38 Ways to win an argument

[ecoli]

Thought I would share this with you guys:

http://indiauncut.com/iublog/article/38-ways-to-win-an-argument-arthur-schopenhauer/

 

My 'favorite' is 24

 

24 State a false syllogism.

Your opponent makes a proposition, and by false inference and distortion of his ideas you force from the proposition other propositions that are not intended and that appear absurd.

It then appears that opponent’s proposition gave rise to these inconsistencies, and so appears to be indirectly refuted.

 

and 30

 

30 Make an appeal to authority rather than reason.

If your opponent respects an authority or an expert, quote that authority to further your case.

If needed, quote what the authority said in some other sense or circumstance.

Authorities that your opponent fails to understand are those which he generally admires the most.

You may also, should it be necessary, not only twist your authorities, but actually falsify them, or quote something that you have entirely invented yourself.

[A Childs Mind]

................why would you alwase want to win an argument.

[hermanntrude]

a very scientific attitude, ACM. it's true we shouldn't want to win all arguments, although there are times you'll forget that and want to win anyway :0) It's usually when you think you're right.

[Sisyphus]

Yes, pretty awesome. Common in most arguments, more common online, and there's at least one troll (who shall remain unnamed, please) who intentionally used this forum and others as practicing grounds for these (i.e., fallacious but convincing to the uninformed) techniques, apparently to improve his skill in sleazy litigation.

[swansont]

Virtually all of the points refer to logical fallacies in one form or another. The title should be "38 Ways to "win" an argument … when you're wrong." The winning is illusory. (and, I should add, these tactics are things the staff here try and clamp down on whenever possible)

 

(You should have blogged this, so I could link to it. Now I'll just have to steal it outright.)

[ecoli]

Virtually all of the points refer to logical fallacies in one form or another. The title should be "38 Ways to "win" an argument … when you're wrong." The winning is illusory. (and, I should add, these tactics are things the staff here try and clamp down on whenever possible)

 

yeah... it's slightly funnier when presented this way, I think.

 

(You should have blogged this, so I could link to it. Now I'll just have to steal it outright.)

d'oh. My precious credit!

[Baby Astronaut]

Yes, pretty awesome. Common in most arguments, more common online, and there's at least one troll (who shall remain unnamed, please) who intentionally used this forum and others as practicing grounds for these (i.e., fallacious but convincing to the uninformed) techniques, apparently to improve his skill in sleazy litigation.

Funny you say that, what immediately came to mind seeing 24 and 30 in the OP was: that must be from Karl Rove's personal diary (except his would likely be a lot simpler in directions/execution and greasy with slime).

[padren]

Yes, pretty awesome. Common in most arguments, more common online, and there's at least one troll (who shall remain unnamed, please) who intentionally used this forum and others as practicing grounds for these (i.e., fallacious but convincing to the uninformed) techniques, apparently to improve his skill in sleazy litigation.

 

Well if that was true then basically this forum condones trolling and has moderators that are clearly lazy or just don't care about the quality of this place so obviously everyone has left and no one posts here anymore - oh wait, they still do, so I guess your assertion is pretty ridiculous.

 

Besides, Sayonara³ says that trolling is an insta-ban offense, so unless you are calling him a liar you may want to reevaluate your assertion.

[Sayonara]

Do I?

 

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Of course you do. You also mentioned something about appeals to authority being punishable by machete.

[padren]

I like #31:

31 If you know that you have no reply to the arguments that your opponent advances, you by a fine stroke of irony declare yourself to be an incompetent judge.

Example: “What you say passes my poor powers of comprehension; it may well be all very true, but I can’t understand it, and I refrain from any expression of opinion on it.”

In this way you insinuate to the audience, with whom you are in good repute, that what your opponent says is nonsense.

This technique may be used only when you are quite sure that the audience thinks much better of you than your opponent.

 

The biggest thing to look out for though is the "simple by proxy" retort, to the effect of "It's no more complex than X and we've been talking about THAT all day!" at which point, you have to pull out some superficial difference to argue he's missing some complexity in his analogy or the original tactic will have backfired.

[Mr Skeptic]

37 Should your opponent be in the right but, luckily for you, choose a faulty proof, you can easily refute it and then claim that you have refuted the whole position.

This is the way in which bad advocates lose good cases.

If no accurate proof occurs to your opponent, you have won the day.

 

I see this sort of thing a lot, especially when it comes to religion.

[Sisyphus]

Well if that was true then basically this forum condones trolling and has moderators that are clearly lazy or just don't care about the quality of this place so obviously everyone has left and no one posts here anymore - oh wait, they still do, so I guess your assertion is pretty ridiculous.

 

Besides, Sayonara³ says that trolling is an insta-ban offense, so unless you are calling him a liar you may want to reevaluate your assertion.

 

Gah! I've been outargued!

[CaptainPanic]

The value of the list of 38 is not that you'll be more capable of winning an argument - I think that you will actually already use most of these techniques without realizing it.

 

The real value is that you may be able to recognize when someone else uses it against you... because you can now recognize the techniques used against you.

 

Everybody is already very capable of winning an argument on false argumentation... In fact, the only proper way to win an argument (using proof) seems to be missing from the list