Eristic Dialectic (Arthur Schopenhauer)

Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher, author and university lecturer. The son of a merchant family, he was born in Danzig in 1788. In 1803/1804 Schopenhauer made an educational tour of Europe. Afterwards he studied medicine in Göttingen and then philosophy in Berlin. Schopenhauer also earned his doctorate in philosophy in 1813. In 1819 his main work Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung was published. A year later he began teaching at the University of Berlin. Due to an epidemic, Schopenhauer fled to Frankfurt am Main in 1831, where he died in 1860.

 

Eristic Dialectics – The Art of Being Right

„Eristic dialectics is the art of disputing, and of disputing in such a way as to be right, that is, per fas et nefas (with right and with wrong).“ (Schopenhauer 2019, 10)

Arthur Schopenhauer describes „natural[] wickedness“ (ibid., 10), „innate vanity“ (ibid., 10 f.), and „garrulity“ (ibid., 11) as essential characteristics of human beings and, at the same time, as causes for the necessity of Eristic Dialectics. The former means that people are not fundamentally honest and do not merely tell the truth. Vanity aims at the fact that we do not want to be wrong and our interlocutor should not be right. Finally, loquacity means that people first talk and then think (cf. Schopenhauer 2019).

But what does Eristic Dialectics actually mean? As was made clear in the quote above, Eristic Dialectics is about being right when discussing, and it is about being right per fas, i.e., in a permissible way, and per nefas, i.e., in an impermissible way. In a permissible way means to tell the truth, in an impermissible way means not to tell the truth. If we notice afterwards that we were wrong, we are to make it seem as if we were right (cf. Schopenhauer 2019): „true should seem false and false should seem true“ (Schopenhauer 2019, 11).

An assertion can be considered, on the one hand, in terms of its objective truth and, on the other hand, in terms of its validity with the interlocutor. In Eristic Dialectics, what matters is not the truth of the statement, but whether we can defend it accordingly and whether it is also accepted as true by the interlocutor. „Hence it comes about that he who disputes does not as a rule fight for truth, but for his proposition“ (Schopenhauer 2019, 12). Interest in truth gives way to interest in vanity (cf. Schopenhauer 2019).

Eristic dialectics is to be distinguished from logic, that is, pure objective truth, as well as from sophistry, the assertion of false propositions, because both logic and sophistry presuppose that we know the truth. But since, according to Schopenhauer, we do not know what truth is, we can disregard it in the dispute. Thus, Eristic Dialectic can rather be seen as a „logic of appearances“ (Schopenhauer 2019, 20) (cf. Schopenhauer 2019).

 

On the metaphorics of disputation.

It is striking that Schopenhauer uses metaphors for disputing that have a warlike character – e.g., attack and defense, attack and defend, opponent, weapons, victor, dispute, strike as well as fight. Further, he compares disputing to fencing: „to hit and to parry, that is what matters, just so in dialectic: it is an intellectual art of fencing“ (Schopenhauer 2019, 21 f.). Lakhoff and Johnson note that metaphors affect not only language but also thought and action. Accordingly, when we discuss, we attack and defend our claim. We want to beat our opponent and win the discussion by being right (cf. Lakhoff/ Johnson 2007).

But how does someone keep right in a discussion? Schopenhauer speaks of aids, of an „unequally distributed natural gift“ (Schopenhauer 2019, 13) – depending on the cleverness of the person. For this, he cites 38 so-called artifices, listed below (cf. Schopenhauer 2019).

 

Kunstgriffe

– Artifice 1: Extension

– Artifice 2: Homonymy

– Artifice 3: absolutization

– Artifice 4: Detours

– Artifice 5: Premises ad populum and ex concessis

– Trick 6: Hidden petitio principii

– Trick 7: Allowing more than necessary

– Trick 8: Provoke by questions

– Trick 9: Concession of detours

– Trick 10: Concession out of defiance

– Trick 11: Induction from concessions

– Trick 12: Euphemisms and dysphemisms

– Term 13: Lesser Evil

– Trick 14: Asserting the Right

– Trick 15: Feint

– Trick 16: Ad populum

– Trick 17: Sophistry

– Trick 18: Interrupt discussion

– Trick 19: Taking arguments into generalities

– Technique 20: Obtaining evidence by stealth

– Trick 21: Playing stratagems

– Trick 22: Playing off argument as petitio

– Trick 23: Provoke exaggeration

– Trick 24: Refute by consequences

– Trick 25: Refutation by counterexample

– Trick 26: Retorsion

– Trick 27: Extend provocation

– Trick 28: Argumentum ad auditores

– Trick 29: Diversion

– Trick 30: Appeal to authority

– Trick 31: Express incomprehension, assert incomprehensibility

– Trick 32: Refutation by recursion

– Trick 33: Deny applicability

– Trick 34: Circumscribing

– Trick 35: Argumentum ab utili

– Trick 36: Simulated Argument

– Trick 37: Refute assertion with evidence

– Artifice 38: Ad personam (cf. Schopenhauer 2019)

 

 

Literature

Lakhoff, George/ Johnson, Mark (2007): Living in metaphors. The construction and use of figures of speech. 5th ed. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systems.

Schopenhauer, Arthur (2019): The art of being right. 16th ed. Hamburg: Nikol.