The question should be, which of these responses is more often relevant to a proper assessment of the truth of the conclusion.
If my primary goal is to come to a proper assessment of someone’s conclusion, that’s certainly true.
Of course, in that case, this entire list only covers a vanishingly small fraction of the domain of discourse. The vast majority of my responses when that’s my goal don’t involve interacting with the speaker at all… I listen to what they’ve said, I assess it, end of process.
The nature of this list suggests to me that we’re not talking about proper assessment… rather, it suggests that the assessment has already taken place, and now we’re talking about successful expression of that assessment to an audience. That is, it suggests that the OP is talking about rhetoric, not analysis. In which case proper assessment of truth may no longer be the important question.
If my primary goal is to come to a proper assessment of someone’s conclusion, that’s certainly true.
Of course, in that case, this entire list only covers a vanishingly small fraction of the domain of discourse. The vast majority of my responses when that’s my goal don’t involve interacting with the speaker at all… I listen to what they’ve said, I assess it, end of process.
The nature of this list suggests to me that we’re not talking about proper assessment… rather, it suggests that the assessment has already taken place, and now we’re talking about successful expression of that assessment to an audience. That is, it suggests that the OP is talking about rhetoric, not analysis. In which case proper assessment of truth may no longer be the important question.
OK, that helps. Perhaps this should be made explicit in the post, Luke?