Part of the problem is that we have a much better worked out theory of reasoning than of arguing. So we are tempted to apply our theory of reasoning to evaluate our arguments, where we should prefer to apply a theory of arguing. So what we need is a better theory of arguing—what counts as a good argument, a good reply, etc.
I partake in British Parliamentary Debate. A good argument:
Is structured like an essay: tell what are you going to tell, tell it, then tell what you just told.
Consists of a description, elaboration, and an example.
Elaboration consists of a chain of logic that starts at the position being defended and terminates at a terminal value.
A counterargument either:
Attacks the premises or a link in the chain of logic and shows that the argument leads somewhere other then the terminal value.
Proves that the terminal value isn’t actually terminal.
Constructs an alternative argument that leads to an even more important terminal value and does so to make it and the original argument mutually exclusive.
A good counter argument is concise.
For example: this house would force everyone to publish their income on the Internet.
This motion would lessen corruption by crowdsourcing police. Any person could go online and compare their neighbor’s apparent wealth to their stated income and raise an alarm should a disparity be found. The neighbor would of course know this and thus would not dare evade taxes or whatever. So we have less corruption, less people in jail due to deterrence, more taxes, and less strain on our actual police!
Attack premises: most people live in big cities in relative anonymity, neighbors don’t know each other, and wealth isn’t conspicuous.
Attack logic 1: government websites are hardly a popular destination. People simply wouldn’t care to go through tables of numbers.
Attack logic 2: people would just spend their ill gotten gains inconspicuously. (counter-counterargument: wealth is about signaling status which must be visible)
Alternative: this is a huge infraction on people’s privacy which is more important than lessening corruption. (This one should be more elaborate but I’m out of steam.)
Note though that British Parliamentary Debate is about winning and not truth.
Wouldn’t that be even worse? If we currently mostly don’t use good reasoning for individual truth seeking, but in at least occasionally use good reasoning to argue, wouldn’t developing a theory of arguing contribute to displacing that, resulting in even less good reasoning? Or do you think that reasoning would become better for truth seeking if it was freed from the other optimization goal of being good for arguing?
This WP article could serve as a starting point—though it looks a little daunting. It makes a lot of a Stephen Toulmin’s “six elements of an argument”—I see that Toulmin hasn’t been discussed on LW so far. I’ll see if I can get some info, summarize and evaluate the usefulness of that framework.
A proposal in line with M&S would be: a good argument is one that causes your interlocutor to accept your conclusion. A good counter-argument is one that justifies your rejecting your interlocutor’s conclusion. This conforms to the hypothesis that reason serves argument, and that its twin functions are to help us convince others and to resist being convinced.
I’m also wondering about a “memetic theory of argumentation”, where an argument spreads by virtue of convincing others, and mutates to become more convincing. Our “rules” for correct argumentation are themselves but memetic fragments that “ally” with others to increase their force of conviction. For instance, “we should reject ad hominem arguments” is a meta-argument which, if we expect that our interlocutors are likely to use it to reject our conclusions, we will avoid using for fear of making a poor initial argument. In this manner we might expect to see an overall increase in the “fitness” of arguments as a consequence of the underlying arms race.
We should also be careful to distinguish conversation from argument, I see the former as serving an entirely different purpose.
Part of the problem is that we have a much better worked out theory of reasoning than of arguing. So we are tempted to apply our theory of reasoning to evaluate our arguments, where we should prefer to apply a theory of arguing. So what we need is a better theory of arguing—what counts as a good argument, a good reply, etc.
I partake in British Parliamentary Debate. A good argument:
Is structured like an essay: tell what are you going to tell, tell it, then tell what you just told.
Consists of a description, elaboration, and an example.
Elaboration consists of a chain of logic that starts at the position being defended and terminates at a terminal value.
A counterargument either:
Attacks the premises or a link in the chain of logic and shows that the argument leads somewhere other then the terminal value.
Proves that the terminal value isn’t actually terminal.
Constructs an alternative argument that leads to an even more important terminal value and does so to make it and the original argument mutually exclusive.
A good counter argument is concise.
For example: this house would force everyone to publish their income on the Internet.
This motion would lessen corruption by crowdsourcing police. Any person could go online and compare their neighbor’s apparent wealth to their stated income and raise an alarm should a disparity be found. The neighbor would of course know this and thus would not dare evade taxes or whatever. So we have less corruption, less people in jail due to deterrence, more taxes, and less strain on our actual police!
Attack premises: most people live in big cities in relative anonymity, neighbors don’t know each other, and wealth isn’t conspicuous.
Attack logic 1: government websites are hardly a popular destination. People simply wouldn’t care to go through tables of numbers.
Attack logic 2: people would just spend their ill gotten gains inconspicuously. (counter-counterargument: wealth is about signaling status which must be visible)
Alternative: this is a huge infraction on people’s privacy which is more important than lessening corruption. (This one should be more elaborate but I’m out of steam.)
Note though that British Parliamentary Debate is about winning and not truth.
What exactly do you mean by good?
I can’t speak for Robin, of course, but I have a guess:
A good argument is an argument with money attached, as part of a bet or prediction market.
Wouldn’t that be even worse? If we currently mostly don’t use good reasoning for individual truth seeking, but in at least occasionally use good reasoning to argue, wouldn’t developing a theory of arguing contribute to displacing that, resulting in even less good reasoning? Or do you think that reasoning would become better for truth seeking if it was freed from the other optimization goal of being good for arguing?
I’ve been chewing on this question for a while.
This WP article could serve as a starting point—though it looks a little daunting. It makes a lot of a Stephen Toulmin’s “six elements of an argument”—I see that Toulmin hasn’t been discussed on LW so far. I’ll see if I can get some info, summarize and evaluate the usefulness of that framework.
A proposal in line with M&S would be: a good argument is one that causes your interlocutor to accept your conclusion. A good counter-argument is one that justifies your rejecting your interlocutor’s conclusion. This conforms to the hypothesis that reason serves argument, and that its twin functions are to help us convince others and to resist being convinced.
I’m also wondering about a “memetic theory of argumentation”, where an argument spreads by virtue of convincing others, and mutates to become more convincing. Our “rules” for correct argumentation are themselves but memetic fragments that “ally” with others to increase their force of conviction. For instance, “we should reject ad hominem arguments” is a meta-argument which, if we expect that our interlocutors are likely to use it to reject our conclusions, we will avoid using for fear of making a poor initial argument. In this manner we might expect to see an overall increase in the “fitness” of arguments as a consequence of the underlying arms race.
We should also be careful to distinguish conversation from argument, I see the former as serving an entirely different purpose.