Abstract
Have you ever been overcome with a profound feeling of humility? Perhaps this moment was unexpected or surprising, giving itself as an insight, reverence, or awe. You feel humbled. But now it seems that this feeling itself has strangely turned into some kind of opening, a sensibility, a method even. For a text, we may consider humility as a quality, recognizing it goes beyond the pairing of author and reader. The focus of this article is to explore humility as a method for qualitative inquiry that moves the temporal moment of writing to the meaningful core of a textorium.
Humility is the solid foundation for all virtues. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less. Humility is attentive patience.
It has been said that humility is practiced with silence. If someone is a humble person, they listen rather than talk. When they do speak, they are authentic and sincere with their words, often asking others for their perspectives as they make no claim to knowing everything. Humility may be understood as a way of being and of relating to others; and as a sign of maturity, humility may be regarded as a virtue. Do we not all aspire to humility? And yet, how many actually achieve it?
The earliest known use of the word “humility” is in the Middle English period from around 1315, expressing the “quality of being humble” from Old French
From a position of humility, we may recognize the limits of our own knowledge affected by the lives we have lived, our bodily forms and capabilities, the experiences that have been formative of who we are. As a contemporary value, humility is embedded in notions of diversity, equity, and inclusion. In comparison, if we look back, we may recognize that the theme of humility as running through the work of major European philosophers, without necessarily being labeled as such (Holland, 2013, p. 132). As a quality, we readily ascribe it to an individual and/or their actions. But we may also consider humility methodologically, and how humility as a method for hermeneutic phenomenological research moves the temporal moment of writing to the meaningful core of a textorium.
There is, of course, more to a text than a passage of words that conveys a set of meanings. We cannot attribute the experiential meaning of a text solely to its composition, let alone its reading. As such, if we want to consider textual humility as a phenomenon we need to go beyond the pairing of author and reader in our questioning. So, let us ask: How does humility appear and show itself in a text? What does it mean when a text expresses an invitational openness? As the writing of a text moves from description to interpretation, how does the epoché of space sponsor creative serendipity and poetic inventiveness of phenomenological meaning?
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The wolf as an animal was not chosen by chance. As a figure of sacred Indigenous teachings, he bows his head in the presence of others out of deference, and when successful in hunting, he will not take of the food until it can be shared with the pack. The wolf’s lack of arrogance and his obvious respect for his community is a lesson in humility. This grandfather teaching shows how it is often easier to communicate, reflect on, or otherwise think of behaviors that exemplify a phenomenon than the experiential sense of something in and of itself.
Now, you would be lucky to ever see a wolf in the wild, even if you reside near their habitat. I often hear from neighbors that they thought they saw a wolf coming up from the river valley near our home; but what they undoubtedly saw was a coyote. A wolf has a much bigger build with rounded features (blockier snout and curvier ears) and a distinctive tail (bushier and shorter). It is said, if you think you saw a wolf out walking in the darkness of night, it was probably a coyote. In comparison, if you think you saw the flash of a large moose out of the corner of your eye, it was likely a wolf.
This is how the wolf first appears to Dunbar in Blake’s text: As the sun rose steadily behind him, Dunbar found himself stuck in the chilly shade of the hut, so he refilled his cup and moved the camp chair into the direct sunlight of the yard. He was just sitting down when he saw the wolf. It was standing on the bluff opposite the fort, just across the river. The lieutenant’s first instinct was to frighten it off with a round or two, but the longer he watched his visitor, the less sense this made. Even at a distance he could tell that the animal was merely curious. And in some hidden way that never quite bubbled to the surface of his thoughts, he was glad for this little bit of company. Cisco [Dunbar’s horse] snorted over in the corral, and the lieutenant jerked to attention. He had forgotten all about his horse. On his way to the supply house he glanced over his shoulder and saw that his early morning visitor had turned tail and was disappearing below the horizon beyond the bluff. (Blake, 1988 pp. 25–26)
Can we imagine such an encounter? Engaged in our morning routine, we unexpectedly see a large creature starring at us. In reaction, perhaps we would simply keep still, frozen in response, as if our body cannot decide on what action to take. Or, perhaps, if we were armed with a gun, we would hurriedly raise it and fire without hesitation. Then again, with or without a weapon, we may turn and run. Such responses seem instinctual, as actions lacking in thought. But for Dunbar, something else happens in his watching beyond fight-or-flight. Something comes over him, or perhaps it would be better to say that something is shed away, whereby his instinctual response is realized not to be warranted. What is happening here? Is this a moment of humility?
