This essay provides concrete examples, drawn from real disputes, conversations, and arguments based on the constraints developed in Minimal Commitments of Dialectical Inquiry.
I – How Inquiry Fails
In Minimal Commitments of Dialectical Inquiry, several minimal constraints for dialectical inquiry were laid out as a hypothesis for what we likely are supposing by participating in this activity. The most common forms of failure in the “game” of dialectical inquiry are when the following “invalid” moves occur: when answers are given that are somehow not allowed to constrain future propositions or claims, when an answer attempts to explain everything without adequate differentiation, or when an answer is not necessarily wrong, but cannot be answered in its current form without additional information. The purpose of this essay is to demonstrate examples of these “failure modes” of inquiry which are likely to be recognized by anyone who has engaged in philosophical discussion. Many of these “failures” are a type of category error, where a response or explanation does not fit the “level” or type being made. These “failure modes” are modeled on real discussions I have had throughout my life which violate the Minimal Commitments mentioned above.
II – When Inquiry Fails
As discussed in Minimal Commitments, these failures are not presented as moral defects nor psychological diagnoses. These are merely breakdowns in the functional and structural conditions of inquiry. These may be signs that inquiry is simply not possible or not the best activity to be performed in that moment.
Minimal Commitment #1: Reality is intelligible.
Two individuals are discussing the causes of a certain event. One interlocutor responds: “Nothing really makes sense anyway.” This statement, on its face, seems humble and reflective. However, if nothing can make sense, no explanation can be better or worse. Rather than discussing causes, the conversation deflates into mood and inquiry can no longer occur unless the claim that “nothing makes sense” can be rationally argued for or is shown to have a meaningful connection to the conversation at hand. This nihilistic deflation often shows that one has stopped playing the game. Perhaps pushing the issue is not a useful means of continuing discussion, and inquiry can resume later.
Minimal Commitment #2: Reality is not exhausted by opinion.
An individual makes a factual claim. This claim is met with “That’s just your opinion.” Such a thing also can appear to be inquiry, and can even show a degree of tolerance. However, disagreement with a factual claim cannot reasonably be framed as a personal expression. For inquiry to occur, disputation of a fact should rest on its own justification. Inquiry cannot occur when error is unintelligible and nothing can be corrected. Inquiry ceases unless some clarification is made. Either the initial claim is not in fact a factual claim, or the initial claimant is willing to justify his position. Again, perhaps inquiry is not the most useful activity at that time.
Minimal Commitment #3: Normative disagreement requires shared constraints on application.
Two individuals are discussing a political policy, and an interlocutor calls such a policy “unfair.” Unless the discussion is occurring at the level of opinion, meaningful analysis cannot occur unless there is a shared, intelligible definition of “fairness”. Such a response can appear to show moral concern making use of ethical language, but disagreement cannot advance because nothing can meaningfully “fix” the point at which a policy can be considered fair.
Another example of this “failure mode” is universalization of a claim, treated as sufficient, without differentiation, boundaries, or mechanism by which it explains such a claim. Many discussions generalize and attribute a quality, without explaining why such a thing is the case. Again, without constraints, this type of claim is unfalsifiable without a fixed definition used to describe such a claim.
Minimal Commitment #4: The Law of Non-Contradiction.
One individual asserts a position. He denies his claim when challenged. He defends his position by stating both his initial claim and the contrary are “both true”. This position is rather unstable in keeping inquiry alive, as there are genuine moments where false dichotomies exist and should be addressed. Resolving a contradiction through refinement is a separate activity from allowing contradiction to be considered harmless. Such a response can appear as nuance and complexity on the part of the individual who attempts to dissolve the contradiction. When there is a meaningful contradiction, our words lose the power to exclude certain ideas. Inquiry cannot meaningfully continue if claims cannot rule out other claims, and claims cannot constrain those made in the future.
Minimal Commitment #5: Ignorance can be recognized.
An interlocutor never says “I don’t know.” and only pivots, reframes, or attempts to retreat to another subject. Such a thing can often appear as confidence, but kills inquiry as error is not admitted as a possibility. It is impossible to learn where there is a lack of willingness to question, revise, and admit ignorance.
Minimal Commitment #6: Aporia is an important intermediate state.
An interlocutor dismisses conclusions as “too complex” to meaningfully justify a claim. While aporia is an important state in order to open the possibility of learning and revising commitments, it is easy to mistake intellectual humility for weaponized uncertainty. If uncertainty is treated as an intellectual resting place rather than a passage to learning, inquiry is frozen.
Minimal Commitment #7: Method matters for what counts as justification.
An interlocutor demands empirical data to ground an ethical claim. When presented with such data, it is dismissed as “just statistics”. Such a thing appears to be scrutiny. If the standard for what grounds a claim shifts in the midst of inquiry, no answer can count as sufficient.
