Not exactly a disagreement, but I think this post is missing something major about classic style (the style in a more objective sense, maybe not Pinker’s version). Namely, classic style can be taken as a sort of discipline which doesn’t so much tell you how to write but rather makes strong recommendations about what to write. If you find yourself writing a lot of “I think...” and “Maybe...” and “My concept of...” and so on, you might want to questions whether you should be writing this, instead of thinking it through more carefully. This advice of course doesn’t apply universally, but e.g. on LW it probably does apply in a lot of cases.
E.g. “Maybe all Xs are Ys...”; well, instead of writing that, you could try to find a statement that you’re confident enough in to write without the qualifier, and that still carries your point; or you could check this claim more thoroughly; or maybe you ought to more explicitly say that your argument rests on this assumption that you’re not sure about, and give the best counterargument to this assumption that you can. If you’re making an argument that rests on multiple assumptions like these, then it’s likely that you should be making a different argument with more narrow concepts and conclusions that doesn’t require as many “maybe”s.
E.g. sometimes “My concept of...” is a sort of crutch to keep from throwing away a concept that you don’t understand / isn’t grounded / isn’t clear / isn’t useful / doesn’t apply. Like, yes, you can more easily make true statements about your concept of X than X itself, but you’re risking cutting yourself off from X itself.
Not exactly a disagreement, but I think this post is missing something major about classic style (the style in a more objective sense, maybe not Pinker’s version). Namely, classic style can be taken as a sort of discipline which doesn’t so much tell you how to write but rather makes strong recommendations about what to write. If you find yourself writing a lot of “I think...” and “Maybe...” and “My concept of...” and so on, you might want to questions whether you should be writing this, instead of thinking it through more carefully. This advice of course doesn’t apply universally, but e.g. on LW it probably does apply in a lot of cases.
E.g. “Maybe all Xs are Ys...”; well, instead of writing that, you could try to find a statement that you’re confident enough in to write without the qualifier, and that still carries your point; or you could check this claim more thoroughly; or maybe you ought to more explicitly say that your argument rests on this assumption that you’re not sure about, and give the best counterargument to this assumption that you can. If you’re making an argument that rests on multiple assumptions like these, then it’s likely that you should be making a different argument with more narrow concepts and conclusions that doesn’t require as many “maybe”s.
E.g. sometimes “My concept of...” is a sort of crutch to keep from throwing away a concept that you don’t understand / isn’t grounded / isn’t clear / isn’t useful / doesn’t apply. Like, yes, you can more easily make true statements about your concept of X than X itself, but you’re risking cutting yourself off from X itself.