Intellectual Arrogance as Epistemic-Superiority Wrong Attractor: Calibrated Humility Ground State, Certainty Inflation, and Return Paths Through Perspective Integration

Intellectual arrogance—the systematic overestimation of one's epistemic standing combined with dismissal of competing perspectives—is here formally reconceptualized as a wrong attractor W_IA in the landscape of epistemic functioning. The healthy ground state S^0_IA is defined as calibrated humility: accurate metacognition about the limits of one's knowledge, genuine openness to revision, and proportionate weighting of evidence regardless of source.

W_IA arises when certainty inflation creates a self-reinforcing basin: each dismissal of contrary evidence reduces the cost of future dismissals, deepens the attractor, and makes calibrated return increasingly difficult. Nine formal propositions characterize the displacement cost structure, the confirmatory processing loop, the social reinforcement dynamics, and the conditions for return.

The framework distinguishes intellectual arrogance from Dunning-Kruger incompetence and identifies expert arrogance as a distinct high-displacement variant. Return paths include structured perspective-taking, adversarial collaboration, and epistemic accountability practices.