I think “you’ll never persuade people like that” means several different things on different occasions, and usually it doesn’t mean what Zack says it always means.
(In what follows, A is making some argument and B is saying “you’ll never persuade people like that”.)
It can, in principle, mean (or, more precisely, indicate; I don’t think it’s exactly the meaning even when this is what is implicitly going on) “I am finding this convincing and don’t want to, so I need to find a diversion”. I think two other bad-faith usages are actually more common: “I am on some level aware that evidence and arguments favour your position over mine, and am seeking a distraction” (this differs from Zack’s in that the thing that triggers the response is not that A’s arguments specifically are persuasive to B) and “I fear that your arguments will be effective, and hope to guilt you into using weaker and less effective ones”.
It can mean “I at-least-somewhat agree with you on the actual point at issue, and I think your arguments are bad and/or offputting and will push people away from agreeing with both of us, and I don’t like that”.
It can mean “I disagree with you on the actual point at issue, but prefer good arguments to bad ones, and I am disappointed that you’re putting forward this argument that’s no good”.
It can mean “I disagree with you on the actual point at issue, and it’s hard to tell whether your actual argument is any good because you’re being needlessly obnoxious about it and that’s distracting”.
Zack suggests that “you’ll never persuade people like that” is an obvious bad-faith argument because A isn’t trying to persuade “people”, they’re trying to persuade B, and it’s weird for B to complain about “people” rather than saying that/why B in particular isn’t persuaded. But I don’t buy it. 1. “You’ll never persuade people like that” does in fact imply “you aren’t persuading me like that”. (Maybe sometimes dishonestly, but that is part of what is being claimed when someone says that.) 2. If A is being honest, they aren’t only trying to persuade B. (Most of the time, if someone says something designed to be persuasive to you rather than generally valid, that’s manipulation rather than honest argument.) So it’s of some relevance if B reckons A’s argument is not only unhelpful to B but unhelpful generally.
It can mean “I disagree with you on the actual point at issue, but prefer good arguments to bad ones, and I am disappointed that you’re putting forward this argument that’s no good”.
If you disagree with him on the point at issue, you must, by definition, believe that there are no good arguments for the point. There can’t be a legitimately good argument for a false proposition, although there can be a good-sounding but flawed argument. So how is this possible?
if you disagree on the point at issue, you must believe that there are no good arguments for the point.
There absolutely can be good arguments for something that’s actually false. What there can’t be is conclusive arguments for something that’s actually false.
(Also, if I had been more precise I would have said ”… prefer better arguments to worse ones”; even in a situation where there are no arguments for something that rise to the level of good, there may still be better and worse ones, and I may be disappointed that I’m being presented with a particularly bad one.)
One that gives good reason for someone hearing it who wasn’t previously aware of it to increase their credence in the thing it’s an argument for. (And, since really we should be talking about better and worse arguments rather than good and bad ones, a better argument is one that justifies a bigger increase.)
For instance, consider the arguments about how COVID-19 started infecting humans. “It was probably a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, because you can’t trust the Chinese” is a very bad argument. It makes no contact with anything actually related to COVID-19. “It was probably a natural zoonosis, because blaming things on the Chinese is racist” is an equally bad argument for the same reason. “It was probably a leak from the WIV, because such-and-such features of the COVID-19 genome are easier to explain as consequences of things that commonly happen in virology research labs than as natural occurrences” is a much better argument than either of those, though my non-expert impression is that experts don’t generally find it very convincing. “It was probably a natural zoonosis, because if you look at the pattern of early spread it looks much more like it’s centred on the wet market than like it’s centred on the WIV” is also a much better argument than either of those; I’m not sure what the experts make of it. In the absence of more cooperation from the Chinese authorities (and perhaps even with it) I would not expect any argument to be very convincing, because finding this sort of thing out is really difficult.
I think “you’ll never persuade people like that” means several different things on different occasions, and usually it doesn’t mean what Zack says it always means.
(In what follows, A is making some argument and B is saying “you’ll never persuade people like that”.)
It can, in principle, mean (or, more precisely, indicate; I don’t think it’s exactly the meaning even when this is what is implicitly going on) “I am finding this convincing and don’t want to, so I need to find a diversion”. I think two other bad-faith usages are actually more common: “I am on some level aware that evidence and arguments favour your position over mine, and am seeking a distraction” (this differs from Zack’s in that the thing that triggers the response is not that A’s arguments specifically are persuasive to B) and “I fear that your arguments will be effective, and hope to guilt you into using weaker and less effective ones”.
It can mean “I at-least-somewhat agree with you on the actual point at issue, and I think your arguments are bad and/or offputting and will push people away from agreeing with both of us, and I don’t like that”.
It can mean “I disagree with you on the actual point at issue, but prefer good arguments to bad ones, and I am disappointed that you’re putting forward this argument that’s no good”.
It can mean “I disagree with you on the actual point at issue, and it’s hard to tell whether your actual argument is any good because you’re being needlessly obnoxious about it and that’s distracting”.
Zack suggests that “you’ll never persuade people like that” is an obvious bad-faith argument because A isn’t trying to persuade “people”, they’re trying to persuade B, and it’s weird for B to complain about “people” rather than saying that/why B in particular isn’t persuaded. But I don’t buy it. 1. “You’ll never persuade people like that” does in fact imply “you aren’t persuading me like that”. (Maybe sometimes dishonestly, but that is part of what is being claimed when someone says that.) 2. If A is being honest, they aren’t only trying to persuade B. (Most of the time, if someone says something designed to be persuasive to you rather than generally valid, that’s manipulation rather than honest argument.) So it’s of some relevance if B reckons A’s argument is not only unhelpful to B but unhelpful generally.
If you disagree with him on the point at issue, you must, by definition, believe that there are no good arguments for the point. There can’t be a legitimately good argument for a false proposition, although there can be a good-sounding but flawed argument. So how is this possible?
I think it’s completely wrong that
There absolutely can be good arguments for something that’s actually false. What there can’t be is conclusive arguments for something that’s actually false.
(Also, if I had been more precise I would have said ”… prefer better arguments to worse ones”; even in a situation where there are no arguments for something that rise to the level of good, there may still be better and worse ones, and I may be disappointed that I’m being presented with a particularly bad one.)
What do you mean by “good argument” then?
One that gives good reason for someone hearing it who wasn’t previously aware of it to increase their credence in the thing it’s an argument for. (And, since really we should be talking about better and worse arguments rather than good and bad ones, a better argument is one that justifies a bigger increase.)
For instance, consider the arguments about how COVID-19 started infecting humans. “It was probably a leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, because you can’t trust the Chinese” is a very bad argument. It makes no contact with anything actually related to COVID-19. “It was probably a natural zoonosis, because blaming things on the Chinese is racist” is an equally bad argument for the same reason. “It was probably a leak from the WIV, because such-and-such features of the COVID-19 genome are easier to explain as consequences of things that commonly happen in virology research labs than as natural occurrences” is a much better argument than either of those, though my non-expert impression is that experts don’t generally find it very convincing. “It was probably a natural zoonosis, because if you look at the pattern of early spread it looks much more like it’s centred on the wet market than like it’s centred on the WIV” is also a much better argument than either of those; I’m not sure what the experts make of it. In the absence of more cooperation from the Chinese authorities (and perhaps even with it) I would not expect any argument to be very convincing, because finding this sort of thing out is really difficult.