What are good books on debate/making arguments?

(post is archived)

You are currently inside a comment thread.

Click here to see all the comments (47).

[–] • 1 pt

(edited )

Study philosophy; which is a discipline that is essentially based on argument-making. I'd say you could also read mathematics text books, but not only is that boring for most people, it's also more abstract in terms of seeing the 'verbal' logical equivalent to each inference step.

I think a good book on introductory logic would be valuable, and there are many. There are several popular books introducing arguments, generally. I'd recommend

An Introduction to Formal Logic - Peter Smith (this is not a guide for debate, proper, but a way to understand fundamental logic)

Calling Bullshit- Carl Bergstrom

A Rulebook for Arguments - Anthony Weston

Being Logical - D.Q. McInerny (less formal than Smith's book, gives a basic correspondence theory of truth and shows you the most common fallacies in people's reasoning and how to recognize them)

There is really no better way to win an argument than to be prepared. That's the number one rule. The best thing you can do is to take an argument (one which has been done well) by your opponent, sit down, and deconstruct it. Think about the premises and how you'd challenge them. There are some people who are tremendously gifted at being able to think fast on their feet. Most people are somewhere in the middle. If you have an argument you want to be able to defeat live, then prepare when you aren't 'live', and be ready for it. The best way for these things to become fluid, so they're "at the ready", is for you to approach them as if they were each a specific tool for a specific task, so that when someone in public goes: "Well, blah blah blah X". You'll think, "Oh, X? Yeah, I got that one." A swordsman who looks really good in a fight got good by practicing.

One problem that you'll find arguing with leftists is where it comes to the notion of principles (or axioms in the more formal sense). There is no complete theory; every theory depends necessarily on some external 'prover', if you will. These take the form of the assumptions you go into the argument with. In terms of verbal reasoning on higher-level topics like morals or politics, these will take the forms of first principles. If you cannot agree with an opponent on at least some of these, there can be no coherent discourse.

One of the fundamental issues we have with this dialectic chasm between the Left and Right today is just our inability to even approach each other with basic first principles in agreement. If you have a person who can't recognize the truth of basic categories such as male and female, and whose theory of truth is something like basic relativism, you're not going to have a productive debate. It's just impossible.

This cuts to a basic moral component of all debate, generally; this has to do with intent. So many times, modern Leftists are not interested in pursuing truth. They're interested in winning. Good, productive debate can swiftly turn into nothing but fruitless language games if the only interest a person has is in socially signaling that 'they beat you'. This is compounded when arguing with women, according to their innate nature. There are exceptions, and I'd wager a complete guess that it's probably 1 in 30 or 40 women who can approach intellectual argument with the ability to 'step outside of themselves' and who give a shit about some idea called Truth. The other 29 or 39 of them are only interested in creating the social impression they won. Don't get me wrong, many men are like this as well, but there is still some semblance of social pressure for a male to argue by a loose rule-set than there is for a woman, because it's socially acceptable for a woman to make 'moves' rhetorically that men cannot.

Anyway, the point is, if someone doesn't want to have a fruitful debate with you, they won't. Just look at social media for fuck's sake. It's literally a technological platform that promotes and rewards low-resolution rhetorical one-liners to 'win' arguments. It's spread an intellectual sickness through society that has devalued truth completely; it's only about appearing smart now. And that can now be done by going, 'Lol. Bad take, bro. I remember being an undergrad too, heh.'

These are sometimes called thought-terminating cliches, and you might think of social media as an engine for discovering them. If it is the case that discourse today is only about the social perception of winning, and thought-terminating cliches can do that for you, then you'll see it proliferate like crazy, because more than they want the truth, most people would rather give others the perception that they have it. It's just a figment of primitive human social psychology that heuristics like mockery, or things like these one-liners, have the power that they do. Most people lack the intellect to rise above that level of discourse. Public debate becomes something like troops of chimps just waving their arms and screeching, but since they use the right buzzwords, everyone thinks it's intelligent.

