The Art of Dialectic Between Dialogue and Rhetoric

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quantropy
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The Art of Dialectic Between Dialogue and Rhetoric

Postby quantropy » Sat Aug 18, 2018 5:47 am

Why I looked at this book
In The People's Economics I discuss how arguments hardly ever seem to be persuasive. They seem more about scoring some sort of points. So how can arguments be set out so as to actually try to reach a conclusion? This question leads me to the topic of dialectic, and the form of thesis, antithesis, synthesis. It's clear that over time new ideas do come to prevail (even if it is largely because the supporters of the old ideas die off) I'm hoping that this book will show how arguments which actually change people's minds have been developed over the centuries.

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quantropy
Posts: 131
Joined: Sat Jan 28, 2017 10:38 am

Re: The Art of Dialectic Between Dialogue and Rhetoric

Postby quantropy » Sat Aug 18, 2018 10:14 am

First Impressions
On starting the book, I'm a bit worried by some of the examples of those who practice dialectic. For example there are Plato, Boethius and Galileo, whose arguments I find suspect in that they are one sided and look to be in to form of contrived dialogue, rathen than real dialectic. I'll have to see. Reading further, the book explains how it aims to deal with those who looked at how to structure arguments to get towards the truth (rather than how to wind arguments), which looks more hopeful. It then gets on to the distinction between the aporetic method, which looks at a question from both sides without necessarily reaching a conclusion, and true dialectic reasoning which involves two people arguing for opposing points of view. I'm looking forward to the rest of the book, although I'm worried that it might turn out to be difficult for a non-specialist to follow.


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