The Art of Argumentation - Liberty.me

The Art of Argumentation

Tags: Guide_the-art-of-argumentation

Mike Reid October 31, 2014 at 3:02 pm

Kick off the discussion on Wendy McElroy’s guide, The Art of Argumentation!

It can be tremendously frustrating to know you are correct on an issue and yet be unable to convince anyone else of that. In this guide, liberty legend Wendy McElroy finally gives you the strategic framework you need to keep your head and spread the message of freedom.

She explains exactly how to handle yourself and your opponent in a civil argument — and what to do when things get uncivil.

Got questions for Wendy? Comments, observations or elaborations? Either reply here or create a new discussion using the tag Guide_the-art-of-argumentation

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bootstrap June 9, 2015 at 8:39 am

Good content, but more about technique than content. For example, it doesn’t mention topics like “recognize and identify false alternatives”, and “recognize and identify false premises and assumptions”, and “recognize and identify fictions being treated as non-fiction”, and so forth.

In my experience, about 99.999% of modern arguments are based upon false premises, and assuming fictional concepts are non-fiction. Which means, the entire conversation, no matter how clever and well executed, fails to reach valid conclusions. What’s the point of that?

For example, how many conversations, arguments, debates only make sense if “authority” is possible (non-fiction)? Probably about 99.999% of all social and political conversations. Which means, to show that “authority” is necessarily fiction, that “authority cannot exist”, eliminates (or at least completely redirects) the vast majority of social and political conversations. If “authority” cannot exist, neither can “law”, “official”, “government”. How many conversations, arguments and debates does that eliminate before they even get rolling?

Sadly, very few humans have a clue what the “reality-status” of their concepts are! This is true because kids grow up in an environment where virtually everyone they see or hear assumes endless bogus, fiction concepts are totally legitimate non-fiction concepts. And so they habituate these assumptions before they are old enough to even be clear about the topic “fiction versus non-fiction”, much less know how to organize and label their concepts effectively. And yes, habits are very difficult to notice, much less eliminate or replace. Try to eliminate the habit called “walking”. As a baby, we had a difficult time walking. But once we habituated walking, it was easy. Even more, now we can’t remove the habituated complex of muscle tweaking that is walking, even if we try.

Another powerful technique is to consider the key, core fundamentals of every topic. Most often people are confused because they don’t even know what fundamentals the current topic of discussion presume and depend upon. Often when fundamentals of a topic are identified, one or both positions become laughable because they are so stupid once the relevant context is identified.

So the PDF had lots of good advice, but I’d double the length by adding these and many other concrete tips and techniques about the content of conversations, arguments and debates (to augment the psychology and methodology). My experience is, addressing content often effectively ends the debate before it even gets rolling, sending one or both participants into investigations of the real and fundamental aspects of that topic. This is common because most people take positions on topics because “that position was widely accepted in their environment” or “because it appeals to them” or “because it benefits them”… NOT because they ever seriously considered and investigated the topic at hand.

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  Mike Reid June 10, 2015 at 3:48 pm
  
  Wow!
  
  Yes, much more could be written. We try to keep each guide itself small, but I think what you propose would be valuable too. Heck, even a slightly modified version of the 6 paragraphs you’d got here would be a great Liberty.me blog post (hint, hint).
  
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Brian Tomlinson June 10, 2015 at 5:18 pm

Let me begin by saying that I am an unlikely candidate to tell others how to be persuasive. My own background includes years of academia, specifically philosophy in which the study of logic was central. I had assumed for years that all one needed to do was present a sound argument (ideally) or at least a valid argument in opposition to any invalid argument and the other person would immediately abandon the invalid argument. Stop laughing.. I really did believe this. 🙂 Obviously that itself was a false belief. I still struggle with the emotional persuasion, in no small part because it seems somehow dishonest or barring that, distasteful. I do recognize however that others can walk that tight rope far better than I, so I leave those sorts of argument to them.

Methodology is indeed key. When Wendy stresses developing the habit of reasonableness, she is spot on. That said there is a great deal that is inherent in reasonableness. There is first of course the adoption of reason and adherence to the laws of logic. There is also an acceptance that reality, not belief, determines to be true. Without this second feature we are all just spouting opinions without any connection to anything outside of ourselves. Then there is also the acceptance that if a given belief is shown to be wrong, we won’t pull any emotional blackmail or other intellectually dishonest reaction to make the person who enlightened us seem smaller.

On one of her points, I actually disagree, well in part. We’ve discussed this before, though I cannot recall the end result. While one is always free to disagree, we should make note of different types of disagreement. We can disagree about what flavor of ice cream is best, and there is no problem. However if we are disagreeing about something that is objectively verifiable, say about the truth of an objective claim about reality, or the general shape of the earth, then when we disagree at least one of us is not being entirely intellectually honest. If the statement from one speaker is correct and the other incorrect, to merely disagree is to discount truth itself. If both speakers are mistaken, then we both lack either the information necessary to determine the truth, or the willingness to accept the truth. The latter situation is not much different from the difference in favorite flavors of ice cream. The former however is much more telling about the nature of the person unwilling to abide the truth. When we “agree to disagree” about such objectively verifiable matters, we are dismissing objectivity and truth which for me at least is too high a price to pay.

One of the perhaps downsides of the intellectual curiosity that she speaks of, is that at least in social media, people tend to forget when you quickly abandon a false belief once shown it is false, but they recall every time you were on the side of truth. As a result they can and will, often call you arrogant and claim that you never admit error. By denying them that big glorious moment of saying “HA! I gotcha! I told you so!!” when you just abandon a proved false belief, They seem to feel cheated and just forget about those situations entirely. At least such has been my experience.
Perhaps the most practically important bit of advice here is knowing your audience. I was fortunate enough to first learn this lesson on one of Wendy’s forums long ago. I remained civil and just spelled out an argument, largely because I was oblivious to the emotional reaction of the other principle poster. Once their anger was evident to me, I was merely disappointed, not angry. The topic was controversial (I cannot recall what it was), so I was alone in defending the position. Months later another member of the forum let me know that she had changed her position due to the way I handled it as much as my arguments themselves. This person had never participated in the thread, and I hardly knew who she was, but I was flattered and frightened because suddenly I realized my audience was out there in the dark and I could not know how large it might be. That said, I find at times that remaining entirely calm when faced with denials of basic elements of logic and reality, trying.

While of course the pseudo-intellectualizing ought to be avoided, sadly I find more often that if you use ANY intellectual language you will be accused of being a pseudo-intellectual. In a given topic a certain amount of basic knowledge of the subject ought to be safely assumed. For instance, when discussing issues of logic, references to the law of non-contradiction ought not be mistaken for pseudo-intellectualizing. Or if you are speaking of the nature of language referring to the impossibility of a private language, perhaps even referencing Wittgenstein’s famous refutation, is not pretentious it is simply a time saver. That said, this line can be blurry, but in my experience the best way to be clear as to whether a person is just trying to show off or if they are sincerely helping is to ask for more information. Or if you find you are on the other side of it, offer a brief explanation and then a link or other source for more information. A sincere person will take that to heart.

The two books on this subject that I have often recommended over the years are first and foremost The Reasonable Woman: A Guide to Intellectual Survival by Wendy herself, and How to Argue and Win Every Time by Gerry Spence. The latter’s title is perhaps unfortunate though appropriate, as many mistake the title to mean that you will learn tricks to make you look right, rather than be right. Like one of Wendy’s comments, Spence tells the reader to ask themselves what the objective of the argument is. Is it to beat down the other person (most common arguments) or is it to persuade them, or better yet simply to mutually come to the truth?

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