Gregory Rapawy <grapawy at yahoo.com> writes: > --- David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: > [...] > > I do think that's going outside the province of > > intellectual debates. *How much* somebody cares > > about something *in an intellectual debate* is > > completely irrelevant, except tactically. The > > truth of a belief is not increased by believing it > > more passionately. And intellectual debate is about > > > *truth*. > > > > Obviously, many issues that we debate with people in > > day-to-day life are not issues best settled in a > > purely intellectual debate. > > I disagree, although it is possible that your > qualifier "purely" may remove my grounds for > disagreement by narrowing the breadth of your claim to > a subset of what I would generally consider > "intellectual debate." In deciding how to spend a vacation with a partner, the issue of the partner's personal preferences pretty much have to come into it. No amount of argument about how they *should* prefer something else is likely to be beneficial to reaching an agreement. In broader terms, if other people you need to interact with hold positions you view as irrational, intellectual debate leads to a deadlock. Sometimes you may wish to implement the deadlock, by avoiding associating with those people, but other times you will prefer to not do that. > Taking your broader claim ("*How much* somebody cares > about something *in an intellectual debate* is > completely irrelevant, except tactically."), I think > that in certain areas of debate the strength of the > participants' beliefs in certain emotional (or, > perhaps, value) propositions is relevant to the truth > they are seeking to ascertain. Examples include > political philosophy, rhetoric, and aesthetics. Well, for your particular benefit, I will disagree *passionately* and *vehemently* with this position. Maybe it'll help, who knows? To me, these are precisely the subjects that *must* be considered rationally and not emotionally. Well, except for aesthetics, which are entirely subjective anyway. > First, in political philosophy, the strengths of our > beliefs in certain propositions of value are, at least > within some methodologies, the raw data from which we > construct theories of the good or the right. I am > thinking here of Rawls's concept of reflective > equilibrium, in which any value proposition may be > revised at any point after reasoned consideration; but > all others are taken as given while consideration is > given. Other methodologies insist that we proceed a > priori (some utilitarians fall into this category, as > does the Kantian tradition) but whichever side of that > debate one takes, I do not think it is fair to say > that only the latter are engaged in intellectual > debate. Statistically, how strongly people feel about something is relevant to policy certainly. I see that as completely unrelated to the act of debate, though. > Second, in rhetoric, the goal is to find the argument > that the ultimate listeners (not the present companion > with whom one is having the intellectual debate about > rhetoric) will find persuasive, which will almost > certainly depend on the strength of their beliefs in > various propositions. The debaters therefore, again, > may use their own beliefs as data on the assumption > that the ultimate listeners share them, or perhaps > with the intent of deriving the listeners' beliefs > from their own by adjusting for known differences in > attitude. (This resembles your caveat about tactics; > but here the tactical, or strategic proposition, is > itself the truth the debaters seek to ascertain.) Rhetoric is in direct opposition to intellectual debate; rhetoric is the attempt to *convince* by tactical trickery. Intellectual debate is the attempt to *demonstrate* by *logic*. > Third, in aesthetics, I suspect -- although I have > little knowledge of formal, as opposed to casual, > aesthetics, and so may be completely mistaken -- that > even quite sophisticated arguments about what is > beautiful (which I think is a kind of truth) may need > to rely on beliefs about what is good or right. As I said, aesthetics are subjective. If one attempts to make an axiomatic formal system of aesthetics one could have intellectual debates with it, but they'd have little to do with how anybody liked a piece of art. > It may be that you will simply respond that these are > therefore not subjects of *purely* intellectual > debate. Then, however, I would say that purely > intellectual debate, within your definition, is quite > rare and restricted to a few technical subjects such > as mathematics and computer science. And even there > (I am neither a mathematician nor a programmer) is it > really true that some aesthetic propositions -- and > therefore ultimately matters of belief -- do not creep > in? Matters of belief certainly come up, and need to be recognized as such. Sometimes you can change beliefs by showing how they are wrong, other times you cannot. People often fall short of intellectual debate in discussing politics, for example, but that's a personal failing, not an inherent difficulty. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net / New TMDA anti-spam in test John Dyer-Bennet 1915-2002 Memorial Site http://john.dyer-bennet.net Book log: http://www.dd-b.net/dd-b/Ouroboros/booknotes/ New Dragaera mailing lists, see http://dragaera.info