Canons of Rhetoric: Invention - Dialectic

Who stands for injustice?

	What is an adult beverage?
	A drink served in a glass.
	Beer
	A fizzy drink
	Vodka
	A drink that tastes like it might be poisonous
	Kahlua 
	A drink containing alcohol
	
	Agreed.	
	
	Does rubbing alcohol contain alcohol? 
	Yes.
	So rubbing alcohol is an adult beverage?
	No because it contains isopropyl alcohol, which is deadly to humans. 

	Does gasoline contain alcohol?
	Some kinds of gasoline do.
	Are the kinds that contain alcohol adult beverages? 
	No because they contain methanol, yet another different and to humans deadly kind of alcohol.
	
	Does hand sanitizer contain alcohol? 
	
	Yes.
	What kind? 
	Ethanol
	
	So, not isopropanol, deadly, or methanol, deadly, but ethanol, intoxicating?

	Yes.
	
	So hand sanitizer is an adult beverage? 
	
	If we've agreed that ethyl alcohol (ethanol) is the essential quality of an adult beverage, then yes, hand sanitizer is an adult beverage, but it has so much ethanol by volume
	that a very small amount would cause alcohol poisoning. So no adult would drink it.

	No adult? Not even one? 
	
	Well, only alcoholics would even consider it. It isn't intoxicating; it's toxic.

	Uh, that suggests another line of inquiry. Let's finish this one first.
	
	So, to sum up at this point: What is an adult beverage?

	We don't know yet. Are there any adult beverages that don't contain alcohol? 
	
	Can't think of any.

	Coffee? 
	
	Some kids drink coffee and many drink caffeinated soda. 
	
	True.

	Let's bracket that line of inquiry too for now.

	So alcohol is an attribute of but not essential to an adult beverage 
	since there are things with ethanol that we don't drink and yet of all
	the things we do drink, the ones that have safe levels of ethanol only adults drink?

	Yes.

	So an adult beverage is any beverage that only adults drink, that has alcohol in non-toxic quantities?

	Yes.

	But kids in Europe drink wine. 
	
	Agreed.

	So "adult beverage" is not a thing but rather an expression used by some adults to indicate that only adults should drink such beverages and all such beverages contain some relatively safe level of ethanol, which is why, they think, children shouldn't drink it, being as how even low doses
	are bad for small bodies? 
	
	So diminutive people shouldn't drink at all and big chonkers should drink a great deal? 
	
	Uh, that's too much at once. Maybe dialectic is like an adult beverage. You have to know when to say when or you will get a massive headache.
	
	Cheers.

One person asks, the other person answers. The person asking is not supposed to guide the conversation or set the respondent up, at least they are not supposed to if the goal is some kind of truth. The person answering is supposed to be candid and prepared to abandon his position if caught in a contradiction. He or she is not supposed to guide the conversation or try to anticipate and evade the destination. Ideally, the two people are sharing a journey of intellectual and ethical discovery. Plato says the same thing in various ways at various places in Gorgias, but many people experience some considerable irritation with Socrates, feeling as though he is simply manipulating the conversation for his own gratification, as Callicles accuses him of doing. Plato is, of course, manipulating the conversation. He has to; he's creating not recording it.

Notes on Gorgias and Dialectic

Principles

• Dialectic is not about winning [453b-c]This expression 453b-c is known as a Stephanus number and it harkens back to a famous Renaissance edition of the entire corpus of Plato's work published in a continuous two column layout, Greek on one column, Latin on the other and each divided into 5 sections (a - e). It is customary to use Stephanus numbers when quoting Plato. (link) it's about learning, "Soc: You must think of me now as eager to serve your interests too (455c)"
• The purpose of dialectic is orthodoxy, to correct opinions.
• The proper spirit is mutual self discovery, a willingness to be corrected and a desire to help the other person overcome the errors in their thinking.