While we may think of humility as in the sense of character (being humble, self-deferent, or even pious), 2 my feeling is that in this moment of Dunbar seeing the wolf, we are not born witness to humility as some attribute, trait, or virtue. Instead, we witness humility as an event, an opening for thought and reflection, whereby instinct itself is displaced. It is as if humility both permits a response and is a response. And yet, as Dunbar realizes that to fire his gun would lack sense, I cannot help but wonder whether the phrase “merely curious” is quite right. For if the reader reads “merely curious” as unimportant interest or simply paltriness, then I worry whether they will experience the humble humility that can be found deeper in the text. In other words, perhaps we should recognize that to describe the wolf as curious is significant because it expresses an understanding of it as another being. And so, Blake may write in a tentative tone, “in some hidden way that never quite bubbled to the surface of his thoughts, he was glad for this little bit of company.” Still, Dunbar seems to experience something of whom or what he cannot fully understand. The text is vague, and yet perhaps necessarily so.
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The movie shows Dunbar’s first encounter with the wolf differently than the book tells it. In the film, Dunbar does not narrate the animal as “merely curious” nor otherwise offer words to shape our understanding of the moment. Instead, he is speechless as he slowly raises his gun to sight the wolf. And, as he does, we are focused on Dunbar’s furrowed brow and determined gaze. We see the wolf come into view and then the camera pans back to Dunbar’s face. It is then, for the briefest of moments, that we may suspect that Dunbar is touched by the otherness of the wolf. His expression changes from one of focus to one of revelation: he momentarily lowers the gun. Almost appearing puzzled, he again raises the gun, to take aim at the wolf. However, with the wolf’s face in view, he seems unable to complete the action, let alone pull the trigger. He surrenders to watching the wolf as it turns to run away. While psychologically we could say that we witness an internal struggle externalized on his face, phenomenologically there is more to this experience.
Here, I am primarily interested in the meaning of humility as it arises in experience, before we conceptualize, theorize, or otherwise abstract it. And while I appreciate other phenomena are shown in this moment—surprise, confusion, resolve, and maybe even sublimity—I wonder whether we can consider Dunbar’s experience as one of humility, one in which his immediate reactions are suspended as he experiences something that he recognizes as unknowable, enigmatic, or perhaps even transcendent. Perhaps, we can imagine that in this moment of humility, Dunbar is drawn to wonder.
What do we really know about the being of this being that we name wolf? Is the animal curious? And yet, is curious the right word to describe our experience of it, as it seems to regard us as foreign, different, or otherwise unexpected in its territory? How does the wolf see us relative to other things and other beings it encounters in its daily life? Does experiential meaning arise in this moment for it? More generally, it would seem that in our living alongside other creatures, animal beings, we readily apply our human vocabulary to their intentions despite knowing that their subjective realities may differ from our own. But when we encounter the wolf, the fox, the bird, or any other creature, what do we really know of their being in the world? How do they see us? Are we forever destined to be existentially distant as their observers and they observers of us? What subjectivities exist beyond our own?
We could contend that humility affects an eventual space for wonder. And yet, this space is not formed from a deliberate, intentional bracketing of personal biases, beliefs, and so forth. It is not about
This absence of self, whereby we are drawn into a disposition of wonder is telling of the ethics of an encounter as not conceived as face-to-face, but rather one only of face.
A face . . . Stripped of its very form, a face is paralyzed in its nudity. It is a distress. The nudity of a face is a denuding and already a supplication in the straightforwardness that aims at me. But this supplication is an exigency; in it humility is joined with height. The ethical dimension of visitation is thereby indicated. (Levinas, 1972/1987, p. 96)
Can we recognize in the wolf, a Levinasian face, engaging Dunbar in a selfless reflection? Can we recognize that in this moment that Dunbar’s very subjectivity is placed in reserve? That in this moment of humility, all he sees is the wolf and yet cannot quite see it in a manner other than being exposed to its gaze?
