I'm talking about playing the position, not the opponent. If you didn't know who was your opponent, what move would you play?
I like chrisw's concept of a chess map, chess engines would help you see the roads and where they lead to, the purpose would be where you want to go. Tablebases would just be a full map where you already know where every place is located, but parts leading to them remain dark.
There are white places (where getting the black king checkmated is unavoidable), black places (where getting the white king checkmated is unavoidable), the game starts in a grey place (slightly lighter, so it takes effort from black or misplaying from white to get to a darker zone), and players take turns going into roads. Once a side allows the other to go into one that forcibly leads to shades of grey that are very light or very dark the other is in troble and it's hard to go to the other side. There are places that are mostly grey and simple, and others that resemble zebra skins full of white and black places, very complex.
And finally, people usually go by foot, and can't see very far, so against a superior player like an engine that drives you into a dark alley thee's no much hope, while engine assisted chess would be like car racing where you can go as deep as you can to explore the terrain before committing to a road.
It's clear there must be a road that is the best one to get into one's destination, but people that just analyze and never play would be like people analyzing the best routes in Google Maps but never go out of their homes, so they'll never know if being there means they have to improvise because in real life, the path is blocked. Chess truth can only be experienced in a game and nobody in their right mind would play from tablebase positions.