38 Master Plans to Achieve any Discussion

By Jurgen Depicker

Construct groups, settle on better choices, stimulate gatherings, and think out about the case. Do you want an asset that you can pull out of your pocket to spice up gatherings, phases of preparation, proficient turn of events, and instructing? The strategies in this ideal manual spike inventiveness, animate energy, keep bunches centered and increment cooperation. Regardless of whether you are showing classes, working with representative preparation, driving authoritative or local gatherings, assisting staff and expert turn of events, directing municipal centers, or working with assemblages.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jurgen Depicker
• Release date: Jan 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201590673

Book preview

METHODS AND TRICKSIN THE ART OF ARGUMENTATION

Eleonora says, in Goethe's play, Torquato Tasso: I listen with pleasure to the sages' discussion: When on the forces, which in man's breast Move in such a friendly and terrible way, The orator's lips move with grace.

This is unmistakable. Here speaks a listener oriented purely by aesthetics, who is not so much interested in content as in the forms, modes and psychological resources of a dialectical discussion between brilliant speakers. Aesthetes of this type enjoy an argument as if it were a real medieval duel; they do not question the purpose of the discussion, whether this or that represents a good cause; they just want to have fun with the strength and agility of the fighters. However, such a position can only be maintained on rare occasions, not only because disputes between cultured spirits, who cross intellectual swords and move their lips with grace, are not exactly common spectacles; but because it is impossible for the majority to regard discursive disputes as a mere game. Especially those that are ethically defined and depend on the victory of justice and truth are likely to leave a painful impression on most debates. It is shocking to see how often being right and staying right are not equivalents; that the winner of an argument is not the one who is on the side of truth and reason, but the one who is more witty and knows how to fightmore agile way. Emotive persuasion, wit and irony, convincing appearance and playing an authoritative role trump wit and knowledge. And how often those who are subtle, honest and critical are dialectically violated by brutal and unscrupulous screams! Many will — like Faust — renounce an argument halfway through: I beg you — as well as my lungs — Whoever wants to be right and has only one language, keep it.

In addition, come on, I am tired of the talk; Then you are right, mainly because I have to give it up.

As in any dispute, in an argument what is at work is not the desire for truth, but the desire for power. And the human being, who is not an especially noble being, reveals his darkest side: vanity and hypocrisy triumph. Challenging a belief sounds like devaluing personality; a rebuttal is considered an accusation of intellectual inferiority. Therefore, each one desperately clings to his claims; even those who doubt the legitimacy of their cause make every effort to at least appear victorious. So they attack often intentionally, and sometimes partially or completely passionately, with all sorts of dialectical tricks and subterfuges. And they are numerous and varied, but they are repeated everywhere: in daily conversations and in the polemics of the newspapers, in parliamentary debates and in court proceedings; and even in academic discussions, we are faced today with the same tricks and subterfuges used for centuries.

*

Two thousand years ago, Aristotle already added to his Topics a appendix on the fallacies of the sophists: a book today unpalatablewhose examples are unbearably banal and may even seem silly. Who should seriously delve into these cases of dieresis, like the claim that a number can be both even and odd because two plus three equals five; who should be deceived by fallacies, for example, that two words written in the same way should be treated as synonymous even though they can be distinguished when pronounced with different intonations? Or by childish objections such as blacks are black and white at the same time — that is, they have mostly black skin, but white if we are focused on their teeth, etc. At the same time, anyone who understands the principle of the mechanism of these strategies and is able to draw conclusions from the most complicated cases will be seen with admiration, because it understands the numerous cases of Aristotle that really have to do with fallacies and are still used all the time and are not easy to identify in everyday life. However, the author puts them in the simplest possible form and, probably intentionally, illustrates them through very obvious examples,