In the wild, people use these gambits mostly for social, rather than argumentative, reasons. If you are arguing with someone and believe their arguments are pathological, and engagement is not working, you need to be able to stop the debate. Hence, one of the above—this is most clear with “Let’s agree to disagree.”
In practice, it can be almost impossible to get out of a degrading argument without being somewhat intellectually dishonest. And people generally are willing to be a little dishonest if it will get them out of an annoying and unproductive situation.
If you have frequently been on the receiving end of “conversation halters,” consider the hypothesis that you are doing something wrong. If you often provoke the reaction that people would rather not engage with you, the social part of your argumentative technique is badly broken.
In the wild, people use these gambits mostly for social, rather than argumentative, reasons. If you are arguing with someone and believe their arguments are pathological, and engagement is not working, you need to be able to stop the debate. Hence, one of the above—this is most clear with “Let’s agree to disagree.”
In practice, it can be almost impossible to get out of a degrading argument without being somewhat intellectually dishonest. And people generally are willing to be a little dishonest if it will get them out of an annoying and unproductive situation.
If you have frequently been on the receiving end of “conversation halters,” consider the hypothesis that you are doing something wrong. If you often provoke the reaction that people would rather not engage with you, the social part of your argumentative technique is badly broken.