“A skilful questioner is like someone working hard wood: first the easier parts, then the knots.” The line comes from the Xue Ji chapter of the Liji. Here “knots” are the places where the grain is tangled, while “working” means shaping the timber. The passage treats questioning as a craft: begin where progress is possible, then approach the difficult joints. With time, questioner and respondent clarify the matter together.
The sentence does not recommend avoiding hard questions. It says that good inquiry needs an order. If discussion begins with its hardest point, it can seize up; if terms, facts and shared premises are established first, disagreement has somewhere to stand. Read today, skilful questioning means giving thought a path along which it can advance, not displaying intelligence by asking the most difficult question available.
Discover more from Geoffrey Chen
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.