Intellectual honesty

I chanced upon this phrase "intelletual honesty" while reading, of all things, a movie review, and was immediately capttivated by a word whose meaning I have absolutely no inkling of. I like "intellectual" and "honesty" as concepts on their own, and I figured that with the two combined together into a separate and absolutely different thing altogether, although I had no idea what it was yet, I liked it already.

Intellectual honesty apparently is an attribute of a good argument. It requires one to be always, constantly and relentlessly questioning's one own assumptions. It requries totally honesty and admitting the weaknesses behind one's arguments, and answering questionings of our beliefs and assumptions without waffling and hiding behind a concoction of truisms and argument fallacies, as well as taking umbrage and offense at every little thing that doesn't agree with one's presuppositions.

Much as I like to believe in the damn thing, complete intellectual honesty can hardly exists since one can hardly entirely master one's own presuppositions. Even if that's possible, we can hardly even be aware of all our presuppositions; we usually overrate our estimations of ourselves don't we?

Still, I like the idea of being intellectually honest. I may not have the intellectual capacity to cogitate and reason and rationalise rigorously and relentlessly, but it is still something I want to work towards. Because I don't think intellectual honesty is an indulgence. It is necessary in one's search for honest truth.