Rhetoric skills are like a knife: If you have a knife, you can use it to kill people or you can use it to prevent people from being killed, but possessing it will not kill you, with admitted rare exceptions.
Rhetoric skills are like a knife: If you have a knife, you can use it to kill people or you can use it to prevent people from being killed, but possessing it will not kill you, with admitted rare exceptions.
The analogy is not a useful one. In this context it is the killing that is desirable while the use of the knife is the problem. I would prefer people didn’t believe stupid things. All else being equal I would prefer to not rely on the exploitation of cognitive biases and weaknesses in reasoning in order to do so. There are cases where this is useful.
When I suggested ‘let them debate college students that we weren’t expecting to actually think rationally anyway’ I mean just that. Most people, even most scientifically minded people, I expect to arrive at accurate conclusions through the social pressure of the institutions we have in place rather than actual rational thinking. With those people by all means throw them out to play word games with crackpots if it benefits whatever cause is valued. But for myself I know that the better I become at arguing with rhetorical tricks the more likely I am to stick to false conclusions.
Proper rhetoric is useful to prove points that are rational or irrational. if i write liek dis no matter how smart my point is u wont care no matters how rational u think u r the presentation of facts and stuff will matter. u dont listen to people who cant show da fact to u rite, u ignore em.
Rhetoric is not about getting people to believe stupid things; it’s about knowing how to persuade people to believe what you want them to believe. If what you believe is well-supported by evidence, your rhetorical approach will probably be quite rational. If what you want them to believe is contradicted by evidence, your rhetorical approach will probably need to be anti-rational or else simply dishonest. Persuading people can either advance rationality or inhibit it.
As an obvious example, you can persuade people to think rationally, and you can persuade people that they should eschew rational thinking. Rhetorical skills are the tool you use, not the outcome.
All else being equal I would prefer to not rely on the exploitation of cognitive biases and weaknesses in reasoning in order to do so.
You don’t sound like someone well-versed in what rhetoric is about. It has been closely linked with reason from the beginning—indeed, it is from rhetoric that the discipline of logic first sprang, since reason is so vital to rhetoric.
You don’t sound like someone well-versed in what rhetoric is about.
The personal comment is neither necessary nor accurate.
Do not assume that I reject rhetoric and debate in general merely because I have deployed soldiers against them in a battle for one particular territory. It is clear that I am comfortable engaging in this debate. I am also employing far more from the body of rhetorical techniques than the strict subset of cold logic.
It may be that I disagree with you on just which category of debating situations and contexts are useful vs a recipe for bad epistemic hygene. But my assertion that arguments where the implicit reward structure is too far divorced from accuracy are a recipe for bad habits of thought is hardly controversial.
Rhetoric skills are like a knife: If you have a knife, you can use it to kill people or you can use it to prevent people from being killed, but possessing it will not kill you, with admitted rare exceptions.
But if you’ve spent your life convincing people to embrace nonviolence, you throw the knife away to save your reputation.
The analogy is not a useful one. In this context it is the killing that is desirable while the use of the knife is the problem. I would prefer people didn’t believe stupid things. All else being equal I would prefer to not rely on the exploitation of cognitive biases and weaknesses in reasoning in order to do so. There are cases where this is useful.
When I suggested ‘let them debate college students that we weren’t expecting to actually think rationally anyway’ I mean just that. Most people, even most scientifically minded people, I expect to arrive at accurate conclusions through the social pressure of the institutions we have in place rather than actual rational thinking. With those people by all means throw them out to play word games with crackpots if it benefits whatever cause is valued. But for myself I know that the better I become at arguing with rhetorical tricks the more likely I am to stick to false conclusions.
Proper rhetoric is useful to prove points that are rational or irrational. if i write liek dis no matter how smart my point is u wont care no matters how rational u think u r the presentation of facts and stuff will matter. u dont listen to people who cant show da fact to u rite, u ignore em.
Rhetoric is not about getting people to believe stupid things; it’s about knowing how to persuade people to believe what you want them to believe. If what you believe is well-supported by evidence, your rhetorical approach will probably be quite rational. If what you want them to believe is contradicted by evidence, your rhetorical approach will probably need to be anti-rational or else simply dishonest. Persuading people can either advance rationality or inhibit it.
As an obvious example, you can persuade people to think rationally, and you can persuade people that they should eschew rational thinking. Rhetorical skills are the tool you use, not the outcome.
You don’t sound like someone well-versed in what rhetoric is about. It has been closely linked with reason from the beginning—indeed, it is from rhetoric that the discipline of logic first sprang, since reason is so vital to rhetoric.
On the other hand, we have this.
Rhetoric is indeed a knife, not necessarily on the side of truth in the wrong hands.
The personal comment is neither necessary nor accurate.
Do not assume that I reject rhetoric and debate in general merely because I have deployed soldiers against them in a battle for one particular territory. It is clear that I am comfortable engaging in this debate. I am also employing far more from the body of rhetorical techniques than the strict subset of cold logic.
It may be that I disagree with you on just which category of debating situations and contexts are useful vs a recipe for bad epistemic hygene. But my assertion that arguments where the implicit reward structure is too far divorced from accuracy are a recipe for bad habits of thought is hardly controversial.