Steelmanning the Problem Space

Formal intellectual debate, in academic conferences, policy settings, and educational contexts, typically presupposes that participants share a sufficient understanding of the problem being debated. In practice, this presupposition often fails. Participants argue positions within a problem space that has not been collectively examined, producing exchanges that generate more heat than light and entrench disagreement rather than resolving it.

This paper introduces Steelmanning the Problem Space (SMSP), a methodology for rigorously defining and charitably representing the problem space itself as a collaborative, pre-debate activity. Drawing on traditions in argumentation theory, pragmatist epistemology, deliberative democracy, and the philosophy of inquiry, we argue that problem space definition is a distinct, consequential, and under-theorized intellectual practice — one that is especially urgent in interdisciplinary and cross-domain settings, and especially neglected in contemporary discourse environments characterized by fragmentation, soundbite culture, and epistemic polarization.

SMSP is not a replacement for debate but a precursor that makes debate more productive. We describe the theoretical grounding of SMSP, situate it in relation to existing adjacent practices (structured academic controversy, deliberative dialogue, Bohmian dialogue, pragma-dialectical argumentation theory), identify the gap it fills, and outline a research agenda for developing, testing, and formalizing the methodology. The paper concludes by positioning SMSP within a broader family of “alternative” knowledge-generation practices being developed at the JOPRO Futures Center.

Keywords: argumentation, deliberation, problem framing, epistemic orientation, interdisciplinary dialogue, structured controversy, knowledge generation, dialogue methodology