5. Convincing Force Can Change During Examination

The examination of a conviction is not merely an external audit performed on an otherwise unchanged object.

The examination can alter the force of the conviction itself.

Trying to answer a question can reveal an assumption that had never been explicit. New possibilities may weaken what had seemed like the necessary explanation, or a contradiction may become salient. Criteria can lose force when applied elsewhere. An objection may become stronger after careful reconstruction.

The reverse can happen too. A conviction may become stronger after examination. An objection may fail, or a formal reconstruction may expose a relation that had previously been only vaguely sensed. A method or standard may also become more convincing once we understand better where its force comes from.

Examination can also change where the disagreement lies. What first appeared to be a disagreement about one claim may turn out to concern another.

Examination has no guaranteed direction. It can weaken a conviction, strengthen it, or change where the disagreement lies. But in each case it participates in the conditions under which conviction continues to form.

We cannot choose our way out of disagreement, but we can choose to enter processes that may change what either side finds convincing.