that the more bizarre an idea appears in relation to the accepted common beliefs of the
day the less likely that idea will be taken seriously except by those with credulous
tendencies. Of course, this gives us a serious problem if we are to remain open-minded
for it seems we need some way of assessing the legitimacy of all evidence and argument
before we can come to a view about anything.
Aiming for open-mindedness
Honest enquiry* requires open-mindedness and this is the case regardless of whether or
not open-mindedness is considered as a virtue. As a virtue, of course, open-mindedness
is a disposition rather than some form of obligation; having the virtue one is inclined
rather than disinclined to be open-minded. The necessity of being able to know whether
or not one should attend to or reject specific evidence or argument is of pressing
concern if we are to avoid either of the two failures of open-mindedness outlined above.
Although he does not express it in this way, this difficulty does seem to be part of the
problem to which Gardner alerts us. In Aristotelian terms it is the problem of hitting the
mean in pursuit of the virtue of open-mindedness. In aiming for open-mindedness we
aim to avoid the vices of both closed-mindedness and credulousness. This is never
going to be an easy task as the history of science tells us for the acceptance of novel
ideas is often made more difficult by entrenched positions held by powerful or
influential persons or institutions2. And in the so-called information age, when
information is both freely available and of an almost infinite amount, this problem of
assessing the legitimacy of evidence is exponentially more difficult. Bernard Williams
points out that when there is so much information, and when so much of it comes to us
from unregulated sources, there is a pressing need for those who wish to make informed
judgments about the validity of information to acquire some very specific searching and
retrieval skills, as well as the need to engage in what he calls “.. .processes that are
truth-acquiring ... such things as careful argument, attention to empirical inquiry, sifting
of evidence, and so on” (Williams 2002 p. 214). Those who do not know how to sort the
wheat from the chaff will forever be at the mercy of their own arbitrary choices of
information sources and consequently are very likely to fall into the traps of either
closed-mindedness or credulousness, or both. For Williams, the university remains our
best chance of avoiding these two vices, but only for as long as the university can
remain true to the goals of honest enquiry.
1 By honest enquiry here I refer to enquiry in the purest sense as the pursuit of truth.
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