Argument creep: don’t do it.
Jings. This is a standard bubble marginal comment for me: "Well, if it could be argued, then argue it. Give your reasons for thinking that this claim is true. It could be argued that the moon is made of green cheese." FFS. https://t.co/Qt4LpjalNk
— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) January 29, 2020
So: "It could be argued that the moon is made of green cheese … " through "If we accept that the moon is made of green cheese…" to "We should deal with the moon's being made of green cheese as follows…
— Jon Pike (@runthinkwrite) January 29, 2020
Philosophy students! Don't do this!
Also everyone else! Don’t do this!
Comments
8 responses to “If it could be argued, then argue it”
Thanks, Ophelia, I love this.
Now, whenever I am on the losing side and know it, I will switch to the “If it could be argued …” mode and I will never, ever, ever be beaten by facts again. Pesky facts, how dare people use them in arguments.
/sarc
People tend to keep doing what they have found worked for them in the past. Like, say, stepping up to a drunk and touching him (yes, usually a him) for an on-the-spot loan.
For many of the TRAs, their arguments come off sounding like Lucky’s “thinking” in Waiting for Godot.
Bonus points if Lucky has a beard.
You know, Not Bruce, now that you mention it, I have never seen a Lucky with a beard. Wonder why that is?
It could be argued that there has been a bearded Lucky. If we accept that there once was a bearded Lucky then your claims that you have never seen one just means that you haven’t been looking in the right places.
Am I doing this ‘argument creep’ thing right?
Maybe not. You made a good, logical argument. After all, I have not seen every Lucky, and one of the performances of this play that I viewed had a female Lucky (which would have horrified Beckett, who demanded that this play never be performed with women. He actually took it to court once – in Denmark, I think – but lost).
I encountered a live example of this kind of ‘thinking’ in a debate group on Facebook just a few days ago. The poster started a loooong screed with the words “If we imagine that…”
Of course, I replied that the contents of any paragraph which start with that phrase can safely be ignored.
Amazingly, though, some people were engaging with the statements in that paragraph. So not only do we need to teach people not to do that, we have to teach everyone to spot that kind of dishonesty so we don’t fall for it.