Personal Characteristics or Attitudes Required

• be prepared to change your mind (458a)
• be patient -- don't jump to conclusions, don't anticipate or assume
• be candid -- don't strategize, evade, equivocate, distract, or deflect
• be shameless -- don't worry about your own or anyone else's feelings
• be selfless -- no ego (there's no winning or losing only improvement)
• be fearless -- you may not like what you discover and embracing the truth may be painful, even self-threatening

Practices

• define each word or expression before evaluating or using it
• ask simple rather than complex questions -- yes/no answers
• secure agreement on a premise before drawing an inference
• recap what has been agreed to
• identify what is currently at issue (and make sure you aren't arguing at cross purposes)
• conversation ends or shifts when a contradiction occurs -- Gorgias says if a person does wrong, it's not the teacher's fault, but later he says he can make anyone persuasive, which implies even bad people persuasive, which suggests he is to blame (457 - >)
• use plain language
• keep the conversation flowing towards its natural outlet, don't divert it unless clarification is required, then bring it back.
• accept the conclusion once it becomes apparent even if it's not what you thought it would be or what you wanted -- Gorgias exhibits the proper behavior, Callicles' dancing about, the improper behavior.

Techniques

• analogies -- shoes are to shoemakers as rhetors are to rhetoricians [isn't that backward?]
• collection -- find commonalities among apparently dis-similar things
• division -- find distinctions among apparently similar things: appearance / reality -- conviction / knowledge -- convention / nature
• locate the essential characteristic of the word or thing in question
• define the word or thing in question using its essence
  "since oratory is one of those crafts which mostly uses speech, and since there are also others of that sort, try to say what it is that oratory . . . is about 451a-b"
• evaluate only after definition is secured
• hierarchies -- If A is greater than B and B is greater than C, then A>C (A is also > than B, but pointing that out would be tautological)
• arguments from examples -- all pleasures are good (Polus)
• arguments from opposites -- if pain is the opposite of pleasure, than there are no pleasant pains and no painful pleasures. But there are pleasant pains, exercise, for example. So pain can't be the opposite of pleasure, at least not insofar as exercise is concerned.)
• arguments from grammatical forms -- What's the relationship between trust and trust-worthy? Is one better than the other?
• arguments from the converse: shift focus from means to ends, ends to means.
• simple questions rather than complex (466c-d)
• define before evaluating (463c) -- if you start with oratory is the best art, you've assumed it's an art
• don't assume you know what your partner is saying (or that they do)
• be explicit about your premises, get agreement before you move to next point
• don't hesitate when answering (be candid)
• infer from premises -- you are what you know (Kenneth Burke: "occupational psychosis"?); you have to know what you are talking about; so to talk about justice you have to know justice, and if you know justice you are just.

(hmm, the last bullet is going to be true only if one cannot knowingly commit injustice. If you know the difference between right and wrong, can you still do the wrong thing? One can know about healthy living and live healthily and still get sick. And one can live a long time in an unhealthy manner. Is justice the same way or does the analogy between justice and medicine break down? Could my scruples against doing the wrong thing keep me from getting involved, thus making me guilty of acquiescence? Knowledge of the future is not vouchsafed to mankind, Isocrates says. And if he is right, then could my ignorance about the ultimate consequences of my actions make it impossible for me to do the right or the wrong thing? It might be logically the right thing to do now, but will it still be right an hour from now? Logically, yes. I guess this is why soldiers are told that any action they take as the direct result of a direct order will always be justified, even if it turns out that the order was a horrifically bad one. Shoot first. I guess this is why Socrates insists on philosophy always saying the same thing and on permanent truths. Without the anchor his ship would drift in the river of consciousness. But if I do as Socrates appears to advise, and practice dialectic in order to discover my ultimate beliefs, and my ultimate belief turns out to be an arbitrary concept, then I would be tying my self to a fiction--not a lie, just a fiction. So maybe I'm refusing to believe in truth because the instances of it I can imagine don't live up to my ideal of it. If I insist that each truth is a fiction, then I'm insisting on truth all the same. Every nihilist is a bitter idealist. Or maybe it's just that my ultimate premise, my truth, is that nothing lasts or rather everything changes, which is empirically verifiable, not arbitrary at all. No anchor. No, wait. An anchor that doesn't touch down. Suddenly Gorgias' logic games (nothing exists) seem to be making fun of Socrates' dialectical optimism or at very least Parmenides and the idea that the anchor of reason or truth or mythology will prevail. And then again, maybe Plato is just showing us the ultimate tragedy of reason by showing us how being right doesn't matter. Socrates was accused and condemned for being a sophist, for teaching people how to question conventional beliefs and received opinions. He was accused and condemned for making people think. And people don't want to think. They want to make speeches and enact legislation and pound their fists and march and yell. As a child I learned to consider the consequences of my actions. Even now I'm still trying to figure out the consequences of my thoughts, hmm)

