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How to Disagree

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Disagree

#181

Post by mejohnsn »

pius wrote: post #19
brlewis wrote: post #13

This is a nice catalog of some common forms of disagreement, but I'm not convinced that this set of six is exhaustive, nor am I convinced that if other forms are added that the set will remain well-ordered.

I agree that it's nowhere near exhaustive, most obviously because it doesn't address the ways that writers try to directly deceive the audience (appeals to flattery, conservatism, etc). I remember being part of an Academic Games league in high school. One of my favorite games was simply called "Propaganda." Everyone sat in a big room, listened to arguments, and identified the type of rhetorical technique being used.…

The Nizkor list _is_ pretty good, but some of their definitions, and even examples used to discuss them, are not very convincing. Please see the separate reply where I gave three other lists of definitions.

Actually, one of my long time favorite such sites is:

http://www.fallacyfiles.org/index.html.

Re: How to Disagree

#182

Post by patternator »

I wonder if the scale doesn't go high enough. It's hard to say because it's not clear what the goal of "disagreeing" is. If it's to convince the other person of your own perspective, then I humbly submit that none of these is likely to get you there.

What about the dialectic? What about appealing to common values or goals, and drawing connections between these common values or goals and your own argument? Maybe these approaches are too large in scope to be contained -- or, for that matter, likely to succeed -- within a single comment or comment thread, but I believe it's "higher" on the scale and, when practiced well, more likely to pursuade others than simply demolishing their arguments or employing the other tactics on down the list.

Or perhaps I've missed the goal of the essay?

Re: How to Disagree

#184

Post by timburks »

These are good distinctions, and all categories (especially the lower ones) are well-represented on sites like digg, reddit, and this one.

But there's at least one more dimension to this that seems completely orthogonal, and that's identity. If you want your opinion to be appreciated, then I think that you should be willing to identify yourself. With so much information competing for my attention, I'm much more willing to pay attention to people that give me a way to track back to some background on them, whether they are famous or not. So unless you're worried about your opinion triggering a nighttime visit from the secret police, don't hide your identity. Mine's here: http://blog.neontology.com/about.

Re: How to Disagree

#186

Post by halostatue »

timburks wrote: post #184

These are good distinctions, and all categories (especially the lower ones) are well-represented on sites like digg, reddit, and this one. But there's at least one more dimension to this that seems completely orthogonal, and that's identity. If you want your opinion to be appreciated, then I think that you should be willing to identify yourself. With so much information competing for my attention, I'm much more willi…

This is similar to my stance that I took last November in my own blog. I no longer allow anonymous comments. It doesn't matter as much for me because I don't get many comments, but I have to be able to identify you through an established web site or via email as a real person before I'll allow comments.

Re: How to Disagree

#187

Post by jayf »

there's also: Questioning the assumptions upon which an argument is being made. This isn't so much refuting an argument, central or otherwise. Rather it is exposing (potentially) flawed logic and/or uncovering fallacies or creative embellishments upon which a seemingly sound argument may rest.

Re: How to Disagree

#188

Post by pickleops »

In high school debate, DH4:Counterargument is displayed all the time by novice debaters. The phenomenon on my team was taught and cautioned against as "two ships passing in the night." Imagine a debate: each case was strong and big and impressive but the debaters' responses to one another were off the mark. Their arguments never met and rebuttals hit upon phantom contentions as each debater misunderstood or misconstrued the essential points of the opposing case/debater like "two ships passing in the night."

Re: How to Disagree

#189

Post by mejohnsn »

As I read this, I now feel an even stronger need to take exception to DH4. Graham has used the same 'DH4' to classify both the legitimate counterargument, and the fallacy, so well described by another commentator as "two ships passing each other in the night".

Then again, this particular form of DH4 cannot happen unless generously supported by some _other_ fallacy or fallacies. Otherwise it would be too obvious that they were "passing each other in the night", and no one would be convinced by the arguments.

Re: How to Disagree

#190

Post by mejohnsn »

kerrynitz wrote: post #172
cabalamat wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say "The original meaning of ad hominem was not attaching the author but rather appealing to the readers emotions rather than logic." I don't think you're right here; "Ad hominem" in Latin means "to the man", implying attacking the original author.

appealing "to the man", perhaps?

Interesting guess, but no. The preposition 'ad' in "ad hominem" carries an _adversarial_ connotation. In this sense, it is like "adversus".
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