Tell me if this resonates with you:
You’re in a conversation with someone where a disagreement emerges. After a bit of back-and-forth, you have this sense that you’re talking past each other. This can happen for a number of reasons, but in this case, you notice that some key terms and ideas in the discussion are being used quite differently by each person. You aren’t trading in the same currency, so to speak - you can’t even get to the substantive problem because this linguistic one lies in the way.
This happens so often, doesn’t it?
It can take some next level critical thinking then to hold their preferred definition before your mind as you assess their argument, all the while still maintaining that your preferred definition better captures reality. Not always easy to do.
Sometimes, the discovery that the source of the disagreement is a linguistic one is a relief - “Aha! Well, now, we can more easily sort this out.”
This is partially the task of the philosopher - to perform conceptual analysis - how *should* we deploy this word, and other words adjacent to it in meaning - to be more precise in our picking out of things and happenings in our world. Such work can help detangle messy arguments and break down the barriers to understanding.
But sometimes, you still can’t agree on how to use the words in the same way. This can be a huge stumbling block for making further headway toward solving problems or understanding the world.
What are some of the flashpoint terms in conversations you’ve been having or at least reading/listening about? Have any of these contained some ambiguity for you or beggared some kind of definition before proceeding in a discussion:
woman / man
masculinity / femininity
racism
person
rights
living wage
marriage
paying a fair share
oppression
No doubt there are more. Think of how often a conversation gets derailed on these important topics and their surrounding policy prescriptions, almost entirely due to coming to the table with contrary definitions.
Here are 3 suggestions for how to navigate this kind of disagreement - not to try to win an argument, but to more fully understand someone. Or even better, to cultivate the intellectual virtues in ourselves and subject ourselves to the same degree of criticism that we might normally toward the ideas of others.
1. To what degree is my definition of _______ influenced by some other commitment I have in my worldview?
This is going to happen - and that’s okay! We will naturally want to construct an increasingly coherent picture of the world. So, the myriad of concepts we tacitly hold will trend toward being consonant with each other.
Occasionally, though, they aren’t.
That’s a sign to sit with that tension - spend some time figuring out what to do with that cognitive dissonance. What needs to change? What needs to stay the same?
The root of the problem for a particular disagreement actually may not have anything to do with the topic at hand, but some related facet of our worldview that prevents us from budging or amending our judgment of a matter. Asking this question will also help us identify which intellectual commitments are more central or core to our web of beliefs, and which are more on the edge, that we can then hold more loosely.
2. Does my preferred definition or characterization really do the work I claim that it does?
Enter the counterexample. A data point or scenario that disconfirms an idea. Unfortunately, we are hardwired to search for confirming evidence; this bug is known as the confirmation bias. But, we can intentionally fight against it.
We need to go out of our way to find evidence that might disconfirm our view, particularly when that view is very important to us. Difficult to do, but if our hunt turns up something, then we are even closer to the truth than we were to begin with - we were able to dispense with an idea that didn’t get at reality properly. The project here is to train our minds to be vigilant for disconfirming evidence and to genuinely entertain them when they appear - rather than dismiss it immediately as “fake news.”
3. Could I articulate the view that I don’t hold in such a way that an ardent supporter would give a resounding “yes!”?
This is so key for achieving understanding and improving how we have conversations.
If we want to be persuasive, we’ve got to grasp that people want first to be understood.
Even if we have really solid evidence and arguments, if we can’t showcase a genuine understanding of another person’s view, there is not much chance of persuasion - it can always be written off, even if irrationally, as “yeah, but you just don’t get where I am coming from!”
The opposite of this is known in logic as “the straw man fallacy” - misrepresenting a view so that it is more easily defeated by your arguments. I’m not sure there is anything more counterproductive than this for good-faith communication and discovering truth together.
This week’s episode focuses on a word in church world that is a perennial all-star of talking past each other - “meaning.” Clint, you’ve gone too far this time - are you really about to worry about the meaning of the word “meaning”?
Yes!
Tony and I discuss how different notions of meaning, particularly when it comes to understanding scripture, can really bungle some important conversations. You can watch on Youtube or listen on your favorite podcatcher.
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Stay Curious!