Dialectic Eristic

In its essence, the dialectic is a procedure where two or more individuals argue over a contradiction with the goal of advance the state of knowledge or the consensual truth.

Schopenhauer noticed that, in practice, people are more interested to be right than searching the truth. That is, during an argument, each individual is committed in proving its opponent wrong and the truth is left aside. Therefore, the eristic consists in argue for the pleasure to prove the other wrong.

The name dialectic eristic is ironic in the sense that it is not a dialectic method because the agents are not committed in searching the truth.

Note

Plato believed that the eristic style "did not constitute a method of argument" because to argue eristically is to consciously use fallacious arguments, which therefore weakens one's position.

The overzealous quest for victory in argumentations as an end it is something that it is unseemly in the young and sophistic in the elders. Plato.

What is dialectic

The art of being right

1. The Extension (Dana's Law)

A: Another hooligans riot in a Manchester match. Something must be done.
B: You cannot blame all football fans to acts done by a minority. And more, this clan behaviour is human phenomenon and football is more sensible to it because it has so many fans.

2. The Homonymy

A: Climate change is undeniable.
B: Of course it is. Yesterday was raining, today is sunny.

3. Generalize Your Opponent's Specific Statements

A: Smoke is bad for the healthy.
A: (Sometime later...) I smoke once in a while.
B: But you said is bad for healthy.
A: It is, and I consciously smoke once in a while.

4. Conceal Your Game

Start a sequence of questions triggering an affirmative response by the opponent that discretely towards him to the goal to affirm your proposition.

5. False Propositions

From false propositions one can arrive to something that it is true.
If your opponent is part of a sect, you can use premisses of this sect to prove a point.

Important

This is the main tool to use against adepts of conspiracy theories. An efficient way to prove them wrongly is to use their arguments to prove something that is an evident absurd.

6. Postulate What Has to Be Proved

This is what is called the petitio principii. You discretely put what you want to prove as a premise (or at least something that immediately lead to your conclusion).

7. Yield Admissions Through Questions

Eludes to the Socratic method (a dialectic procedure).
Differently from the Socratic method, the goal is to confuse the opponent.
If the opponent is too slow, he might not be able to defend himself against.

8. Make Your Opponent Angry

An emotional opponent loose his mind. His cognitive capacities are perturbed.
Treat him with insolence, injustice or whatever triggers him.

9. Questions in Detouring Order

This can be viewed as an addendum to (4). An additional way to conceal your game.

10. Take Advantage of the Nay-Sayer

If you notice your opponent is saying no for the sake of not agreeing with you, invert the question such that the negative answer favours your point.

11. Generalize Admissions of Specific Cases

You have examples that contradicts a general rule. Make your opponent agree with the specific cases and then use the general rule as something that is accepted.
In a sense, it is the opposite of (1,3). In (1,3) the opponent generalize a proposition to attack you. Here, you generalize the proposition because this is convenient.
A: Isn't common the riot in football matches?
B: Yes!
A: Isn't true that this does not happen in other sports?
B: Yes!
A: So we agree that football is dangerous.

12. Choose Metaphors Favourable to Your Proposition

Choose a term that is positively semantically attached to your point.

Positive	Negative
Partido liberal	Partido servil
Protestantes	Hereges
Devoção	Superstição
Fervor religioso	Fanatismo
Galanteria	Adultério

13. Relativize and conquer

Put the gray on the side of black and it will look white.
A: He is a public man. It is a shame that he hired his wife as his assistant.
B: What about those that kill someone and are not in prison? Did he kill someone? His wife is competent and that's why she was hired.

14. Claim Victory Despite Defeat

Even after being contradicted, you announce the triumph of your thesis.
This demands a lot of petulance but it can work against over shy people.

15. Use Seemingly Absurd Propositions

The idea is to affirm something that sounds absurd such that the opponent will deny immediately. But it happens that the negation of this absurdity favours your thesis.

16. Arguments Ad Hominem

A: That's why it is important to save energy.
B: Why you keep using air-conditioner the whole day in the summer, then?
A: From what we know today, criminalization of cannabis make no sense.
B: What are your intentions with that? Do you want to help your pals? You are always seen together with these criminals.
A: I believe people should have the right to take out their own lives.
B: Why don't you do it then? (A mix of 8 as well)

17. Defense Through Subtle Distinction

Opponent found a counter-example to your thesis. You counter-attack by slightly changing your thesis to accommodate the counter-example.

A: We should stop people from posting this type of content.
B: So you are in favour of censorship?
A: Not at all. But if you abuse a channel to spread unproven statements about someone, then you should be punished for it. In your reasoning, a person that breaks in your house should not be punished because she was just exercising her rights of free displacement.

