My point is that you’re busy talking about winning and losing debates, as if they were some sort of contest. That view is quite different than viewing debates as an opportunity to seek truth. It places incentives on things like protecting arguments you’ve made, even when they’re wrong, and attacking your opponent’s arguments, even when they’re right. It lets you declare victory when you find a major flaw in your opponent’s argument, even if they were right and you were wrong.
Would you notice if your opponent had a sound piece of logic, but didn’t have the rhetoric to support it? Would you be able to extract that subset of their argument, and change your mind based on it, even if their conclusion was wrong? What if they evidence and argument they presented was enough to show that your position was subtly wrong, but you failed to notice because you were focused on the fact that their position was even wronger?
Would you notice if their logic and conclusion was flawed, but they had some evidence you hadn’t looked at before, which made your position more tenuous? Would you stop to properly reevaluate your whole position, and reduce your certainty in it? Or would it just be one more argument against an army? Or would you not even get that far, because you attacked the obvious flaw, without looking at the whole argument—because that one flaw was severe enough that it was the only thing you had to worry about to win?
I still maintain that winning and losing debates is about status, not truth-seeking. (Note that it’s not a zero-sum game for the participants; a well-fought contest will be positive-sum, a poorly-fought one negative sum, even if one participant comes out better in either one.) And you know what? That’s fine, and likely appropriate for getting what you want, in many contexts. But, if you’re here, I’m hoping it’s not all you want in every context. And I suspect that taking different approaches in different contexts will be epistemically hazardous; we don’t compartmentalize nearly as well as we’d like, sometimes.
My point is that you’re busy talking about winning and losing debates, as if they were some sort of contest. That view is quite different than viewing debates as an opportunity to seek truth. It places incentives on things like protecting arguments you’ve made, even when they’re wrong, and attacking your opponent’s arguments, even when they’re right. It lets you declare victory when you find a major flaw in your opponent’s argument, even if they were right and you were wrong.
Would you notice if your opponent had a sound piece of logic, but didn’t have the rhetoric to support it? Would you be able to extract that subset of their argument, and change your mind based on it, even if their conclusion was wrong? What if they evidence and argument they presented was enough to show that your position was subtly wrong, but you failed to notice because you were focused on the fact that their position was even wronger?
Would you notice if their logic and conclusion was flawed, but they had some evidence you hadn’t looked at before, which made your position more tenuous? Would you stop to properly reevaluate your whole position, and reduce your certainty in it? Or would it just be one more argument against an army? Or would you not even get that far, because you attacked the obvious flaw, without looking at the whole argument—because that one flaw was severe enough that it was the only thing you had to worry about to win?
I still maintain that winning and losing debates is about status, not truth-seeking. (Note that it’s not a zero-sum game for the participants; a well-fought contest will be positive-sum, a poorly-fought one negative sum, even if one participant comes out better in either one.) And you know what? That’s fine, and likely appropriate for getting what you want, in many contexts. But, if you’re here, I’m hoping it’s not all you want in every context. And I suspect that taking different approaches in different contexts will be epistemically hazardous; we don’t compartmentalize nearly as well as we’d like, sometimes.