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> And if there aren't better arguments for the other things, then those are the things that should be done. As a tangential but related point, I think this can

by nmrm 12y ago

> And if there aren't better arguments for the other things, then those are the things that should be done. As a tangential but related point, I think this can be a very dangerous position. Arguments aren't created in a vacuum, and neither is the lion's share of what makes an argument "good". This is true even discounting the fact that the dominant measure of argumentative quality is largely a function of persuasion. Producing arguments takes a lot of work and money. That's basically the only reason think tanks and law firms exist. It's also where a lot of marketing money -- political or otherwise -- gets spent. Having really good arguments for something mostly indicates you've invested a lot of time, money, or both into constructing those arguments. (edit: note that this is not an indicator that the thing is actually true, which is the root of the problem). edit: sometimes, as in science, the motive can be fairly pure. In those cases, even though lots of money is spent constructing the arguments, we can still very much trust the veracity of those arguments. Sometimes, as in the case of many (not all) think tanks, somehow every argument and study produced always re-entrenches and provides support for a pre-existing viewpoint. I'm therefore far more inclined to view these with suspicion, which is really an ad hom but imho justified.

pessimizer 12y ago
>Arguments aren't created in a vacuum, and neither is the lion's share of what makes an argument "good". This is true even discounting the fact that the dominant measure of argumentative quality is largely a function of persuasion. I'm not sure what all of this means. The arguments I'm referring to are formal operations on premises. Premises are the environment that arguments live in, and that's not a vacuum. One party claims to be right, states its premises, and how those premises lead to their conclusion. Attacking that argument means pointing out flaws in the reasoning or the premises. I'm not talking about convincing people, I'm talking about being right. I don't understand how the rest of your comment relates to argumentation. It sounds more like a comment on marketing - and while marketing may use different arguments of varying quality, it is not in itself an argument.
- nmrm 12y ago
  > One party claims to be right, states its premises, and how those premises lead to their conclusion. This is a very vague sentence. What does "how those premises lead to their conclusion" mean? A formal system? If not a formal system, then I don't think "being right" is at all well-defined in this sentence. This case converges to the comment below on tractability, which I'll reply to shortly. If you are referring to a formal system, then the rest of your comment actually is correct. But even in mathematics itself, codifying proof in a formal system is quite rare and practiced only by logicians, certain subfields of CS, and a few early adopters. edit: And, far more to the point, most arguments aren't and can't be mathematical in nature. > Attacking that argument means pointing out flaws in the reasoning or the premises. > I don't understand how the rest of your comment relates to argumentation. The problem is that you're assuming arguments cost nothing -- in terms of money or effort -- to produce. But this simply is not the case. Even in the very best-case scenario of mathematics itself, proof search for even relatively trivial theories is incredibly costly (triple exponential). So even for tiny little factoids that are perfectly well-defined, constructing a valid argument can be intractable. Now consider the more likely situation where the actual truth of the proposition is effectively unknowable (most of economics and politics) or very difficult to know a priori (a lot of modern science). The resources committed to producing argumentation is probably the most important indicator of the quality of arguments. > It sounds more like a comment on marketing - and while marketing may use different arguments of varying quality, it is not in itself an argument. Right, well, I claimed that a lot of marketing is argument construction. So yes, there are other aspects to most marketing as well. But argumentation is certainly part of it. edit: various small mechanical errors, slight rewording of hastily written sentences.