At this point, we may be reminded that
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Let us return to the story, They weren’t twenty yards from the corral when he saw the wolf again. It was staring from the spot it had occupied the day before, on the edge of the bluff just across the river. The wolf had begun to move, but when he saw Cisco come to a halt, he froze, stepped deliberately back into his original position, and resumed staring at the lieutenant. Dunbar stared back with more interest than he had the day before. It was the same wolf, all right, two white socks on the front paws. He was big and sturdy, but something about him gave Dunbar the impression he was past his prime. His coat was scruffy, and the lieutenant thought he could see a jagged line along the muzzle, most likely an old scar. There was an alertness about him that signified age. He seemed to watch everything without moving a muscle. Wisdom was the word that came to the lieutenant’s mind. Wisdom was the bonus of surviving many years, and the tawny old fellow with the watchful eyes had survived more than his fair share. Funny he’s come back again, Lieutenant Dunbar thought. He pushed forward slightly and Cisco stepped ahead. As he did, Dunbar’s eye picked up movement and he glanced across the river. The wolf was moving, too. In fact, he was keeping pace. This went on for a hundred yards before the lieutenant asked Cisco to stop again. The wolf stopped, too. On impulse, the lieutenant wheeled Cisco a quarter turn and faced across the chasm. Now he was staring straight into the wolf’s eyes, and the lieutenant felt certain he could read something there. Something like longing. He was beginning to think about what the longing might be when the wolf yawned and moved away. He kicked himself into a trot and disappeared. (Blake, 1988, pp. 41–42)
At this point in the story, Dunbar remains alone at Fort Sedgewick, save for the presence of his horse Cisco. And yet, it is a very different encounter. It is as if Dunbar is studying the wolf’s features to surmise not only its age, but also its past. And perhaps, in this moment, the wolf is studying Dunbar too. Following this meeting, Dunbar describes the wolf as the only visitor he has had. And as a visitor, we can understand how the texture of this encounter expresses not only a physical distance, but also an existential one. Dunbar seems to see the wolf as a stranger, a someone, rather than a something. The wolf’s behavior, movements, and, of course, its face express something which he names as “Something like longing.” Dunbar recognizes this is an interpretation, as he thinks on what this might be like for the wolf.
Phenomenologically, perhaps it is correct to say that Dunbar sees his own longing in this moment as a wanting for companionship. After all, Dunbar has been without human contact for quite some time. And, therefore, what he sees in the wolf is something of himself. But my sense is that this interpretation may not be quite right. Perhaps, rather than seeing himself in the wolf, he experiences the touch of the wolf’s longing gaze. This is an important phenomenological distinction: humility as the affect of this response.
My sense is that we can make an observation at this point on the presentation of the text. Consider how “something like longing” expresses an orientation to the wolf in a very different manner than the earlier interpretation of “merely curious.” The “something like” seems to qualify the sense of the word “longing” as indeterminate, giving a constellation of meanings. In a way, the author has implicitly rejected longing as a concept and kept its semantic meaning, perhaps even concentrated and intensified its meaning, such that we are drawn to “longing” in a way we cannot quite grasp but are still touched by it. This is not simply an artifact of writing, whereby an author uses a hedge or some other linguistic device to tentatively limit their commitment to the truth of a proposition (Klimova, 2014). Instead, this textuality expresses an attitude of humility toward the being of the wolf as a being that resists determination. We can say that this orientation toward indeterminateness approximates the givenness of experience in its incompleteness.
How can any thing ever really and truly (Merleau-Ponty, 1945/1962, p. 385)
Merleau-Ponty’s questioning recognizes how our everyday perceptions of life, even of something as banal as a stone, are afforded by a texture of incompleteness. Life, after all, does not artificially offer single, unitary perceptions. Following, we may think of Umberto Eco (1962/1989) who shows that for a text to resonate with the sensibilities of the reader it needs to be written with an openness whereby an encounter with it affords varied interpretations of it (p. 3). In his writing, Eco develops the notion of an open text as one that allows multiple or mediated interpretations by the reader; the writing of an open work is composed so it can be read in a manifold of ways as a “work in progress” (Eco, 1962/1989, p. 23).
