In the philosophy of science, epistemic humility refers to a posture of scientific observation rooted in the recognition that (a) knowledge of the world is always interpreted, structured, and filtered by the observer, and that, as such, (b) scientific pronouncements must be built on the recognition of observation's inability to grasp the world in itself. The concept is frequently attributed to the traditions of German idealism, particularly the work of Immanuel Kant, and to British empiricism, including the writing of David Hume. Other histories of the concept trace its origin to the humility theory of wisdom attributed to Socrates in Plato's Apology. James Van Cleve describes the Kantian version of epistemic humility–i.e. that we have no knowledge of things in their "nonrelational respects or ‘in themselves'"–as a form of causal structuralism. More recently, the term has appeared in scholarship in postcolonial theory and critical theory to describe a subject-position of openness to other ways of 'knowing' beyond epistemologies that derive from the Western tradition.

According to philosopher of science Ian James Kidd, epistemic humility is a virtue that emerges from the recognition of the fragility of epistemic confidence–that is, of "the confidence invested in activities aimed at the acquisition, assessment, and application of knowledge and other epistemic goods." For Kidd, any given truth claim rests on three types of confidence conditions: cognitive conditions, or specialized knowledge in a particular knowledge domain; practical conditions, or the ability to perform certain actions required to ascertain the claim; and material conditions, or access to particular objects about which truth claims are made. Moreover, these confidence conditions operate on three levels: agential confidence (conditions for particular epistemic agents); collective confidence (conditions for groups of epistemic agents structured by disciplines, institutions, and other forms of community); and deep confidence (conditions for confidence rooted in 'deep' commitments, such as theories, theologies, or shared cultural inheritances). Kidd argues that the virtue of epistemic humility registers an appreciation for the complexity and contingency of this web of conditions required to make assertions, particularly scientific ones. In Kidd's words,

"Colleagues can let us down, shared epistemic practices can be abused, and institutions can be corrupted. The virtue of epistemic humility therefore builds in, at the ground level, an acute sense of the fact that epistemic confidence is conditional, complex, contingent, and therefore fragile."

For Kidd, while recognition of the fragility of epistemic confidence is a necessary component of epistemic humility, it is not sufficient. Epistemic humility emerges as a virtue only when such recognition is combined with changes to one's epistemic comportment. That is to say, epistemic humility requires a "disposition to regulate one’s epistemic conduct in the light of one’s changing fulfilment of relevant confidence conditions. A humble enquirer is disposed, that is, to actively regulate their epistemic conduct, their personal ways of engaging in epistemic activities." Epistemic humility thus entails both recognition of the fragility of epistemic confidence and regulation of one's epistemic conduct accordingly. Kidd offers several examples of how 'humble enquirers' achieve this self-regulation. He writes that

"Perhaps they take care to carefully qualify claims to reflect the degree of confidence they can justify, sharing Montaigne’s fondness for words and phrases that ‘soften and moderate’ the typical ‘rashness’ of our speech – ‘perhaps’, ‘I think’, ‘as far as I know’ (1991, 1165). Perhaps they regulate their ambitions by ensuring the epistemic projects they commit to are ones whose constituent conditions they could fulfil – aspiring to contribute to, rather than define, an area of study. Taken together, a humble enquirer is disposed to actively regulate their epistemic conduct by recognising and appropriately responding to the complex economy of confidence upon which their activities and projects rely."

Kidd's account of epistemic humility is domain-neutral and applies equally to scientific and humanistic forms of epistemic inquiry that are both simple and complex.

Philosopher Sharon Ryan ascribes the notion of epistemic humility to Socrates' conception of wisdom in Plato's Apology. In the Apology, Chaerephon asks the Oracle at Delphi whether anyone is wiser than Socrates, to which the Oracle replies in the negative. Socrates expresses surprise at the Oracle's response because he claims to know nothing. He thus conducts a series of inquiries with those whom he presumes to be wiser than himself–politicians, poets, and craftsmen–to determine the nature of wisdom. After interviewing the politicians on various topics, Socrates finds that although they claim to know a lot, in fact they know very little. Similarly, although the poets produce verse seemingly rooted in wisdom, they are unable to explain their work. Socrates therefore determines that their poetry derives from divine inspiration rather than from wisdom that they directly possess. Finally, Socrates finds that craftsmen possess some knowledge, which is more than Socrates believes that he possesses. But since he believes the Oracle must be telling the truth, Socrates concludes that the common flaw shared by all three groups is that they all assert that they know things that they do not, in fact, know. Because Socrates does not have this flaw, he concludes that wisdom consists of claiming not to know what one does not know. According to Ryan's reading of this anecdote, "[w]isdom is had by those who lack the flaw of thinking they know things that they don't know. Socrates is the only one who lacks this crucial flaw."

Ryan claims that this dictum has generally been understood to generate four 'humility principles' about the necessary and sufficient conditions for epistemic humility, depending on one's interpretation of the text. She formulates the first two humility principles as follows: