Feb 02 2009
How Not to Argue
Darwin once described The Origin of Species as one long argument. Much of science and skepticism, in fact, is the art and logic of arguing, and most of these blog posts on NeuroLogica are just long written arguments.
How to argue logically is therefore one of the core intellectual skill-sets of scientific skepticism. It is why skeptics will frequently whip out their logical fallacy detectors when arguing with defenders of not-so-critical thinking or true-beliefs. Even in everyday conversations we commit and encounter countless errors in logic. It is therefore highly valuable to be familiar with the common ways in which human logic goes astray.
Also the internet has resulted in an explosion of human communication, especially, it seems, arguing. Much of the social constraints are lifted when typing over the intertubes under a pseudonym. Knowledge of good and bad arguing are therefore more essential than ever for the computer literati and wannabe internet flame warriors.
I recently was pointed to this website, which reprints an internet meme that has been going around for a while. It presents 38 Ways To Win An Argument by Arthur Schopenhauer, and offers advice on how to intentionally use logical fallacies in order to flummox your opponent, deceive your audience, and thereby win arguments. The person who pointed me to that website, however, missed the fact that the advice is satirical – it is meant to expose these tactics, not recommend them.
Also, the author of this list is not really Arthur Schopenhaur, but is a modern adaptation of his writing. Arthur Schopenhaur was a German philosopher who lived from 1788-1860. He was a rationalist and logician. What he did write was a book called The Art of Controversy – here is a free 0nline English translation (another wonder of the internet). In this book Schopenhaur does indeed review the tactics of deceitful and fallacious arguments, but he does not frame them as satirical advice. He is exposing them in a straightforward fashion, giving examples of each. The prose is also more typical of what we would expect from a 19th century philosopher.
In the first section Schopenhaur gives some background on the nature of logic and discourse. He writes:
Logic, therefore, as the science of thought, or the science of the process of pure reason, should be capable of being constructed à priori. Dialectic, for the most part, can be constructed only à posteriori; that is to say, we may learn its rules by an experiential knowledge of the disturbance which pure thought suffers through the difference of individuality manifested in the intercourse between two rational beings, and also by acquaintance with the means which disputants adopt in order to make good against one another their own individual thought, and to show that it is pure and objective.
While logic is pure and based entirely on first principles, argument is partly a learned and quirky human endeavor.
The section titled Stratagems is the part that was adapted to the 38 Ways to Win an Argument. Here is the first translated directly from Schopenhaur:
The Extension.—This consists in carrying your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; in giving it as general a signification and as wide a sense as possible, so as to exaggerate it; and, on the other hand, in giving your own proposition as restricted a sense and as narrow limits as you can, because the more general a statement becomes, the more numerous are the objections to which it is open. The defence consists in an accurate statement of the point or essential question at issue.
He then follows with specific examples. And here is the modern adaptation:
1 Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
The more general your opponent’s statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it.
The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.
I do not know who originally wrote the adaption, as every reference I could find credits Schopenhaur for writing it (if someone finds a reference let me know). I therefore assume this is open-access internet content, and for convenience reproduce the entire list below.
It is worth a read, as is Schopenhaur’s much longer original. It is time worth dedicating to perfecting skills in logic and discourse, especially in this age of internet skepticism.
——————————————
38 Ways To Win An Argument
Adapted from The Art of Controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer
1 Carry your opponent’s proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it.
The more general your opponent’s statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it.
The more restricted and narrow your own propositions remain, the easier they are to defend.
2 Use different meanings of your opponent’s words to refute his argument.
Example: Person A says, “You do not understand the mysteries of Kant’s philosophy.”
Person B replies, “Oh, if it’s mysteries you’re talking about, I’ll have nothing to do with them.”
3 Ignore your opponent’s proposition, which was intended to refer to some particular thing.
Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it.
Attack something different than what was asserted.
4 Hide your conclusion from your opponent until the end.
Mingle your premises here and there in your talk.
Get your opponent to agree to them in no definite order.
By this circuitous route you conceal your goal until you have reached all the admissions necessary to reach your goal.
