In the example I mentioned, I have a contrarian third position where I think the other positions have some good points and (mostly) some bad points. This means two things:
There are some places where his side genuinely right and the other side is wrong, and it’s unfortunate that people on his side shoot themselves in the foot by using bad arguments instead of defending the places they are right using good arguments.
By treating bad arguments as good epistemology, they avoid being truth-seeking and make it harder to correct their wrong beliefs. That’s unfortunate since I think they should correct their wrong beliefs.
In the example I mentioned, I have a contrarian third position where I think the other positions have some good points and (mostly) some bad points. This means two things:
There are some places where his side genuinely right and the other side is wrong, and it’s unfortunate that people on his side shoot themselves in the foot by using bad arguments instead of defending the places they are right using good arguments.
By treating bad arguments as good epistemology, they avoid being truth-seeking and make it harder to correct their wrong beliefs. That’s unfortunate since I think they should correct their wrong beliefs.