for a collaborative discovery. Neither of these hopes would count as a virtuous because their respective objects lack the requisite goodness.

If hope is a virtue, it must be more than an episodic emotional response; as a virtue it is a disposition manifesting in a syndrome of apt feelings, thoughts, and activities oriented toward epistemic goods. When I hope for some intellectual good, I anticipate the joy of attaining this good (especially when its realization is proximate); I fear the disappointment I might experience when its possibility becomes remote. I am primed to perceive signs of its realization or failure; I attend to indicators of its increased or decreased probability; I imagine routes through or around possible obstacles to its realization; I comfort myself with reassurances of its possibility; I devote attention and energy to thinking about its realization; I act in ways I think will help me to secure this goal. Hope strengthens my resolve and perseverance as I pursue the goods I'm convinced can be realized. And it enables me to restructure my pursuits when it becomes clear that the good I desire is no longer possible.

Consider the philosopher who hopes to develop an argument for a contested thesis. As he initiates his research, he hopes that he is able to articulate a sound argument in defense of his conclusion. This hope moves him forward with eagerness, drawing his attention to potential weaknesses in his arguments, causing him to devote significant amounts of time and thought constructing his argument. At this point, his hopes shift from the development to the publication of his argument. And this hope issues in a distinct syndrome of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors. After his initial submission, he may imagine what it will feel like to receive news that his paper has been accepted for publication. He may engage in a kind of provisional planning for a subsequent essay. If the review process begins to lag, his hopes may become tinged with the fear of rejection. He may engage preemptively in activities (e.g., contacting the editors) to elicit evidence concerning the continued possibility of its publication. And he might begin to devote energy to clarifying and revising the essay so that he can submit it to a different journal if it is rejected.

As one can see, hope is a vital component of epistemic agency. It acts to motivate and to sustain a person in his projects – projects closely aligned with his cares and concerns. The person who pursues particular intellectual goods does so because he cares about these goods. But the good for which he hopes is beyond his immediate capacity to secure. Its realization may depend upon persons or factors completely beyond his sphere of control or influence. And there is an inherent vulnerability that attends the exercise of hope; the person who hopes virtuously for some intellectual good is aware that this hope may be disappointed. The power of hope is that it enables a person to withstand those conditions that threaten his commitment to pursuits he construes as worthy of his effort. In this sense, hope acts as a kind of facilitating virtue; it moves a person to initiate and sustain personal projects oriented toward securing intellectual goods.

But the characteristic patterns of hopeful feeling, thought, and activity are virtuous only to the extent that they are well-tuned to the circumstances. And the natural capacity for hope can easily become misaligned. One's natural hope may be excessive; over-exuberant hopes may distract a person from the real obstacles to securing the good she desires. This form of excessive hoping may be construed as an impetuous expectation that one's hopes are guaranteed to obtain. It can induce over-confidence, misguided optimism, and a false sense of security concerning the realization of a desired good.Footnote ¹⁸ It is common in this context to note the range of noetic flaws to which excessive hopes can give rise. In the contemporary literature on the philosophy of hope, one of the central questions concerns whether hope induces epistemic and practical irrationality.Footnote ¹⁹ A well-tuned hope must be sensitive to the real limitations of one's agency and the potential obstacles that may hinder one's pursuits.

Another way in which natural hopes may be misaligned is that they might be too weak or restricted; they may exaggerate the likelihood that one's hopes will be disappointed. Deficient hope may make one over-sensitive to possible obstacles or hindrances to one's hope. It can make a person overly cautious, reluctant, diffident, or cynical. At the extreme, the person may lose all hope. It is important, however, to distinguish between hopelessness and despair.Footnote ²⁰ Both of these states involve a privation – a lack of hope. But despair adds to the lack of hope an evaluative commitment. The despairing agent doesn't merely resign all his hopes; he is committed to the impossibility of its outcome. He moves beyond resignation to a hardened stance that the good is not and could not possibly be attained. There is a kind of intransigence implicit in this disposition that skews the epistemic landscape of possibilities the person construes as real and available.