5 Use your opponent’s beliefs against him.
If your opponent refuses to accept your premises, use his own premises to your advantage.
Example, if the opponent is a member of an organization or a religious sect to which you do not belong, you may employ the declared opinions of this group against the opponent.
6 Confuse the issue by changing your opponent’s words or what he or she seeks to prove.
Example: Call something by a different name: “good repute” instead of “honor,” “virtue” instead of “virginity,” “red-blooded” instead of “vertebrates”.
7 State your proposition and show the truth of it by asking the opponent many questions.
By asking many wide-reaching questions at once, you may hide what you want to get admitted.
Then you quickly propound the argument resulting from the proponent’s admissions.
8 Make your opponent angry.
An angry person is less capable of using judgment or perceiving where his or her advantage lies.
9 Use your opponent’s answers to your question to reach different or even opposite conclusions.
10 If your opponent answers all your questions negatively and refuses to grant you any points, ask him or her to concede the opposite of your premises.
This may confuse the opponent as to which point you actually seek him to concede.
11 If the opponent grants you the truth of some of your premises, refrain from asking him or her to agree to your conclusion.
Later, introduce your conclusions as a settled and admitted fact.
Your opponent and others in attendance may come to believe that your conclusion was admitted.
12 If the argument turns upon general ideas with no particular names, you must use language or a metaphor that is favorable to your proposition.
Example: What an impartial person would call “public worship” or a “system of religion” is described by an adherent as “piety” or “godliness” and by an opponent as “bigotry” or “superstition.”
In other words, insert what you intend to prove into the definition of the idea.
13 To make your opponent accept a proposition, you must give him an opposite, counter-proposition as well.
If the contrast is glaring, the opponent will accept your proposition to avoid being paradoxical.
Example: If you want him to admit that a boy must to everything that his father tells him to do, ask him, “whether in all things we must obey or disobey our parents.”
Or , if a thing is said to occur “often” you are to understand few or many times, the opponent will say “many.”
It is as though you were to put gray next to black and call it white; or gray next to white and call it black.
14 Try to bluff your opponent.
If he or she has answered several of your question without the answers turning out in favor of your conclusion, advance your conclusion triumphantly, even if it does not follow.
If your opponent is shy or stupid, and you yourself possess a great deal of impudence and a good voice, the technique may succeed.
15 If you wish to advance a proposition that is difficult to prove, put it aside for the moment.
Instead, submit for your opponent’s acceptance or rejection some true proposition, as though you wished to draw your proof from it.
Should the opponent reject it because he suspects a trick, you can obtain your triumph by showing how absurd the opponent is to reject an obviously true proposition.
Should the opponent accept it, you now have reason on your side for the moment.
You can either try to prove your original proposition, as in #14, maintain that your original proposition is proved by what your opponent accepted.
For this an extreme degree of impudence is required, but experience shows cases of it succeeding.
16 When your opponent puts forth a proposition, find it inconsistent with his or her other statements, beliefs, actions or lack of action.
Example: Should your opponent defend suicide, you may at once exclaim, “Why don’t you hang yourself?”
Should the opponent maintain that his city is an unpleasant place to live, you may say, “Why don’t you leave on the first plane?”
17 If your opponent presses you with a counter-proof, you will often be able to save yourself by advancing some subtle distinction.
Try to find a second meaning or an ambiguous sense for your opponent’s idea.
18 If your opponent has taken up a line of argument that will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion.
Interrupt the dispute, break it off altogether, or lead the opponent to a different subject.
19 Should your opponent expressly challenge you to produce any objection to some definite point in his argument, and you have nothing to say, try to make the argument less specific.
Example: If you are asked why a particular hypothesis cannot be accepted, you may speak of the fallibility of human knowledge, and give various illustrations of it.
20 If your opponent has admitted to all or most of your premises, do not ask him or her directly to accept your conclusion.
Rather, draw the conclusion yourself as if it too had been admitted.
21 When your opponent uses an argument that is superficial and you see the falsehood, you can refute it by setting forth its superficial character.
