The Philosophy and Theology of Intellectual Humility

This proposal is for the writing of a single-authored book manuscript on the topic of knowledge, and specifically how the production of knowledge can be understood to be shaped by epistemological humility. The project uses the 19th-century German theologian and philosopher Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) as a resource in identifying the aspects of human thinking in an intersubjective context that is aimed at truth and knowledge. Schleiermacher is known as the parent of modern theology, but is equally known for his work in founding the first modern University of Berlin in 1809. His theory of the production of knowledge is characteristically modern; human thought is always”in motion,” oriented to truth, but never attaining it. In motion, thinking’s orientation to truth is guided by human emotions that intuit progress along the path to knowledge, the intersubjective communication of claims to knowledge that includes both mutual understanding and negotiation through debate, and finally the ethical obligation of thinking subjects to the object under study as well as commitments to interlocuters for engaging in communicative processes, even in circumstances of disagreement. The book aims to work out aspects of humility that shape these aspects of the production of knowledge, and integrate them into a constructive proposal regarding the production of theological knowledge, namely doctrine. Thus I aim to use Schleiermacher to identify doctrinal articulation as persisting in a state “of motion,” thereby calling into question orthodox assertions about doctrinal truth and normativity.