18. Interrupt, Break, Divert the Dispute

When we noticed that the opponent is going into a direction which we feel that we are going to hit a dead-end or loose the argument, we should try to interrupt him to finish his reasoning or change the subject.

Sure pollution is a concern, but have you seen the number of jobs this company creates in the area? Let us focus on job creation!

19. Generalize the Matter, Then Argue Against it

A: We need stricter regulations to protect the golden lion species.
B: Environmental regulations are excessive and stifle economic growth. We need to reduce government interference in all industries.

20. Draw Conclusions Yourself

Consists into presenting some premisses and draw the conclusion directly from them without showing the connection between them. It is a shortcut to gain terrain in the debate.

A: A crime without punishment is an incentive to recidivism. It is clear that tougher sentencing will deter criminals and make our streets safer.

21. Meet Him With a Counter-Argument as Bad as His

In some occasions, the opponent will use an ad-hominem argument against you. It is not worthy to elaborate an answer if that is long. You may loose the audience. In this circumstances, consider to reply using the same tool.

22. Petitio principii

In this scenario, the opponent want us to accept a proposition from which we anticipate that he will draw a conclusion that is unfavorable to us. In this case, we accuse him to use this proposition as a petition principii and we say ourselves the conclusion he expects to draw. By doing that, the power of his conclusion will be weaken.

23. Make Him Exaggerate His Statement

This is very similar to one, but it is the opponent herself that exaggerates and generalize her own statement. If you notice an excitement from your opponent, you encourage her to generalize her proposition such that, in the generalization, you can attack it more easily.

24. State a False Syllogism

From false premisses one can draw a valid conclusion. This is a form to create a syllogism, which is a fallacious reasoning that seems to be true. To use against your opponent, you can take one of his statements and use another premise (it could be false), to draw a conclusion that is very unpopular in the eyes of the audience.

25. Find One Instance to the Contrary

When the opponent states a rule, tries to find an exception to that rule and then say it. More evident the instance the better. This will create a discomfort in the opponent.

26. Turn the Tables

When an argument of the opponent is better used against him:

A: He is a kid. We do not take him seriously.
B: Precisely because it is a kid we need to be attentive such that bad habits are not reinforced.

27. Anger Indicates a Weak Point

If we notice that a particular argument makes the opponent irritated, we need to insist in this point. If the opponent is enraged he will have more difficult to develop his arguments.

28. Persuade the Audience, Not the Opponent (lacração)

This is well done when experts debate in front of an audience that has little or no experience in the subject. You can permit yourself to superficially decline your opponent argument or even snob it you estimate that his defense will take long time. He is going to loose the audience during his explanation and the only thing the audience will remember will be your sharp response against him.

29. Diversion

Change the subject if you fell that you are loosing the argument. To apply this stratagem successfully, you need to convey a way that gives the appearance that the change in the subject focus is relevant for the main discussion.

30. Appeal to Authority Rather Than Reason

This stratagem works better if your opponent recognizes the authority you are citing.

The less someone knows about a subject, the easiest it is to him to accept an authority.
To forge one's opinion takes time and effort. It is convenient to follow the opinion of someone we trust.
The more we spend time working for our employees, the less energy we have to dedicate to ourselves, to reflection. We can conclude that fewer original ideas emerge.
Independent universities and peer reviews are the guardians of truth. We need dedicated experts in subjects of importance to make sure that we can trust in a consensus coming from this corpus of experts.

Note

Unusquisque mavult credere quam judicare. Everyone prefers to believe than to judge. (Sêneca)

31. This Is Beyond Me

When you are sure to have more prestigious than your opponent in the eyes of the audience, you can try to say something like: "What are you saying is beyond me. You may be right, but I can't understand what are you saying."

Danger

It is a dangerous move, though. Your opponent can reply with: - "Let me try to explain in simple terms then." - "I am not sure if you don't understand or if you do not want to understand."

32. Put His Thesis into Some Odious Category

What are you saying is "terrorism!"

It does not really matter if the proposition is true or not. The idea is to make the link between your opponents ideas with concepts that are despised.

33. It Applies in Theory, but Not in Practice

This offers a way to politely state your disagreement with the premisses (theory). If the consequences of a theory are not true, than the theory is faulty (false or absent premisses). But stating in this way, you might avoid a defensive posture of your opponent.

34. Don't Let Him Off the Hook

If we notice that the opponent is trying to diverge (stratagem 29), we can certainly assume that we touched in a weak point of his argument. Therefore, we should insist in that point until a proper answer is given.

