Intellectual Humility in Early Modern Science and Philosophy

 

Intellectual humility and hubris have been the focus of recent interest within epistemology, but epistemologists have not yet engaged sufficiently closely with the history of philosophy and science. Doing so is important, since it is important to gain a better understanding of intellectual humility and hubris in different intellectual, social and cultural contexts in addition to the conceptual analysis that has so far been provided by epistemologists and by the research we conducted at Durham. This workshop will contribute to filling that gap by bringing in a historical examination of the work of early modern thinkers and their reception through the lens of intellectual humility. It will include new scholarship on John Locke, Isaac Newton and his collaborators, and women philosophers such as Elisabeth of Bohemia, Anne Conway, Damaris Masham and Mary Astell.  

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This interdisciplinary workshop will examine (i) how the reasoning of philosophers and scientists exhibits the virtues and vices of intellectual humility and hubris, and (ii) the role that these concepts play in their explicit thinking about epistemic normativity. ​

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Programme

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Location: 

Department of Philosophy, Room PO005, 48 Old Elvet, Durham University

1:00pm

Thomas Rossetter (Durham)

Intellectual Humility and the Augustinian Turn in Early Modern Conceptions of Miracles

2:00pm

Elisabeth Thorson (Durham)

Locke against Extremes: Epistemic Humility and Toleration

3:00pm

Break

3:30pm

Thomas Rossetter and Robin Hendry (Durham)

The Contingency of Determinism: Comets, Mathematics and Metaphysics in Newtonian Thought

4:30pm

Sarah Hutton (York)

Epistemic Virtues? Humility and Modesty in the Correspondences of Elisabeth of Bohemia, Anne Conway, Damaris Masham, and Mary Astell

5:30pm

Dinner

 

Sponsored by: Centre for Humanities Engaging Science and Society (CHESS).