There is always the potential, the logical possibility, for a person to be misunderstood or misperceived by those who are willing to make assumptions, especially if the latter only care about reinforcing or clinging to beliefs that spring from those misperceptions--or beliefs that are threatened by the truth. So many people are eager to talk in a vague, general sense about the potential for misperceptions to fuel false or unproven beliefs; almost no one is willing to become a rationalist to avoid contributing to the idiocy they selectively recognize in others. The only way to avoid false beliefs is to avoid making assumptions altogether while embracing the inherent, deep truths of logical axioms, without which nothing would be possible, true, or knowable. Since this is an enormous process that, while it is not impossible and does not have to take any long amount of time to adapt to, it is easy for rationalism and rationalists to be mistaken for selfish, arrogant people by those in the grip of delusions.
The inherent humility of not believing in what cannot be logically proven is so easily mistaken for grave arrogance by those who are too bound to their preferred assumptions to realize that seeming arrogance is not arrogance at all. To be arrogant, one must actually think more of oneself than one's metaphysical and moral status would lead one to without emotionalistic beliefs, meaning that what seems arrogant to an outsider could be completely rational and morally permissible. To believe even the smallest or most trivial irrational thing, like that looking at a door proves it actually exists as a material object outside of one's immaterial consciousness, a person must be arrogant and ignorant regarding their own epistemological limitations. Epistemological arrogance is just so secondary to the irrationality of all aasumptions that it might not be specifically contemplated at first by rationalists.
Contrarily, it might seem arrogant to non-rationalists that someone might think anything is absolutely certain or inherently true, as is the case with logical axioms. This is far deeper than the existence or nature of moral values, other minds, and God. While it is impossible to actually know if morality exists, other minds exist, and so on, it is impossible to fully escape the metaphysical and epistemological fact that deductive reasoning is true by necessity, that it is impossible for there to be no truths about anything, that contradictions cannot be true, or that one has the capacity to directly grasp and prove these facts as long as one exists as a conscious, thinking being. Anyone could ponder the very core of all truths and genuine knowledge by looking to the only self-verifying logical facts, and it is possible for anyone to reason out why a variety of beliefs are false due to internal contradiction (necessitating automatic impossibility) or why numerous ideas are unprovable or unfalsifiable.
Recognizing the inherent truth of logical axioms is only the first phase towards discovering, understanding, and holistically accepting even more precise truths about axioms and other aspects of reality. Nothing could be more foundational or philosophically important than the fact that a handful of axioms are true irregardless of what else is. It is not arrogance to discover and celebrate this absolute certainty where it can be found in the laws of logic and introspective experiences. Instead, it is objectively arrogant to think that logical axioms are false, as if one is not epistemological relying on or metaphysically governed by them whether one has ever thought about the issue at all. It is objectivelt arrogant, likewise, to think that one can know what reason has been consulted for or what is beyond human epistemological limitations (like whether memories of past events are accurate of if the past events even happened at all).
Acknowledging the depth, absolute certainty, utterly foundational and inescapable nature, and self-verifying truth--logical axioms could not be false without being true, meaning they are true by default--of logical axioms could seem like an arrogant thing to fools, yes. In truth, it is non-rationalists who are the arrogant ones, and the many aspects of this issue are not likely to be discovered or cherished by most people in a highly emotionalistic culture. Even a portion of these truths would already contradict most of the asinine beliefs that are so popular in common approaches to everything from broad epistemology to practical life. The assumptions and desire-driven delusions of non-rationalists are where the deepest form of arrogance, especially when there is denial of logical axioms. Recognizing that logical axioms are self-evidently true is only the first step of rationalism, but this basic awareness of logical axioms leads to discoveries about other issues and more appreciation for and discoveries about logical axioms, which always hinge on the fact that logical axioms are true by necessity and the foundation of all truths and possibilities.
It is only consistent rationalists who are humble in the most pervasive, universal, intentional sense. Humility is not thinking that one knows what one does not or cannot know, not exaggerating one's known metaphysical and epistemological nature, and not sinking into the delusions of emotionalism or contradiction. None of these truths are going to popular in any widespread sense unless the majority of the world population suddenly became rationalists, but they are true and vital nonetheless. This kind of rationalistic humility is often misperceived as arrogance because it disregards assumptions, undermines arbitrary societal traditions, and does not cure the subjective dissatisfaction of fools.When they think that rationalistic humility is arrogance and that philosophical delusions are expressions of humility, a person struggles in vain against reality itself.
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