But it is better to meet the opponent with a counter-argument that is just as superficial, and so dispose of him.
For it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth.
Example: If the opponent appeals to prejudice, emotion or attacks you personally, return the attack in the same manner.
22 If your opponent asks you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it begs the question.
23 Contradiction and contention irritate a person into exaggerating their statements.
By contradicting your opponent you may drive him into extending the statement beyond its natural limit.
When you then contradict the exaggerated form of it, you look as though you had refuted the original statement.
Contrarily, if your opponent tries to extend your own statement further than your intended, redefine your statement’s limits and say, “That is what I said, no more.”
24 State a false syllogism.
Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from the proposition other propositions that are not intended and that appear absurd.
It then appears that opponent’s proposition gave rise to these inconsistencies, and so appears to be indirectly refuted.
25 If your opponent is making a generalization, find an instance to the contrary.
Only one valid contradiction is needed to overthrow the opponent’s proposition.
Example: “All ruminants are horned,” is a generalization that may be upset by the single instance of the camel.
26 A brilliant move is to turn the tables and use your opponent’s arguments against himself.
Example: Your opponent declares: “so and so is a child, you must make an allowance for him.”
You retort, “Just because he is a child, I must correct him; otherwise he will persist in his bad habits.”
27 Should your opponent surprise you by becoming particularly angry at an argument, you must urge it with all the more zeal.
No only will this make your opponent angry, but it will appear that you have put your finger on the weak side of his case, and your opponent is more open to attack on this point than you expected.
28 When the audience consists of individuals (or a person) who is not an expert on a subject, you make an invalid objection to your opponent who seems to be defeated in the eyes of the audience.
This strategy is particularly effective if your objection makes your opponent look ridiculous or if the audience laughs.
If your opponent must make a long, winded and complicated explanation to correct you, the audience will not be disposed to listen to him.
29 If you find that you are being beaten, you can create a diversion–that is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute.
This may be done without presumption if the diversion has some general bearing on the matter.
30 Make an appeal to authority rather than reason.
If your opponent respects an authority or an expert, quote that authority to further your case.
If needed, quote what the authority said in some other sense or circumstance.
Authorities that your opponent fails to understand are those which he generally admires the most.
You may also, should it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify them, or quote something that you have entirely invented yourself.
31 If you know that you have no reply to the arguments that your opponent advances, you by a fine stroke of irony declare yourself to be an incompetent judge.
Example: “What you say passes my poor powers of comprehension; it may well be all very true, but I can’t understand it, and I refrain from any expression of opinion on it.”
In this way you insinuate to the audience, with whom you are in good repute, that what your opponent says is nonsense.
This technique may be used only when you are quite sure that the audience thinks much better of you than your opponent.
32 A quick way of getting rid of an opponent’s assertion, or of throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.
Example: You can say, “That is fascism” or “Atheism” or “Superstition.”
In making an objection of this kind you take for granted
1)That the assertion or question is identical with, or at least contained in, the category cited;
and
2)The system referred to has been entirely refuted by the current audience.
33 You admit your opponent’s premises but deny the conclusion.
Example: “That’s all very well in theory, but it won’t work in practice.”
34 When you state a question or an argument, and your opponent gives you no direct answer, or evades it with a counter question, or tries to change the subject, it is sure sign you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without intending to do so.
You have, as it were, reduced your opponent to silence.
You must, therefore, urge the point all the more, and not let your opponent evade it, even when you do not know where the weakness that you have hit upon really lies.
35 Instead of working on an opponent’s intellect or the rigor of his arguments, work on his motive.
If you success in making your opponent’s opinion, should it prove true, seem distinctly prejudicial to his own interest, he will drop it immediately.
Example: A clergyman is defending some philosophical dogma.
You show him that his proposition contradicts a fundamental doctrine of his church.
He will abandon the argument.
36 You may also puzzle and bewilder your opponent by mere bombast.
If your opponent is weak or does not wish to appear as if he has no idea what your are talking about, you can easily impose upon him some argument that sounds very deep or learned, or that sounds indisputable.
