Wednesday 6 December 2006

"Answer the question!"

If you need to change or misrepresent or spin your opponent's argument in order to refute it, then it's a fair bet (or at least a reasonable starting assumption) that you had to do so in order to answer the argument. Far more convincing if you can answer the strongest argument against your own position, rather than the weakest -- and far more meaningful too.

Good advice. It comes most recently from Eric at Brain Stab, who gives me a serve (can you imagine!) on the way to making his point, via Karl Popper,
that we should always try to clarify and to strengthen our opponent's position as much as possible before criticising him, if we wish our criticism to be worthwhile.
Good point. One that bears regularly repeating around the blogosphere.

LINKS: Oh I'm sorry, this is abuse - Brain Stab

RELATED: Free Speech, Blog

1 comment:

Berend de Boer said...

And especially here...