When it’s best to try to convince, rather than prove

(Reflections on Carroll C Arnold’s Introduction to Chaim Perelman’s “The Realm of Rhetoric”, University of Notre Dame Press, 1982).

When is it better to try for a convincing argument, rather than a conclusive one? And how would you go about that?

You should aim to convince, rather than prove, when your premises are disputable. That is, when you are dealing in the realm of “values” (as Perelman would say). I take it that this realm is bigger than it first appears: and would include decisions about most human social systems.

Argumentation that aims to convince can be termed “rhetoric”. Argumentation that aims at a proof, at a conclusion, can be termed “logic”. Logic can only be applied when your premises are indisputable. Beware of trying to apply logic into situations where your premises are open to opinion. You will end up with disparate and conflicting conclusions.

Rhetorical argument must have as its goal the “adherence” of an audience. Rhetorical argument, by the nature of the matters it deals with, will always have an audience. Even if that audience is just yourself. And its aim cannot be to get the audience totally signed-up to a claim. Rather, its goal can only be to increase the adherence of that audience to the claim. In the domains where rhetoric applies, we cannot hope for 100% acceptance of a claim. Only degrees of allegiance or adherence.

So, how do you argue in a good way, in the domains where your premises are disputable? That is, how do you argue rhetorically? One way to answer this is to draw analogies from the realm of logic: a realm we are more familiar with.

In logic, you build your argument from self evident premises. Premises that are universally true. In rhetoric, you need to build your argument from your audience’s knowledge and experience. You need to appeal to what they know. To what they value. To what they have gone through. You also need to take into account your audience’s current situation.

In logic, you rely on definitions of terms. Once a term is defined to mean a certain thing – its meaning is clear to everyone dealing in that formal system. For example, in the Tax Act, the term “assessable income” is defined in the “definitions” section of the Act. That term, “assessable income” will retain that defined meaning throughout the Act. Its meaning is not open to dispute by any accountant or judge.

In rhetoric, where you are dealing with language in an informal system (not the formal systems of logic), your language will always be ambiguous. You can’t pin a single definition down to a term. So, what can the rhetorician do? Her only option is to make her particular meaning of a word compelling to an audience. She must give her meaning of the word “presence” to that audience.

Finally, logic reaches its conclusions by following deductive steps in a formal proof. The logical rules, which allow you to advance from one step to the next, are well understood and universally agreed. No such formal rules exist for rhetoric. Instead, you need to make “liaisons” between ideas. You progress as you see and build the links between ideas. The rhetorician will use metaphor, examples and models to create these liaisons. She will also resort to argument by analogy, or by an appeal to the way things are (as viewed by the audience) to make these links.

Perelman’s contention, in the end, is that it's possible, in fact it's more intellectually honest, to aim for arguments that are “inconclusive” (in the logical, positivist sense) and yet still “convincing”.

Search engines to help technological innovation?

Interesting piece here from The Economist on using search engines to help with technological innovation.

The article's key idea is to turn innovation on its head. Instead of starting with a problem and looking for a solution: start with your collection of known solutions and see if you can find problems that they solve. Or, better still, if you see a "problem", search amongst all the known solutions out there and see if one will "fit".

That's, of course, where search engines come into play. The article looks at the latest "natural language" search engines - that make this type of searching a whole lot easier. And of course, someone's already got the "innovation search engine" idea in production. Accelovation recently went live with their "market discovery software".

"It's stories all the way down"

Great post over here at Ben Myer's "Faith and Theology" about the role narratives play in determining the way we view reality. At it's strongest, narratives become our reality. As Ben says:

"There is nothing “more real” than the stories we tell ourselves; it’s stories all the way down."

(Image: Wikipedia - Space Turtles)

Social complexity and wicked problems

I'm more and more nervous about what I think Conklin is doing in his book "Dialogue Mapping" (refer my initial post). I don't think it's helpful to pull social complexity out from wicked problems. As if wicked problems can exist in the absence of social complexity. Or, at least, in the absence of social factors.

Conklin wants to say that wickedness is a property of the "problem/solution space" and social complexity "is a property of the social network that is engaging with the problem".

However, I don't think you can have "wickedness" in a problem unless you have social factors. They are a necessary condition for wickedness. (However, they are not a sufficient condition - you need other things as well to get "wickedness").

"Dialogue Mapping"

"Dialogue Mapping: Building Shared Understanding of Wicked Problems" is a relatively recent book (2005) on dialogue and wicked problems by Jeff Conklin. You can read the first chapter of the book here. Jeff is part of the CogNexus Instititute.

I'm not sure I agree with Conklin's take on wicked problems. He seems to want to strip the social complexity out of them. He says: "... while wickedness is a property of the problem/solution space ... social complexity is a property of the social network that is engaging with the problem". I'm not sure these things are so easily teased apart. Expecially since Rittel's original paper (as Conklin acknowledges elsewhere) sees one of the contributors to "wickedness" being the various views of the "publics" and "sub-publics" affected. I can see why Conklin might want to separate out social complexity - to get some clarity - but I'm not sure if it is helpful.

quaestio

More from de partitione oratoria.

Cicero sees questions falling into two types (Id, at 4):

• One type of question is "unlimited" ("infinita") and is called a "discussion" ("consultatio").
• The other type is "limited" ("definita") and is called a "cause" ("causa").

oratio

More from de partitione oratoria.

The speech "oratio" has four parts (Id, at 4). Two establish the case: "the statement of facts" ("narratio"); and "the proof" ("confirmatio"). Two serve "to influence the mind of the audience": "the exordium" ("principium"); and "the peroration" ("peroratio").