Over Thanksgiving a friend of mine who is studying for his Masters in Philosophy introduced me to the formal concept of the 'Principle of Charity' [1] which is on the hearer's part a requirement of applying the most reasonable interpretation of the argument presented. When pg wrote this:
"Also (as we've seen), if you talk about controversial topics, the audience for an interview will include people who for various reasons want to misinterpret what you say, so you have to be careful not to leave them any room to, whereas in a conversation you can assume good faith and speak as loosely as you would in everyday life."
It connected with me that both in the interwebs and here on HN too often people do not apply this principle, either in prejudice or in ignorance, to the topics being discussed. That is really too bad, because it helps the quality of the discussion tremendously.
Over Thanksgiving a friend of mine who is studying for his Masters in Philosophy introduced me to the formal concept of the 'Principle of Charity' [1] which is on the hearer's part a requirement of applying the most reasonable interpretation of the argument presented. When pg wrote this:
"Also (as we've seen), if you talk about controversial topics, the audience for an interview will include people who for various reasons want to misinterpret what you say, so you have to be careful not to leave them any room to, whereas in a conversation you can assume good faith and speak as loosely as you would in everyday life."
It connected with me that both in the interwebs and here on HN too often people do not apply this principle, either in prejudice or in ignorance, to the topics being discussed. That is really too bad, because it helps the quality of the discussion tremendously.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity