====== Advocatus Diaboli ======

Lat. “devil’s advocate”. A legitimate rhetorical technique in which a discussant takes an opposing position in order to test and sharpen arguments in debate.

Unlike the [[rhetoric:defeasible_arguments:straw_man:index|straw man argument]], the <span "devil’s advocate"><i :la>advocatus diaboli</i></span> does not take a weaker or easily attackable position, but on the contrary, argues as solidly as possible.

===== Origin of the name =====

The term “<span "devil’s advocate"><i :la>advocatus diaboli</i></span> ” originally comes from [[wp>Canon law|eccle­si­asti­cal law]] and refers to a party in a process for can­oni­za­tion whose task is to argue against the evi­dence pre­sented by the Church (whose re­pre­sen­ta­tive is the “<span "God’s advocate"><i :la>advo­catus dei</i> </span>”).

===== Description =====

It is an experience that every­body must have made at some point, that an argu­ment, which seemed to be com­pletely clear and plau­sible to one­self or to peers who were of the same opinion anyway, sud­denly becomes much less con­vinc­ing when one is actually con­fronted with counter-arguments.

It there­fore helps to sharpen the argument if someone takes on the role of the //opponent// in a (friendly) argument and helps to question one’s own position – for example, to prepare answers to expected counter-arguments and possibly also to modify one’s position to one that is easier to defend.

For this type of role-playing, it is important that the <span "devil’s advocate"><i :la>advocatus diaboli</i></span>  argues pro­verbi­ally “tough but fair“, i.e., does not spare the oppo­nents, but also does not use unfair tricks (unless one wants to practice precisely how to respond to unfair rhetorical tricks).

==== Avoiding groupthink ====

In many groups of people, some form of con­sensus is estab­lished about cer­tain ways of think­ing and basic as­sump­tions that can no longer be questioned (<span maniculus "see">[[psychology:glossary:groupthink|group­think]]</span>). In this situation, an “<span "devil’s advocate"><i :la>advocatus diaboli</i></span> ” can help to question these basic assumptions and ensure that they remain grounded in reality.

==== Self-criticism ====

A kind of “inner” <span "devil’s advocate"><i :la>advocatus diaboli</i></span>, i.e. a self-critical re­flection on possible counter­argu­ments, can help to avoid certain forms of [[bad_ideas:index|fallacious thinking]] and [[psychology:cognitive_biasses:index|cog­ni­tive bias­ses]] (e.g. [[psychology:cognitive_biasses:confirmation_bias|confirmation]] or [[psychology:cognitive_biasses:overconfidence_bias|overconfidence biasses]]).

===== See also =====

  * [[psychology:glossary:groupthink|Groupthink]]
  * [[psychology:cognitive_biasses:index|Cognitive biasses]]

===== More information =====

  * [[wp>Devil's advocate|Devil’s advocate]] on //Wikipedia//

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