I. We're rarely sure of what we claim to know, but we don't want to admit it. We labor to discern which texts and teachers to trust. When we disagree with others, we often assume we're right, despite our nagging doubts. We argue. We blame. We hurt those we're closest to. We're vicious with those we say we love. And yet, we're convinced we're right.

A. Basing what we know or believe on our sensory perceptions and internal awareness doesn't give much warrant for confidence: our perceptions can be wrong, particularly when clouded by attempts to justify ourselves as knowers and to justify our assertions and assessments as well grounded.

B. Citing others who agree with us doesn't give much warrant for confidence, either: we tend to cite those who agree with us, while ignoring or deprecating those who don't. Even our citations are self-justifying.

C. In addressing the question "How can we rightly claim to know anything?" philosophers often speak of having warrant for what we assert (with statements that begin, "I observe/perceive that…") and what we assess (with statements that begin, "I think/conclude that…").

1. A sheriff can't go and arrest anybody; he has to have a warrant for their arrest. And to get that warrant, at least in the United States, he has to demonstrate probable cause: he has to show sufficient reason to believe that a person has committed a crime.

2. Likewise, when you or I seek warrant for a claim to know something, we're seeking probable cause. We're trying to answer, "On what grounds can I claim to know this?" Do I have sufficient reason to perceive what I'm experiencing, and to believe what I'm thinking?

II. Most of the time, we assume that we do have sufficient reason. We assume that our perceptions are reliable and our judgments sound. But how do we know we're right, especially when we've been judging someone close to us negatively?

A. Naturally, we seek both justification for ourselves as "knowers" and, also, grounds for what we claim to know. Given our inherent self-justifying tendencies (See "Awareness & Focus" in the Integral Learning Introduction), we are likely to under-estimate our capacity for self-deception and to over-estimate the reliability of our perceptions.

B. We are, thus, likely be believe our assessments are warranted, even when they may not be. This is a problem.

III. To ground our beliefs, it's important that we

A. Ensure that what we know/believe has adequate foundation: it aligns with our perceptions (i.e., our sensory perceptions and internal awareness).

B. Ensure—to the extent that who or what we are trying to understand is knowable—that what we claim to know/believe coheres: it logically "fits together."

C. Ensure that what we know/believe has external confirmation; namely, that others who are mature in intellectual virtue

1. Agree with our conclusion, and/or

2. Agree, using mutually acknowledged criteria, that we have sufficient perceptual proficiency to draw the conclusion we've drawn.

I. The need for external confirmation for our knowledge-claims is a hallmark of a theory of knowing called "virtue reliabilism."

A. According to virtue reliabilism,

1. Excellence in the intellectual virtues tends to effect reliable knowledge

2. We can get an idea of the excellence of another's intellectual virtue by observing his or her behavior.

3. We can, thus, have more warrant for our knowledge-claims to the extent that we

a. Understand and learn to evaluate intellectual virtue

b. Ensure that our knowledge-claims are shared by others of excellent intellectual virtue.

B. It's important to know that we're looking for excellence, not perfection.

1. We ought to expect excellence in the intellectual virtues on par with a person's general maturity. We can justifiably expect more from some than from others.

2. Excellence means…

a. A disposition toward growth in particular virtues, and

b. A display of maturity in meeting standards of those virtues.

D. Emphasizing excellence helps ensure that we aren't deceived by virtues another "puts on" pretentiously, rather than virtues (s)he nurtures as a way of life. An emphasis on excellence is also a crucial characteristic of communities of learning.

E. Emphasizing excellence also helps us distinguish between a person's identity (ideally defined by his or her relationship to the eternal) and a person's virtue (which he or she is ideally nurturing as a matter of discipleship and maturity).

1. If demonstrating intellectual virtues makes me "smart" or "virtuous," what does it mean when I don't demonstrate them? If my identity hinges on your assessment of my behavior, I will naturally be more motivated to hide my struggles, rather than to face and overcome them with your help. Every learner has this natural tendency.

2. If you assess me based on criteria you have determined without regard to my general maturity, and especially if you seem offended by my struggles, I will naturally feel you expect too much, or that you are more concerned about how my behavior may negatively reflect on you than on who I am becoming as a person. Naturally, I'll either cut back the productive risks I take around you—refusing to try for fear of failure—or I'll redouble my efforts to gain your approval. In either case, my ability to demonstrate excellence will suffer—as will any learner's when faced with unreasonable expectations.

I. Though our beliefs become more warranted to the degree they are shared by others of excellent intellectual virtue, our beliefs may still be wrong, even when others of excellent intellectual virtue agree with us. Establishing warrant justifies confidence we have in our beliefs—it justifies our claim to know, but it doesn't make us right as claimants. When others of excellent intellectual virtue agree with us, we can be more confident of our beliefs than when we try to be "Lone Rangers of learning," or when we seek, as allies for our assessments or assertions, those whose intellectual virtues we haven't yet evaluated.