Study philosophy; which is a discipline that is essentially based on argument-making. I'd say you could also read mathematics text books, but not only is that boring for most people, it's also more abstract in terms of seeing the 'verbal' logical equivalent to each inference step. I think a good book on introductory logic would be valuable, and there are many. There are several popular books introducing arguments, generally. I'd recommend *An Introduction to Formal Logic* - Peter Smith (this is not a guide for debate, proper, but a way to understand fundamental logic) *Calling Bullshit*- Carl Bergstrom *A Rulebook for Arguments* - Anthony Weston *Being Logical* - D.Q. McInerny (less formal than Smith's book, gives a basic correspondence theory of truth and shows you the most common fallacies in people's reasoning and how to recognize them) There is really no better way to win an argument than to be prepared. That's the number one rule. The best thing you can do is to take an argument (one which has been done well) by your opponent, sit down, and deconstruct it. Think about the premises and how you'd challenge them. There are some people who are tremendously gifted at being able to think fast on their feet. Most people are somewhere in the middle. If you have an argument you want to be able to defeat live, then prepare when you aren't 'live', and be ready for it. The best way for these things to become fluid, so they're "at the ready", is for you to approach them as if they were each a specific tool for a specific task, so that when someone in public goes: "Well, blah blah blah X". You'll think, "Oh, X? Yeah, I got that one." A swordsman who looks really good in a fight got good by practicing. ----- One problem that you'll find arguing with leftists is where it comes to the notion of principles (or axioms in the more formal sense). There is no complete theory; every theory depends necessarily on some external 'prover', if you will. These take the form of the assumptions you go into the argument with. In terms of verbal reasoning on higher-level topics like morals or politics, these will take the forms of first principles. If you cannot agree with an opponent on at least some of these, there can be no coherent discourse. One of the fundamental issues we have with this dialectic chasm between the Left and Right today is just our inability to even approach each other with basic first principles in agreement. If you have a person who can't recognize the truth of basic categories such as male and female, and whose theory of truth is something like basic relativism, you're not going to have a productive debate. It's just impossible. This cuts to a basic moral component of all debate, generally; this has to do with intent. So many times, modern Leftists are not interested in pursuing truth. They're interested in winning. Good, productive debate can swiftly turn into nothing but fruitless language games if the only interest a person has is in socially signaling that 'they beat you'. This is compounded when arguing with women, according to their innate nature. There are exceptions, and I'd wager a complete guess that it's probably 1 in 30 or 40 women who can approach intellectual argument with the ability to 'step outside of themselves' and who give a shit about some idea called Truth. The other 29 or 39 of them are only interested in creating the social impression they won. Don't get me wrong, many men are like this as well, but there is still some semblance of social pressure for a male to argue by a loose rule-set than there is for a woman, because it's socially acceptable for a woman to make 'moves' rhetorically that men cannot. Anyway, the point is, if someone doesn't want to have a fruitful debate with you, they won't. Just look at social media for fuck's sake. It's literally a technological platform that promotes and rewards low-resolution rhetorical one-liners to 'win' arguments. It's spread an intellectual sickness through society that has devalued truth completely; it's only about appearing smart now. And that can now be done by going, 'Lol. Bad take, bro. I remember being an undergrad too, heh.' These are sometimes called thought-terminating cliches, and you might think of social media as an engine for discovering them. If it is the case that discourse today is only about the social perception of winning, and thought-terminating cliches can do that for you, then you'll see it proliferate like crazy, because more than they want the truth, most people would rather give others the perception that they have it. It's just a figment of primitive human social psychology that heuristics like mockery, or things like these one-liners, have the power that they do. Most people lack the intellect to rise above that level of discourse. Public debate becomes something like troops of chimps just waving their arms and screeching, but since they use the right buzzwords, everyone thinks it's intelligent.

link