Argumentative Deliberation and the Development of Intellectual Humility and Autonomy in the Classroom

Abstract

It is argued that argumentative deliberation, which involves the interpersonal exchange and evaluation of reasons and counter-reasons, is crucial for the generation of epistemic goods given that it helps us eradicate errors and neutralise biases. However, to reap argumentative deliberation’s epistemic benefits, the deliberators need to instantiate a certain intellectual character: in particular, they need to be intellectually humble and autonomous. Given that, it is argued that the educational system should foster the development of the intellectual virtues of humility and autonomy. Moreover, some pedagogical strategies and practices as to how this can be achieved in the classroom are offered.