Devil's Advocate

Devil's advocate, the asking of questions meant to expose the consistency or irrationality of someone else's professed beliefs, is extremely useful at giving irrational people the rope to hang themselves.  While someone holding onto contradictions and assumptions is already lost, asking the right questions brings their philosophical confusion or delusions to the surface for anyone listening to hear--if they are rational enough to understand the concepts that are being misunderstood, that is.  It also might be one of the only ways some irrational people will actually reflect with seriousness on their beliefs, their supposed epistemological justifications, and their competency at actually living as if they believe their worldviews.  All it takes is one contradictory set of claims to prove that if they really mean what they said, they believe at least two things that cannot be simultaneously true.

If they did not mean what they said, then why did they say it?  People can misspeak, of course, but for almost everyone to use philosophically contradictory or careless language is almost always a sign of stupidity, apathy, and a desire to simply believe or say whatever is convenient at the moment.  After all, words convey thoughts, beliefs, and feelings.  When I speak, it is because I actually have something in mind, and even if someone is far from rationalism and has never thought about many things very deeply, they can still be intentional and fairly precise with how they word something.  That many people contradict themselves linguistically on a regular basis and then never clarify that they meant something that is not logically incoherent, even when pressed by others, strongly suggests they are just irrational instead of prone to misspeak.

While many are slaves to fallacies and assumptions, few will recognize this except in limited bursts, hence why devil's advocate is such a useful conversational approach.  Devil's advocate puts forth potentially biting, revealing questions that people either answers directly or evasively, consistently or inconsistently, by articulating logical proofs or by appealing to mere persuasion or random ideas.  No matter how they react, though, someone has addressed them in a way that lets their professed beliefs and claims take the spotlight.  If they contradict themselves, it will be in front of someone else.  If they fail to answer or flee from foundational philosophical questions, then their cowardice, stupidity, or apathy (if not all three) will have been noted by someone else.  The typically spontaneous questions of devil's advocate back them into a corner where they must reveal at least part of their worldview or personality to even handle the situation.

This can be weaponized when someone will not engage with vital philosophical issues alone or in conversation unless they feel belittled or inferior if they do not.  Non-rationalists have every reason to be insecure about their intellectual incompetence and hypocrisy, and applying verbal and ideological force when there is an audience might frighten them.  The more signs of stupidity, intellectual insecurity, and vulnerability to social pressures they have shown, the easier it might be to at a minimum drive them to stop stating irrational things out in the open.  As long as there is no slander or malice, as opposed to mere coldness, even this intentionally harsher approach to devil's advocate can have its grand payoff.

It is worth reaffirming that devil's advocate and social stimulation of any kind is not necessary to prompt discovery of a great many logical truths, for they underpin the social, sensory, and introspective experiences that one could have, and they are directly, universally accessible because only the necessary truths of reason are known without relying on anything more fundamental.  There is never an excuse for allowing years to go by without naturally discovering the basic nature of logical axioms, but the fact that logical axioms cannot be false means that people who respond to devil's advocate by denying their innate veracity will only refute themselves.  Whatever the subject of a conversation is, though, devil's advocate will force people to try harder to at least pretend to be rational or force their stupidity out in the open.