So just curious if people agree with this…
Does being selective about information infer argument?
What if the person selecting the information has no intended purpose for the information, i.e. motive?
Take the media, would you go so far as to say that the media producing a news broadcast about violent behavior in the inner city and ignoring the local art museum’s opening of a wing devoted to paintings about bambi was an actual argument?
Can you turn actions into arguments?
If you woke up this morning and put your feet into a pair of shoes, is it acceptable to say there was an argument for such an action?
Are we responsible for the arguments people interpret from our work?
If we make actions into arguments, can we hold the person performing the actions responsible for the argument we derive?
–Don’t get me wrong, there are no motives behind this question. I’m curious about this because i used to argue this with Trey all the time. I don’t believe you can turn actions into arguments. Arguments are tools of persuasion and therefore if there is no real method of persuading going on then there can be no argument. I learned this from Critical Thinking with Dr. Berkeley. A description of Hirojima can be pure description, and is not in fact an argument against american hostility. (it could be an argument against american hostility if there are enthememe’s hidden within the work, but that is neither here nor there)
I’m seriously concerned if i might be incorrect in this aspect.
Some of the effects of such a belief is that i would have to re-evaluate my whole lifestyle for hidden arguments. Can wearing shorts be interpreted as an argument against jeans?
March 8th, 2005 at 7:02 am
i don’t think being selective about the information you present makes communication an argument, but it does make that communication subjective. and since the nature of language itself requires you to be selective about which information you present (i.e., which words will you use? what syllables will you emphasize? in what order will you place your words?) all communication then is inherently subjective. as for whether wearing shorts is an argument against wearing jeans, i suppose that depends on whether your legs are tattooed with the words JEANS ARE THE DEVIL.
March 8th, 2005 at 3:29 pm
In general I think no, actions are not arguments. But actions can be intentionally persuasive. I wonder – could civil disobedience a la Martin Luther King be considered an argument? I will have to think about this some more, because I don’t think it counts as argumentation, but I’m not sure why. I agree with s_d_p. Communication involves the transmission, reception and interpretation of signals. It’s in the interpretation that things get sticky. (As in our recent tedious argument – you know the one :-)) Are we responsible for the way others interpret our arguments? Maybe a little. It depends on how important the argument is, and what is riding on it. There are ways we can minimize the extent to which our arguments are misinterpreted – but our argument will never be received exactly as we intended. The most thorough communication is dialogue because each person gets feedback and the opportunity to clarify their position.
March 8th, 2005 at 3:35 pm
By the way, an enthememe may be neither here no there. But if it were here, what would it look like? . . . What’s an enthememe?
March 8th, 2005 at 4:04 pm
One entry found for enthymeme. Main Entry: en?thy?meme Pronunciation: ‘en(t)-thi-“mEm Function: noun Etymology: Latin enthymema, from Greek enthymEma, from enthymeisthai to keep in mind, from en- + thymos mind, soul : a syllogism in which one of the premises is implicit http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=enthymeme
March 8th, 2005 at 7:41 pm
I talked to Michael about this quote today at lunch. I thought he was joking. I honestly couldn’t think that he had no knowledge of this. The reason is Aristotle made the technical definition i believe (i remember thats the first place i learned about it) and Michael wrote an award winning article on Aristotle’s theory of Causation. All in All i just assumed he knew what it was. I was wrong. He was honestly asking. I’m glad he learned it now. I’ve also heard enthymeme’s are simplified to premises that are understood and not stated. “left to the mind” is how Dr. Berkeley described it. best example is found in a sylogism though: Jesus or Hell the enthymeme is the statement Hell is bad and jesus is good, and the conlcusion is jesus. -Point 1: If it is the case that actions are arguments i propose that the amount of enthymeme’s in the world has grown exponentially. -Point 2: I don’t disagree S_D_P, but how does subjectivity play in argument? -Point 3: All communication is subjective. This opens a nest of vipers. Can we evaluate subjective claims about truth then? example: When Jim says the world is round, what he is really saying is, “Jim understands that the world is round.” There is no real truth functionality for that statement unless it is the case that Jim really doesn’t understand the world to be round. ok so i see a consensus that actions are not arguments because they don’t contain language.