  - pessimizer 12y ago
    >If you are referring to a formal system, then the rest of your comment actually is correct. But even in mathematics itself, codifying proof in a formal system is quite rare and practiced only by logicians, certain subfields of CS, and a few early adopters. edit: And, far more to the point, most arguments aren't and can't be mathematical in nature. I disagree with your premise. I believe that all arguments rest of the degree of truth of their premises, and formal methods are used to prove that the degree of truth in the conclusion springs from the degree of truth of the premises. That is definitional - there's nothing else that I would refer to as an argument. Informal fallacies are also formal fallacies, they're just a way of categorizing fallacies that are written in human language rather than mathematical language. >The problem is that you're assuming arguments cost nothing -- in terms of money or effort -- to produce. No, I'm not. >Right, well, I claimed that a lot of marketing is argument construction. So yes, there are other aspects to most marketing as well. But argumentation is certainly part of it. I'm only interested within this thread about the portion of marketing that is argument construction and analysis, and not in conflating argumentation with rhetoric, marketing, or propaganda. This is not to deny that those fields do use argumentation, along with the sciences, history, literature, theology, and all other fields.
coldtea 12y ago
>I'm not sure what all of this means. The arguments I'm referring to are formal operations on premises. Premises are the environment that arguments live in, and that's not a vacuum. One party claims to be right, states its premises, and how those premises lead to their conclusion. Attacking that argument means pointing out flaws in the reasoning or the premises. In real life premises are also part of the argument. Aside from mathematics and logic exersizes, there's no discussion that doesn't involve persuassion and arguments about the very premises (and on multiple levels). That's one of the reasons that the pure mechanistic check of the operations/conclusion part that logical fallacies provide is very nearly useless. And of course the "checking the premises" part is not mechanistic (that another problem with the formal check), and could also go ad-infinitum. For example, in a moral issue, the premises depend on your values, not some objectively verifiable external truth. On issues of personal interest, the premises depend on what benefits whom. Etc. On political issues the nuances and justifications for the premises are so rich that it's not even worth trying...
- pessimizer 12y ago
  Premises are not part of the argument, they're assertions that the argument is based on. The argument is how we get from the premises to the conclusion. If we don't simply agree on the premises, an argument has to be made to support the ones we don't agree on, and that argument will have further premises. If we don't agree on those premises, an argument has to be made to support the ones we don't agree on, and that argument will have further premises. Eventually we agree on premises, and work our way back up. >the pure mechanistic check of the operations/conclusion part that logical fallacies provide is very nearly useless. I think that it's the only important part of evaluating an argument. So our premises differ. If further arguments that you plan to make rest on the premise that the mechanistic checking of the chain of reasoning from premises to conclusion of an argument is very nearly useless, I may be able to recognize the soundness of this hypothetical argument, but never the validity. > in a moral issue, the premises depend on your values, not some objectively verifiable external truth. That I claim to have a moral value is an objectively verifiable external truth. >On issues of personal interest, the premises depend on what benefits whom. Etc. When? >On political issues the nuances and justifications for the premises are so rich that it's not even worth trying... Isn't the entire political process an act of trying?

