The Duty of Intellectual Honesty

Sor Juana's relentless pursuit of truth required her to interrogate her own position—a nun, a woman, an intellectual in a hierarchical colonial system. Intellectual honesty means admitting when privilege has insulated us from certain truths or granted us unearned credibility. This concept demands that those with educational, social, or institutional advantages examine how their privilege shaped their access to knowledge and their ability to be heard. It transforms the recognition of privilege from passive acknowledgment into active practice: questioning sources, attributing ideas fairly, and resisting the temptation to claim authority we haven't earned. For the Periagoge practitioner, this means building intellectual integrity into every claim and conversation.