4 ms·

No - particularly because these debates occurred at many tables simultaneously, like games of chess. Of course the point of rhetoric is to win an audience, but

No - particularly because these debates occurred at many tables simultaneously, like games of chess. Of course the point of rhetoric is to win an audience, but this type of training was much more than that. Plainly put: You can never truly arrive at or trust your own beliefs if you can't completely understand and articulate the best possible case against them. In order to do that, you must put yourself in the position of one who believes the opposite of what you do. Maybe you'll even find your own beliefs change in this process. But humility and courage of your conviction, if you have a conviction, demands that you can argue the other side better than anyone on the other side. Also, where reasonable people disagree, there are always two versions of the truth. Learning to grapple with that fact teaches one not to see everything in pure black and white. Which has the benefit of teaching one to judge practices on the merits rather than individuals on their orthodoxy.

bandyaboot 3y ago
> Plainly put: You can never truly arrive at or trust your own beliefs if you can't completely understand and articulate the best possible case against them. How does one know when they completely understand the best possible case against their own belief? Or know for sure that they’ve arrived at the best possible case against it? Seems like an unattainable bar.
- noduerme 3y ago
  You don't. You always keep learning. What I wrote was for people who truly think there's some one truth they want to argue; to explain to them why this is valuable. The real value is that this method teaches you to see all sides, and gives you both compassion and the ability to determine and assert what you think is right in circumstances you haven't encountered before - to think on the fly without judging prematurely.
  - bandyaboot 3y ago
    So wouldn’t that mean that the part of your comment that I quoted can be simplified to: > Plainly put: You can never truly arrive at or trust your own beliefs
    - noduerme 3y ago
      That's also true, if you're honest with yourself and don't become ossified. I should stipulate though that you can arrive at about 99% of your beliefs and know them thoroughly enough to know why you believe them, while still being willing to change your mind if you're given new evidence.
      - bandyaboot 3y ago
        Fair enough :)
worrycue 3y ago
> you must put yourself in the position of one who believes the opposite of what you do This presuppose that I even have a position to begin with ... I don't understand why anyone would adopt a position before the discussion/debate - the whole point of which is to decide what is the factually correct position.
- honzabe 3y ago
  It seems that you fail to see the distinction between putting yourself in the position of one who believes and actually adopting the position. You can think of it as intellectual empathy. You being able to put yourself into someone else's shoes does not mean you become them.
- johnnyanmac 3y ago
  >the whole point of which is to decide what is the factually correct position. you presuppose there is a factually correct position to begin with. For the kinds of topics debate prepares you for, there often isn't.
SiempreViernes 3y ago
> You can never truly arrive at or trust your own beliefs if you can't completely understand and articulate the best possible case against them. In order to do that, you must put yourself in the position of one who believes the opposite of what you do. No, "both sidesing" is not at all how philosophers or mathematicians train to establish the truth: they learn to identify overt and hidden assumptions and question the validity of this assumptions. This might happen when you imagine you truly hold some other position, but it is clear from the structure you describe (mostly unstructured talking to an opponent) that this is incidental learning and not the focus of the exercise. What you describe is plainly a exercise in rhetoric, the central conceit that one can simply switch positions after a fixed period of debate is clear enough evidence that truth seeking is not the goal.
- edanm 3y ago
  > No, "both sidesing" is not at all how philosophers or mathematicians train to establish the truth: they learn to identify overt and hidden assumptions and question the validity of this assumptions. I disagree with this. It's not "both sidesing" in the same sense as debate, but for sure mathematicians often engage in similar ways of learning. Almost always, you'd learn something new, like a new definition, by considering other ways to define the same thing and see how that affects things. And at the high level of maths, there sometimes are actual debates about which direction to go with certain axioms/etc. > What you describe is plainly an exercise in rhetoric, the central conceit that one can simply switch positions after a fixed period of debate is clear enough evidence that truth seeking is not the goal. Hard disagree. Being able to switch sides is essential to being able to understand why one side is better than the other. If you're trying to decide which ice cream flavor to order, but literally cannot see one of the options, it is meaningless to say you chose not to take that one. Only by actually seeing it, tasting it, and deciding against it, have you actually made a choice that one flavor is better than another.
  - SiempreViernes 3y ago
    > It's not "both sidesing" in the same sense as debate, but [emphasis mine] Ha! Seeing you use a literal non-sequitur to as a counter is a perfect illustration of why rhetoric exercises aren't an automatic pathway to sound logical reasoning. (Explicitly the argument by edanm goes: "I hold the proposition 'A does not do B' is not true, because A does C")