37 Should your opponent be in the right but, luckily for you, choose a faulty proof, you can easily refute it and then claim that you have refuted the whole position.
This is the way in which bad advocates lose good cases.
If no accurate proof occurs to your opponent, you have won the day.
38 Become personal, insulting and rude as soon as you perceive that your opponent has the upper hand.
In becoming personal you leave the subject altogether, and turn your attack on the person by remarks of an offensive and spiteful character.
This is a very popular technique, because it takes so little skill to put it into effect.
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34 Responses to “How Not to Argue”
“The person who pointed me to that website, however, missed the fact that the advice is **satyrical**…”
I’d love–or maybe not–to see how a **satyrical** argument would be expressed.
I swear that I’ve seen Creationists use every single one of those tactics. Maybe I should stop arguing with them.
I missed the bit about satire, and I was reading the whole thing thinking “Wait a second, Novella is advocating these shady tactics? That can’t be!”.
MC Paul Barman has a track (Power) about Robert Greene’s 48 Laws of Power that references the original Schopenhaur “Arthur Schopenhaur authored Art for open power / If you think you’re being deceived, act as if you believe”
What you have there are essentially rules for winning a debate. Debate of course has a long history and is engrained in our culture as the most effective manner in reaching truth. The premise being that the winner by virtue of that success has more access to the truth of that particular matter. Our failed adversarial system of law is an example of that flaw in our cultural mythology. It’s a version of the might makes right scenario as well, using argument as the weapon of choice.
Some years ago I did what is called in the UK, the Common Professional Examination (or CPE). This is basically a grounding in UK and European law as a bridging qualification to becoming a solicitor or barrister.
During tutorials, almost every one of the above were discussed as valid methods for winning an argument – especially when arguing an issue, or range of issues, in front of a lay audience.
Science / Law = very different approaches.
PaulG, you are exactly right when it comes to the adversarial system of law. But then there’s the inquisitorial system which, in spite of its somewhat unfortunate label, takes a much more scientific approach to the search for truth.
Argh, the spelling has been quietly corrected no more satyrs, just satire…
OTOH quite an interesting post.
You better make sure the DiscoTute never finds that website. Imgaine if they started using deliberately false arguments or exaggerations to make their points !
Great article and interesting links. However, are you aware that your article “How to argue” contains porno links?
> cwfong
“the inquisitorial system… takes a much more scientific approach to the search for truth.”
You talk about the adversarial system and the inquisitorial system as if they are both, very clear cut, different things. You may not be aware, but in practice, the U.S., Canadian and U.K., legal systems have mixed elements of the inquisitorial system with that of the adversarial for many years.
A landmark in U.S. legal precedent is well documented…
Abstract:
“In Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., the U. S. Supreme Court made its first major pronouncement on the evaluation of scientific evidence, calling on judges to act as gatekeepers for scientific knowledge and validity, despite lack of scientific training among judges.
Daubert offers the science studies community a case study for examining how judges (and scientists acting as experts) engage in boundary-work and construct scientific validity. In constructing scientific validity under Daubert, judges must evaluate the scientific method behind a particular scientific claim, and will look to the parties’ experts and the relevant scientific community for assistance.
To combat the oft-cited problem of the battle of the experts, judges may be tempted to obtain assistance from court-appointed neutral experts, an inquisitorial (rather than adversarial) system in the civil law tradition of many European countries.
The judicial evaluation of scientific evidence, the resulting construction of scientific validity, and the push for a greater use of court-appointed experts reveal judges’ desire to segregate “objective” scientific facts from aspects of the legal process that are infused with adversaries’ values. Yet the scientific and judicial construction of validity mixes empirical results and research methods with the personal, political, and institutional values of judges and scientists.”
Setting Boundaries between Science and Law: Lessons from Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Shana M. Solomon and Edward J. Hackett. Science, Technology, & Human Values, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Spring, 1996), pp. 131-156. Published by: Sage Publications, Inc
Link to full article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/689771.pdf
My point is, with the UK system (I can’t speak with any authority on US or Canadian), it’s well established that both sides of the adversarial system will use any and all debating tactics to win the day. Judges and other legal professionals may well guard themselves against such tactics, but the lay-person who can and does is rare.
