as you will all know lots of arguments occur in these parts. some are useful and informative and some not so.
when people let dogmatism rule and stop listening to others discussions tend to degrade somehwat into some Saturday-night town-centre closing-time punch-up.
sometimes a good argument is exactly what the doctor called for, but on most occasions it’s not what people are looking for.
so what are the features of useful discussions? and how might we better enable ourselves to start a thread or debate in a way which is less likely to degenerate in such a way?
How can we encourage open-mindedness and defeat the defence/attack pattern of debate?
Well I tend to see in a lot of debates where both sides aren’t wanting to find the truth of the matter. They would rather win the arguement. The debate somehow turns into a competition of intelligence or a pissing contest, if you will. Everyone has something to prove. Dropping of the ego would make improvement in debates. But, that is what attaches us to this earthly plane so I don’t see it happening anytime soon.
i think this is very true. it’s like people don’t ever want to back down or change their opinions because they know that others will feel smug about it.
i know i have been guilty of this before (although not necessarily on this board)
also i think sometime people will say something and expect to be agreed with, so when others dissent they feel affronted.
but at the same time it is possible to have a serious debate in which neither side has to feel that they ‘lost’ or that they were wrong. it is possible to argue constructively without backing down yet still keep it civilised and informative for both parties.
i think there is a tendancy for pomposity to creep in here and there (I have probably been guilty of this as much as anyone) and this illicits a strong reaction from the interlocutor.
person A says something mildly arrogant or pompous
person B reacts defensively
person C lambasts A for being rude
person A (whose original comment was more often than not, a throw-away utterance) calls everyone idiots
persons D-X all jump in with their ten cents, taking sides and trying to prove themselves.
it’s sad because i don’t think it’s out of a lack of passion for the subject. i think under the right circumstances the majority of people would listen to anyone’s argument calmly and rationally.
Beware those who stand by a statement they’ve made that is demonstrably bullshit but they stand by it anyway because they don’t want to admit to having changed. That was my opinion and even though I’ve now learnt it is bullshit I’ll hold to it anyway.
If you want to get serious for a minute: C.S. Peirce the American founder of Pragmatism, wrote that inquiry is an attempt to get to the truth about things. But, he pointed out, there are two kinds of pseudo-inquirers which he called sham inquirers, and fake inquirer.
Sham inquirers, Peirce said, have predetermined position they are arguing for, and their only interest is to make a case for that position. They have no interest in the truth, but only in maintaining what they believe.
Fake inquirers, Peirce said, are interested only in advancing themselves, either in the eyes of others, or in their own eyes. They are arguing to win, and, like the sham inquirers, also are indifferent to the truth.
that is interesting and is something i have definitely noticed. but how can we tell if we are arguing genuinely for the thruth (when we believe that it is known to us and therefore have no reason to change our minds) and when we are merely dogmatically sticking to a predetermined position and closing ourselves off to other possibilities?
I also don’t like “losing” an argument. Damn stubbornness. I also sometimes have trouble thinking something fully through before I post it. Damn impatience.
Well, it is hard to be objective when committed to a position, or to your own ego. Human beings have a nearly infinite capacity for self-deception. But some people make a fetish of trying to avoid self-deception. Darwin wrote how he would try to think of every objection possible to his hypothesis before he published it. And, of course, it is necessary to subject your own ideas to public criticism on the theory that you should always try to hear what others have to say about your beliefs. Hence, the usefulness of boards like this one. Everyone has to watch himself with as critical an eye as possible. One good sign that you are holding on for dear life to a dearly held view is how you try to defend it. Do you engage in what David Hume called “salvage operations” by which you invent other hypotheses to deflect objections when it is clear there is no independent evidence for those inventions. This is sometimes called “ad hocing”. (From the Latin, “after the fact”, because these extra hypotheses are invented after you have put forward the belief you are defending. But, their only merit is that they prevent the refutation of your belief). As the philosopher of science, Karl Popper, pointed out. Unfalsifiability is a weakness, not a strength of your belief.[/i]
