Intellectual
Perseverance
According
to Nathan King, Professor of
Philosophy at Whitworth University, intellectual perseverance is made up five
key concepts: 1) Perseverance requires that we be disposed to spend an
appropriate amount of time on our intellectual projects, 2) Perseverance
requires that we be disposed to exert serious effort in our intellectual
activities, 3) Perseverance requires a disposition to seek to overcome
obstacles to achieving the goals of our intellectual pursuits, 4) Perseverance
requires that the goals of our intellectual pursuits be intellectual goods like
true belief, reasonable belief, and knowledge, and 5) Perseverance is a mean
between the vices of irresolution (a deficiency) and intransigence (an excess)
(King, 2014). This elements align closely with the summation of intellectual
perseverance proposed by The Critical Thinking Community, which focuses
primarily on the ability think steadfastly with a clear mind and with rational,
consistency in implementing strategies, to hold arguments (regardless of where
or how they originate) to scrupulous standards, and when discrepancies are
apparent, address them accordingly and without bias.
For students, I feel that
intellectual perseverance is important in that it helps us think objectively
better identify fallacies and unreliable sources of data in our respective
research; this is not only important because it helps to reduce the chance of
plagiarism, but also better reinforces the quality and professionalism – and
thereby applicability – of our submitted research. Through examining our own
beliefs, we can better understand ourselves and detect bias or inconsistencies
on our research process, which can greatly impact the reliability of our
finished products if we are not careful. By consistently adhering to proven
methods of gathering data, we also can lessen the chance of getting skewed
results in analysis. Upholding adequate standards of evidence is particularly
important when engaging in arguments as well, as it upholds the integrity of a
debate and raises the chance of coming to a conclusion that is both solid and
relevant and can be directly applied to the issue in question.
For leaders, intellectual integrity
is no less important. Leaders are normally held to impeccable standards, and
are expected to exercise good judgment in the face of important issues. What
might be helpful when considering the value of intellectual integrity is
examining leaders in which it was wholly absent; despots such as Stalin and
Mussolini, powerful and influential as they were, lacked some of the fundamental
positive characteristics that many successful leaders exhibited, such as
addressing national issues with a moral code of conduct in mind – to simply
aggressively pursue absolute truth without considering the implications of the
methods being used can result in a scenario where the ends in no way justify
the means. For example, throughout his tenure in totalitarian Nazi Germany,
Hitler implemented policies that were both highly efficient and effective, but
morally reprehensible, attesting to the fact that (in Hitler’s case) blind or
grossly misguided perseverance without considering the morality of the
strategies and methods applied can ultimately be extremely counter-productive
and harmful.
Reference
King, N. (2014). Winners never quit
(except when they do): Reflections on intellectual perseverance. Biola
University. Retrieved from http://cct.biola.edu/blog/2014/sep/29/winners-never-quit/
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