DH7 should be kept internal, at least at first. Being misinterpreted as trying to construct a straw man when you’ve been trying to do the opposite can derail a conversation. To actually believe that you’ve made a steel man, not a straw man, the person you’re arguing with would have to admit that you’ve created a stronger argument for their own position than they could.
It’s probably best to practice up to DH7 internally, and only up to DH6 vocally.
If we imagine arguments as soldiers, as they tend to be, the problem becomes even clearer:
(A and B are about to fight.)
A. Ah! My worthy opponent! I shall send my greatest soldier to crush you… GOLIATH! ATTACK!
B. His sword’s a little wimpy. Let me give him a bazooka.
If I were A, I wouldn’t trust that bazooka on B’s word alone, I’d be annoyed at the slight against my blacksmiths, and, even if it turned out to be a totally legitimate bazooka, I would, at the very least, consider B a tactless grandstander.
(Though if the bazooka did work, I’d use it, obviously. I just wouldn’t like using it.)
You can be gentle about DH7 by attributing the improved argument to someone with high status. This is my typical strategy and seems to work well. It’s a double whammy because you’re implicitly associating them with someone of high status e.g. “it’s funny you say that, it’s very similar to an argument by ”. I’m NOT saying that you actually have to know a bunch of famous arguments offhand, the better argument can be attributed fallaciously to anyone who has spoken on a topic and can have little to do with the person’s original argument. Few notice and you have the out of being mistaken even if they do.
The way this is done in (good) academic philosophy is “6 then 7”. First you show that their central point fails for reason x. Then you suggest how their position can be improved upon then you refute the new position.
DH7 does happen between mathematicians now and then. Person A has an idea of a proof for X. Person B could show a problem with Person A’s proof (DH6) or an unrelated disproof of X (DH4? DH6?), but the best response is to show A a disproof of X that makes it clear why A’s strategy is futile.
This is often done well enough that it doesn’t even hurt feelings. But math is kind of a special case.
In particular, in math it is clear which arguments are more dubious. DH4 arguments are often perfectly acceptable, as a simple and clear counterexample refutes a complicated argument that could easily have a subtle flaw.
The ability to make simple, irrefutable arguments is tremendously beneficial to sane arguing, for instance because it enables you to use the The Emperor Has No Clothes defense and avoid studying the details of your opponent’s argument.
In this case, I’d even drop my initial thoughts about rudeness. If you can prove that somebody’s gone down mathematical blind alley, it’s downright polite to do so, since there’s no ambiguity about the relevance of the steel man here.
I’m pretty sure it depends on who you’re arguing with. If either of you is trying to /win/, rather than /find the truth/, then DH7 is tough to do. But if you and your interlocutor both care more about being correct than sounding correct, and you both respect each other, then you can and should attempt DH7 aloud.
I can respect the person I’m arguing with, and consider them to be truth-searching, and still not want to antagonize the part of their hardware that likes winning. I also dislike having my primate hardware antagonized unnecessarily; I tolerate it for the sake of truth-seeking, but it’s not fun.
I see two likely cases here:
A) I come up with a tougher version of their argument in my head, in order to be as careful as possible, but I still have a good way to refute it. This is DH7.
In this case, announcing the tougher version doesn’t get us any closer to the truth. A dead steel man is as dead as a dead straw man. I might as well refute what was actually said, rather than risk being unnecessarily smug.
B) I come up with a tougher version of their argument in my head, and I can’t actually defeat the tougher version.
In this case, I definitely ought to announce this problem.
But this is not DH7 as posted. This is my actual purpose in making a steel man—the possibility that the steel man may actually force me to change my mind. I’m not trying to argue with my opponent on a higher level when I do this, I’m trying to argue myself out of being cognitively lazy.
A good rule of thumb: DH7 should be really really REALLY hard to do well if you’re arguing with reasonably smart people who have thought carefully about their positions. In fact, it is so hard that anybody who could do it consistently would never need other people to argue with.
EDIT: In the interests of dealing with the worst possible construct, I should add:
A) In the case where openly announcing DH7-level arguments lets both parties see that they’ve misinterpreted each other, going to DH7 is a net win.
B) An expert DH7-level arguer may still need other people to argue with if they have been exposed to very different sets of evidence.
But generally speaking, the cognitive effort needed to communicate a steel-man version of someone else’s position is better spent on expressing one’s own evidence.
