Intellectual Hygiene

I recently pleaded to and ranted aboutAesthetic is Easy2026-07-21 · thoughtsYou can wear a uniform. You can proudly display Russell, Hegel, Kant, and Aristotle on your shelves. You can f…← 1 link hereopen → my personal interlocutors;11I have a strong preference to not simply complain... but this is what I feel like I did in that piece. Read at your own peril. this is my attempt to provide some guidance on the work needed towards some form of epistemic honesty.1I have a strong preference to not simply complain... but this is what I feel like I did in that piece. Read at your own peril.

To make things simple, I'll write a top-level list and work into it as time goes on. I might not finish all of them,22I should probably remove this sentence once I do actually get to all of them... my apologies if I didn't. so note that these are general rules and I may have caveats which I hadn't gotten to yet.2I should probably remove this sentence once I do actually get to all of them... my apologies if I didn't.

Before I provide this list, however, I want to re-iterate that this is about epistemic honesty and not consistency. I am under the belief that it is impossible to maintain logical consistency over one's entire thought. Instead, I push for the more malleable term of honesty. We can accept that some of our thoughts are poorly formed or seemingly contradictory, but we should acknowledge such thoughts and their limitations when we use them in later thought or dialogue.33This relates quite heavily to Sartre's concept of 'bad faith,' in which we are acting in bad faith if we lie to ourselves about what we know or have come to know (this is my loose interpretation of it, I plan on writing on this a bit in the future).3This relates quite heavily to Sartre's concept of 'bad faith,' in which we are acting in bad faith if we lie to ourselves about what we know or have come to know (this is my loose interpretation of it, I plan on writing on this a bit in the future).

Also, reading the list is not enacting the list. I can copy my ideas down for your perusal, but making use of them requires application, and knowing requires consideration.

Here's my44It doesn't mean this is the only way to think, of course; it is instead my distillation of guidelines I'd give to someone who asked for such a list. list:4It doesn't mean this is the only way to think, of course; it is instead my distillation of guidelines I'd give to someone who asked for such a list.

To know is to workDefining Knowledge Work2026-08-21 · definitionsKnowledge Work The intended transformation and manipulation of information. Used mainly in opposition to the i…← 1 link hereopen →
1. The above is a link to my definition of knowledge work, but the general gist is that there is effort required to do so. If you want to know things, you will need to work to do so.
Come to some terms with what fact and opinion are.A bit on Opinions2026-07-13 · thoughtsThis is an unrefined and evolving thought of mine. I find it easier to clean up my thoughts through writing, a…← 1 link hereopen →
You are limited by your experience,
1. so expand it,
2. but also accept it.
Practice restating the strongest form of the arguments against your own position.
Try to understand the information you're provided from the perspective of the provider.
1. I intend on writing a 'levels of reading' bit to describe how this works.55Yet another aspirational todo footnote.5Yet another aspirational todo footnote.
2. This is also probably the hardest item in this list. It requires you to not only understand how you interpret things, but for you to look at additional sources from and about the author of whatever you're reading to build context for the writing.
  1. A 'simple' exercise: pick a news article from any organization, look up the author of the article and the editorial board. Find out what they usually write about, what biases they have from that, and then reread the article given that perspective. Try to understand what motivates the writing.66There are quite a range of motivations, even for 'just' news articles! Some are perfectly mundane: "This is my job and I was asked to write on this beat" to extremely complex: "This person is a candidate in the next election and I wish to help frame the story in a certain way."6There are quite a range of motivations, even for 'just' news articles! Some are perfectly mundane: "This is my job and I was asked to write on this beat" to extremely complex: "This person is a candidate in the next election and I wish to help frame the story in a certain way."
3. This is also one of the items where, if you have a STEM bias, you may realize that your schooling would have never taught you this. The fields of study which seem to be best at this are all liberal arts (with Philosophy and History at the top). The more 'quantifiable' your results are, the less you have to practice this skill.77Which is ironic: quantified information attempts to minimize context necessary in its transmission, but so much context is necessary to understand how that information is used. From the 'reading research papers' perspective, this 'context' is something you learn as part of your academic training, but it doesn't transfer to fields outside of your own. See the work of C. Thi Nguyen for a broad explanation of this in a bunch of other contexts.7Which is ironic: quantified information attempts to minimize context necessary in its transmission, but so much context is necessary to understand how that information is used. From the 'reading research papers' perspective, this 'context' is something you learn as part of your academic training, but it doesn't transfer to fields outside of your own. See the work of C. Thi Nguyen for a broad explanation of this in a bunch of other contexts.
Think in your own words.
1. The simple idea here is to first try and explain it using what you know in a way that makes sense to yourself. This is different from 'communicating' your ideas; your audience is you and your objective is to clarify your own thoughts to yourself. Trying to do this while also trying to make it digestible to others can complicate things if you're still learning about the thing.
Knowledge is like a garden:
1. Check for weeds! It is impossible to be vigilant all of the time, so errors and inconsistencies can build up. One way to combat this is to use time as a signal for evaluation: If you haven't thought about a topic in a while, take a moment and reflect about it and re-evaluate what you know. It takes but a moment (luckily, weeds are usually identifiable upon initial inspection), and it can be triaged for later if need be.