Intellectual Maturity

One mark of intellectual maturity  is the ability to tolerate uncertainty, the ability to withhold assent, the ability to withstand contradiction and recognize the merit of opposing views – all of this without lapsing into skepticism or relativism.  The intellectually immature, by contrast, bristle when their pieties and subjective certainties are called into question.  Their doxastic security needs trump their need to inquire into the truth.