If you come up with a better version of the other person’s argument but keep it to yourself and only refute the original version, then later on they may think “Now, in all honesty Gil was right about X … but no, wait a moment, that’s just because I didn’t get it quite right. If I’d said X’ instead then his argument wouldn’t have worked.” and stick with their position rather than changing it.
I doubt that this outweighs the effect of antagonizing them at the time by saying “You should have said X’, and I’m now going to refute that” in most cases, though.
Ideally, a reasonable counterargument that applies to the strong form will also apply to the weak form without significant editing. If the person one was arguing with would have been receptive to DH7 in the first place, that alone should stop them from making the strong form argument—the countering evidence has already been provided.
Where this fails… well, I said “at first” in my thread-starter for a reason.
Some DH7, or at least DH7-like thinking, can be relatively easy. For instance, there will often be gaps in someone’s argument that they do not consider significant, or a general case they hadn’t bothered to think of. You can’t make it perfect, but you can patch it up a bit.
DH7 should be kept internal, at least at first. Being misinterpreted as trying to construct a straw man when you’ve been trying to do the opposite can derail a conversation. To actually believe that you’ve made a steel man, not a straw man, the person you’re arguing with would have to admit that you’ve created a stronger argument for their own position than they could.
This.
DH7 is of limited use in an adversarial debate, unless your opponent is open-minded. It could convince fence-sitters, but only if they are open-minded.
The problem with DH7 is that it’s too easy for your opponent to accuse you of a straw man. Even if that’s not true, they may be able to delude some of the audience.
Analogies are another debate tactic in this category: they are only useful towards listeners with an open-mind, otherwise, they make you open to attack be the other person rejecting your analogy.
A great time to use DH7 or analogies is against the argument of someone who isn’t present to convince a third-party. Since your opponent isn’t there, they can’t reject your attempts at charity or analogies as straw men, and you can use those tools to convince your audience that you are correct, and you’ve given those arguments the best consideration you can.
Of course, if you’re going to do this, try to make sure you are right, because if you are wrong (e.g. you misunderstood what your original opponent was saying), then they won’t be around to clarify.
EDIT: Actually, there is a way to do DH7 with your original interlocutor. You have to lead them to admitting that the steel version actually follows from their argument, and then you knock it down. E.g. you start by “are you suggesting Y?” which you think follows from their original position, X. This can make you look like you are genuinely working to understand them (which, of course, you are). Then when they take the bait, you knock it down, and they can’t complain.
And you can’t be too confrontational or accusatory, because that will tip them off that you are going to knock Y down. If they catch a hint of that, then they will never admit that Y follows from their original position X.
You need to be sure that your rebuttal applies both to the argument they have presented and to the steel man argument you have constructed (which you can spell out or not, depending on context), and ideally to any men of straw or steel others are likely to construct for themselves on hearing your opponent’s argument.
I think it bears repeating that this matters if you’re trying to win an adversarial debate, but not so much if you’re trying to learn the truth of the matter.
I often find that “Hm. So you’re saying XYZ? That doesn’t really work, because of ABC. But now that I think about it, X’Y’Z′ would be consistent with what you’re claiming, and not have that problem. Even there, though, A’B’C′ suggests it’s false.” can work all right, although I’m often tempted to add “But of course by this point I’ve wandered off into a corner and started arguing with myself, which seems antisocial.”
I think that in some contexts, like arguing over mathematical proofs (as orthonormal noted), spending a little time arguing with yourself to bring out X’Y’Z′ is polite and a sign of good faith. In other cases, I’d rather just trot out A’B’C′ early on, as long as it doesn’t require too much effort, and deal with both arguments at once without ever explicitly raising X’Y’Z′.
The danger you point out is real, but an unqualified dictum such as “DH7 should be kept internal, at least at first” is very specific advice that IMO is going too far. A great deal depends on the quality of the sub-argument to do with strengthening the opponent’s position, and the opponent’s (and/or audience’s, if any) receptiveness to that. You seem to be saying we should always have low confidence in both, while I’d say it depends.
If we imagine arguments as soldiers
Maybe let’s not. Applying DH7 already assumes we’re interested in truth, not just in winning a debate.
I don’t ALWAYS have low confidence in the other arguer’s ability to tolerate a steel man version of their own argument. I do have low confidence in the ability of most people, especially me, to decide what constitutes a non-gratuitous steel man. I have an unfortunate, but understandable, bias in favor of my own creations, and I suspect that this bias is widely shared.