And it is the lay-person that often makes the decisions that have far-reaching consequences for legal cases and scientific research (e.g. jury decisions, funding bodies and education).
It comes back to this – critical thinking is something which should be taught and practically experienced by students at all levels.
In these days of mass communication, where everybody has an opinion, that can be communicated effectively and to millions of people in very short order, the ability to sort logic from fallacy, fact from nonsense, is as important to our society as literacy and numeracy.
Resources such as Neurologica go at least some way to addressing this issue.
“Fools must be rejected not by arguments, but by facts.” Flavius Joseph
PaulG, to give a short or at least shorter response, the systems in practice ARE of course mixed in the US as well as elsewhere. Inquisitorial is used for administrative law in particular. But in the criminal area, Louisiana being a possible exception, the various States use the adversarial process almost exclusively.
There is also a multi-country effort by advocates of the inquisitorial system to get it incorporated more fully in judicial systems in general.
France has a mixed system as well, but I’m informed it leans much more to the inquisitorial side. Also, when you mention debate, you need to consider rules of evidence that limit the methods allowed in “debating” the issues. Deceptive methods are the rule in US systems, and not so much the rule in the more inquisitorial.
US judges in the main preside over a liars contest, mediating the rules but not much of the content.
Inquisitorial system judges may sit en banc, ask questions, prohibit strict advocacy of one side, prohibit suppression of evidence, and many of the other tactics listed in the initial post above.
And in any case I was clearly referring to the nature of the systems, and not to a history of their actual past and present use.
Human nature being what it is, such methods of debate and argumentation will never leave us.
And I notice you used a bit of the same tactic, setting up a response to an argument I never made about the particular use of such systems and that, as you put it, they must be “both, very clear cut, different things.”
And you go on to say “You may not be aware, but in practice, the U.S., Canadian and U.K., legal systems have mixed elements of the inquisitorial system with that of the adversarial for many years.”
But since I first made reference to those systems, it might be fair to assume I WAS a bit more aware of their use than those who made no such reference. You in fact are clearly NOT aware that I have been involved in the judicial reform movement in the US for those same many years.
>cwfong
You’re quite right, I am not aware of your history. Not sure why I would be, that’s why I said “you may not be aware”.
Similarly I’m not sure quite why you have reacted in the way you have. I was not seeking to argue in a confrontational manner, simply trying to discuss something in a way that may have been informative for some people.
I did not attempt to set up a straw man by “setting up a response to an argument [you] never made”; in all honesty it seemed to me that you were discussing the two approaches as distinct entities.
I’m not quite sure why you have responded in what appears to me be such a hostile manner… perhaps because you are used to “fighting your corner” with other topics. Well, this time it was unnecessary. I don’t believe we disagree and I’m certainly willing to defer to superior expertise (when I frankly can’t be bothered to do any research into the matter).
Be that as it may, I do believe the difference in approaches between, legal and scientific practice, serves to highlight an ever-increasing need to expose ordinary citizens (as early as possible), to evidence-based, critical thinking.
I can’t believe we’d disagree on that.
I would agree that the legal system could be practiced in a more scientific manner and that scientific practice should be careful to do the same.
>cwfong
Now hold on, I never said that “scientific practice should/could be practiced in a more scientific manner”, what on Earth are you agreeing with?
I am certain that there are studies that can be improved upon with regard to scientific method – that’s why we have peer review and publication with the aim of replication of experimentation and eventual consensus. That way we eradicate that which is not supported by evidence and we head, over time, to a consensus based on the balance of probabilities indicated by the proofs available. Science doesn’t give 100% certainties.
This is not the case in a legal system which must frequently hand down a time-constrained and binding decision with lasting consequences.
The true scientific methodology does not operate over the same sort of timescale that legal decision-making must. If science gets it wrong, the methodology allows for admission of error and revision according to new findings.
