John Stuart Mill once said, “He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion… Nor is it enough that he should hear the opinions of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them… he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.”

I’m sure my readers will find this quote reminiscent of the idea of steel-manning (what is steelmanning?). I actually found this quote the day after I published that blog post. I’m not sure which I prefer between Mill’s quote or Aristotle’s (with which I started that blog post), but the latter does have an undeniable simple elegance to it…

In any case, over the course of my personal life, I have had the opportunity of dealing with remarkable examples of intellectually dishonest people. Although I didn’t always know how to deal with these situations, I now have a bit of experience in that arena and thought I would share two valuable lessons that I have learned.

Although I agree with Sam Harris that conversation should be used as a tool to collaborate with one another and to peacefully converge on an opinion that is grounded in truth and rationality, this isn’t always realistic, let alone possible. Sometimes, the person you’re talking to simply isn’t interested in truth, or rationality, or logic, or facts, and this lack of interest can manifest itself quite strongly, if one knows how to detect it. Although it may sometimes be better to just let a person like this be, it may be useful to expose this person’s intellectual dishonesty, if for no other reason than to shine a very bright light on the many flaws that their conclusion may have, or any of the axiomatic presuppositions that are at the foundation of their conclusion.

One surprisingly effective way to disarm your opponent intellectually (if they are being intellectually dishonest) is to simply ask them to steelman your argument. It seems that those kinds of people have a difficult time conceptualizing the essence of any argument that does not perfectly align with their worldview. I have used this technique a few times over the past few years and it’s always humorous to see the gears turning in the other person’s head as they are asked to articulate your own argument… it’s a simple spell but quite unbreakable! (Note that it is possible for someone to be intellectually dishonest and for them to be able to steelman your argument, and I am tempted to believe that this is more likely in the public sphere, but in everyday life I suspect that that is a rarity.)

Moreover, one trap that is easy to fall into when dealing with intellectually dishonest people is to continually give them the benefit of the doubt, perhaps even when it’s not warranted. One thing that may happen when doing this is that you will constantly try to make your points as clear and as elaborate as possible in order to minimize confusion and ambiguity. However, if your interlocutor isn’t genuinely trying to apprehend the truth with you, they will likely evade half the points you raised and perhaps even straw man (i.e., attack the weakest interpretation of your argument) some of the points they haven’t evaded. The solution to this is to let go of long bits of information (text in writing, or speech in conversation) and simply ask the person very pointed questions that are impossible to evade from. This is something that I noticed was unbelievably powerful in my own life, and a conclusion echoed by Sam Harris after he butted heads with Ezra Klein, along with other commentators of that particular collision, including this YouTuber who correctly points out that “you are essentially giving up control of the direction of the conversation” when speaking (or writing) in significant chunks.

Anyway, I hope these tips will be useful if you ever decide to use them. I realize I haven’t been writing as much as I would’ve liked recently, but I’m hoping to pick up blogging a bit more and to improve my website design soon, especially with the holidays right around the corner… so stay tuned!

Until next time!
Jo

Updated on December 1st, 2021 to include a pop culture reference that always makes me laugh in this context…

Updated on January 23rd, 2022 to rephrase the title