A. In recognizing the need to consider intellectual virtue, we haven't simply pushed the burden of confirming our knowledge-claims back one step. (It could be argued that we can be no more sure of another's intellectual virtue than we can, already, be sure of anything else we perceive; that virtue reliabilism merely complicates the process of determining how warranted our knowledge-claims really are; and that evaluating others' virtue is an added, unnecessary step.) In fact, in what amounts to a saving grace of virtue reliabilism, the same people who agree with whatever assertions or assessments we're trying to clarify or defend will on occasion disagree with us, sometimes vociferously. In the time it takes us to discern the excellence of another's intellectual virtues, we will likely have found some areas of disagreement.

1. Our belief in certain criteria for discerning virtue is warranted by analogy of experience—when we have experienced ourselves with these virtues, our conclusions have been more reliable, and our relationships have benefitted. When we have experienced ourselves lacking some of these virtues, our conclusions have been less reliable, and our relationships have suffered.

2. Our tendency to inflate the virtues of those whom we know, in advance, agree with us is checked by our primary and secondary self-justifications.

a. Primarily, we want to be better than others. We are, thus, predisposed to evaluate others as less virtuous than ourselves.

b. Secondarily, others will very likely disagree with us during the time it takes us to confirm the intellectual virtues we think we see in them, and on those occasions, we naturally under-estimate the presence of intellectual virtue in their lives. When we disagree, we naturally denigrate the opinions and virtues of the other (if only to ourselves) to justify our knowledge-claims and ourselves as knowers. This vice actually helps offset our tendency to inflate our esteem of the other's virtues during moments they agree with us.

3. There is significantly more agreement over what is virtuous or right than over particular positions. (Click here to explore moral ramifications of this observation.) This agreement bolsters our confidence in the relevance of virtue to a plethora of knowledge-claims.

B. Disagreement can be a problem for claims to knowledge. (How can we have any degree of surety when others, apparently living in the same world we do, with the same sensory apparatuses, don't reach the same conclusions we do?) This problem is the Achilles' heel of a long-held theory of knowledge called "foundationalism," which seeks warrant for our knowledge-claims primarily in our perceptions, and this problem can't be easily shaken.

1. It's certainly not solved by merely noting how well one's beliefs logically fit together—since they may cohere and, nevertheless, be disconnected from reality.

2. It can be solved, however, when we consider others' intellectual virtues—which they possess as people, irrespective of the issues under discussion. In doing so, we can turn this weakness of foundationalism into a substantial strength, allowing us to maintain: our assertions and assessments become more warranted to the degree they are shared by those with excellent intellectual virtues. Even more: in general, our assertions and assessments become more warranted to the degree they are shared by those whom we assess as having excellent intellectual virtue.

I.Because excellence in intellectual virtues tends to effect reliable knowledge, and because we can get an idea of the excellence of another's intellectual virtue by observing his or her behavior, our beliefs become more warranted to the degree they are shared by others with excellent intellectual virtues. But what about beliefs we don't actually share with others? What about beliefs we keep to ourselves?

II. We don't form or test all of our beliefs in community.

A. Each of us holds many beliefs that we simply do not know if others share.

B. I may assert that the temperature in the room where I'm writing exceeds 40° Fahrenheit, and I may likewise maintain (as I do) that this belief is warranted without any reference to others sharing it or not. The room feels about 70° F to me. My hands are sweating a bit, and not because I'm nervous or ill. At the time I'm writing this, I'm quite comfortable in a short-sleeved shirt. I have concluded, with no doubt, that the temperature in this room is above 40° F.

III. I can have warrant even for beliefs I have not formed in community:

A'. If I can discern the relative complexity of whatever perceptions would be necessary to support my assessment,

B'. If I can, remembering others' feedback, know my relative proficiency in perceiving things of this sensory modality (in this case, awareness of temperature) and complexity (in this case, not very complex), and

C'. If I can determine that my relative proficiency is sufficient to make this assessment without consulting another whose intellectual virtue I trust.

IV. This is not as easy, however, as it may seem.

A. Assuming I can discern the relative complexity of whatever perceptions would be necessary to support my assessment, knowing B' may be sufficient to discourage me from trusting certain perceptions: if I have received near universal feedback of my ineptitude in particular areas, I would be unwarranted in believing my perceptions in those areas without the input of others.

B. However (again assuming I can discern the relative complexity of whatever perceptions would be necessary to support my belief), knowing B' can only encourage me to trust my perceptions if I know that valid criteria are being used to gauge my proficiency. This means that I must know, explicitly:

1. What abilities are required to have perceptual proficiency, and

2. What criteria we can use to evaluate the relative presence or absence of those abilities.

At least a loosely shared understanding of 1 and 2 is thus essential for providing warrant to private beliefs.

V. The Integral Learning™ model proposes abilities someone must have to be considered "perceptually proficient." It lays groundwork for agreeing on criteria to assess these abilities. It correlates these abilities with levels of complexity in what's perceived; it correlates each level of complexity with a foundational sense; and it pairs abilities with three intellectual virtues and three feeling-cycles of vice per level of complexity.

A. You can read about the eighteen emotional feedback loops in the Integral Learning Introduction.

B. You can read about four of the ability pairs and associated intellectual virtues of the Integral Learning™ model here.

C. You can read about foundational senses and see the Integral Learning™ model on Integral Learning, Page 4.