March 8th, 2005 at 10:25 pm
[b:d447009210]Point 1[/b:d447009210]: Huh? Too abstract for me. Why does it matter whether the amount of enthymemes in the world has grown exponentially? [b:d447009210]Point 2[/b:d447009210]: Subjectivity weakens a logical argument and may cause it to be dismissed as propaganda or opinion. Example: prejudicial language. If you use prejudicial language in an argument, you reveal that your own emotions or opinions are affecting your argument, and that you are attempting to persuade your readers by appealing to their emotions rather than convince your readers by appealing to logic, and as a result your conclusion becomes that much more persuasive opinion than convincing fact. Now, I don’t believe in Truth, but that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize the value of a logical argument. Ostensibly objective arguments are far more useful than subjective arguments, even though I think at the core even “objective” arguments are subjective (to a lesser more implicit degree). (In other words, no argument can be [i:d447009210]completely[/i:d447009210] objective, but the difference between ostensibly objective and subjective arguments is easily discernible.) The point of aspiring to “objective” argument is obvious; we try to state rational facts without allowing too much subjectivity to seep in so that everyone can agree, no matter what their feelings or opinions are, based on physical evidence. [b:d447009210]Point 3[/b:d447009210]:We can evaluate subjective claims about truth, in the sense that we can see how much they agree with other subjective claims (the more, the better) to find the “objective” agreement. Here I have to differentiate between Truth and truth: “Truth” is metaphysical, “truth” can be verified as a physical fact. I don’t believe in Truth. But I do believe in truth. I think “truth” is, just, oh, something like the physically verifiable agreement of perceptions. I don’t think these physically verifiable perceptions reveal anything about Truth; they could be mass hallucinations for all I know. Mass hallucinations are “true” to the crowd that experiences them. So I guess I conceive of “truth” as something like the collective mass hallucinations of humanity. As you pointed out to me on the phone, the flatness of the world was accepted as “true” and thought to be physically verifiable (ships that sailed off too far never came back), until one did, and from the other direction. Scientific “truths” are like that. They change over time as new discoveries and ideas inspire us to try to dis- or im-prove them in new ways. All the metaphysical discussions we’ve been having have led me back to my initial suspicion that logic and numbers aren’t True, but useful. Logic and numbers give us the scientific method, penicillin, and artificial light. Logic and science explain and categorize the universe. Numbers quantify it. All together, logic, science, and numbers can be used to manipulate it. Basically this is an “objective” (purely rational) language that everyone can understand and which cannot be disputed because it always works (because we have defined it to match up with evidence) up to a certain accuracy. It only fails if we neglect to consider evidence, or try to calculate something without enough significant digits. Maybe if we knew everything, all factors that went into every phenomenon, then math and science would always be 100% correct. But because we are human beings with limited perception, they’re not, and they’re only accurate to a certain degree depending on the amount of information we’ve gathered, so math and science are not true but useful. Basing your entire life and every decision you make on science and physical evidentialism and math and logic doesn’t, however, make sense. It would only make sense if you thought there was some way one day for us to know everything. P.S. You should tell Jim… the world isn’t round… not exactly.
March 9th, 2005 at 2:17 am
What else could I not know? What other glaring gaps are there in my neural net? Am I incomplete as a philosopher? In the final analysis, when the chips fall down, am I really deserving of a philosophy degree? If not, am I objectively undeserving or subjectively undeserving? How would I know? Is there any Truth to the matter? Does Truth exist? If so, what is it? How can we know anything? Do we know anything? Is there a world outside of our own perceptions? Lets play ‘Spot the Enthymeme’. See if you can find the hidden premise. (The answer will be given at the end.) p1. Based on my scientific calculations I know exactly two and a half percent of all philosophy. p3. If propositions are true because useful, then useful propositions are true. p4. A philosophy degree would be truly useful (subjectively). C: Every man is a god and every man is free. (Sorry ladies.) Did you guess it? Did you spot the hidden premise? Here’s the answer (you’ll have to reverse the letters): .esnes ekam ton seod tnemugra sihT .2p Oh yeah, I thought I should mention I’m feeling goofy.
March 9th, 2005 at 3:23 am
Saying the grass is green is arguing that it is not another color. Putting shorts on is arguing that for that day you picked shorts instead of something else or maybe that you preferred to wear clothes as opposed to going naked. If NPR proclaims that Lebanon wants freedom but does not indicate that many in Lebanon want Syria to stay, then they are arguing for a free Lebanon. I think the question is not what did the author intend, but what does the reader interpret?
March 9th, 2005 at 4:13 am
my girlfriend believes truth doesn’t exist… snaars is babling insanity… my brother believes the flowers are arguments against not growing… what has this world become… I must be the only sane man left… me and Dr. Korcz that is.
March 9th, 2005 at 6:25 am
If you are the only sane person, then you are in fact insane by the standards used to categorize people as insane.