Buck_Farmer comments on Pretending to be Wise - LessWrong

27 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 19 February 2009 10:30PM

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Comment author: Buck_Farmer 19 February 2009 11:52:29PM 3 points [-]

A variation of this that I am very guilty of is only fighting my arguments on the other party's territory.

Instead of taking a position myself I just "try to understand" the other party's argument and in the process lead them down the garden path to a contradiction. When pressed on what I think, I usually reply "I don't know" or "I'm not sure."

Socrates seems to have fathered this tactic. He never claimed to be wise (but we call him wise).

Respectfully, I don't think he ended up all that wise, and neither am I when I argue this way. It does make me seem very wise, if only because it confounds my counterparties and I leave no target for counter-attack.