An important strategy for argumentation, as described in Wikipedia's article "Straw man":

A steel man argument (or steelmanning) is the opposite of a straw man argument. Steelmanning is the practice of applying the rhetorical principle of charity through addressing the strongest form of the other person's argument, even if it is not the one they explicitly presented. Creating the strongest form of the opponent's argument may involve removing flawed assumptions that could be easily refuted or developing the strongest points which counter one's own position. Developing counters to steel man arguments may produce a stronger argument for one's own position.

... and that paragraph's reference, to Conor Friedersdorf's essay "The Highest Form of Disagreement" (in The Atlantic, 26 June 2017), leads to Chana Messinger's comment in "Knocking Down a Steel Man: How to Argue Better":

“... steelmanning makes you a better person. It makes you more charitable, forcing you to assume, at least for a moment, that the people you’re arguing with, much as you ferociously disagree with them or even dislike them, are people who might have something to teach you. It makes you more compassionate, learning to treat those you argue with as true opponents, not merely obstacles. It broadens your mind, preventing us from making easy dismissals or declaring preemptive victory, pushing us to imagine all the things that could and might be true in this beautiful, strange world of ours. And it keeps us rational, reminding us that we’re arguing against ideas, not people, and that our goal is to take down these bad ideas, not to revel in the defeat of incorrect people.”

Beautiful, wise, and powerful!

_{(cf Questions, Ideas, Arguments (2000-09-14), Discussion and Dialogue (2006-01-07), Steely Eyed Missile Man (2008-05-01), Productive Collaboration (2017-02-27), ...) - ^z - 2025-03-25}