by nmrm 12y ago

pessimizer 12y ago

>Arguments aren't created in a vacuum, and neither is the lion's share of what makes an argument "good". This is true even discounting the fact that the dominant measure of argumentative quality is largely a function of persuasion. I'm not sure what all of this means. The arguments I'm referring to are formal operations on premises. Premises are the environment that arguments live in, and that's not a vacuum. One party claims to be right, states its premises, and how those premises lead to their conclusion. Attacking that argument means pointing out flaws in the reasoning or the premises. I'm not talking about convincing people, I'm talking about being right. I don't understand how the rest of your comment relates to argumentation. It sounds more like a comment on marketing - and while marketing may use different arguments of varying quality, it is not in itself an argument.

nmrm 12y ago
> One party claims to be right, states its premises, and how those premises lead to their conclusion. This is a very vague sentence. What does "how those premises lead to their conclusion" mean? A formal system? If not a formal system, then I don't think "being right" is at all well-defined in this sentence. This case converges to the comment below on tractability, which I'll reply to shortly. If you are referring to a formal system, then the rest of your comment actually is correct. But even in mathematics itself, codifying proof in a formal system is quite rare and practiced only by logicians, certain subfields of CS, and a few early adopters. edit: And, far more to the point, most arguments aren't and can't be mathematical in nature. > Attacking that argument means pointing out flaws in the reasoning or the premises. > I don't understand how the rest of your comment relates to argumentation. The problem is that you're assuming arguments cost nothing -- in terms of money or effort -- to produce. But this simply is not the case. Even in the very best-case scenario of mathematics itself, proof search for even relatively trivial theories is incredibly costly (triple exponential). So even for tiny little factoids that are perfectly well-defined, constructing a valid argument can be intractable. Now consider the more likely situation where the actual truth of the proposition is effectively unknowable (most of economics and politics) or very difficult to know a priori (a lot of modern science). The resources committed to producing argumentation is probably the most important indicator of the quality of arguments. > It sounds more like a comment on marketing - and while marketing may use different arguments of varying quality, it is not in itself an argument. Right, well, I claimed that a lot of marketing is argument construction. So yes, there are other aspects to most marketing as well. But argumentation is certainly part of it. edit: various small mechanical errors, slight rewording of hastily written sentences.
- pessimizer 12y ago
  >If you are referring to a formal system, then the rest of your comment actually is correct. But even in mathematics itself, codifying proof in a formal system is quite rare and practiced only by logicians, certain subfields of CS, and a few early adopters. edit: And, far more to the point, most arguments aren't and can't be mathematical in nature. I disagree with your premise. I believe that all arguments rest of the degree of truth of their premises, and formal methods are used to prove that the degree of truth in the conclusion springs from the degree of truth of the premises. That is definitional - there's nothing else that I would refer to as an argument. Informal fallacies are also formal fallacies, they're just a way of categorizing fallacies that are written in human language rather than mathematical language. >The problem is that you're assuming arguments cost nothing -- in terms of money or effort -- to produce. No, I'm not. >Right, well, I claimed that a lot of marketing is argument construction. So yes, there are other aspects to most marketing as well. But argumentation is certainly part of it. I'm only interested within this thread about the portion of marketing that is argument construction and analysis, and not in conflating argumentation with rhetoric, marketing, or propaganda. This is not to deny that those fields do use argumentation, along with the sciences, history, literature, theology, and all other fields.

coldtea 12y ago

>I'm not sure what all of this means. The arguments I'm referring to are formal operations on premises. Premises are the environment that arguments live in, and that's not a vacuum. One party claims to be right, states its premises, and how those premises lead to their conclusion. Attacking that argument means pointing out flaws in the reasoning or the premises. In real life premises are also part of the argument. Aside from mathematics and logic exersizes, there's no discussion that doesn't involve persuassion and arguments about the very premises (and on multiple levels). That's one of the reasons that the pure mechanistic check of the operations/conclusion part that logical fallacies provide is very nearly useless. And of course the "checking the premises" part is not mechanistic (that another problem with the formal check), and could also go ad-infinitum. For example, in a moral issue, the premises depend on your values, not some objectively verifiable external truth. On issues of personal interest, the premises depend on what benefits whom. Etc. On political issues the nuances and justifications for the premises are so rich that it's not even worth trying...

pessimizer 12y ago
Premises are not part of the argument, they're assertions that the argument is based on. The argument is how we get from the premises to the conclusion. If we don't simply agree on the premises, an argument has to be made to support the ones we don't agree on, and that argument will have further premises. If we don't agree on those premises, an argument has to be made to support the ones we don't agree on, and that argument will have further premises. Eventually we agree on premises, and work our way back up. >the pure mechanistic check of the operations/conclusion part that logical fallacies provide is very nearly useless. I think that it's the only important part of evaluating an argument. So our premises differ. If further arguments that you plan to make rest on the premise that the mechanistic checking of the chain of reasoning from premises to conclusion of an argument is very nearly useless, I may be able to recognize the soundness of this hypothetical argument, but never the validity. > in a moral issue, the premises depend on your values, not some objectively verifiable external truth. That I claim to have a moral value is an objectively verifiable external truth. >On issues of personal interest, the premises depend on what benefits whom. Etc. When? >On political issues the nuances and justifications for the premises are so rich that it's not even worth trying... Isn't the entire political process an act of trying?