Against Debate
partiallyexaminedlife.com
partiallyexaminedlife.com
This isn't true for people who actually know how to think. For a thinker, unlike an ideologue, ideas, not viewpoints, hold ultimate power, and a well-crafted idea can handily demolish a viewpoint. Here's an example debate between two thinkers (about postmodernism):
A: "Reality is subjective, there are no shared truths, everything is a matter of opinion. Objectivity is a persistent myth, but a myth nevertheless."
B: "If your thesis were true, if everything was a matter of opinion, if it wasn't possible to get two or more observers to agree on the meaning of an observation, if objectivity were really a myth, then to be logically consistent that outlook would first be applied to the thesis itself, fatally undermining it."
A: "I have to confess I never thought of that. You win."
That's how people who are trained to think, think. All this talk about people "sticking to their guns" and refusing to be swayed by arguments, only reveals the shallowness of contemporary education, because a well-crafted idea has enormous power -- in the hands of someone who knows how to think.
Not in a debate about the existence of objectivity -- nothing can be more relevant or to the point. I chose that example for a reason -- arguing the postmodernist thesis always reflects a fatal misunderstanding of the subject and its effect on debate.
> Because real arguments are not about the provable facts, but about their relevance.
No, at least to a scientist, real arguments are about empirical facts, not the subjective persuasiveness of facts or their assumed relevance. "Relevance" is certainly a more subjective issue than whether a "fact" actually agrees with reality.
The reason is that relevance must await the gathering of reliable facts and their assembly into a theory. It is only after a theory synthesizes the facts can the facts' relevance even be assessed. The shapes of finches' beaks is completely irrelevant at first sight, but after they're used as evidence for a theory of natural selection, their relevance becomes enormous.
My reason for emphasizing the scientific outlook is because science possesses more potential to craft an objective outlook than any other human endeavor. In science, when done correctly, a given set of observations forces all similarly equipped observers to the same conclusion, regardless of their personal views. This is either less true, or not true at all, in every other human activity.