So, the intellectual virtue of hope is a disposition which enables the proper pursuit of possible but difficult to realize epistemic goods. It enables the person to resist (i) the excessive expectation that these goods are already secure, (ii) the weak resignation that one's epistemic pursuits are likely to be disappointed, and (iii) the hardened attitude of despair. The person with excessive or untempered expectations overestimates the security of his position. The resigned agent thinks that epistemic achievement is highly unlikely. The despairing agent is committed to the belief that the goods he desires are permanently beyond his reach. In all of these flawed forms of hope, the person refuses the continued work of intellectual inquiry. And he forfeits the ability to cultivate important allied dispositions (e.g., perseverance, flexibility) that might aid him in subsequent inquiries. The overeager, the resigned, and the despairing person all sacrifice the epistemic goods made possible by hopeful inquiry.

The person with the intellectual virtue of hope, however, is appropriately sensitive to personal epistemic limitations and the external conditions that might prevent the realization of epistemic goals. He acknowledges this as an ineradicable aspect of hope; it simply would not be hope if it did not involve vulnerability to disappointment. He is sensitive to the real range of epistemic possibilities open to him; he appreciates both the promise and the liabilities of his current epistemic strategies; he grasps the fallibility of his knowledge and the methods he employs; and he possesses a vigilant self-understanding about his own epistemic strengths and weaknesses. Nonetheless, his hope gives him the strength, resilience, perseverance, and flexibility crucial to pursuing important epistemic goals. And it draws his attention to ways his epistemic powers can be supplemented and extended through collaborative efforts with others.

In this context, it is worth noting that there is an important ambiguity in the expression that hope is for a good that is possible but difficult to secure. Some hopes are for goods that one could secure through one's own agency (given the cooperation of one's environment), but other hopes are attainable only because of the efforts of others.Footnote ²¹ The virtue of hope in these contexts involves acknowledging one's need of others. More than this, it involves placing one's trust in the efforts of others. In the contexts of collaborative inquiry, it can involve fulfilling the trust that others place in one's own efforts. Thus, cultivating the virtue of hope involves fostering the capacity to acknowledge one's dependence upon others.

These reflections point to an important element of the analysis of hope that deserves greater attention: there are crucial social dimensions to the virtue of hope. From the socially derived contents of individual hopes, to the socially scaffolded development of well-tuned capacities for hope, to the ways communities enable individuals to sustain hope in the midst of difficulty, to the relational basis and objects of an individual's most important hopes – hope is a socially embedded and expressed virtue. In the next section, I consider two of these features crucial to understanding how the cultivation of virtuous hope acts to curb hyper-autonomy and presumption.

4. CULTIVATING HOPE, SCAFFOLDING HUMILITY

Understanding how the virtue of hope aids in the development of intellectual humility requires attending to the role of virtuous communities in fostering and sustaining the virtue of hope. By drawing the person's attention the social dependencies inherent in well-tuned hopes, the virtuous community trains him to recognize and appreciate both his epistemic needs and his epistemic limitations. These characteristic sensitivities help to combat the dispositional concern for control and privilege characteristic of hyper-autonomy and presumption.

The first dimension of hope crucial to understanding its role in the cultivation of intellectual humility concerns the function of caregivers in scaffolding a well-tuned capacity for virtuous hope. Victoria McGeer's (Reference McGeer2004, Reference McGeer2008) discussion of the development of hopeful dispositions illuminates these social dependencies. She focuses, in particular, on the role of parental scaffolding in early childhood development. Children confront agential limitations early in life, but they learn to navigate these limitations in the pursuit of their goals through the support of caregivers. Engaging in imitative behaviors from an early age, children develop a sense of their own agency by interacting with adults who support their maturation by a kind of “hopeful pretence” (McGeer Reference McGeer2004: 106). Caregivers help to model for children how to deal with progressively more difficult and demanding tasks by “communicating, in both word and deeds, a hopeful vision of what their children can be or do. Thus, we human beings come into our own as agents, initially through depending on the hopeful scaffolding of others” (McGeer Reference McGeer2008, 249).

The kind of community most conducive to fostering virtuous hope is a community that cares for the hopes and the hopeful agency of others. Communities of this sort provide a social ethos in which the person can learn to inhabit his agential powers and limitations well. Their support provides an awareness that others value his hopes for epistemic goods, join in these hopes, and hope on his behalf for the attainment of these aims. In this context, the person can develop a clear view of the range of possibilities open to him and the value of continuing in hope even when its realization is remote. An individual who cultivates a well-tuned hope is one who has benefitted from the social support of a community that instills within him an appreciation of his agency, his limits, and the importance of the mutual care and support of the hopeful agency of others. Furthermore, fostering the virtue of hope involves teaching others to see themselves as agents who can respond appropriately to both their limitations and the obstacles they face in their pursuits. It involves inculcating a sense for the ways in which agency is embedded within and extended by relationships of trust and care. The virtuous community seeks to cultivate among its members a learned appreciation for trust and dependence upon others.

