principle of charity
Rebuild an argument in its most reasonable form before judging it.
The principle of charity says that when a passage can be reconstructed in more than one way, you should choose the reading that makes the argument as strong as the text allows, supplying plausible missing premises rather than absurd ones.
Examples
Reading "dogs bark, so this dog barks" as relying on "most dogs bark," not "every dog barks at every moment."
See also