Legal systems do not admit and correct error easily, there’s nothing more lasting than the death penalty after all, and it’s difficult to correct an error there.
Nevertheless, critical thinking on the basis of evidence gathered is a cornerstone of both systems and must be practiced by all involved.
How do we encourage that? Education. Critical thinking alongside literacy and numeracy.
In the U.K. we do this – but too late. Critical thinking courses are not usually taught until students are beginning courses to prepare themselves for degree study.
Too late.
We expect students to research topics throughout their school years using libraries and the internet, but we don’t show them how to judge whether what they are reading, watching or listening to is likely to be true or false. As a result, they accept that which appears to be the most believable, that which authority tells them to or that which appeals to their existing belief systems.
For example, this would be like some people accepting “ghost-in-the-machine, non-materialist” ideas for the mind/brain relationship, instead of materialist theories of the mind being formed by the brain, as is borne out time and again by solid, evidence-based research. See elsewhere in this blog for an argument of this issue that most rational thinkers would believe to be fairly conclusive.
This acceptance of a theory which is shown by an abundance of evidence to, most likely, be complete garbage (to be kind), I would suggest, is the result of poor critical-thinking skills.
PaulG says:”Now hold on, I never said that “scientific practice should/could be practiced in a more scientific manner”, what on Earth are you agreeing with?”
I suppose there are numerous things you’ve never said and the above was presumably one of them. Which I never said either.
What I did say was “scientific practice should be careful to do the same.” Wouldn’t you agree?
By the way PaulG, I think the consensus has not been that the mind was “formed” by the brain, but that it’s an emergent property. But I don’t know that to a certainty.
>cwfong
Let’s look at the sentence…
“I would agree that the legal system could be practiced in a more scientific manner and that scientific practice should be careful to do the same.”
The legal system could be practiced in a more scientific manner… OK.
… and that the scientific practice (or more properly, the practice of science?), should be careful to [be practiced in a more scientific manner].
Now let’s put the two together in a way that is vaguely literate…
The practice of science should be careful to be practiced in a more scientific manner.
Now let’s not go any further into how this sentence still represents a poor standard of literacy. We’ll put this down to typo’s which we’re all guilty of from time to time.
The only message I could get from this is that you are saying that “the practitioners of science should be careful to adhere more closely to scientific method” [and thereby best practice?].
Always a good idea, BUT, I would argue that current standards are effective in controlling for poor practice and that they already work. Of course, no practicing scientist should be complacent and constant, critical evaluation of your own and the work of others is required. This can be, and is currently effectively managed, by peer review and the replication of published experimentation.
So, if the meaning in your sentence is the one I extricated, then “yes” and “no”, I’d agree with you, but only up to a point.
So if a property emerges, can you not say that it has been “formed”?
You could say that but it wouldn’t meet the standards of literacy that you advise others to adhere to.
The bothersome things about emergent properties are that their forms, if any, are extremely difficult to detect.
I think the standard of literacy would be acceptable, it is just the phraseology that might be open to debate.
I thought phraseology involved the main area where British English and the American version reached the point of contention, literacy-wise.
Not to mention the Hong Kong and other versions of course
Phraseology – amongst other things…
Organisation / Organization
Colour / Color
Sceptic / Skeptic
I’m emigrating to Canada soon, where, no doubt, I will have more than enough literacy problems all of my very own!
Before criticizing the adversarial/debate system further one should remember that science, although inquisitorial, essentially arose out of the principle of debate (ie: logic and facts) in a debate loving culture, ancient Greece. In a way science is based on debating. It is essentially what goes on in a slow motion manner in scientific journals. The problem therefore is not with the debate concept but that debating is done by imperfect humans who are prone to bad reasoning. As far as justice is concerned I would rather a adversarial system where the power of decision is spread out and directed by legal experts than an inquisitorial one in which all the power is in the hands of the judges. The Daubert/Dow Pharmaceutical decision strikes me as a reasonable compromise between the two for the sake of better science in the courtroom
The rules of debate during the days of Ancient Greece were meant to serve the process of seeking the truth – even if the syllogistic system that emerged saw truth as an either/or process. Debate as it has evolved in at least the English speaking world is more of a political process, for which truth is serviced more by lip than fact. If you really believe the “rules” at the start of this topic don’t represent both the rules used by today’s debaters, and even more closely resemble rules taught in those little books in the drawers of your lawyer’s office, you are simply wrong.
