I agree with the abstract point of the post, but I think it's unrelated to what Rose is talking about. As I interpreted the quote, Rose isn't concerned with how internally playing Devil's Advocate influences individual beliefs; he's interested in whether publicly playing Devil's Advocate is a good thing for the public understanding of the truth. The view he attributes to Dawkins is that publicly playing Devil's Advocate is always bad, because members of the Other Side who are prone to rationalization will readily (though wrongly) interpret it as definiti... (read more)
I agree with the abstract point of the post, but I think it's unrelated to what Rose is talking about. As I interpreted the quote, Rose isn't concerned with how internally playing Devil's Advocate influences individual beliefs; he's interested in whether publicly playing Devil's Advocate is a good thing for the public understanding of the truth. The view he attributes to Dawkins is that publicly playing Devil's Advocate is always bad, because members of the Other Side who are prone to rationalization will readily (though wrongly) interpret it as definiti... (read more)