Elbow on The Believing Game

The Believing Game or Methodological Believing Peter Elbow, University of Massachusetts - Amherst Abstract The kind of thinking most widely honored is often called "critical thinking." I call it "the doubting game" because the premise is that we should test ideas by subjecting them to the discipline of doubt. It's a valuable and necessary methodology for good thinking because it trains us to find hidden flaws in ideas that sound attractive or that are widely assumed to be true. In this essay I suggest a different kind of thinking that is equally important but little honored or even noticed. I call it the believing game because the premise is that we should test ideas by subjecting them to the discipline of belief. The believing game trains us to find hidden virtues or strengths in ideas that sound wrong or even crazy, or that are widely assumed to be false. Suggested Citation Peter Elbow. "The Believing Game or Methodological Believing" Journal for The Assembly for Expanded Perspectives on Learning 14 (2009): 1-11. Available at: http://works.bepress.com/peter_elbow/41

Definitions

"The doubting game represents the kind of thinking most widely honored and taught in our culture. It’s sometimes called “critical thinking.” It's the disciplined practice of trying to be as skeptical and analytic as possible with every idea we encounter. By trying hard to doubt ideas, we can discover hidden contradictions, bad reasoning, or other weaknesses in them--especially in the case of ideas that seem true or attractive. We are using doubting as a tool for scrutinizing and testing ideas. "

"In contrast, the believing game is the disciplined practice of trying to be as welcoming or accepting as possible to every idea we encounter: not just listening to views different from our own and holding back from arguing with them; not just trying to restate them without bias (as Carl Rogers advocated); but actually trying to believe them. We are using believing as a different tool for scrutinizing and testing ideas. But instead of doubting in order to scrutinize fashionable or widely accepted ideas for hidden flaws, we use belief to scrutinize unfashionable or even repellent ideas for hidden virtues. Often we cannot see what's good in someone else's idea (or in our own!) till we work at believing it. When an idea goes against current assumptions and beliefs--or if it seems alien, dangerous, or poorly formulated---we often cannot see any merit in it."

Evolutionary notion -- we begin with the believing game, accepting authority. We tend to learn the doubting game in school. The down side to this is polarization.

"This is a tradition of systematic skepticism that I call the doubting game or methodological doubting. The goal is not to reject everything but to use skepticism as test to see which ideas are more worth trusting. "

Methodological doubting developed through Socrates, Descartes, Popper's formulation of the scientific method. There's a notion that you can't truly prove theories, just disprove the opposite -- absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Etc.

A scientific version of belief is the next step in evolution -- naive belief begats systematic skepticism, but how do we get ourselves around to agreeing and believing again?

The believing game is focused on believing someone else's point of view temporarily. Does this truly lead to more scientific versions of believing?

We haven’t learned to use belief as a tool--as we use doubt as a tool. That is, over the centuries, we learned to separate the process of doubting from the decision to reject. But we haven’t learned to separate the process of believing from the decision to accept.

to me this seems like more than just "put yourself in the other person's shoes" -- it is actively trying to believe what they do, not just to see through their eyes, but also to think with their brain

"Three Arguments for the Believing Game Three Arguments for the Believing Game (1) We need the believing game to help us find flaws in our own thinking. (2) We need the believing game to help us choose among competing positions. (because defeating supporting evidence doesn't necessarily defeat the position) (3) We need the believing game in order to achieve goals that the doubting game neglects. (reflecting, understanding, moving forward on common goals without achieving consensus on other items)"

"Summary. The doubting game and believing game are tools or methods. As such they cannot make decisions for us. The doubting game can’t prove that a position is wrong; the believing game can’t prove validity. For decisions we need to make judgments. But our judgments will be better if we get to use both sets of tools. In summary, I’m arguing for a richer and more accurate picture of rationality or intelligence or careful thinking. "