While all texts can be said to be open to different interpretations, it is often those texts which have a character of incompleteness, ambiguity, or elusive meaning that express humility. This does not mean that an author should be purposefully indefinite but rather necessarily so when the phenomenon calls for it.
A phenomenological text does not primarily communicate information, more importantly it also aims to address or evoke forms of meaning that are more expressive, elusive, or ambiguous, but that cannot be easily told in propositional discourse.(van Manen 2023, p. 115)
Following, we may appreciate how a text which expresses humility resists both a subjectivizing and objectifying gaze as it expresses the fundamental ambiguity of human experience (de Beauvoir, 1947/1948, p. 8). The openness of humility is not an acknowledgment. An author can humbly acknowledge their positionality—those social, geographic, and intellectual spaces that they hold as a consequence of gender, class, race/ethnicity, age, sexuality, and other social constructions (see, for example, Finley, 2008, p. 98)—without writing with humility. In the same, but different way, we can think of lofty or even arrogant political leaders who while being conscious of their own importance, speak or otherwise address others with humility. And, of course, there are some political leaders who seem to utterly lack humility.
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It is worth acknowledging that we are attending to Blake’s text in the English language in which it was written. We may wonder how different would the meaning have been expressed if the story was told in a different registrar. It is not just structurally that languages differ related to their component parts (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics); every language has its own texture, understandings, meanings. Some of such differences relate to phonological, grammatical, and vocabulary considerations. Others relate to how history and culture itself impregnates language just as language is formative of culture. For example, the Inuktitut show reverence for the land by attributing their “belonging” to it. Their language is rich with this sense that we (humans) are not owners, relative to how possessive markers tend to be used in other languages. In comparison, we have expressions such as the “promised land” or “my land lives in me” in Palestine that reflect the troubled history of the peoples residing and displaced from “their” land. We may also note that a number of languages have highly structured forms to express respectfulness. For example, Japanese has a system of honorific speech, referred to as
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Over time, Dunbar describes how the wolf becomes a habit, appearing at “his customary spot on the bluff each afternoon” (p. 44), to the point that Dunbar names him Two Socks. In his naming, we appreciate the relationship has changed to one of familiarity. However, we may note that Dunbar still cannot imagine Two Socks as “anything but a wolf.” (p. 46). And it is only subsequently, when he gains the company of the Comanche people that “He was no longer alone.” (p. 117). In other words, the relationship with the wolf is marked by alterity, difference, and otherness that cannot be reduced to companionship even with the passage of time.
Psychologically, we may wonder whether this is a condition of humility: Two Socks never becomes Dunbar’s wolf let alone his companion. Even though the physical distance with the wolf kept shrinking as their familiarity grows, the wolf is never reduced to the condition of a dog—as a “man’s best friend.” Instead, Dunbar encounters the wolf as a familiar visitor in a relationship of respect: “The wolf had been his first real contact, and the lieutenant was always glad to see him. Their silent time together was something he cherished.” (p. 212). We appreciate that humility seems almost expressive of deference, regard, or value. It is the attitude of humility that lets the wolf be seen as a wolf.
Here, we may recognize humility as an affect of the phenomenological attitude, preserving a distance yet nonetheless expressive of drawing us closer to meaning. Consider a passage from Heidegger’s essay “On the essence of truth”: Ordinarily we speak of letting be whenever, for example, we forgo some enterprise that has been planned. “We let something be” means we do not touch it again, we have nothing more to do with it. To let something be has here the negative sense of letting it alone, of renouncing it, of indifference and even neglect. However, the phrase required now—to let beings be—does not refer to neglect and indifference but rather the opposite. To let be is to engage oneself with beings. On the other hand, to be sure, this is not to be understood only as the mere management, preservation, tending, and planning of the beings in each case encountered or sought out. To let be—that is, to let beings be as the beings which they are—means to engage oneself with the open region and its openness into which every being comes to stand, bringing that openness, as it were, along with itself. Western thinking in its beginning conceived this open region as τἀ ἀλήθεια [the alethea], the unconcealed.(Heidegger, 1930/1998, p. 144)
While Heidegger does not write directly on humility, and he should not be considered as an idol of humility, we nonetheless may recognize humility in his writing (see Holland, 2013): “that is, to let beings be as the being which they are” (Heidegger, 1930/1998, p. 144). Is this not a call for humility?
