#philosophical argument

[thehumanfront]

The philosophy of disagreement

(Pictured: Is Bill Gates involved in a COVID-19 conspiracy?)

We want to tackle conspiracy theories. But first we visit must something we’re all used to: disagreement.

This isn’t about preferences: e.g. we’ll never agree on the best album of all time (you’re wrong). This is about uncoverable (at least in theory) facts. Does MMR vaccination lead to autism? Is human-induced climate change occurring? Are radio waves causally associated with cancer incidence? With access to the same information, intelligent, agreeable people disagree on what the facts of the matters are.

So who has the final say? Are some arguments ‘unsettleable’?

Experts

An issue: ‘experts’ get things wrong. Consider sports pundits, who are brought onto TV to discuss tactics. They may, for example, have experience of (A) playing the game or (B) of analysing it in detail as journalists. But they have shortfalls as fact-claimers: they may (A) lack critical capacity or (B) have never experienced playing the game at a high level.

Fans at home, then, can be more correct about tactics’ effectiveness: they have less access to resources and no relevant experience; and while their critical faculties are, on average, smaller, they are still right.

Epistemic peers

So let’s introduce ‘epistemic peers’: people who have access to the same arguments and evidence and who possess similar experience and intellect. This makes the debate more interesting since even epistemic peers disagree with each other!

Possible solutions:

Distribute degrees of confidence to arguments being true and find middle ground: e.g. P1 assigns 0.2 to ‘Bill Gates = a crook’; P2 assigns 0.8; therefore, assign 0.5. But why should one’s confidence have to be adjusted?!

Yet if we stand our ground, we’ll be disagreeing forever! Maybe agnosticism is the answer. Then what can we claim?!

Answer?

Perhaps only arguments and evidence themselves mater; and if people disagree in meta-disputes about them, such disagreements only form part of total assessments.

(Relevant philosophers whose thoughts inspired us: Thomas Kelly and Jennifer Lackey. )

[descartes-before-the-horse]

I hate it when objections bit me in the ass while I’m running half naked in the woods trying to save my argument.

(Picture’s description: A lady runs in the woods, half naked, tits out, she is bitten in the ass by a white dog. Behind the dog is a horse that is coming. The lady has her hands up in the air, as if she was trying to reach out to something. In the air, just out of her grip are the words “my argument”. On the lady, “me” is written. On the dog, “objections” is written. On the horse, there is “another set of objections” written.)  

(Detail from Botticelli’s nastagio degli Onesti part 1) 

[thehumanfront]

Free Speech

Pictured: Is free expression in humour always worth it? The creators of South Park ridiculed the censorship of the prophet Muhammad (of Islam) by Comedy Central. But there’s a cultural impact from any comedy—and the creators of South Park have arguably changed attitudes on minority religious groups, racial stereotypes, and disabled people. Who takes responsibility for it: just us? Debatably, yes, and we should hold ourselves to account by taking the time to decipher humour from hate. Then again, we’re not perfect creatures; where do we draw the line?

The standard free-speech debate . . . Zzz. Ricky Gervais, Jordan Peterson, Stephen Fry, Ben Shapiro, Jonathan Pie, Douglas Murray, Count Dankula, Katy Hopkins . . . These people—let’s call them the ‘Free Speech Brigade’—seem to think that free speech is an automatic right. But, for their claim to hold water, they have to assume that freedom is fundamental to a fair and just society; else they don’t truly believe in it.

We should think carefully about what total freedom means. Not all freedoms are good. Indeed, at a societal level, censorship is already deployed in law because there are real-world consequences to words (e.g. in hate crime). So free speech should, perhaps, be treated as an action with effect, not a free right.

While taking offence is subjective and shouldn’t quell authentic debate and expression, nor should free speech be set in stone as an unmovable premise. But when engaging in debate with the Free Speech Brigade, then, ask them to acknowledge freedom’s downsides and watch their arguments come apart.

If you don’t question them on this point and allow them to hold fixed freedom’s essential value, they will quell an otherwise-good debate (quite ironically) and you will allow them to fly off with lousy argument after lousy argument.

[thehumanfront]

Intervention and Censorship: Freedom Isn't Everything

Free speech and action . . . The problem with today’s lively debate is that freedom, from the start, is often taken to be something which is fundamentally good. This is an argumentative error.

If we unfix freedom from being one of society’s unconditional features, upsetting the likes of Jordan Peterson and Ricky Gervais, the debate unravels into something a lot more interesting . . .

[oldladybrain]

What do you do when you tell someone that you’re not arguing over semantics but they don’t know what ‘semantics’ means?

[simplicius-simplicissimus]

Q.E.D. - quod erat demonstrandum (that which was to be demonstrated)

-Placed normally at the end of mathematical proofs or philosophical arguments

[romangoldendream]

In Him was found everything that a man is. Body, with its beauty, its wounds, or its weakness, its constitution, its energy or its  abandonment.

Soul, with its fears, its honor, its courage, its insecurity, its determination or its sufferings. 

He was a man, but he was the Son of God. 

Humanity and divinity. Christ. 

[whats-space]

This is my lustrous witty, and well-dressed flatmate, walfische. He is awesome. You should follow everyone who is awesome. Therefore, you should follow him.