Minimal Commitment #8: Language can succeed, or fail, at disclosure.
When pressed, an interlocutor says “You know what I mean?”. Such a thing can appear as an attempt at shared understanding, but without clarity and intelligibility, meaning becomes immune to correction. When words are treated as gestures toward an idea, rather than as a legitimate claim to be inquired about, inquiry cannot continue until the idea is intelligible.
Minimal Commitment #9: Inquiry requires mutual clarity and ability to be corrected.
This failure is often called “sealioning”. One interlocutor demands endless justification and clarification, but offers none in return. Genuine inquiry can be mistaken for such a thing, but for inquiry to continue, both interlocutors share the responsibility for intelligibility and willingness to revise or bracket commitments in order to explore an idea. This is not rigor or precision, as in genuine inquiry, but easily becomes extraction and domination rather than mutual exploration. Asymmetrical burden kills inquiry.
Minimal Commitment #10: Inquiry requires discipline, not just curiosity.
An interlocutor offers endless “What about…?” interruptions that derail every line of reasoning. Such a thing can even occur in good faith and as a result of curiosity. If reasoning is not allowed to come to completion, or if objections and requests for clarification are not grounded in something relevant to the claim being made, inquiry dissolves into noise.
Minimal Commitment #11: Participants must be responsive agents.
An interlocutor replies to a claim with slogans, memes, or canned responses. While it is certainly a type of engagement and participation, correction cannot be made. One cannot meaningfully analyze a claim unless the response is relevant, able to be revised, or a genuine intelligible thought of an interlocutor.
Minimal Commitment #12: Understanding requires mutual recognition.
A claim is intentionally misread (or “strawmanned”) in order to “win” rhetorically. While such a thing is a tactic of debate, understanding is no longer the shared aim. Distortion of the interlocutor becomes more important than inhabiting the “third space” of the idea and exploring its limits, what follows, and what it presupposes. An idea cannot be meaningfully explored if an attempt is not made to understand the claim.
III – An Example of Failed Inquiry
Imagine this scenario: In an online discussion, a participant offers a psychological explanation of a political group, describing their public behavior as a compensatory mask for fear and vulnerability. The explanation draws on the psychological idea of projection. This appears, on the surface, to be genuine inquiry. The explanation appears to be reflective rather than overtly hostile, and is framed as an attempt to understand rather than to merely condemn. When an interlocutor presses on what grounds such a claim is made, the individual who made such a claim retreats into an expansive metaphor, gesturing towards the universal applicability of such a claim rather than an accusation. This shows a violation of a reciprocal responsibility for clarity.
When asked to specify what distinguishes this group’s fears from those of others, or why this group was chosen as the example when these sorts of fears were later treated as universal, the explanatory burden is not reciprocated. Clarification is requested, but not supplied. In such a case, explanation becomes totally immune to correction. Without understanding the “work” a metaphor is doing, the claim is unfalsifiable and difficult to truly understand.
By treating such fears as universal while applying such a diagnosis specifically, the claimant avoids ever having to demonstrate what would count as evidence against it. Requests for specificity are met with increasingly universalizing metaphor, rather than analyzing what differentiates such a group from others. At this point, the explanation ceases to be inquiry and becomes expressive rather than explanatory: beautiful and evocative, perhaps, but unfalsifiable. Inquiry does not fail because such an explanation is false, but because it cannot be answered. These two activities are different “games” with different “rules”. No distinction can be drawn that would allow the claim to be tested, refined, or meaningfully disagreed with.
IV – What Happened There?
Good-faith questioning and attempts at inquiry can hit a hard limit. Psychological language can be useful when claims are analyzed within that category, but can easily become a self-sealing system. When a claim that is selectively-applied retreats into universality, inquiry effectively ceases until the claim’s “bridge” is built from universal claim to particular application. At this point, silence or repetition of questioning is not evasion, but an application of structure. If a framework does not allow for differentiation, it cannot be meaningfully applied to anything without committing a type of category error.
V – Conclusion
I hope these demonstrations of when the “game” of dialectical inquiry fails allow us to see that the constraints we are pre-supposing appear regularly and in many different situations. One may desire inquiry, and another may wish to play a different game. This requires some discernment as to whether an interlocutor is willing to engage in inquiry. An important point is that no one can be compelled into inquiry without it becoming rhetorical domination. Such a failure is, perhaps, far less conducive to keeping the atmosphere where inquiry could possibly occur than category errors or evasions. Inquiry fails not through error, but through the erosion of the conditions that make error intelligible.
February 10, 2026 Update: I’ve opened a Discord server for careful philosophical dialogue. If this interests you, please send me a direct message.