A concept · The Art of Questioning · Reasoning
Steelmanning
Argue against the strongest version of the other side.
We win the argument. The other person's position, as we described it, was plainly silly, and the room agreed. A month later their plan works, or ours fails, and we realise the version we beat was one we built ourselves, out of their weakest sentences. It happens in meetings, in politics, at the kitchen table. We refuted something. Was it what they actually believed?
What Steelmanning means
Steelmanning is the practice of building the strongest possible version of the other side's argument before we try to answer it. The definition is easy to say and hard to want. Owning it changes what we do when we disagree. We start to notice the moment we reach for the flimsy version, the one that is satisfying to knock down, and we make ourselves state the view so well that its holder would say yes, that is it, and better than I put it. We stop mistaking a won argument for a settled question. Before: the other side is a caricature we can dismiss in a sentence. After: we know exactly where the disagreement sits, and sometimes it sits with us.
Not to be confused with
Steelmanning is the opposite of strawmanning. A straw man is the weakest version of the other side, built to be knocked down. A steel man is the strongest version, built so that beating it means something.
Steelmanning examples: where it shows up
- At work: the rival proposal we dismissed in a line, whose author knew something about the customer that we did not.
- In a relationship: the request that sounded unreasonable until we said aloud the worry behind it, and found it was reasonable after all.
- In the news: the opposing view we only ever hear from its worst spokesperson, which is why it always looks easy to beat.
Where it sits
Concept 3 of 5 in The Art of Questioning, a journey in the course The Examined Mind.
See where Steelmanning sits on the sky →
Nearest on the sky
- Abductive Reasoning
- First Principles Thinking
- Question Behind the Question
- A Taxonomy of Questions
- Burden of Proof
- Occam's Razor
A filled dot marks a star that is already open to walk.
Knowing it isn't owning it.
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