I think that usually if I say something like “you’ll never convince third parties this way”, it’s because the conversation is about a topic that I care about, and it frustrates me that the person I’m talking with is shooting themselves and others in the foot by employing a conversational strategy that will turn people off.
Alternatively, even if I don’t happen to care about the topic in particular, I might still generally feel frustrated or upset due to seeing a person shooting themselves in the foot.
Another element is that, if I’m saying something like this, then probably the person’s conversational style is something that feels morally bad for me, like being needlessly aggressive and uncharitable (and thus untruthful). And their motivation for being that is probably an arguments-are-soldiers one, so appealing to its ineffectiveness is one of the few reasons that might get them to reconsider.
I don’t think it’s at all the case that the person is starting to convince me in those situations—rather the opposite, in that I have a massively negative reaction to what they are saying, and then I typical-mind my experience to say that everyone else is also likely to.
I think that usually if I say something like “you’ll never convince third parties this way”, it’s because the conversation is about a topic that I care about, and it frustrates me that the person I’m talking with is shooting themselves and others in the foot by employing a conversational strategy that will turn people off.
This.
And also, there may be times where I have detailed, accurate models of what is going on, and so arguments wouldn’t be expected to sway me much. In such cases, I may be acting more as a mentor or critic, pushing the discourse in the directions that I think is relevant. So the answer to “Why is it relevant whether I would convince some third party that isn’t here?” is “You don’t seem likely to change my mind much but this should change people’s minds away from your position.”.
So the answer to “Why is it relevant whether I would convince some third party that isn’t here?” is “You don’t seem likely to change my mind much but this should change people’s minds away from your position.”.
Why would you think it’s undesirable that he changes people’s minds away from his position? After all, you think his position is false. You presumably want other people to believe truthful things. So you should want other people to believe that his position is false—as far as you’re concerned, changing people’s minds away from his position is a good thing.
You’d only think it’s undesirable if you’re more concerned about him winning (because he’s your friend and the others aren’t) than you are about spreading the truth.
In the example I mentioned, I have a contrarian third position where I think the other positions have some good points and (mostly) some bad points. This means two things:
There are some places where his side genuinely right and the other side is wrong, and it’s unfortunate that people on his side shoot themselves in the foot by using bad arguments instead of defending the places they are right using good arguments.
By treating bad arguments as good epistemology, they avoid being truth-seeking and make it harder to correct their wrong beliefs. That’s unfortunate since I think they should correct their wrong beliefs.
Yeah, I think there’s an important distinction to make in the intent of the speaker saying this remark. Sometimes it’s intended as evidence the argument is wrong, and yes, that’s a dirty rhetorical trick. But as you’ve listed here, there are several motivations to give this response as a criticism of someone’s genuinely bad/harmful persuasion tactics.
So I guess when hearing this, it’s worth taking a moment to check whether the speaker is using fallacious rhetoric, or attempting to give helpful social advice. (And then, accordingly, “go for the throat,” or kindly thank them for the presentation feedback.)
I think that usually if I say something like “you’ll never convince third parties this way”, it’s because the conversation is about a topic that I care about, and it frustrates me that the person I’m talking with is shooting themselves and others in the foot by employing a conversational strategy that will turn people off.
Alternatively, even if I don’t happen to care about the topic in particular, I might still generally feel frustrated or upset due to seeing a person shooting themselves in the foot.
Another element is that, if I’m saying something like this, then probably the person’s conversational style is something that feels morally bad for me, like being needlessly aggressive and uncharitable (and thus untruthful). And their motivation for being that is probably an arguments-are-soldiers one, so appealing to its ineffectiveness is one of the few reasons that might get them to reconsider.
I don’t think it’s at all the case that the person is starting to convince me in those situations—rather the opposite, in that I have a massively negative reaction to what they are saying, and then I typical-mind my experience to say that everyone else is also likely to.
This.
And also, there may be times where I have detailed, accurate models of what is going on, and so arguments wouldn’t be expected to sway me much. In such cases, I may be acting more as a mentor or critic, pushing the discourse in the directions that I think is relevant. So the answer to “Why is it relevant whether I would convince some third party that isn’t here?” is “You don’t seem likely to change my mind much but this should change people’s minds away from your position.”.
Concrete example in the containment thread.
Why would you think it’s undesirable that he changes people’s minds away from his position? After all, you think his position is false. You presumably want other people to believe truthful things. So you should want other people to believe that his position is false—as far as you’re concerned, changing people’s minds away from his position is a good thing.
You’d only think it’s undesirable if you’re more concerned about him winning (because he’s your friend and the others aren’t) than you are about spreading the truth.
In the example I mentioned, I have a contrarian third position where I think the other positions have some good points and (mostly) some bad points. This means two things:
There are some places where his side genuinely right and the other side is wrong, and it’s unfortunate that people on his side shoot themselves in the foot by using bad arguments instead of defending the places they are right using good arguments.
By treating bad arguments as good epistemology, they avoid being truth-seeking and make it harder to correct their wrong beliefs. That’s unfortunate since I think they should correct their wrong beliefs.
Yeah, I think there’s an important distinction to make in the intent of the speaker saying this remark. Sometimes it’s intended as evidence the argument is wrong, and yes, that’s a dirty rhetorical trick. But as you’ve listed here, there are several motivations to give this response as a criticism of someone’s genuinely bad/harmful persuasion tactics.
So I guess when hearing this, it’s worth taking a moment to check whether the speaker is using fallacious rhetoric, or attempting to give helpful social advice. (And then, accordingly, “go for the throat,” or kindly thank them for the presentation feedback.)
Either ‘fallacious’ is not the true problem or it is the true problem but the stereotypes about what is fallacious do not align with reality: A Unifying Theory in Defense of Logical Fallacies