Winning arguments yields tautologies whereas losing them properly can expose untruth

Evidence

When philosophers, who are well known to have difficulty in keeping silent, engage in conversation, they should try always to lose the argument, but in such a way as to convict their opponent of untruth. The point should not be to have absolutely correct, irrefutable, watertight cognitions – for they inevitably boil down to tautologies, but insights which cause the question of their justness to judge itself. — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 83

Categorization

• APHORISMS: Life advice for the intellectual: ambition in dialogue should be to lose well, forcing the opponent’s error to judge itself.
• ADDENDUM: Resonates with the graft/tree essay’s logic insofar as both prize the relation to the object over conquering — though the parallel is loose; more precisely it echoes the Adorno method of letting the object’s own contradiction surface.
• XREF: connects to: Inoculation can target faulty reasoning tactics rather than specific facts — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 962