philhellene

I have thought about where exactly I should create this thread and decided that this subforum may be the best place, as it has philosophical ramifications and perhaps invites political ones as well (among other things).

That said, the intended purpose of this thread is not to hold a debate, rather, to discuss how best to conduct or contribute to a debate. It may seem pretentious and capricious, but I think that modern people often take for granted that for most of human history, the masses of opressed chattle were voiceless while divine, enthroned rulers counted on their yearly tithes.

I love democracy, and consider it a superb liberator of humanity, but there is a cost to freedom. Now that we have a voice and a right to use it, we have often an obligation to elocute from time to time. As sad as it may sound, often, the truth of what we have to say is ignored or overshadowed by the way it is delivered. Public speaking is as much performance and salesmanship as it is critical thinking.

Audiences must often be forcefed information and then hit over the head with a mallet before they understand our message. It behooves us to practice and educate ourselves in the art of rhetoric. Some of the most famous and successul people of the past, tyrant and hero alike, were often formally trained in philosophy and rhetoric.

But there is a much more salient point to be made about arming ourselves, if we are familiar with all the "tricks" which can be used to convince the sheep and intoxicate the masses, we may make ourselves resistant to manipulation and fraudulent thinking.

Logical Fallacies

It may behoove an individual to eduacte themselves in logical fallacies, as they are common in everyday discourse, and often find their way into heavy and ideological discourse. The tangible benefits of knowing them are that when they are used, we can identify them. Whence identified, they can be illustrated as fallacious. The sinister side of them is that they can also be used against others, if we throw ethics to the wind. There are many logical fallacies, but I want to concentrate on a few of the more common ones, especially ones that I see quite often (and seem to be very convincing).

False Dichotomy - We are often presented with a choice of two when there are grey areas or alternatives. The aim may be to polarize a people or drive a wedge. It can simplify or oversimplify, but by definition a false dichotomy would always be false. "You're either with us or with them, you're either black or you're white, you're either a Democrat or a Republican".

Moving the goalpost - You may find yourself in a situation where someone doubts you and asks you to present evidence. After you provide some factual information your opponent may then argue over how you found the data, or argue that it is insufficient, or otherwise attempt to have all the data dismissed so that they can demand of you another list of evidence. If you persist in finding more data while they persist and throwing it all away, they are moving the goalposts.

Cherry picking - You can make any dictator seem like a charming person if all you do is cherry pick anecdotal events from their past and character while conveniently omitting any evil they might have done. You can cherry pick a quote from any person, or cherry pick lines from your favorite movie or book. The goal of cherry picking is to find the very best, the cream, and then present it as if it were the common.

Ad Hominem - When all else fails, you can just attack the person if attacking their ideas does not work. Did you know that Charles Darwin was a racist? Evolution cannot be true! It often serves as a convenient way of obfuscating an actual topic while redirecting someone's attention and possibly inciting an emotional response.

Appeal to emotion - One of the most common and persistent logical fallacies, and typically a very effective one as well. If people can be frightened they can act irrationally or make illogical choices. Eliciting emotions from a mass of people is perhaps not as difficult as we might think. One of the most common form of con artistry is that of the confidence trickster, who gains the confidence of a victim and then feigns offense when you display skepticism. If people are already angry/sad/happy when you begin your talk, all you may have to do is pour fuel on the flames and keep the ship on course as you win nods of approval.

Tennenbaum

That is certainly one perspective.

larkin

I responded to your detailed post as an appeal for reason and logic in the debates and discussions on this forum.

The key word in your quote is "salesmanship". I would re-direct you to the rise of Edward Bernays and the art of public relations. When you watch in awe at the appalling way FOX portrays the news you are seeing the work of public manipulation using the methods set forth in your post.

