Intellectual humility is a fancy way of saying “I don’t know”
I’m lucky to be part of an intergenerational program at work that hosts regular dinners for faculty and students. We are assigned a reading beforehand that becomes the basis for what are always wide-ranging and enlightening conversations. The relationships that are forming around these tables (and across the campus) make me love a job I already loved even more.
At our last dinner, the eight of us at my table (four faculty and four students) spent a lot of time talking about intellectual humility, or the surprising power of saying “I don’t know.” In my philosophy classes, this is a comfortable and familiar stance for my students and me. Our discussions are always richer when we approach the topic at hand with a willingness to toss around ideas and perspectives and questions to see what bubbles up. I hope my students are learning at least as much as I am from these conversations.
I was curious as to whether this same type of intellectual humility had a place in the engineering and nursing courses that the other faculty taught. In my imagination, it could be harder to say “I don’t know” when a topic is less subjective than in my classes. It turns out that approaching these topics with an attitude of “let’s find out together” creates a dynamic and interesting experience for these professors and their students as well.
Saying “I don’t know” can take some courage
Things shifted when the students at our table began to share. They each confessed that it takes real courage to admit that they don’t know – and that they’re reluctant to do so. They each study in different departments, but all felt a sense of competition – for internships, jobs, rankings, spots in graduate programs, etc. – that undermined the bravery they felt was necessary to enter into a discussion with the intellectual humility we were discussing.
This pressure to know that they were describing sounds exhausting. I wish from the depths of my soul that it were different for them, but I can also see where they’re coming from. I can remember feeling the same way in my first corporate job where every one of my colleagues was almost twice my age and had a veritable lifetime of business experience. I even remember feeling a pressure to know the answers or to already be able to do the postures in yoga workshops as I trained to become a teacher.
A role model can help you find the courage you need to not know
But these same workshops were also some of the first places where I dared to take intellectual humility for a test drive. After all, I had teachers who had been practicing for decades who still claimed to be fine-tuning their downward facing dogs, a posture most of us are taught in our very first yoga class. If they, who knew so much, were still learning, who was I to claim I had it all figured out? And so, thanks in large part to them, my comfort with not knowing took root.
Knowing that you don’t know is a superpower
The idea that even though you may know a lot, there is always more to learn makes perfect sense to me. In fact, I could make a case that being confident in the fact that you don’t know is a superpower rather than a weakness. When you go into a class or a workshop or a conversation knowing that it’s likely that you do not know everything you need to know, you are open. You are curious. You are asking questions and wondering about the answers.
These are qualities of people that other people want to spend time with. They are also qualities that allow us to take the most pleasure from every life experience. I, for one, hope to be learning and growing for the rest of my life because it’s fun! That’s simply not going to be possible if I’m walking around thinking (or pretending) that I already know everything I need to know.
The intergenerational dinner conversation that I had the other night left me thinking about the power of not knowing. I hope that it stirred similar thoughts among the students at our table. I pray that it won’t take them as long as it took me to embrace the superpower of saying, “I don’t know, but let’s find out together.” Being able to do so is profoundly freeing. Plus life is simply more fun when you’re learning,
In the Yoga Sutras, Patanjali lists five causes of human suffering (the kleshas) that entangle every one of us. The foundational one is avidya or misunderstanding (YS 1.4). Given that, it’s not surprising that this is also the state of mind that we humans experience the most. Rather than making us feel cruddy, accepting that we probably don’t understand can be a superpower. If we go into every single exchange knowing for sure that we don’t know, we are going to be open and curious. This will make us great conversationalists, great students and great teammates who do not suffer from misunderstanding but instead thrill at the chance it offers to keep learning.