Are you good at disagreeing?

[23meg]

"How To Disagree (http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html)" by Paul Graham

Do you think you're good at disagreeing in general, and in online discussions specifically? How well do you do at not losing track of facts, logic and conduct while putting forward contrarian arguments?

There's certainly some room for improvement for most of us participating in FOSS discussions, including those in these forums.

Paul Graham (http://paulgraham.com)'s essay titled "How To Disagree" is useful in that it clarifies the various degrees of convincingness in argument forms (be careful: forms, not content), and can make it easier to diagnose the less useful ones, and consequently may help people improve their argumentative skills, or help people in helping others improve theirs.

I've cited it in some mediocre discussions, and even in that setting, where such a citation may sound patronizing (even though it's possible to avoid that), people seem to benefit from it. I hope it's useful for a few people here too.

[donniezazen]

Freedom of speech does not guarantee right to be listened. The only thing that current race of humans are good at is denying and disagreeing.

Peace.

[aysiu]

I think 23meg was being serious, so I've moved all the "funny" responses to their own thread:
The disagreement thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1183937)

[doas777]

well, if there are rules to disagreeing, then no, I'm probably not. Formal debate is not my style, though I do like a good argument. my form is likely full of holes though.

formal study of logic is useful, but extremely tedious, and often fruitless (logic on one side does not usually beat a gun or badge on the other). If no one else argues rationally, then can it really be said to be a winning strategy?

[Woormy]

Freedom of speech does not guarantee right to be listened. The only thing that current race of humans are good at is denying and disagreeing.

Peace.

The current race of humans??? Will the next one be better?

[aysiu]

I just get annoyed when people start throwing around "logic" terminology without actually knowing what the terms mean. If someone keeps insisting everyone else is guilty of straw men and ad hominem arguments, I start to get suspicious.

[23meg]

I just get annoyed when people start throwing around "logic" terminology without actually knowing what the terms mean. If someone keeps insisting everyone else is guilty of straw men and ad hominem arguments, I start to get suspicious.

I especially dislike the intensely picky usage of "I never said that, so you can't argue in that direction", in which the precise boundaries of the debate are to be defined by the debater wielding this device, to the point that you're simply not allowed to introduce anything original into the discussion, but can only reply to what that debater has said.

[doas777]

I just get annoyed when people start throwing around "logic" terminology without actually knowing what the terms mean. If someone keeps insisting everyone else is guilty of straw men and ad hominem arguments, I start to get suspicious.

lol.

[lisati]

Random musing: I sometimes get mildly annoyed and/or amused when reading discussions which are supposedly based on facts, and someone interjects with a comment of the form, "I feel that A is B" or "I feel that C should be D". It can be distracting when the thought "What have feelings got to do with it?" pops into my head.

[jonian_g]

Dissagreements are productive. If everyone agrees then there is no matter to talk about a subject.

[aysiu]

Dissagreements are productive. If everyone agrees then there is no matter to talk about a subject.
The issue at hand is how you disagree, not that you disagree.

[doas777]

Random musing: I sometimes get mildly annoyed and/or amused when reading discussions which are supposedly based on facts, and someone interjects with a comment of the form, "I feel that A is B" or "I feel that C should be D". It can be distracting when the thought "What have feelings got to do with it?" pops into my head.

well, there is no way to objectively observe any phenomena. these people are just being honest (and perhaps non-confrontational), while acknowledging that, as a human, they actually KNOW nothing. every thought any human has every had, ever, has been a feeling.

[doas777]

The issue at hand is how you disagree, not that you disagree.

'why' is also an important factor.

[Dharmachakra]

One thing I've noticed is that there are a number of people on these forums who will begin their posts simply with the word "wrong". If I had to choose some of the most obnoxious things users post this would be way up there on the list. It's obviously not an effective way to start off an argument and it makes me wonder if they do this in face-to-face conversation... if so, I really hope someone smacks them.

[dragos240]

Most people in my town can be talked into agreeing with anything, even if they're against it. Although I never get talked into those types of things, otherwise I would be using windows by now.

[SunnyRabbiera]

I think 23meg was being serious, so I've moved all the "funny" responses to their own thread:
The disagreement thread (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1183937)

I disagree with that :D

Anyway I was goofing around sorry :popcorn:

[drawkcab]

I teach formal and informal logic. People here do fairly well I think. The biggest problem is that people often lose sight of the issue at hand, which is OK because forum posts are not philosophy papers.

Anyway, I taught myself a semester's worth of formal logic in 10 days. Anyone with coding experience can do the same. You can also pick up a used critical thinking textbook and poke through a few pages every day. None of it is very difficult but it will help you sharpen up your reasoning skills. Here are the two texts I commonly teach...used copies are very inexpensive:

http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Book-Student-Solutions-CD-ROM/dp/0072944013/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244741727&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=critical+thinking&x=0&y=0

[23meg]

Anyway, I taught myself a semester's worth of formal logic in 10 days. Anyone with coding experience can do the same. You can also pick up a used critical thinking textbook and poke through a few pages every day. None of it is very difficult but it will help you sharpen up your reasoning skills. Here are the two texts I commonly teach...used copies are very inexpensive:

http://www.amazon.com/Logic-Book-Student-Solutions-CD-ROM/dp/0072944013/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244741727&sr=8-2

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=critical+thinking&x=0&y=0

Thanks for the suggestions. In my experience, studying the various (formal or otherwise) forms of logical fallacy has been a rewarding crash course in logic and its history. Some starting points:

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

And here's a visualization of Graham's "disagreement hierarchy":

http://blog.createdebate.com/2008/04/07/writing-strong-arguments/