The Basic Rules of Inference

• if two things are the same, then what it true of one is true of the other.
• if two things are different, then the properties and attributes of one are not necessarily properties or attributes of the other -- they may have some in common
• if two things are equal, the attributes and properties of one are equal to the attributes and properties of the other
• if two things are opposite, what is true of one is false of the other
• if two things are inverse, as properties or attributes of one change, properties or attributes of other change in the other direction
• if two things are unequal, attributes and properties of one will be unequal to the attributes and properties of the other in the same proportion -- what is best among the better people is better than what is best among the lesser people. This last example is a good example of why serious people have often maligned rhetoric, but it's important to keep in mind that we should only use rhetoric when we have no more precise form of reasoning available or we have to convince people who can't handle a more precise form of discovery.

Forms of "Argument" to Avoid

• witnesses
• testimonials
• quotations
• unique events or people presented as examples
• threats
• ridicule
• ad populum
• ad hominem
• "rhetoric" -- speeches designed to cajole or threaten
• ingratiation, admonition, appeals to emotions, ego, etc
• ambiguous words
• vague words
• evasive words
• dancing around the question
• confusing the issue
• distracting your opponent
• playing to the crowd
• avoiding the issue or delaying the conclusion -- filibustering

Dialectic as Invention

Plato argues in Gorgias philosophy is superior to sophistry because the former teaches dialectic, which provides the truth, whereas the later teaches the art of flattery which is designed to obtain power by avoiding the truth. In Phaedrus, which he wrote some 20 years after Gorgias, he argues that dialectic precedes effective rhetoric, that to be a legitimate states person you need to know the truth and you can't know the truth unless you know dialectic, but if you do know dialectic, once you have secured knowledge of the truth you might use rhetoric to convince people of that truth even though they can't understand it directly because they aren't capable of dialectical reasoning.

I'm not convinced that dialectic leads to the truth. I'm not even sure Plato believed that, but I do think that practicing linguistic precision leads to more nuanced thinking and might help you understand an attitude or belief you would otherwise dismiss as crazy or dumb. You might not buy it but you might learn why you wouldn't. I also think practicing dialectic can sharpen and quicken your wits, especially if you can find someone equally inspired to practice with.

As a method of invention in the sense of trying to figure out what to say in advance of saying it, you would come up with a list of propositions out of which to create enthymemes and then you would test their strength. Check the definitions. Are they shared? Are the accurate. Identify relevant analogies. Differentiate similar ideas. Try to imagine how someone might respond to a proposition by phrasing it as a question and thinking up different ways to answer it. Identify the unspoken premises that would lead to such an answer.

Dialectical Practice

We could succinctly define dialectic as the art of making fine distinctions among similar things. Below is a somewhat arbitrary list of pairs, words that are similar but presumably different. In some cases the differences are obvious. In others they are not at all. Can you distinguish one from the other and when you can, how did you do it? Keep in mind that these are not necessarily opposites.