bandyaboot 3y ago

> Plainly put: You can never truly arrive at or trust your own beliefs if you can't completely understand and articulate the best possible case against them. How does one know when they completely understand the best possible case against their own belief? Or know for sure that they’ve arrived at the best possible case against it? Seems like an unattainable bar.

noduerme 3y ago
You don't. You always keep learning. What I wrote was for people who truly think there's some one truth they want to argue; to explain to them why this is valuable. The real value is that this method teaches you to see all sides, and gives you both compassion and the ability to determine and assert what you think is right in circumstances you haven't encountered before - to think on the fly without judging prematurely.
- bandyaboot 3y ago
  So wouldn’t that mean that the part of your comment that I quoted can be simplified to: > Plainly put: You can never truly arrive at or trust your own beliefs
  - noduerme 3y ago
    That's also true, if you're honest with yourself and don't become ossified. I should stipulate though that you can arrive at about 99% of your beliefs and know them thoroughly enough to know why you believe them, while still being willing to change your mind if you're given new evidence.
    - bandyaboot 3y ago
      Fair enough :)

worrycue 3y ago

> you must put yourself in the position of one who believes the opposite of what you do This presuppose that I even have a position to begin with ... I don't understand why anyone would adopt a position before the discussion/debate - the whole point of which is to decide what is the factually correct position.

honzabe 3y ago
It seems that you fail to see the distinction between putting yourself in the position of one who believes and actually adopting the position. You can think of it as intellectual empathy. You being able to put yourself into someone else's shoes does not mean you become them.
johnnyanmac 3y ago
>the whole point of which is to decide what is the factually correct position. you presuppose there is a factually correct position to begin with. For the kinds of topics debate prepares you for, there often isn't.

SiempreViernes 3y ago

> You can never truly arrive at or trust your own beliefs if you can't completely understand and articulate the best possible case against them. In order to do that, you must put yourself in the position of one who believes the opposite of what you do. No, "both sidesing" is not at all how philosophers or mathematicians train to establish the truth: they learn to identify overt and hidden assumptions and question the validity of this assumptions. This might happen when you imagine you truly hold some other position, but it is clear from the structure you describe (mostly unstructured talking to an opponent) that this is incidental learning and not the focus of the exercise. What you describe is plainly a exercise in rhetoric, the central conceit that one can simply switch positions after a fixed period of debate is clear enough evidence that truth seeking is not the goal.

edanm 3y ago
> No, "both sidesing" is not at all how philosophers or mathematicians train to establish the truth: they learn to identify overt and hidden assumptions and question the validity of this assumptions. I disagree with this. It's not "both sidesing" in the same sense as debate, but for sure mathematicians often engage in similar ways of learning. Almost always, you'd learn something new, like a new definition, by considering other ways to define the same thing and see how that affects things. And at the high level of maths, there sometimes are actual debates about which direction to go with certain axioms/etc. > What you describe is plainly an exercise in rhetoric, the central conceit that one can simply switch positions after a fixed period of debate is clear enough evidence that truth seeking is not the goal. Hard disagree. Being able to switch sides is essential to being able to understand why one side is better than the other. If you're trying to decide which ice cream flavor to order, but literally cannot see one of the options, it is meaningless to say you chose not to take that one. Only by actually seeing it, tasting it, and deciding against it, have you actually made a choice that one flavor is better than another.
- SiempreViernes 3y ago
  > It's not "both sidesing" in the same sense as debate, but [emphasis mine] Ha! Seeing you use a literal non-sequitur to as a counter is a perfect illustration of why rhetoric exercises aren't an automatic pathway to sound logical reasoning. (Explicitly the argument by edanm goes: "I hold the proposition 'A does not do B' is not true, because A does C")