How do you win an intellectual conflict?
I suppose the common advice debaters might hear centers on logical fallacies to avoid and methods of argumentation to adopt. Not bad advice, but let me add something.
Armies have secretly devised new weapons since the Sumerians forged bronze and the Hyksos invented the chariot. Of course, once an enemy sees new weapons in battle, any secrecy is exposed and such weapons become common to both sides of a conflict. But at first use, a new weapon unknown to an opponent is definitely an advantage that assures at least a temporary, if even a small, victory. And there’s been no change in military thinking since the Bronze Age. Advantage goes to the side that possesses a weapon the other side does not have, such as stealth F-22s, F-35s, and hypersonic bombs. But what is the nature of the advantage? Is it just a matter of overwhelming the enemy with a technology it doesn’t possess? Yes, that’s part of it, but the other part is the surprise because ignorance isn’t a defense in battle. New weapons confuse as well as overwhelm, and few of us can act in our own best interests when we are confused and surprised.
One of the reasons that new weapons can be effective is that momentary confusion they cause in the enemy. Take the story of G. I. Rocky Blunt, who served with the 84th Infantry Division during World War II. During his unit’s advance on Geilenkirchen, Germany, Blunt had to run through a minefield into the town where German soldiers hid in houses. Blunt entered a building, and hearing the voices of enemy soldiers, he said in German, “Komm mit dem Händen nach oben” (“Come [out] with your hands up”). Blunt was holding a mine detector, that is, a magnetometer, that the German soldiers had never seen. They thought he had some secret weapon. Eighteen soldiers came out of the buildings with their hands up. When MP asked Blunt how he had captured so many, he said, “I used my mine detector.”* It was Blunt’s first day of combat.
I suppose the secret to many victories in conflicts might have an element of Blunt’s story in them. And maybe that’s what you might want to apply the next time you are in a philosophical argument with someone. Not a mine detector, but rather a mind detector. You always have an advantage when you have something the other side doesn’t have and when you know what intellectual weapons your opponent uses.
To disarm an opponent of any surprises in legal cases, lawyers use depositions to discover secrets so that nothing new like Blunt’s mine detector catches them unprepared or off guard. But lawyers have the right to depose under law. In any philosophical argument, no authority gives one the right to know beforehand what kinds of arguments an opponent might make. Taking away any advantage an opponent might have requires a mind detector.
If you want to be successful at a philosophical argument, you need to disarm your opponent by knowing what kinds of assumptions underlie the arguments and what mental steps he or she might take. And that disarming has to start with your ability to cross the mine field of intellectual traps that blow up your own argument. That means applying the mine detector, or the mind detector, to the path you intend to follow. Both mines and minds are difficult to detect, but a careful sweep of an actual field or an intellectual field exposes both.
The arguments an opponent has are initially hidden like those German soldiers in the basement of the house in Geilenkirchen. You can, however, get them to come out mit dem Händen nach oben by doing what Blunt did. First, be forceful and confident. Second, don’t fear doing the unexpected or trying a direct approach (Come out with your hands up). Third, have that surprise weapon the opponent has not seen or considered. As the story of Rocky Blunt reveals, that weapon doesn’t even have to be a weapon.
*Blunt tells his story to the producers of the series WWII in HD, in Season 1, Episode 8, starting at 25:12.
I suppose the common advice debaters might hear centers on logical fallacies to avoid and methods of argumentation to adopt. Not bad advice, but let me add something.
Armies have secretly devised new weapons since the Sumerians forged bronze and the Hyksos invented the chariot. Of course, once an enemy sees new weapons in battle, any secrecy is exposed and such weapons become common to both sides of a conflict. But at first use, a new weapon unknown to an opponent is definitely an advantage that assures at least a temporary, if even a small, victory. And there’s been no change in military thinking since the Bronze Age. Advantage goes to the side that possesses a weapon the other side does not have, such as stealth F-22s, F-35s, and hypersonic bombs. But what is the nature of the advantage? Is it just a matter of overwhelming the enemy with a technology it doesn’t possess? Yes, that’s part of it, but the other part is the surprise because ignorance isn’t a defense in battle. New weapons confuse as well as overwhelm, and few of us can act in our own best interests when we are confused and surprised.
One of the reasons that new weapons can be effective is that momentary confusion they cause in the enemy. Take the story of G. I. Rocky Blunt, who served with the 84th Infantry Division during World War II. During his unit’s advance on Geilenkirchen, Germany, Blunt had to run through a minefield into the town where German soldiers hid in houses. Blunt entered a building, and hearing the voices of enemy soldiers, he said in German, “Komm mit dem Händen nach oben” (“Come [out] with your hands up”). Blunt was holding a mine detector, that is, a magnetometer, that the German soldiers had never seen. They thought he had some secret weapon. Eighteen soldiers came out of the buildings with their hands up. When MP asked Blunt how he had captured so many, he said, “I used my mine detector.”* It was Blunt’s first day of combat.
I suppose the secret to many victories in conflicts might have an element of Blunt’s story in them. And maybe that’s what you might want to apply the next time you are in a philosophical argument with someone. Not a mine detector, but rather a mind detector. You always have an advantage when you have something the other side doesn’t have and when you know what intellectual weapons your opponent uses.
To disarm an opponent of any surprises in legal cases, lawyers use depositions to discover secrets so that nothing new like Blunt’s mine detector catches them unprepared or off guard. But lawyers have the right to depose under law. In any philosophical argument, no authority gives one the right to know beforehand what kinds of arguments an opponent might make. Taking away any advantage an opponent might have requires a mind detector.
If you want to be successful at a philosophical argument, you need to disarm your opponent by knowing what kinds of assumptions underlie the arguments and what mental steps he or she might take. And that disarming has to start with your ability to cross the mine field of intellectual traps that blow up your own argument. That means applying the mine detector, or the mind detector, to the path you intend to follow. Both mines and minds are difficult to detect, but a careful sweep of an actual field or an intellectual field exposes both.
The arguments an opponent has are initially hidden like those German soldiers in the basement of the house in Geilenkirchen. You can, however, get them to come out mit dem Händen nach oben by doing what Blunt did. First, be forceful and confident. Second, don’t fear doing the unexpected or trying a direct approach (Come out with your hands up). Third, have that surprise weapon the opponent has not seen or considered. As the story of Rocky Blunt reveals, that weapon doesn’t even have to be a weapon.
*Blunt tells his story to the producers of the series WWII in HD, in Season 1, Episode 8, starting at 25:12.
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