It’s often difficult to challenge your own entrenched beliefs. Habits of thought die hard, particularly when your values or way of life seems to depend on those beliefs. (“But but but… XYZ must be true!”)

When confronted with challenging new ideas, I try to approach them carefully, so as to avoid any knee-jerk emotional reaction in favor of my existing beliefs.

Ideally, here’s what I do: I remind myself that I don’t need to agree or disagree right away. Instead, I focus on understanding the ideas and arguments fully. Then, once that’s done, I take some time to mull over those ideas — perhaps days, weeks, or months. I gather empirical evidence for and against the idea. I consider new angles, arguments, and implications. I discuss those ideas with smart people, as they often have fresh insights. Finally, I come to a judgment about the truth of those new ideas.

If I take that time, I’m far less likely to err in my evaluation — meaning, to dismiss right ideas or embrace wrong ideas. That’s a win!

But… uh… of course, that’s not always what happens. Yet even when I have that dreaded knee-jerk reaction against some new idea, I can exert my better judgment: I can choose to evaluate it objectively. If I have to eat crow at the end of that process, that’s better than persisting in dogmatic commitment to falsehoods.

Note: I published a version of the above commentary in Philosophy in Action’s Newsletter a while back. Subscribe today!

  • Jeff

    Hopefully we all strive to be less wrong. (See also: http://lesswrong.com/ )

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000536747848 Jennifer Snow

    I don’t have a lot of entrenched beliefs any more–I’ve gone through too many reevaluations of everything I previously believed for anything to stick that didn’t have legitimate rationale behind it. Doesn’t mean I’m not wrong a lot, but the wrongness isn’t as sticky as it used to be.

   
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