But inadequate formation can stunt a person's growth, corrupting his ability to hope well. Caregivers who lack virtue may foster in others a diminished grasp of their ability to secure hoped-for outcomes. They can reinforce habits of expeditious resignation. They can inculcate a deflated sense of a person's abilities, reinforcing emotional patterns of hopelessness and, ultimately, despair. On the other hand, communities may reinforce patterns of exaggerated appraisal of his powers or inattentiveness to his epistemic vulnerabilities. They can train the person to expect the realization of hoped-for goods with little difficulty or effort. They can ingrain a sense that the exertion of one's agency alone will be sufficient for the attainment of his hope.

The second dimension crucial to understanding how hope can aid in the development of humility concerns the educative function of communal hopes – that is, the shared hopes of the community to which the individual belongs. A person's commitment to the community can transform the concerns he takes to be integral to his own fulfillment. His identification with the community can lead him to adopt the concerns of the community as the central or orienting concerns of his own intellectual endeavors. Through his participation in the community, the individual may come to value the hopes guiding their pursuits as the shared object of their life together. As a member of the community, his attention will be given over to the communal hopes of the community. The mutual commitment to these common hopes is part of what it means to be a community. Each person in the community is accountable and responsive to the others in the group. If one's individual hopes start to wane, others have a powerful motivation to tend to this person's hopes; if one loses all hope, this loss weighs heavily on the rest of the community.Footnote ²²

Given that many of the most important epistemic achievements are the result of communal, or collaborative, inquiry, it is hard to overemphasize the importance of this point for regulative epistemology. The virtuous epistemic agent is one who acknowledges his dependence and entrusts himself to communities and inquiries that are pivotal to securing important epistemic goods. Interestingly, this kind of dependence and trust may be compatible with individual doubts about the possibility of realizing a communal epistemic aim. While the individual might lack confidence that a particular good can be attained, he can entrust himself to a community that hopes for this good. He might say to himself, “I'm not sure whether it is possible to achieve this goal, but if it is, it will come through our collaborative efforts oriented toward our common goal. Given the value of the goal we are seeking to attain, I'll commit myself to our efforts in the hope that we may realize this goal.” And it is conceivable that every individual in the epistemic community commits himself in this same way; each person is committed to the community or a collaborative inquiry as the only hope for realizing an important epistemic good.

In either case, one ought to distinguish between the hopeful person and the hopeful community. Likewise, one should distinguish between the well-tuned hopes of a hopeful community and the well-tuned hopes of an individual person. A person's hope for an epistemic achievement may be well-tuned only because it is rooted in the hopes of a virtuous epistemic community or a collaborative line of inquiry. In this case, hope is well-tuned for a particular community in spite of the fact that each individual within that community may be appropriately hopeful only to the extent that he places his hope in the community itself.

Virtuous communities train others in well-tuned hope by turning their attention to the relationships through which they can secure goods unavailable through their individual efforts. They inculcate sensitivity to the need for others and the ways in which a commitment to others deepens the communal capacity to achieve important goods. These relationships are crucial both to the development and the exercise of well-tuned hope. This sketch of the social dimensions crucial to the development and exercise of virtuous hope has important epistemic implications for regulative epistemology. In the final section, I highlight the ways cultivating hope can indirectly foster a dispositional detachment from the concerns at the heart of some forms of vicious pride.

5. HOPE AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY

One of the central concerns of regulative epistemology is the reformation of deficient epistemic practices and habits of intellectual engagement. It has a practical goal of guiding and fostering intellectual virtues. But intellectual humility is a unique disposition: it is not clear that one can cultivate a mature form of humility by engaging in practices that are inherently self-focused. For Roberts and Wood, intellectual humility is a dispositional lack of concern for self-importance. Self-regarding practices directly aimed at reducing this concern are likely to entrench habits of self-focus – habits incongruent with the mature expression of intellectual humility.Footnote ²³ Thus, it seems that the best way to cultivate intellectual humility is indirectly through the development of other dispositions that detach a person from the concern for self-importance.