DH7 should be kept internal, at least at first. Being misinterpreted as trying to construct a straw man when you’ve been trying to do the opposite can derail a conversation. To actually believe that you’ve made a steel man, not a straw man, the person you’re arguing with would have to admit that you’ve created a stronger argument for their own position than they could.
It’s probably best to practice up to DH7 internally, and only up to DH6 vocally.
If we imagine arguments as soldiers, as they tend to be, the problem becomes even clearer:
(A and B are about to fight.)
A. Ah! My worthy opponent! I shall send my greatest soldier to crush you… GOLIATH! ATTACK!
B. His sword’s a little wimpy. Let me give him a bazooka.
If I were A, I wouldn’t trust that bazooka on B’s word alone, I’d be annoyed at the slight against my blacksmiths, and, even if it turned out to be a totally legitimate bazooka, I would, at the very least, consider B a tactless grandstander.
(Though if the bazooka did work, I’d use it, obviously. I just wouldn’t like using it.)
You can be gentle about DH7 by attributing the improved argument to someone with high status. This is my typical strategy and seems to work well. It’s a double whammy because you’re implicitly associating them with someone of high status e.g. “it’s funny you say that, it’s very similar to an argument by ”. I’m NOT saying that you actually have to know a bunch of famous arguments offhand, the better argument can be attributed fallaciously to anyone who has spoken on a topic and can have little to do with the person’s original argument. Few notice and you have the out of being mistaken even if they do.
That is a fascinating border case between Dark Arts and rational discussion.
The way this is done in (good) academic philosophy is “6 then 7”. First you show that their central point fails for reason x. Then you suggest how their position can be improved upon then you refute the new position.
DH7 does happen between mathematicians now and then. Person A has an idea of a proof for X. Person B could show a problem with Person A’s proof (DH6) or an unrelated disproof of X (DH4? DH6?), but the best response is to show A a disproof of X that makes it clear why A’s strategy is futile.
This is often done well enough that it doesn’t even hurt feelings. But math is kind of a special case.
In particular, in math it is clear which arguments are more dubious. DH4 arguments are often perfectly acceptable, as a simple and clear counterexample refutes a complicated argument that could easily have a subtle flaw.
The ability to make simple, irrefutable arguments is tremendously beneficial to sane arguing, for instance because it enables you to use the The Emperor Has No Clothes defense and avoid studying the details of your opponent’s argument.
In this case, I’d even drop my initial thoughts about rudeness. If you can prove that somebody’s gone down mathematical blind alley, it’s downright polite to do so, since there’s no ambiguity about the relevance of the steel man here.
I’m pretty sure it depends on who you’re arguing with. If either of you is trying to /win/, rather than /find the truth/, then DH7 is tough to do. But if you and your interlocutor both care more about being correct than sounding correct, and you both respect each other, then you can and should attempt DH7 aloud.
I can respect the person I’m arguing with, and consider them to be truth-searching, and still not want to antagonize the part of their hardware that likes winning. I also dislike having my primate hardware antagonized unnecessarily; I tolerate it for the sake of truth-seeking, but it’s not fun.
I see two likely cases here:
A) I come up with a tougher version of their argument in my head, in order to be as careful as possible, but I still have a good way to refute it. This is DH7.
In this case, announcing the tougher version doesn’t get us any closer to the truth. A dead steel man is as dead as a dead straw man. I might as well refute what was actually said, rather than risk being unnecessarily smug.
B) I come up with a tougher version of their argument in my head, and I can’t actually defeat the tougher version.
In this case, I definitely ought to announce this problem.
But this is not DH7 as posted. This is my actual purpose in making a steel man—the possibility that the steel man may actually force me to change my mind. I’m not trying to argue with my opponent on a higher level when I do this, I’m trying to argue myself out of being cognitively lazy.
A good rule of thumb: DH7 should be really really REALLY hard to do well if you’re arguing with reasonably smart people who have thought carefully about their positions. In fact, it is so hard that anybody who could do it consistently would never need other people to argue with.
EDIT: In the interests of dealing with the worst possible construct, I should add:
A) In the case where openly announcing DH7-level arguments lets both parties see that they’ve misinterpreted each other, going to DH7 is a net win.
B) An expert DH7-level arguer may still need other people to argue with if they have been exposed to very different sets of evidence.