The case you referenced was in the Federal Court system, where cases often use a mix of cvil and criminal rules and procedures, as well as a similar mix of penalties.
I will admit bias, as I have sat on Federal panels in judgement, but I can tell you that rules of evidence make all the difference, and restrictions on extreme advocacy do as well.
Jury or judge, it’s largely what they are allowed to hear before they can judge that determines the nature of their justice.
And remember Socrates, perhaps the father of debate, and what happened when he desired to speak the truth in that one particular instance.
The same would be true, I imagine, for almost any judicial process “it’s largely what they are allowed to hear before they can judge that determines the nature of their justice.” No matter what is being judged.
My original point was that lay audiences today are frequently required to make important decisions, based on the misrepresentation of evidence in the shape of all of the above debating tactics. The UK legal system was an example I have some experience with, as is the case with the presentation of biological science (specifically zoology and, more specifically, behavioural ecology).
Based on this, the point I made was that the United Kingdom – and from what I have experienced, the U.S., and Canada – do too little too late in their education systems to arm students with the tools to recognise such “debating tactics”.
We then expect, for example, school boards to make decisions on creationism/ID in science lessons; juries to make decisions based on scientific evidence, that may (in reality) be simply the opinion of one specialist over another; or funding departments to allocate money, based on pseudoscientific representations (e.g. reflexology in UK schools).
What we really need to be addressing is the ability of the general public to discern logic from fallacy, evidence from nonsense.
How Not to Argue #38 is used frequently by posters on this blog. I wish we could follow a few rules which I respect on other blogs, American or British. No personal attacks or swearing allowed.
It is correct that both the nature of debating and the way it is seen has changed much over time and rarely is it the kind of intellectual combat that it was originally. More often than not now it is an excuse for pontification and theater, especially in politics. Also, all too many intellectuals these days see little value in searching for universal truths or in declaring some ideas as right or wrong or good or bad. For them debate is more a form of expression and discussion. Still I think that the history of debate and science is far too intertwined to justify denouncing debate in a scientific blog.
Interesting. It appears this is also a logic/philosophy blog, where the blog owner inadvertently mistook some well-known rules of advocacy for satire. And inadvertence per se can only be deemed right or wrong through an examination of its purposes as relates to their consequences. Inadvertance in humans can be a tactic unavailable to lower forms where effests have much simpler causes.
artfulD – I think you mistook what I wrote. The original article by Schopenhauer was straightforward and not satire – as I clearly pointed out. Also he was not just relating rules of advocacy but exposing them as poor logic.
The modern adaptation was then reworked as satire.
Well let’s agree to disagree then, as I might have assumed the adaptation was satire as well had it not been pointed out in the comments as being used, almost as Schopenhauer presented it, in legal handbooks – presumably as rules for examination of an adversarial witness. And these handbook writers and practitioners are seemingly oblivious to its satirical aspects.
Again – “as Schopenhaur presented it” was not satire.
But I admit that satire is sometimes difficult to discern.
What is clear is that the strategies discussed are deliberately used by some to win arguments – even with the knowledge that they are not valid logic. So you can use the same list as a play book, or as an expose of invalid logic in argumentation.
I believe the modern adaptation was used to criticize common internet arguing techniques (not recommend them). That the same list is also a legal playbook does not mean the intent was not satire.
Ah, but what you have there is a possible inference that was presented as an assertion. That in my view was the mistake. Inference being the weak link in almost any logical process, such mistakes are unavoidable. I don’t think it does one a discourtesy to have that pointed out.
And what you have ultimately argued with the use of that final double negative is that the intent either could or could not have been satire. And a mistake to assert that either was the fact. With which I would agree.