The Art of Controversy

The Art of Controversy (or The Art of Being Right) is a short treatise written by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in which he presents thirty-eight methods of gaining an unfair advantage in a debate and thereby being right even if you are wrong. Schopenhauer champions the virtue of dialectical argument, in his view wrongly neglected by philosophers in favour of logic, and goes on to discuss the distinction between our conscious intellectual powers and our will. The text is a favourite of debaters including the philosophers AC Grayling and Mary Warnock, and the Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

By : Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860), translated by T. Bailey Saunders (1860 - 1928)

01 - Preliminary: Logic and Dialectic



02 - The Basis of All Dialectic



03 - Strategems 1 to 10



04 - Stratagems 11 to 20



05 - Strategems 21 to 30



06 - Strategems 31 to 38



07 - On the Comparative Place of Interest and Beauty in Works of Art



08 - Psychological Observations



09 - On the Wisdom of Life: Aphorisms



10 - Genius and Virtue


By the ancients, Logic and Dialectic were used as synonymous terms; although logizesthai, "to think over, to consider, to calculate," and dialegesthai, "to converse," are two very different things.

The name Dialectic was, as we are informed by Diogenes Laertius, first used by Plato; and in the Phaedrus, Sophist, Republic, bk. vii., and elsewhere, we find that by Dialectic he means the regular employment of the reason, and skill in the practice of it. Aristotle also uses the word in this sense; but, according to Laurentius Valla, he was the first to use Logic too in a similar way. Dialectic, therefore, seems to be an older word than Logic. Cicero and Quintilian use the words in the same general signification.

This use of the words as synonymous terms lasted through the Middle Ages into modern times; in fact, until the present day. But more recently, and in particular by Kant, Dialectic has often been employed in a bad sense, as meaning "the art of sophistical controversy"; and hence Logic has been preferred, as of the two the more innocent designation. Nevertheless, both originally meant the same thing; and in the last few years they have again been recognised as synonymous.

It is a pity that the words have thus been used from of old, and that I am not quite at liberty to distinguish their meanings. Otherwise, I should have preferred to define Logic (from logos, "word" and "reason," which are inseparable) as "the science of the laws of thought, that is, of the method of reason"; and Dialectic (from dialegesthai, "to converse" - and every conversation communicates either facts or opinions, that is to say, it is historical or deliberative) as "the art of disputation," in the modern sense of the word. It is clear, then, that Logic deals with a subject of a purely à priori character, separable in definition from experience, namely, the laws of thought, the process of reason or the logos; the laws, that is, which reason follows when it is left to itself and not hindered, as in the case of solitary thought on the part of a rational being who is in no way misled. Dialectic, on the other hand, would treat of the intercourse between two rational beings who, because they are rational, ought to think in common, but who, as soon as they cease to agree like two clocks keeping exactly the same time, create a disputation, or intellectual contest. Regarded as purely rational beings, the individuals would, I say, necessarily be in agreement, and their variation springs from the difference essential to individuality; in other words, it is drawn from experience.

Logic, therefore, as the science of thought, or the science of the process of pure reason, should be capable of being constructed à priori. Dialectic, for the most part, can be constructed only à posteriori; that is to say, we may learn its rules by an experiential knowledge of the disturbance which pure thought suffers through the difference of individuality manifested in the intercourse between two rational beings, and also by acquaintance with the means which disputants adopt in order to make good against one another their own individual thought, and to show that it is pure and objective. For human nature is such that if A. and B. are engaged in thinking in common, and are communicating their opinions to one another on any subject, so long as it is not a mere fact of history, and A. perceives that B.'s thoughts on one end the same subject are not the same as his own, he does not begin by revising his own process of thinking, so as to discover any mistake which he may have made, but he assumes that the mistake has occurred in B.'s. In other words, man is naturally obstinate; and this quality in him is attended with certain results, treated of in the branch of knowledge which I should like to call Dialectic, but which, in order to avoid misunderstanding, I shall call Controversial or Eristical Dialectic. Accordingly, it is the branch of knowledge which treats of the obstinacy natural to man.

Eristic is only a harsher name for the same thing.

Comments

Random Post

  • The Count of Monte Cristo
    08.11.2018 - 0 Comments
    The Count of Monte Cristo (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo) is an adventure novel by French author…
  • Người Ả Đào Với Giặc Minh - Truyện cổ tích Việt Nam
    24.10.2023 - 0 Comments
    Làng Đào-đặng thuộc tỉnh Hưng-yên khi xưa có một thôn, trong thôn có nhiều con gái người đẹp hát hay, hầu hết…
  • Ba cô gái - Truyện cổ tích ''Lòng Hiếu Thảo''
    22.10.2023 - 0 Comments
    Ngày xưa, có một người đàn bà nghèo sinh được ba cô con gái. Bà rất yêu thương các con, bà lo cho các con…
  • Stories of Starland
    14.03.2021 - 0 Comments
    Henry asks his sister Mary about the sky. She tells him all about the Sun, the Planets, the Moon, Comets and…
  • Trái tim của khỉ - truyện cổ tích '' Không nên tin người lạ ''
    22.10.2023 - 0 Comments
    Khỉ con tốt bụng, thông minh nên đã đánh bại âm mưu gian ác của cá sấu.Trên bờ biển xanh kia, có một hàng dừa…
  • Opening a Chestnut Burr
    05.02.2021 - 0 Comments
    Walter Gregory is a gentleman whose health is broken down by the stress of Wall Street and the consequences…
  • The Jungle
    16.02.2020 - 0 Comments
    The Jungle is a 1906 novel by the American journalist and novelist Upton Sinclair. Sinclair wrote the novel…
  • Cane
    19.08.2020 - 0 Comments
    Reading this book, I had the vision of a land, heretofore sunk in the mists of muteness, suddenly rising up…
  • Sự Tích Đầm Mực - Truyện Cổ tích Việt Nam
    23.10.2023 - 0 Comments
    Ngày ấy vào đời nhà Trần có một cụ đồ  nho ở xã Quang-liệt tên là Chu An. Học vấn của cụ sâu và rộng.…
  • Recollections of the Revolution and the Empire
    29.05.2021 - 0 Comments
    An aristocratic Frenchwoman's personal record of the dazzling extravagance of the Ancien Régime, of the court…
  • A Christmas Carol
    13.11.2018 - 0 Comments
    A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A Christmas Carol, is a…
  • Lấy oán trả ơn - truyện cổ tích nhật bản
    22.10.2023 - 0 Comments
    Có một anh chàng đang đến một vùng xa xôi của nước nhật, cha mẹ mất hết và bạn bè cũng không nên không có ai…
  • Os Escravos
    30.04.2019 - 0 Comments
    Os Escravos é uma coleção de poemas do escritor brasileiro Castro Alves com temática centrada no drama da…
  • Vua có ngón tay vàng '' Bát Tiên'' - truyện cổ tích trung hoa
    22.10.2023 - 0 Comments
    Rất xa  ở đây , trong thung lũng ở sông ngoài bây giờ vẫn còn một ngôi làng mang tên Vua có ngón tay…
  • The Curved Blades
    02.09.2020 - 0 Comments
    In this suspensful whodunit a mean-spirited and wealthy dowager is found murdered in her boudoir supposedly…
  • Lift-Luck on Southern Roads
    09.04.2021 - 0 Comments
    Here for you is the tale of my latest solitary ramble. The journey covers, as you shall see, some two hundred…