How to Disagree

If it's a logical argument, you can explain where he went wrong without psychoanalyzing him. Just point out the step in his reasoning that's fallacious, or the premise which is incorrect.

Most people don't take well to having their fallacious reasoning questioned, but they do appreciate having incorrect premises pointed out, particularly if it's done politely.

If you need to psychoanalyze the other person to explain the flaw in his ideas, then chances are you're arguing over opinions rather than facts or conclusions. Opinions, by definition, can't be right or wrong, so you're wasting your time.

' The author is a self-important dilettante.

is really nothing more than a pretentious version of "u r a fag."'

This really illustrates to me how fuzzy the border between some of the hierarchy levels (particularly those that involve orthogonal aspects of the disagreed piece). If that statement was simply changed to "The author comes across as a self-important dilettante," I'd classify it as DH2. Even without the change, "is" can still be interpreted as "seems to probably be based on what I've just read," and thus that statement can still be placed in both DH2.

As dfranke said elsewhere, rather than being a true linear hierarchy, this is just hierarchies of various general classes of disagreement forced into a linear hierarchy, and thus it's possible for a statement to have aspects of one of DH0-DH1, DH2, and one of DH3-DH6 all at once. E.g.: "How can this idiot so adamantly argue for intelligent design in the quoted paragraph, when the presence of vestigial organs proves to the dullest that species descended from ancestors where the full functions of the organ were beneficial?"

Perhaps the answer is separate hierarchies for the various aspects, or fuzzy set theory.

Very nice post, thank you!

Here's something to think about. According to Aristotle's Rhetoric, a person making a point to an audience has three things to offer:

-- Ethos -- who they are and why they speak with authority. -- Pathos -- empathy with the audience. -- Logos -- the substance of the argument.

So, an opponent can try to undermine any of these three.

Undermining a person's ethos can be nasty "yo' momma" style language, or it can be more sophisticated. If the person's argument relies on their ethos, however, it may be legitimate. For example, when Nobel laureate William Schockley argues for racial eugenics on the strength of his physics background, it's legitimate to say "Professor, your expertise is in physics, not genetics." This is helpful with anyone who says, effectively, "I'm a bigshot so what I say must be true."

Undermining pathos can also be helpful. For example, "thus-and-such software marketer doesn't want to help you and me, she wants to sell more software licenses for her company. Do not blindly accept her claims that her product is better."

Of course, undermining the logos -- the substance of the argument -- is a very effective way to disagree.

But, my point is, undermining a speaker's pathos and ethos are also legitimate, especially when their argument critically depends on those aspects of their rhetoric.

Some thoughts. I often wonder what is Paul Graham currently doing, what captures his interest at the moment. I have developed a "social consequences" approach to both the planning and observation of human interactions -and I think Paul does as well, in his own way. [So does Clay Shirky too.]

Recently we've seen comments and motions here that, on hindsight, explain the new article: Paul is working on keeping this forum healthy, creative, useful, attractive, alive. Thanks man, I am learning.