• art :: practice
• avocation :: vocation
• benign :: indifferent
• complexity :: confusion
• conspicuous :: obvious
• disinterested :: uninterested
• knowledge :: information
• knowledge :: truth
• knowledge :: wisdom
• leisure :: idleness
• lie :: mistake
• need :: desire
• objective :: goal
• opinion :: fact
• peace :: silence
• reason :: cause
• science :: art
• science :: medecine
• selfish :: self-centered
• simplicity :: reduction
• state :: continuum
• strategy :: tactic
• stupid :: foolish
• than :: then
• thing :: object
• wisdom :: judgment
• zero :: one

It is worth noting that the order you encounter these pairs in will likely affect how you differentiate each pair. It might also be interesting for you to sort them in order of difficulty. Or group them according to types.

There are two ways to play dialectic: start with a conclusion in mind, talk toward it; start with a proposition, talk without caring where the conversation goes. The latter is a kind of game, although if you take it seriously it may produce distressing results.

Let's play with the idea of education

What is education?

Education = result of learning?

But that's circular.

Education is the process of acquiring arête (excellence), self-control, and community mindedness

What is arête?

Self-control is restraining your impulses.

Community mindedness is placing others before your self.

Ok. So what is the purpose of education?

To enable a person to live a good life which is also good for others.

The goal of each action should be to the good? So what is "the good"?

Is it different from "the good life"? If so, how?

How is the pursuit of "the good" different from "the pursuit of happiness"?

And obviously, what is happiness? [for Plato, happiness is the pursuit of goodness]

Conventional wisdom -- popular opinion -- is that happiness is family, friends, rewarding work, money, respect, leisure, health, spirituality. We tend to think of education as what enables us to get these things. Soc would seem to say education is the ability to question these things. What is family? What is friendship? What is respect? If you can't define them, then you can't value them either positively or negatively.

It's probably worth remembering that Socrates was accused, convicted, and condemned for misleading the youth. If we agree that dialectic's primary purpose is to question popular opinions -- like what feels good is good -- and that you must first define a thing before you can evaluate it, then you can understand that words that by convention are accepted as absolute values, words like family and friendship, and patriotism, and god, and truth, and justice must all be defined before they can be valued, and those words don't readily admit of absolute definitions unless they are dictated by some authority, a church, an administrative council, or an army. The problem with dialectic is it encourages thought but it does not guarantee conviction, and most people get lost in the distinctions. It's dangerous, in other words, and time-consuming. Most people prefer obedience to education, especially when it comes to other people's children.

Let's Try Another Subject

What is leisure?

Not working

Not working ever?

Yes

Then the destitute and the upper class have leisure in equal amounts? (people rich enough never to have to work were once called the leisure class)

Maybe equal amounts but not equal kinds -- leisure is actually rest from pursuit of what you have to do and time to pursue things you want to do.

Ok, so the destitute don't have work but they still need money and feel the pressure of its absence, whereas the rich don't have work but have money and so don't feel pressure, so the absence of economic pressure is leisure?

Not "is leisure" but "produces it".

Ok, so maybe leisure is a state of mind found when one no longer feels economic pressure, when whatever one wants one can afford to have. If this is the case, then it's not so much money as money proportional to needs and desires that creates leisure. If I don't need much food, shelter, clothes, etc. I don't need much money. If I can make enough in an hour to satisfy a day's needs/desires, then I have that much more leisure than one who has to work 10 hours for the same satisfaction. And if I can make millions of dollars a year but need to spend even more to feel good about myself, then I am by that means no person of leisure, rich though I am.

Unless of course through labor one finds joy.

You're shifting terms. Stick to leisure unless you want to argue that leisure = joy.

Actually, I was going to argue that leisure is work that brings you joy, that only the sick and the depraved crave abundant idleness.

Awesome. Help me paint this fence?

Na.

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