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

  • Tafereelen uit Italie
    17.12.2019 - 0 Comments
    Tafereelen uit Italie is een reisverslag van Charles Dickens, geschreven in 1846. Het boek onthult de…
  • Blackfeet Indian Stories
    29.01.2020 - 0 Comments
    Those who wish to know something about how the people lived who told these stories will find their ways of…
  • Illuminations
    01.05.2019 - 0 Comments
    Illuminations est une suite inédite de poèmes en prose du poète français Arthur Rimbaud, initialement parue…
  • Nicolas Flamel | Chương 13 | Harry Potter và Hòn đá Phù thủy | Tập 1
    09.10.2023 - 0 Comments
    Harry đã tìm ra cái tên Nicolas Flamel ở đâu: mặt sau chiếc thẻ chocola Nhái mang hình cụ Dumbledore: cụ…
  • 32 Caliber
    29.02.2020 - 0 Comments
    A suspicious accident reveals itself to be a murder! Our story is narrated by a lawyer who turns detective…
  • Essays on Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy
    01.05.2019 - 0 Comments
    This is Mill’s first work on economics. It foreshadows his Political Economy which was the standard…
  • 1001 Questions and Answers on General History
    24.04.2020 - 0 Comments
    A book for students of history to test their knowledge and to direct their studies. As the title tells us,…
  • Dialogues of the Dead
    27.01.2021 - 0 Comments
    Can the dead of different ages and spaces meet in the afterlife? This is a thought that has occupied a number…
  • Phân xử tài tình
    27.10.2023 - 0 Comments
    Ngày xưa, có một ông quan huyện có tài xét xử. Trong dân gian có vụ nào rắc rối gay go nhất, ông đều có cách…
  • The Federalist Papers
    01.08.2019 - 0 Comments
    The Federalist Papers (correctly known as The Federalist) are a series of 85 articles advocating the…
  • Clementina
    27.06.2021 - 0 Comments
    This well-written novel is a fictional account of a true historical rescue mission. In 1719, at the age of…
  • This Country of Ours Part 1
    08.08.2019 - 0 Comments
    Another fine history book for children! Published in 1917, Marshall’s book of stories from the history of…
  • The Story of King Arthur, in Twelve Tales
    21.03.2021 - 0 Comments
    Of all the legends of bygone ages which we in the foremost ranks of time may call our own perhaps none have…
  • Thanh tra tối cao Hogwarts | Chương 15 | Harry Potter và Hội Phượng hoàng | Tập 5
    19.10.2023 - 0 Comments
    Nó càng trở nên rõ ràng, Umbridge đang theo dõi và kiểm soát tất cả hành vi của học viên trong trường và được…
  • Rootabaga Stories
    26.09.2021 - 0 Comments
    Carl Sandburg has been loved by generations of children with Stories of Rootabaga, a series of bizarre,…
  • The Dog Crusoe and His Master
    07.12.2020 - 0 Comments
    This is a story of an adventure involving a young man, his dog, and two friends. Together they wander through…