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- Schopenhauer is one of the most amusing philosophers of the 19th century. I have a soft spot for his Art of Controversy[1] which was an early guide to trolling and other disingenuous argumentation. For example, “Put His Thesis Into Some Odious Category” has popularity that endures to this day.
- Schopenhauer wrote a good one, his 38 Stratagems from The Art of Controversy, all of them still very relevant. e.g. I see #32 all the time:
If you are confronted with an assertion, there is a short way of getting rid of it, or, at any rate, of throwing suspicion on it, by putting it into some odious category; even though the connection is only apparent, or else of a loose character. You can say, for instance, "That is Manichaeism," or "It is Arianism," or "Pelagianism," or "Idealism," or "Spinozism," or "Pantheism," or "Brownianism," or "Naturalism," or "Atheism," or "Rationalism," "Spiritualism," "Mysticism," and so on. In making an objection of this kind, you take it for granted (1) that the assertion in question is identical with, or is at least contained in, the category cited—that is to say, you cry out, "Oh, I have heard that before"; and (2) that the system referred to has been entirely refuted, and does not contain a word of truth.
The Stratagems summarized in point form http://www.mnei.nl/schopenhauer/38-stratagems.htm
Unabridged https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10731/10731-h/10731-h.htm#li...
- Brilliant, worth a read "the Art of Controversy by Arthur Schopenhauer".
- Schopenhauer practically wrote the book on forum trolling with The Art of Controversy[1]. I concur his online presence would be hilarious.
- The problem with most of these (informal) fallacies is that they are attempts to prevent argument, either by shutting the other party up, or by diverting the discussion away from the matter at hand. When they are used like that they could be considered incompatible with a commitment to reason, or as fallacies.
The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer documented these tactics humorously in The Art of Controversy (Chapter III):
http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/controve...
- The original title of Schopenhauer's “Art of Controversy” could be more accurately translated as “The Art of being always Right” (Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten). The reason why he described those stratagems was to prove his point: that the goal of a controversy is not finding the truth. According to him, it was like a fight where you just want to win.
PG advocates for controversies that help find the truth. Thus he makes a difference between fallacies and real arguments. To Schopenhauer, real arguments are actually fallacies, because mere humans have other goals than the truth. Ironically, in http://www.paulgraham.com/philosophy.html, PG followed Wittgenstein in that “most philosophical controversies are due to confusions over language”. In a philosophical context, at least, this should lead to a similar conclusion as Schopenhauer's.
Now, whether the case of philosophy should be extended to the rest of controversies is an interesting question. My answer would be yes. I wonder what PG would say. The fun part is that, whatever he says, Schopenhauer will still be right (look: he doesn't care of the truth, he just wants to win the argument!). That's the whole fun of controversies about controversy...
