Quotes About Argument

Because pessimism needs to counter that argument in order to be at all persuasive, a recurring theme in pessimistic theories throughout history has been that an exceptionally dangerous moment is imminent.

This inductively justifies the conclusion that induction cannot justify any conclusions.

I didn't particularly feel like being arrested, so I argued with the soldiers a bit. Several of them died during the argument - those things happen once in a while. Unfortunately, one of the casualties was Taur Urgas' oldest son. The king of the Murgos took it personally. He's very narrow-minded sometimes. - Silk

Localisation stands, at best, at the limits of practical possibility, but it has the decisive argument in its favour that there will be no alternative.

Social theory is largely a game of make-believe in which we pretend, just for the sake of argument, that there's just one thing going on: essentially, we reduce everything to a cartoon so as to be able to detect patterns that would be otherwise invisible.

one could certainly make the argument that there's a deep structural affinity between wasteful extravagance and bullshit...

There are many problems with this argument. We'll start with the most obvious. The idea that our current ideals of freedom, equality and democracy are somehow products of the 'Western tradition' would in fact have come as an enormous surprise to someone like Voltaire

Jesuits, then, clearly recognized and acknowledged an intrinsic relation between refusal of arbitrary power, open and inclusive political debate and a taste for reasoned argument. It's true that Native American political

All such authors are really saying is that they themselves cannot personally imagine any other way that precious objects might move about. But lack of imagination is not itself an argument.

Smith's argument is worth laying out in detail because it is, as I say, the great founding myth of the discipline of economics.

lack of imagination is not itself an argument.

No True Scotsman' style of argument (also known to logicians as the 'ad hoc rescue' procedure).

The early Washington years seemed to confirm the Bundy legend. He was at the center of things, darting in and out of the President's office ("Goddammit, Mac," someone heard Kennedy say, "I've been arguing with you about this all week long," and that was power—being able to argue with the President all week long).

For this reason I get impatient with people who depict Marx's dialectic as a closed method of analysis. It is not finite; on the contrary, it is constantly expanding, and here he is explaining precisely how. We only have to review what we have already experienced in reading Capital; the movement of its argument is a perpetual reshaping, rephrasing and expansion of the field of contradictions.

One could drive a schooner through any part of his argument and never scrape against a fact.

Truth springs from argument amongst friends.

Truth, springs from agrument amongst friends.

A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience as can be imagined.

A key difference between a dialogue and an ordinary discussion is that, within the latter people usually hold relatively fixed positions and argue in favor of their views as they try to convince others to change. At best this may produce agreement or compromise, but it does not give rise to anything creative.

watch out for schools that promise your kids will "experience success." I'm teaching Plato's Dialogues these days, and I noticed that Socrates never let his students experience success. Socrates won the argument every time.

Theist and atheist: The fight between them is as to whether God shall be called God or shall have some other name.

Q: Prove God doesn't exist. A: That's a tough one. Show me how it's done by proving Zeus and Apollo don't exist, and I'll use your method.

The balance of probabilities, therefore, comes out strongly against the existence of a god.

As set forth by theologians, the idea of 'God' is an argument that assumes its own conclusions, and proves nothing.