The Philosophy of Sherlock Holmes

Nor did Holmes let the intrinsic unlikelihood of some of his inferences deter him, because he realized that life itself invariably includes wild improbabilities however it plays out.

he realized that life itself invariably includes wild improbabilities however it plays out.

He cared too much about finding the truth to be silenced by the possibility of error.

If he didn't err on the side of epistemic humility, at least he didn't fall prey to a debilitating sense of intellectual cowardice and diffidence.

Like a good scientist, he put his ideas to the test, weighed them on the scales of balancing probabilities, and observed how well they were able to account for new evidence.

Holmes knew when his inferences were possibly wrong, and he didn't stop once he came to his tentative conclusions.

Even if Sherlock was mistaken in thinking that modesty required intellectual dishonesty, he made a good point in stressing that it's not necessarily immodest to acknowledge one's own gifts, any more than it would be to acknowledge those of another.

“I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.”

“Crime is common. Logic is rare,”

should focus more on the logic than the story.