The trouble with "teaching" people to think more clearly is that, other than students, I don't think most people think I think more clearly than they do. Especially in a debate, and especially in an outright argument. People always think they're right. It's almost as if the more they/we might *not* be and the more the emotional pressure, the more they're/we're *sure* they/we *must* be right. And the more they're/we're willing to "cheat" logically, verbally, emotionally, epistemically, etc.
Anyway, that's my impression. Maybe I do no better than average.
I think I do. I think I have a track record of getting quite a few contentious and uncertain things right, partly by route of caution. If I say "A might be true, and B might be true, and C might be true," well then by golly, if A, B, *or* C is right then I might go and wag my tail about it.
But I don't think that's quite why I seem to have gotten a number of contentious things right. It's less that I'm a total fence-sitter and more that I switch sides based on evidence. If I say "I think it's probably A, but B is I suppose remotely possible" and then I see pretty compelling evidence for B, I might say something equivalent to "B now seems a bit more likely than A." I haven't committed fully, I have only responded to the latest compelling evidence. If I develop "sea legs" like this about evidence, then of course I will more often seem to be right about contentious issues, especially if I do just a little better than average at assessing new evidence.
Then again, I have a number of tips along these lines. Not just the one.
It is my opinion that I do substantially better than average at this, even among well-educated people. But maybe that's ego talking. That's always possible.
*If* I do substantially better than average at this, then it wouldn't be egotistical to try to share how I do it. Or not necessarily. I could make efforts in the name of helping others.
That's what I try to do, but I think introversion gets in the way. There's a lot of "I think" and "I feel" and "it seems to me" (notice the I, I, me?) in my (and my?) world.
But the thing is, you can't get good sound without paying attention to the speakers and the amplifier. You, my friend, are the speakers and the amplifier. You are what colors the truth that's at your disposal. If you want to debias the stream, you need to pay attention to how you, yes you, you personally, you impersonally, you the one who doesn't want to be seen as thinking about you, color the information you get.
So I personally don't think "I think" is redundant. It's a reminder, and there are many varieties. When I say "I feel" instead of "I think," there's usually a reason I chose that way.
If I think more clearly than most, it isn't that I'm thinking more clearly moment to moment. It's that I'm following a process that cleans up the stream over time. There are error-correction procedures. There's curiosity to gather more data. There's compassion to not conveniently exclude what I'd simply prefer to exclude. "Even a broken clock is right twice a day." To remember that is a form of compassion. It's also epistemically useful - in other words, it can help you get the right answer sometimes. There are occasions when only the broken clock has the right time.
It may actually be that I think more fuzzily than most. Yet I think I do pretty well for all that. Practice. Let's call it practice. Most of any edge is that.
