ABSTRACT
This chapter explores perceptual fallibility as an obstacle to open-mindedness and recommends the use of narratives as a curricular tool for grappling with it. It opens with contemporary conceptions of open-mindedness, followed by a conceptual development of genuine openness. Then it describes about three preconscious and pre-reflective perceptual impediments to this openness are identified and examined. They are cognitive biases, perspectives and the discomfort of doubt. These impediments function to narrow, distort, divert, or close off openness to new ideas in ways that lie outside the conscious awareness. They operate in stealth. No matter how proficient we are in critical assessment, no matter how willing we are to revise our beliefs in the face of evidence, the fallibility of precognitive perception can derail open-mindedness by desensitizing us to environmental information important for inquiry into empirical truth and moral understanding. Despite such fallibility, narratives help us to overcome some of these impediments.
