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#2195·Dennis HackethalOP, 6 days agoHow about I hold this idea to be true: ‘entertaining criticisms is good.’ But I receive a letter purporting to contain a criticism of this idea, and it has a note attached to it stating that it contains such a criticism. Should I open the letter? Assume that it has no pending counter-criticisms. Have we constructed an unreadable letter?
Well, if you were to open the letter anyway, and somebody criticized you for it, you could offer the following counter-criticisms: 1) you cannot be expected to adopt an idea while being prevented from entertaining it; 2) somebody constructed a situation designed to abuse the literal content of the two rules in #2140 in order to violate their intention, which is to promote critical thinking and rationality; 3) just because ideas have no pending criticisms doesn’t mean you don’t get to question those ideas – otherwise no one could ever submit a first criticism.