A Philosopher's Ethics

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by greenberg, Nov 17, 2007.

  1. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    Do you think this can be done without compromising one's own position?
     
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  3. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    If your position is that other's must approach knowledge in only one way, no. But as far as most positions yes (I think)
    If I find different people trying to arrive at the truth about the best way to learn how to play chess well
    through anecdotes
    by analyzing with other specific games
    by discussing learning in general
    by trying to deduce through statements made by grandmasters
    by gathering facts about how various chess coaches work and the skills of their players - inductively, perhaps,
    by discussing how they try to learn and getting feedback
    I might suggest to this or that person might try another strategy in the Chess Forum, I might even criticize their approach, once. But other than that short of immoral methods, I can't see why I can't ignore them, talk about my approach in parallel, but let the 'conflict' over method drop.
     
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  5. Gustav Banned Banned

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    you rule
     
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  7. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    This seems to presume that the truth can be arrived at by many routes.

    I'm not sure this is so.
     
  8. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    It seems like you consider at least a few to work: 1) meditation 2)philosophical discussion - in the latter I believe I have seen you use a)deductive reasoning, in relation to me on occasion, and b) the sharing of experienced categories - first thought was your list of potential narratives which I found helpful. It also seems like reading works of Buddhism has also contributed to your sense of the truth. I don't know for sure if gathering the experiences and thought of others through questioning qualifies as another mode or one that is included in the others. In any case given the example I made above I see you engaging in a number of parallel activities and unless I missed your intent, these are part of your seeking the truth and ones you would give up if you thought they were useless.

    You seem to respect others who approach the use of this forum in a number of ways. In terms of practical respect. I have no idea about how you think about what they are doing, but that is another issue to me. At least within the forum it seems like you do not try to change their modes or make their choice of mode seem like a failure to be another mode. Content, and attacks as modes seems to be different matter.
     
  9. Ogmios Must. learn. to. punctuate! Registered Senior Member

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    Hum.

    I haven't read Schopenhauer (although evidently I should), but the strategems seem to be effective ways of winning an argument. Though clearly they seem to be aimed just at that, not the furtherment of knowledge of both contestants.

    BUT then he implies that they should only be used against someone intelligent; as results might otherwise be unwanted.
    -Suppose then, that the strategems are not to be used to win arguments, but to prove the absurdness of the others statements. Such as; A: "all men are equal", B:" Should the state, then, hinder those who are better, so that lesser men would not be valued less?" (to use Str. no. 3); By making ones arguments seem ridicilous to the arguer, he furthers the others understanding.
    -But, just as he states, most would only think that he is being made ridiculous in the eyes of others (even when no one is around), and would thereby be offended. (One might say that you could only argue with someone who does not take himself too seriously but, as he says, values truth over face)

    Just a thought.

    P.S. Also, he might be simply categoryazing the diffrent means of winning, without bias on their usability or moral; and then taking a moment to remind what is the purpose of conversation to begin with.
     
    Last edited: Dec 4, 2007
  10. greenberg until the end of the world Registered Senior Member

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    I've been thinking about similar lines as well. - That the value of the stratagems is more in how to counter them.

    The passage quoted in the OP says:

    Using logically fallacies and stratagems like Schopenhauer's does often put a definitve end to any rational discussion.

    In instructions on informal logic, the position that usually seems to be taken is that when someone employs logical fallacies, the most one can do is to point out those fallacies and try to correct them.
     

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