My friend Paul sent me a few thoughts about my recent post on holding fewer opinions. He's formulated an approach that involves holding fewer opinions about other people's opinions. This seems valuable, and related to a post I wrote four years ago entitled "Why Do You Think What You Think?" My introspective conclusion then was that I can't always assign praise or blame for the contents of my thoughts; extending this to other people is a good example of what Arnold Kling calls cognitive empathy: instead of demonizing people who disagree with you, suspend judgment or at least try to understand where they might be coming from. (It's probably best to build up such a practice first in matters that aren't very consequential - and we all have our limits regarding the opinions we find acceptable!) The flip side is not deifying your own thoughts, which we could express in the following aphorism: "if you think well of your own opinions just because they're yours, then you're not thinking well."
(Cross-posted at philosopher.coach.)
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