# Contested concept: open-mindedness

_**What you are reading**: one contested-concept page in Deliberus's deliberation graph. Deliberus maps human reasoning — including claims that are contested, mistaken, or extreme — so that disagreement can be examined precisely. A claim's presence here is not an endorsement: the graph records that someone argued it, how it connects to other reasoning, and how far scrutiny has gotten. The metadata on this page describes the state of that scrutiny, not the truth of the claim._

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- **Contestedness**: criterion
- **Diagnosis**: Self-ascribed open-mindedness conceals that the limits of acceptable thought are set by current fashion, so each side judges the other closed-minded.
- **Canonical**: `/concept/open-mindedness` (data: `/concept/open-mindedness.json`)

## Senses in use
- **Willingness to consider shocking, taboo ideas and to break conventional wisdom** — used in 4 claim(s)
- **Taught tolerance that stops at what is 'really wrong' by current standards** — used in 3 claim(s)

## Claims using this term
- [But when people are bad at open-mindedness they don't know it.](/claim/claim_0c41f4970052.md) _(sense: Willingness to consider shocking, taboo ideas and to break conventional wisdom)_
- [Our hypothetical prim miss from the suburbs thinks she's open-minded. Hasn't she been taught to be?](/claim/claim_29adc4a280c7.md) _(sense: Taught tolerance that stops at what is 'really wrong' by current standards)_
- [A good scientist does not merely ignore conventional wisdom, but makes a special effort to break it.](/claim/claim_3574f9d76f3a.md) _(sense: Willingness to consider shocking, taboo ideas and to break conventional wisdom)_
- [Ask anyone, and they'll say the same thing: they're pretty open-minded, though they draw the line at things that are really wrong.](/claim/claim_513e423dd666.md) _(sense: Taught tolerance that stops at what is 'really wrong' by current standards)_
- [There is a clear correlation between intelligence and willingness to consider shocking ideas.](/claim/claim_9483b7b6fd6b.md) _(sense: Willingness to consider shocking, taboo ideas and to break conventional wisdom)_
- [Training yourself to think unthinkable thoughts has advantages beyond the thoughts themselves. It's like stretching. If you can think thing…](/claim/claim_aa0c19218c36.md) _(sense: Willingness to consider shocking, taboo ideas and to break conventional wisdom)_
- [Certainly the fact that [people] value open-mindedness is no guarantee [that they are open-minded].](/claim/claim_be4d43cc96cb.md) _(sense: Taught tolerance that stops at what is 'really wrong' by current standards)_