False dichotomy
Moving the goal post
Ad hominem
Cherry-picking
and above all, Appeal to emotions

If this piques your interest, look for parts 2,3,4
The Century Of Self Part 1 (of 4) Happiness Machines

As proud as I am to be a part of this forum, I regret to say that many who engage in discussions and debates fall prey to the same tendencies mentioned above. Even I will resort to emotional appeal or cherry-pick to prove a point. The only thing we can do is be honest and civil and point out these lapses in logic during a debate.

philhellene

Yes, it certainly is---and I humbly suggest that your post was a form of tautology. In the future I would like to discuss tautology to some length as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tautology_(logic)

It seems to be a part of human nature, and short of attempting to go against nature, we can study these tendencies and attempt to avoid those foot snares or actively use them. Of course, if we develop a tendency to unethically use fallacies for spurious argumentation, we will have a reputation like FOX news.

Toltec

I'd say that comment was about as untautological as you can get, wheras the accusation of tautology could be made about some of the OP.

Toltec

Now all this logic stuff, never really gone for it myself, does it really work?

philhellene

Care to expound at all?

Logical derivation and deductive reasoning does have a kind of mathematical proof. Statements can be presented as if A then B, or X and Y therefore, etc. It can get to be a headache but it is demonstrable, amd ultimately useful as well.

philhellene

EDIT: looking at my post again I fear there might have been some equivocation.

There are two kinds of tautologies that are discussed in that link I posted. One is a rhetorical tautology while the other is a logical one. While he did not make the former the latter was precisely a generic, open ended statement that is vague enough to be always true.

"That is one certain point of view" or something similar is a blank damp squib. Nothing meaningful can be derived from it, it makes no assertions or takes no stance. It is painfully dull and utterly flat, the type of thing common in everyday communication, but often seen as banal.

I somewhat bristle also at your accusation that my OP is tautological though, and am waiting for a detailed explanation.

philhellene

Moving along, I would like to take the time to address an issue which I often see and poses a threat to reasoning. It is the phenomenon of making an appeal to authority (arguments from authority are also a popular logical fallacy).



Arguments from authority are a particularly tricky one though, because it would seem that from birth we are conditioned to respect and believe authority. Our first teachers are often our parents, a supreme authority for much of our lives. Because the parents rear their young, they have an earnest incentive and desire to teach, but for the sake of protecting them or getting them to behave, they can and often do fabricate things to get their children "in line".

It is not particularly difficult to fool a child either, they have a certain kind of naive outlook borne from innocence and can be easily indoctrinated/influenced at a young age.

There are many benefits from listening to a parent or adult who is teaching you, a teacher or parent may arm the child with all the knowledge they require to form into an intelligent adult. The dark side of this is that we may often believe and accept something told to us, often without a thought of skepticism, as long as it comes from a "respected" authority figure.

Fast forward to the uture, what kind of authority figures do we respect and listen to? Politicians? Preachers? Sometimes they are much closer and much more familiar, like an older friend or aunt/uncle. It is not always clear that something they say may be fase, it may seem intuitive and true. There is also no reason to assume tht they are always lying, or attempting to deceive. Sometimes, they honestly may not know any better.

It benefits us all to foster a modicum of skepticism. Even children, at their most gullible, have a degree of doubt. If you tell them you have a puppy in their garage they may believe you. Replace puppy with pet dragon, and they will call you out on it, on suspicion alone. Humans develop a heuristic for detecting not only what is "true" but even what is "likely" (or not).

Such determinations, if we make them purely on our own, may be false, but at least they are ours. A position in which an assertion hinges completely on the say so and testimony of another is a weak one indeed. It is the reason why anecdotal evidence is the weakest form of evidence in science. Unfortunately for us, eyewitnesses are considering a convincing form of evidence in law.

Tennenbaum

I know what a tautology is, thanks. Now, I'd like to point out that the overuse of rhetorical trickery is often used to avoid addressing a point. This is what you just did.

Wittgenstein claimed that the only true statements are tautologies, btw.

An argument based on emotion and sophistry is not necessarily false, and an argument based on reason is not necessary true.