Quotes About Argument

Instead of feeling any need to persuade, people who are certain they are correct can impose their beliefs by force. In theocracies and autocracies, authorities censor, imprison, exile or burn those with the wrong opinions. In democracies the force is less brutish, but people still find means to impose a belief rather than argue for it.

reason, by itself, is just a means of getting from one true proposition to the next and does not care about the value of those propositions.

to re-enter the roundtable of morality. As the psychologist Peter DeScioli points out, when you face an adversary alone, your best weapon may be an ax, but when you face an adversary in front of a throng of bystanders, your best weapon may be an argument.

emerge from the rough-and-tumble of argument, such as that you have to provide reasons for your beliefs, you're allowed to point out flaws in the beliefs of others, and you're not allowed to forcibly shut people up who disagree with you. Add in the rule that you should allow the world to show you whether your beliefs are true or false, and we can call the rules science. With the right rules, a community of less than fully rational thinkers can cultivate rational thoughts.31

Nobody can prove that there is not between the Earth and Mars a china teapot revolving in an elliptic orbit.

Communities can thereby come up with rules that allow true beliefs to emerge from the rough-and-tumble of argument, such as that you have to provide reasons for your beliefs, you're allowed to point out flaws in the beliefs of others, and you're not allowed to forcibly shut people up who disagree with you. Add in the rule that you should allow the world to show you whether your beliefs are true or false, and we can call the rules science.

In the end, we love people into belief. We do not argue them into belief.

Which is more stubborn, the love or the two arguing people caught within it?

The more a race is governed by its passions, the less it has acquired the habit of cautious and reasoned argument, the more intense will be its love of music.

It is difficult to win an argument, or even begin one, if you have not carefully articulated what you want (or do not) and need (or do not).

The person who is speaking in this manner believes that winning the argument makes him right, and that doing so necessarily validates the assumption-structure of the dominance hierarchy he most identifies with. This is often—and unsurprisingly—the hierarchy within which he has achieved the most success, or the one with which he is most temperamentally aligned. Almost all discussions involving politics or economics unfold in this manner,

Nowadays, the Abrahamic argument—just look at everything, how could it all be so awesome if there weren't a designer behind it?—has been judged wanting, at least in most scientific circles. But then again, now we have microscopes and telescopes and computers. We are not restricted to gaping at the moon from our cribs. We have data, lots of data, and we have the tools to mess with it.

biologists have been arguing for decades about the definition of "life" (the zombie-rights activists are a powerful lobby group),

La polémica es, después de todo, la forma única de la labor intelectual: la república de gérmenes racionales que constituye nuestra alma no es más que un fermento peculiar de lo que ya hay en otras almas. El contenido de nuestro cerebro se organiza en la lucha con los idearios ajenos. La historia de las ciencias es íntegramente la relación de las polémicas entre grandes pensadores.

Arguments out of a pretty mouth are unanswerable.

Our disputants put me in mind of the skuttle fish, that when he is unable to extricate himself, blackens all the water about him, till be becomes invisible.

Much might be said on both sides.

Oratory is the power to talk people out of their sober and natural opinions.

We may convince others by our arguments; but we can only persuade them by their own

It is certain that no man can be firmly and honestly convinced of the non-existence of God. For, in the first place, no human being enjoying the full use of reason can find a really conclusive argument for the thesis that there is no God.

You couldn't catch greencough!" Poppypaw taunted him. "Yes, I could!" Foxpaw argued. The other apprentices purred with amusement.

Well, you would say that, Firestar," Onestar blustered.

It seems like every day's a bad day with you." Shut up! Shut up! "It's leaf-bare," Sunfall began. Duh!

Jaypaw let out an exasperated sigh. "Mousefur, for the last time—" "The last time?" Mousefur snapped. "Good. Go away.