I maintain that virtuous communities help curb the concerns at the heart of hyper-autonomy and presumption through their work in fostering the virtue of hope. Hyper-autonomy is a dispositional refusal to recognize one's need for and dependence upon others because of the self-importance one finds in controlling one's intellectual life; presumption is a dispositional failure to respect one's limitations because of the self-importance one enjoys in privileging one's current epistemic power, position, and status. There are important connections between the ways virtuous communities cultivate hope and the dispositional detachment characteristic of those forms of humility opposed to hyper-autonomy and presumption.

Hopeful communities scaffold the well-tuned hopeful agency of their members and, as a result, individuals learn to inhabit their agency properly. They have a proper perspective on their powers and they appreciate their need of others in the pursuit of good intellectual ends. In this way, they have a heightened sensitivity to the limits of their current perspective. This acts as a defense against the temptations of presumption. The person with well-tuned hope understands that his hopes may be disappointed; he cannot enjoy the false rest of presumption because he is aware of his epistemic vulnerabilities. When virtuous communities help their members to develop the virtue of hope, they cultivate an appreciation for the limitations and vulnerabilities of their epistemic position. Those who have been trained in the virtue of hope have cultivated dispositions that guard against the presumptuous privileging of their epistemic perspective.

Furthermore, hopeful communities provide a context in which a person can come to recognize and appreciate his need of others. Insofar as well-tuned hope involves a desire for a good whose realization is possible only through the agency of others, the virtue of hope requires cultivating a sense of the importance of acknowledged dependence upon others. And this is particularly salient for those communal hopes through which some of the most important intellectual achievements are possible. The individual's participation in the hopeful community teaches him the importance of dependence and trust in others for the pursuit of important intellectual goods. In this way, the community cultivates an appreciation of their need for, dependence upon, and indebtedness to others. A proper appreciation of interdependence acts as a defense against the temptations of control characteristic of hyper-autonomy. As the community trains a person in these ways, the concerns characteristic of the hyper-autonomous person cannot take root. This leaves space for cultivating the abiding concerns of the virtuous agent. A well-tuned hope combats a kind of intellectual isolation that stunts intellectual flourishing for both the individual and the community.

In short, the virtue of hope is a natural ally in the cultivation of the virtue of intellectual humility. The virtuous community scaffolds the virtue of hope and, as a result, endows the person with a kind of defensive stance against the dispositional concern for self-importance characteristic of vicious forms of pride. And within the life of the virtuous person, intellectual humility clears space for other concerns to take root, including concerns for fundamental epistemic aims such as knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. The intellectually humble person lacks the concern for self-importance he seeks to satisfy through the regard of others, the privileging of his own perspective, and the control of intellectual endeavors. Humility frees him to be teachable, hospitable to the insights of others, open and receptive to correction and guidance, and willing to trust others in his pursuit of important intellectual goods.

Roberts and Wood acknowledge that epistemic agents can achieve epistemic ends without possessing intellectual humility. The hyper-autonomous researcher, for instance, may discover important truths because of his concern to exercise control over his own intellectual endeavors. His desire to be free from the influence of others may make him exceptionally daring and confident in bucking the presuppositions of his epistemic peers. His ability to go against the trends of his epistemic community may lead to important discoveries. Nonetheless, hyper-autonomy is an impoverishment of a person's intellectual life. Epistemically virtuous agents do not ignore their epistemic need for others. And they do not set themselves in opposition to others simply to feed their concern for self-importance.

I have argued that the socially mediated process of cultivating the virtue of hope is an indirect route to the development of those forms of humility opposed to hyper-autonomy and presumption. Engagement in the life of a virtuous community can free the person from his attachment to privileging his current epistemic state; it can free him from the obsessive pursuit of control over his intellectual endeavors. The formative influence of this community can be instrumental in the development of those states of character integral to intellectual fulfillment.Footnote ²⁴ If communities desire to form members for intellectual humility, they would do well to foster the virtue of hope.

This account of the development of intellectual humility has consequences for regulative epistemology as a project: it suggests that one of its central concerns ought to be an exploration of the structure and dynamics of virtuous epistemic communities.Footnote ²⁵ What are the social dimensions of these communities that enable them to function well as epistemic communities? How do epistemic communities foster virtue in their members? Are there social structures that undermine the proper functioning of these communities? Traditional philosophical discussions of the virtues have addressed these types of questions because of the recognition that communities are crucial to cultivating and sustaining individual virtue. Regulative epistemologists ought to attend to these social dimensions as part of their aim to reform epistemic practices and foster intellectual virtue.Footnote ²⁶