35. Will Is More Effective Than Insight

We tend to abandon an opinion as soon as we realize that this opinion goes against something that is part of our belief system for a while.

It is enough to demonstrate how an idea goes against someones religion in order for this person to abandon that opinion.
It is enough to abandon an opinion to link it to something that harms the group we belong.

Note

O que nos é desvantajoso parece absurdo para o intelecto.

36. Bewilder Your opponent by Mere Bombast

This consists into speaking difficult. Using literacy words, technical jargon and all sort of vocabulary that is not usually heard by your opponent. The idea here is to confusing him.

Note

Os homens, quando estão a ouvir frases de estilo, pensam que deve haver o que pensar naquilo.

37. A Faulty Proof Refutes His Whole Position

If during the exposition of your opponent you find a faulty reasoning, you can use this error to refute his own position. How can we trust your argument if are capable of doing such simple mistakes?

This is somehow an ad rem used as an ad hominem.

38. Become Personal, Insulting, Rude (argumentum ad personam)

This consists in completely forget about the topic of discussion and direct personal attacks to the opponent. The consequences of this stratagem could be a fight or a legal process.

Even if you do not recur to this stratagem, your opponent may used it because:

Note

Toda alegria profunda e serenidade consistem em ter alguém com quem, ao nos comparamos, sentimos grande estima por nós mesmos.

Loosing an argument touches in our vanity and that's why we get frustrated. Some people react to that with aggressivity.

Note

Loosing an argument should not be a reason for frustration. On the contrary, both sides should be satisfied that they found an agreement and that both were able to advance their knowledges.

Not every debate is worthy because we are susceptible to these type of reactions. A good advice is: Choose your debates.

Important

Only accept to debate with someone that you know will be honest in their arguments. Debate with people that value the truth and enjoy listening to good points of view even when those are given by the opponent. Debate with people that are fair to support not being right when the truth is on the other side. La paix vaut encore mieux que la vérité.

Ad Hominem arguments

It is the category of arguments that focus on attacking a person's history, behaviour, position with disregard to the center point of the argument. Most of times, it is a fallacious argument, but it might be relevant to the issue sometimes. For example: a dialogue at the court, where the attorney cross-examines an eyewitness, bringing to light the fact that the witness was convicted in the past for lying. If the attorney's conclusion is that the witness is lying, that would be wrong. But if his argument would be that the witness should not be trusted, that would not be a fallacy.

1. Tu quoque (you also)

Here is an example given by philosophy professor George Wrisley to illustrate the above: A businessman and politician is giving a lecture at a University about how good his company is and how nicely the system works. A student asks him "Is it true that you and your company are selling weapons to third world rulers who use those arms against their own people?" and the businessman replies "Is it true that your university gets funding by the same company that you are claiming is selling guns to those countries? You are not a white dove either"

2. Circumstantial

A simple example is: a father may tell his daughter not to start smoking because she will damage her health, and she may point out that he is or was a smoker. This does not alter the fact that smoking might cause various diseases. Her father's inconsistency is not a proper reason to reject his claim.

3. Guilt by association

Academic Leigh Kolb gives as an example that the 2008 US vice‐presidential candidate Sarah Palin attacked Barack Obama for having worked with Bill Ayers, who had been a leader in the Weather Underground terrorist group in the 1960s. Despite Obama denouncing every act of terrorism, he was still associated by his opponents with terrorism.

4. Abusive ad hominem

Free hate and insults.

Ad Logicam arguments

Also known as argument from fallacy. It consists in identifying a fallacious argument and then conclude the opposite.

If P, then Q.
P is fallacious, then Q must absolutely be false.
A: I speak English, therefore I am English.
B: Americans and Canadians speak English and are not English. Your argument is fallacious, then you are not English.

Ad Speculum arguments

It is when we use an hypothetical scenario to draw conclusions. It is the famous: "ifs do not make history".

This Grammy award would not be possible without my producer. (You could have won even with a different producer)
If the arm had not taken the power, we would be living in a communism dictatorship.

Ad Consequentiam

Consists into arguing that something is true because the consequences of being false is not pleasant. Alternatively, it is true because the consequences are positive.

God must exist, otherwise tons of people would have been praying for nothing.
God must exist, because we feel so good in the church.

Ad Populum

It consists in saying that something is true because a group of people said to be true. It is a type of argument by authority (ad verecundiam).

Of course that nothing is true only because a group of people say so. Nonetheless, if we are in a position that we are unable to judge something and we need to take a decision based on such judgement, than the most logical thing to do is to follow the consensus of experts.