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This reminds me of something I read once in a book about false memories. 90% of psychotherapy is based on the idea that examining and talking about your experie

This reminds me of something I read once in a book about false memories. 90% of psychotherapy is based on the idea that examining and talking about your experiences is helpful, but that's really just an assumption. There are some situations where it is predictably and categorically false. There are many others where it might be true but remains unproven. Debating is kind of the same way. We believe that at least some forms of vigorous debate will lead to "best of both" understanding or solutions, but can any of us prove that?

fladrif 9y ago
I'm not sure about prove, but I definitely believe that it can lead to actionable statements. Logical arguments are a layering of priors, arguments, and conclusions, which can be deductively analyzed to find proper conclusions given a known set of priors. I find that a lot of unconcluded arguments are based off of an unresolved set of priors that are never acknowledged, but are blamed on the lack of logical arguments made by the opposing party. Other times debates fall apart when one party approaches a conclusion that they do not agree with and form arguments that conveniently side-step that outcome. Because of these possibilities I think we may write off vigorous ~logical~ debates as relativistic and populist pandering, or uncouth shouting matches, but if logical principles are applied properly with a distinct lack of emotion (not morals) debates can be effective in finding truth.