Depends on your definition of winning. Is your goal to get the other side to capitulate, or is your goal for the onlookers and interested parties to come away with a view of the world that’s actually useful? If you’re a public intellectual or participant in the internet, you’re not arguing in isolation. People are watching, and it absolutely has an impact even if you don’t directly observe it. This bit of internet “wisdom” is maybe one of the most destructive and misapplied factoids to emerge in recent years, because while true in its narrowest sense, is utterly useless if ones aim is to contribute to the wider world of discourse.
At the risk of being Schopenhauered, I would say that any argument has a target and an audience, and that the goal of any argument is to convince the audience, rather than the target (though these can be the same person).
As others have identified - arguments are rarely, if ever, won on rationality. Rationality is a tool in arguing, like any other argumentative tool, but it rarely convinces those who do not hold it as a virtue in life.
Does contributing to a wider world of discourse actually change anything? My sense is that at most people feel vaguely more enlightened and continue on with what they were going to do originally.
Schopenhauer became disillusioned early in life. He quickly came to think that people, in general, are not rational and appeals to their rationality is a mistake, if you are looking to convince them.
His book is more a passive aggressive denunciation of this.
Better title: "Use These 38 Logical Fallacies to Blow Up a Debate." You could teach Logic 101 based on this list, by asking students to identify the flaws (straw man, red herring, ad hominem, equivocation).
Many of the things on this list seem very common to me. As such, it seems the strategems don't make someone look like a total nut job, or... the pool of rational observers is smaller than rational observers think.
Definitely make enemies and lose friends, but based on my experience, also make some other friends and gain other allies.
From many of the comments here, people don't realize it's ironic—a dark, scathing joke. It's not advising people to argue like this, it's trying to open their eyes to the fact that the world already does argue like this.
The linked version is too abridged! Compare
> 32. A quick way of getting rid of an opponent's assertion, or throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.
with the original
If you are confronted with an assertion, there is a short way of getting rid of it, or, at any rate, of throwing suspicion on it, by putting it into some odious category; even though the connection is only apparent, or else of a loose character. You can say, for instance, "That is Manichaeism" or "It is Arianism," or "Pelagianism," or "Idealism," or "Spinozism," or "Pantheism," or "Brownianism," or "Naturalism," or "Atheism," or "Rationalism," "Spiritualism," "Mysticism," and so on. In making an objection of this kind, you take it for granted (1) that the assertion in question is identical with, or is at least contained in, the category cited - that is to say, you cry out, "Oh, I have heard that before"; and (2) that the system referred to has been entirely refuted, and does not contain a word of truth.
Schopenhauer (in a nutshell) was I believe the first (major western) atheist philosopher, who looked the world in the face, describing its infinite killing, death and suffering with vivid horror.[0] He sounds at times like a Freudian and Darwinist, many decades before either. He came across Buddhism later in life and found he agreed with it in many points. He thought only through music could we escape the misery of the blind will, aka life-force/selfish gene. (He played flute)
The two huge volumes of Parerga & Paralipomena[1], from which these Strategems come, is full of literary and philosophical essays and odds and ends. I found it cheap in a second hand bookshop as a teenager, and really loved it, but never really felt the need for his company after discovering Nietzsche. Very roughly speaking, Nietzsche = Schopenhauer + Emerson. These stratagems are classic though!
20 comments
[ 1.3 ms ] story [ 14.1 ms ] threadI'm surprised such a popular tactic is so low down the list.
Schopenhauer was not a logician. He searched for ways of emerging victorious, not to search for the truth.
At the risk of being Schopenhauered, I would say that any argument has a target and an audience, and that the goal of any argument is to convince the audience, rather than the target (though these can be the same person).
As others have identified - arguments are rarely, if ever, won on rationality. Rationality is a tool in arguing, like any other argumentative tool, but it rarely convinces those who do not hold it as a virtue in life.
His book is more a passive aggressive denunciation of this.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophist
Definitely make enemies and lose friends, but based on my experience, also make some other friends and gain other allies.
The linked version is too abridged! Compare
> 32. A quick way of getting rid of an opponent's assertion, or throwing suspicion on it, is by putting it into some odious category.
with the original
If you are confronted with an assertion, there is a short way of getting rid of it, or, at any rate, of throwing suspicion on it, by putting it into some odious category; even though the connection is only apparent, or else of a loose character. You can say, for instance, "That is Manichaeism" or "It is Arianism," or "Pelagianism," or "Idealism," or "Spinozism," or "Pantheism," or "Brownianism," or "Naturalism," or "Atheism," or "Rationalism," "Spiritualism," "Mysticism," and so on. In making an objection of this kind, you take it for granted (1) that the assertion in question is identical with, or is at least contained in, the category cited - that is to say, you cry out, "Oh, I have heard that before"; and (2) that the system referred to has been entirely refuted, and does not contain a word of truth.
Two versions with the complete text:
Hyperlinked sections, with parallel German http://coolhaus.de/art-of-controversy/
English text without headings https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10731/10731-h/10731-h.htm#li...
Schopenhauer (in a nutshell) was I believe the first (major western) atheist philosopher, who looked the world in the face, describing its infinite killing, death and suffering with vivid horror.[0] He sounds at times like a Freudian and Darwinist, many decades before either. He came across Buddhism later in life and found he agreed with it in many points. He thought only through music could we escape the misery of the blind will, aka life-force/selfish gene. (He played flute)
The two huge volumes of Parerga & Paralipomena[1], from which these Strategems come, is full of literary and philosophical essays and odds and ends. I found it cheap in a second hand bookshop as a teenager, and really loved it, but never really felt the need for his company after discovering Nietzsche. Very roughly speaking, Nietzsche = Schopenhauer + Emerson. These stratagems are classic though!
[0] See The World as Will and Representation.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parerga_and_Paralipomena