[“I may be wrong” is] useful when you know you’re right but you want the other person to be able to agree with you, rather than to force them
This is very counterintuitive to me. My natural reaction to “I may be wrong, but...”, which I instinctively project onto other people, is “well, why should I listen to you, then?”
Does anyone else find the idea of making yourself more persuasive by undermining your own credibility a little odd?
It’s not undermining your own credibility, since “I may be wrong” is generally a truism. It’s more of a display of humility, which can be very helpful if (A) you’re a lot smarter than the other person and they basically know it, or (B) the other person outranks you, and to be directly contradicted by a subordinate would be embarassing.
As an example, I’ll often use this preface (or, “I’m confused; it was my understanding that not-X.”) when asking a question in a law school class, where I think the professor may have misstated the law. Usually, I think they actually have—though I’m not always right—and this works a helluva lot better than saying, “But Professor, the law is not-X.”
“I’m confused” is much better than “I may be wrong” and (especially) “I may be biased”. It’s just as modest, but more informative.
And—importantly—it links the modesty to your epistemic state, not your seniority level. To the extent that “I may be wrong” is, as you say, a truism, it doesn’t communicate any information about your knowledge and is just verbal filler whose actual meaning is unconnected to its semantic content .
On the other hand, examples like “I may be biased, but my relative Person X is the greatest person in the world” are clearly instances of undermining one’s own credibility. As such, I find them grating.
This is very counterintuitive to me. My natural reaction to “I may be wrong, but...”, which I instinctively project onto other people, is “well, why should I listen to you, then?”
Does anyone else find the idea of making yourself more persuasive by undermining your own credibility a little odd?
It’s not undermining your own credibility, since “I may be wrong” is generally a truism. It’s more of a display of humility, which can be very helpful if (A) you’re a lot smarter than the other person and they basically know it, or (B) the other person outranks you, and to be directly contradicted by a subordinate would be embarassing.
As an example, I’ll often use this preface (or, “I’m confused; it was my understanding that not-X.”) when asking a question in a law school class, where I think the professor may have misstated the law. Usually, I think they actually have—though I’m not always right—and this works a helluva lot better than saying, “But Professor, the law is not-X.”
“I’m confused” is much better than “I may be wrong” and (especially) “I may be biased”. It’s just as modest, but more informative.
And—importantly—it links the modesty to your epistemic state, not your seniority level. To the extent that “I may be wrong” is, as you say, a truism, it doesn’t communicate any information about your knowledge and is just verbal filler whose actual meaning is unconnected to its semantic content .
On the other hand, examples like “I may be biased, but my relative Person X is the greatest person in the world” are clearly instances of undermining one’s own credibility. As such, I find them grating.