But generally speaking, the cognitive effort needed to communicate a steel-man version of someone else’s position is better spent on expressing one’s own evidence.
If you come up with a better version of the other person’s argument but keep it to yourself and only refute the original version, then later on they may think “Now, in all honesty Gil was right about X … but no, wait a moment, that’s just because I didn’t get it quite right. If I’d said X’ instead then his argument wouldn’t have worked.” and stick with their position rather than changing it.
I doubt that this outweighs the effect of antagonizing them at the time by saying “You should have said X’, and I’m now going to refute that” in most cases, though.
Ideally, a reasonable counterargument that applies to the strong form will also apply to the weak form without significant editing. If the person one was arguing with would have been receptive to DH7 in the first place, that alone should stop them from making the strong form argument—the countering evidence has already been provided.
Where this fails… well, I said “at first” in my thread-starter for a reason.
Some DH7, or at least DH7-like thinking, can be relatively easy. For instance, there will often be gaps in someone’s argument that they do not consider significant, or a general case they hadn’t bothered to think of. You can’t make it perfect, but you can patch it up a bit.
Point taken—in some cases, the significance of the gaps is more evident to the outside view.
This.
DH7 is of limited use in an adversarial debate, unless your opponent is open-minded. It could convince fence-sitters, but only if they are open-minded.
The problem with DH7 is that it’s too easy for your opponent to accuse you of a straw man. Even if that’s not true, they may be able to delude some of the audience.
Analogies are another debate tactic in this category: they are only useful towards listeners with an open-mind, otherwise, they make you open to attack be the other person rejecting your analogy.
A great time to use DH7 or analogies is against the argument of someone who isn’t present to convince a third-party. Since your opponent isn’t there, they can’t reject your attempts at charity or analogies as straw men, and you can use those tools to convince your audience that you are correct, and you’ve given those arguments the best consideration you can.
Of course, if you’re going to do this, try to make sure you are right, because if you are wrong (e.g. you misunderstood what your original opponent was saying), then they won’t be around to clarify.
EDIT: Actually, there is a way to do DH7 with your original interlocutor. You have to lead them to admitting that the steel version actually follows from their argument, and then you knock it down. E.g. you start by “are you suggesting Y?” which you think follows from their original position, X. This can make you look like you are genuinely working to understand them (which, of course, you are). Then when they take the bait, you knock it down, and they can’t complain.
And you can’t be too confrontational or accusatory, because that will tip them off that you are going to knock Y down. If they catch a hint of that, then they will never admit that Y follows from their original position X.
You need to be sure that your rebuttal applies both to the argument they have presented and to the steel man argument you have constructed (which you can spell out or not, depending on context), and ideally to any men of straw or steel others are likely to construct for themselves on hearing your opponent’s argument.
I think it bears repeating that this matters if you’re trying to win an adversarial debate, but not so much if you’re trying to learn the truth of the matter.
Depends on how it’s done, IME.
I often find that “Hm. So you’re saying XYZ? That doesn’t really work, because of ABC. But now that I think about it, X’Y’Z′ would be consistent with what you’re claiming, and not have that problem. Even there, though, A’B’C′ suggests it’s false.” can work all right, although I’m often tempted to add “But of course by this point I’ve wandered off into a corner and started arguing with myself, which seems antisocial.”
I think that in some contexts, like arguing over mathematical proofs (as orthonormal noted), spending a little time arguing with yourself to bring out X’Y’Z′ is polite and a sign of good faith. In other cases, I’d rather just trot out A’B’C′ early on, as long as it doesn’t require too much effort, and deal with both arguments at once without ever explicitly raising X’Y’Z′.
The danger you point out is real, but an unqualified dictum such as “DH7 should be kept internal, at least at first” is very specific advice that IMO is going too far. A great deal depends on the quality of the sub-argument to do with strengthening the opponent’s position, and the opponent’s (and/or audience’s, if any) receptiveness to that. You seem to be saying we should always have low confidence in both, while I’d say it depends.
Maybe let’s not. Applying DH7 already assumes we’re interested in truth, not just in winning a debate.
I don’t ALWAYS have low confidence in the other arguer’s ability to tolerate a steel man version of their own argument. I do have low confidence in the ability of most people, especially me, to decide what constitutes a non-gratuitous steel man. I have an unfortunate, but understandable, bias in favor of my own creations, and I suspect that this bias is widely shared.