Which is better?
Please don’t clutter this with a bunch of garbage about how the argument isn’t won until the truth is decided, any critical thinker should know that’s b.s. Just be honest and talk about your choice a little if you like. I’m just interested to know which one of these is held to be of higher importance here. This could be fun.
Tough one. It depends on context of the argument and if people are watching. I’m more likely to want to win in front of others than if it’s just myself and the other.
Well technically, if one wins an argument, which I assume means “one is correct and the other is not”, then the truth is found as a result, which would be the claim of the one who won the argument, and therefore your two poll options are synonymous, no?
Winning the argument doesn’t necessarily mean your side of the argument is factual. For example you could argue that the existence of a god is not provable. You might win the argument, but this would only be because your oponent cannont provide sufficent proof that it CAN be proven. In this example, the non-provability might be false, ergo the TRUTH might be that you can prove god, or the truth might be that you can’t.
Truth is objective, winning an argument is subjective.
Please, no logic lessons or butchering of the meaning of my question. I’m asking for honest opinions here. Are you a noble truth seeker? Or a self interested strategist? I’m the latter. At least I’m honest about it.
…but that isn’t a valid argument. The terms are not defined. It is like an argument-- “if a shniggle whopterfroth exists”. You would have to define this thing before you could determine whether or not it existed. Such is the obscurity and ambiguity of all theological arguments. Consider Spinoza’s concept of “God.” It is so all-encompassing that it is empty; everything is God and therefore there is no particular possibility of error in a conclusion about it. Everything is God and everything is true about God, even what is believed to be false, because it too is part of God.
Arguments concerning the meaning of premises are lost before they are started. This accounts for 99 percent of philosophical argument. This is why philosophy is dead. This is why Wittgenstein was a moody bastard…because he knew this.
The only truth of a philosophical argument is that it is happening, not whether or not its contents are true or false. Just as an argument about “God” is not true or false because it is nonsense; what is true is that it is happening, that I see the letters on the screen, that you are making sounds with your eating hole, that I can hear them, etc., etc. And the moment we attempt to argue the meaning of the terms I just used to describe the present-tense state of facts above…we lose it again. Its hopeless. We’d be better off speaking with numbers. A pure binary language, which will be spoken by AI when the human race finally destroys itself.
What, you thought philosophy was fun? You thought you could just stop by ILP and “enlighten” yourself? Rubbish. This world is a disaster, and for every second you waste on “philosophy”, some seven year old child is weaving gym-socks in a dungeon somewhere in Nicuragua for a bowl of rice and half a rusty cup of water.
Aren’t we having fun, we “philosophers”? We should be because, gosh, we are sooo important. Helpful too…the way we figure things out, you know? I’d say we’ve done pretty good. Seven percent of the worlds population owns eighty-five percent of the world itself, and it only took four hundred years to get that way. Well, at least a few people are having a good time, even if at the expense of the miserable lives of the rest of the world. Right? Right. Where’s Ayn, I want her to spank my firm buttocks because it gives me pleasure, and we are pleasure seekers, objectivists, and noble creatures capable of collectively destroying our entire race in record time. We even beat the dinosaurs in the time it took to become extinct.
So here’s to you, oh philosophers. [raises glass of battery acid] What would we have done without you?
Umm…survived?
K.
A’ight, Mr. ScottMears, you want the truth? Here’s the truth. The world is mine, the truth is mine, and I always win. I, like Socrates, have searched the internet world-over for a man/woman wiser than myself, and with the exception of Rosa Lichtenstein (The Mother Matriarch of Marxism), I have found nothing but insidious floundering morons.
The options you present are interchangeable in my case: the truth is that I win…I win and this is the truth.
Happy now?
And is that Cuban you are smoking there? It looks like a blunt, at second glance.
1 Q Detrop - is your own argument part of the 99%?
Winning the argument is more important, as it grants one the power to define the terms. The truth is neither here nor there if one cannot win an argument about it. And of course, one can win an argument while maintaining a false position.
truth is an illusion…
winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing…
-Imp
Obviously that remaining one percent was my own philosophy.
Yes, this is a glorious spectacle to see in debate. Friedrich, the Mexican Objectivist (Kantian…not Randian), who made a few posts here a couple years ago then decided to leave after convincing himself that he was a little too pedantic to participate at ILP, once provided a better relativist argument against himself than what was offered by those who were debating him. Now that is some funny shit man.
When the guy you are arguing against is not only right, but knows a better argument against his own position than the one you are arguing and convinced that you are right about yourself, shows it to you as if to say “you can’t even get this much right!”, then convinces you that it is wrong, and before you can apologize, leaves you standing there in the spot-light, picking your nose…now that’s good stuff man.
Indeed, and I’d like to think I’ve done that once or twice. Not to you, obviously, because I wouldn’t want to embarrass you, but to those who needed a lesson.
Pity? I smell weakness. I wouldn’t spare you if I met you on the battle field, and I wouldn’t expect anything less of you either.
We live and die by the Spartan law. To die in battle is the greatest honor, lad.
Besides, you’ll just end up as another notch in my hammer. You should really reconsider the whole thing and just fight on the winning team…my team. But please don’t spare me for fear of “embarrasing” me, if you do decide to sign your own death warrant and attack me.
I’d find a cunning way to avoid you, let you tire yourself out chasing your own tail.
Yeah yeah, you’ve seen 300 and got all inspired. Child.
That’s Thor. Different set of ancient myths. Typical Yank, thinks that Europe is all one country.
There’s no ‘my’ in team.
Pah, do your worst. You still worship someone with an obscure European nation for a surname, how hard can you be?
Yes! Twice. Two nights in a row, yesterday and the day before. If you noticed, that pic of the queen in the randomness thread was edited this morning. What happened was I got the quote wrong, went and watched it again, and edited the quote the following morning, this morning.
The movie was very good. The dialogues coulda been better, I think, but the movie did well with theatrics, lighting and color, and stage effects. All the Spartans had bronze paint on their chests to help emphasize their muscles. A little silly, yes, but that director has a unique style. He creates a surreal kind of half reality half comic book appearance in his movies. You saw Sin City, yes?
Anyway yes, I want to be a Spartan. I am tooootally inspired.
BACK TO THE ORIGINAL TOPIC!!!
Does “win the argument” mean that you have presented the truth and therefore cannot be refuted? Or does it mean that your case has been accepted by the audience as “winning” regardless of fact or fiction?
For me, I love winning the argument, and I love finding the truth. They don’t necessarily go hand in hand. They usually do, but they don’t have to.
winning/power is an illusion too.
indeed, i would be glad to lose a logic based debate, i would finally have found a person wiser than i from which i would aim to consult.
on topic: … my view are along the same line as detrop’s, from one perspective they are interwined on both ends of the spectrum.
Ying and Yang or Yang and Ying ?
Winning the argument means that you’ve convinced the other person to give up some belief for the sake of dominating them intellectually or what have you. When I say finding the truth, I mean Truth with a capital T. Everyone stop pretending like you don’t understand the question. I think some of you guys just like to hear yourselves type. 
And of course that’s not a Cuban. I live in the land of the free. Those are totally illegal here.