To understand anyone at all, you first have to assume they mostly make sense

The principle of charity says that when interpreting someone's words or beliefs, especially ones that seem strange or mistaken, you should assume they're being as rational, truthful and coherent as the evidence allows, rather than jumping to the least sensible reading. Philosopher Donald Davidson argued this isn't just politeness: without first assuming a speaker shares a broad base of true, logical beliefs with you, there would be no stable way to figure out what their words mean at all.

— Donald Davidson, Radical Interpretation — Dialectica, Vol. 27, 1973