"In order to understand what another person is saying, you must assume that it is true, and try to imagine what it could be true of."

I've been impressed enough by this simple idea* that I hope to keep it central to discussions here.

Put another way, there is almost always a grain of truth to any person's point of view. I suppose there will be a case or two where the grain of truth is far outweighed by the many buckets of untruths.

* attributed to psychologist George Miller, from a 1980 interview with Elizabeth Hall for Psychology Today.