41–50 of 238 posts
I wish more people wrote stuff like this. There are a million writing books on grammar and style, but god forbid someone ever write something about what makes good ideas...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you directly deceive the audience via appeal to conservatism?
In that case it wouldn't be deceit as much as it is manipulation. To avoid any political insinuations, I could recast this as appeal to status quo. It's common to argue against new ideas in this way.
I think what's really going on here is that the hierarchy isn't actually a hierarchy. In a proper hierarchy, each level should necessarily entail the previous. Here DH1 entails DH0 (I call DH0 "ordinary ad hominem" and DH1 "circumstantial ad hominem") and DH6 entails DH5 entails DH4 entails DH3. But DH2 has nothing to do with any of the others, and DH3 has nothing to do with any of the previous.
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.…
Mind if I extend your Disagreement Hierarchy? DH-1. Flamebaiting. This is when you preempt that with which you would disagree by stating your case in such a way as to elicit quick disagreement (in the form of DH0 to DH6). Usually done by noticing a subset of all data, forming a hypothesis to explain only that subset, and presenting it as a conclusion. Often done without even realizing it. The relational database mode…
I think the Flamebaiting category is a useful addition to PG's hierarchy. The new category brings to mind an interesting property of this hierarchy though, namely that it seems to be difficult to respond to an "argument" with a higher order technique than that which was originally presented. For example, if one were disagreeing with a purely ad hominem rant, one would find it futile and nearly impossible to disagree…
(Admittedly, this is not always possible or desirable.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm... Doesn't Slashdot sort of do this? Not completely, but to some extent, it does have "Flamebait" or "Interesting" or "Insightful" 'ratings' for comments. I don't really think that's too useful, because it's usually pretty obvious what category the comment falls in after reading it anyway...
Those kinds of tags are too broad. I was thinking of some javascript to let you highlight subparts of a comment then tag it with a more specific label, like "Straw Man Argument." People would probably view the comment differently, but readers (and the author) could then see 60% of people thought part of his comment wasn't useful. Ad hominem and straw dog attacks, for example, might be unintentionally inserted in the…
"You do not truly know someone until you fight them" Seraph, The Matrix
Pithy quote, but do you believe the substance of it in this instance?
I like the quote because it reminds me that even the most logical people may default to reacting non-logically/emotionally in a stressful situation (where they may feel their ego is threatened e.g. have to "fight" to protect themselves)
While only DH4-DH6 can strictly prove an argument wrong, there are many, many situations in which it is infeasible to unilaterally determine "truth." In these cases, DH1-DH3 can be used to determine the probability of a statement being true.
Take ad hominem. Sure it's a weak form of argumentation, but it is reasonable to exercise a certain amount of skepticism based on the nature of the speaker. For example, the New York Post tends to be a more conservative newspaper, while the New York Times tends to be more liberal. Obviously, neither of these facts can definitively prove or disprove a statement, but they can inform an analysis of these papers' claims.
If I'm making a counter-argument I care about, I try to take a "defense-in-depth" approach and attack the original statement at all levels that are useful and try to establish credibility in all the ways I can. I don't think arguing well maps directly to using a higher form of rhetoric. At the end of the day, it depends on your audience. Just ask Karl Rove and James Carville. ;)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the Flamebaiting category is a useful addition to PG's hierarchy. The new category brings to mind an interesting property of this hierarchy though, namely that it seems to be difficult to respond to an "argument" with a higher order technique than that which was originally presented. For example, if one were disagreeing with a purely ad hominem rant, one would find it futile and nearly impossible to disagree…
Another way out is to simply ignore poor arguments and spend one's scarce time responding to the intelligent ones instead. (Admittedly, this is not always possible or desirable.)