Intellectual Humility
Recognizing the limits of one's knowledge is essential to truthfulness.
True truthfulness includes acknowledging what one doesn't know. Claiming certainty beyond one's knowledge is a form of falsehood. Intellectual humility honors the complexity of reality.
The wise person says 'I do not know' when they do not know.
Acknowledging ignorance is a form of truthfulness.
Jain Knowledge Theory
Written about in
- What Jainism says about doubt
Jainism files "I do not know" under truthfulness rather than weakness: claiming certainty beyond your actual knowledge counts as a form of falsehood, and so breaks the vow of satya. Doubt, in this tradition, is what honesty feels like from the inside.