intellectual rigor

An attempted short definition of intellectual rigour might be that no suspicion of double standard be allowed: uniform principles should be applied.

""The rigour of the game"" is a quotation from Charles Lamb about whist. It implies that the demands of thinking accurately and to the point over a card game can serve also as entertainment or leisure. Intellectual rigour can therefore be sometimes seen as the exercise of a skill. It can also degenerate into pedantry, which is intellectual rigour applied to no particular end, except perhaps self-importance. Scholarship can be defined as intellectual rigour applied to the quality control of information, which implies an appropriate standard of accuracy, and scepticism applied to accepting anything on trust.

Wikipedia contributors, ""Rigour,"" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Rigour&oldid=200236301 (accessed March 30, 2008)