Now, it is worth recognizing that the aim of “On the essence of truth” was to draw out a primordial understanding of truth as the “unhiddenness of being” from our usual understanding of truth as the correctness of propositions, verifiable observations, or other matters relating to correspondences and accordances. For Heidegger, truth is a condition for experience, permitting beings to be what they are. As such, this “letting be” is expressive of an active engagement with beings with the disclosedness their being: “such engagement withdraws in the face of beings in order that they might reveal themselves with respect to what and how they are and in order that presentative correspondence might take its standard from them” (Heidegger, 1930/1998, p. 145).
Elsewhere, Heidegger provides a contrast, “What we usually call ‘knowing’ is being acquainted with something and its qualities . . . Such ‘knowledge’ seizes the being, ‘dominates’ it, and thereby goes beyond it and constantly surpasses it.” (Heidegger, 1982/1992, p. 3). We may read seizing, dominating, or even going beyond as antithetical to humility in its groundedness, solicitude, and openness. Here, following Heidegger, we can say that humility calls for a letting of beings be. And yet the relationship of language to being is complex: with language we risk what we aspire to put into words rather than revealing its being. As such the writing demands a method (see, for example, van Manen, 1997, 2023). And for phenomenological texts this is the attitude of wonder (see van Manen & van Manen, 2020).
Only if we become truly humble is the scent awakened for what is great, and only if this occurs do we become capable of wonder. Wonder is, however, the overcoming of the self-evident.(Heidegger, 1981/1995, p. 69)
The self-evident here should not be taken as something we dismiss; but rather that which may veil meaning in its meaningfulness. Such meaning is the source of wonder expressed in humility: “For questioning is the piety of thought” (Heidegger, 1954/1977, p. 35). Piety is meant here as to “submitting to what thinking has to think about.” (Heidegger, 1954/1977, pp. xxxviii–xxxix).
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Late in
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I have tried to show humility through the retelling and reflecting on a grounding narrative of
In considering humility, we may be reminded of
It is imperative that we do not reduce all phenomenological writing as necessarily composed of and composed with humility. There can be value in writing that provokes, protests, or otherwise exerts force. In comparison, other writing may support the development of solid argument or, conversely, wild speculation. And yet, for those engaging in phenomenological work oriented to exploring the life and/or lived experiences of others, does such a text not need to be tempered by humility? Does text which is lacking not succumb to inveighing against a space for otherness? Is this not a theme for human science scholarship?
Perhaps it is those humble scholars that we heed most intention toward: those who are contemplative, sensitive, thoughtful, or even wise. Often, it is in their texts that words are chosen carefully, perhaps even one at a time. We can imagine how such texts are deliberately crafted in a questioning manner that not only resist unsubstantiated claims but also are written in such a way that the text itself is not authoritative. Perhaps, indeed, such authors’ writing can be said to reflect an ethics, whereby the author grants not only the reader respect, but also the phenomenon being studied with humility. When we consider the political discourse of the world, we may wonder whether what we need is more humility. A world without humility reduces the words of another to our own, which is reductive to the ethical demand inherent in a qualitative inquiry oriented to the life worlds of others.
What does this mean for a text? Can we imagine a text that encounters the world as other? In other words, the text itself is the epitome of humility, such that what we encounter in the reading is experientially not “our” encounter with the text, but instead a pure selfless encounter where we wonder about otherness? On one hand, perhaps this is too ambitious: too much to expect from a text, or too much to expect from ourselves? On the other hand, do we not recognize those texts where the author’s voice may become silent as if they leave the reader to freely to engage in their work. We only hear that to which the writing orients. In this way, we may not encounter the author so much as the text. And yet, we cannot possess the text, take hold of the text, as if it is our own. Instead, we can only encounter the text. And any form of reflection, epiphany, revelation, or other transformation of the self occurs late to an original encountering. It is in this lateness that we can locate the self-questioning, or perhaps better said a preparedness for self-questioning, at the heart of humility. Now, the question is whether we can recognize the possibility for a text expressive of such an event? Can we consider textual humility as describing the opportunity for a text to offer the reader such an experience? Is it possible that a text is the space for encountering a phenomenon? How is the lived meaning of such encounter put into words? Does the text tell or show? What is the character of the text?
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
