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Hi, everyone. So now what I'd like to do is continue the discussion about rhetorical analysis of a written text for now, continue that toward thinking about argument and the problem of truth. Yeah, the capital T word problem of truth in the 21st century. So what we'll do in this episode is understand the relationship of argument to the process of truth seeking and inquiry. So when we talk about us the relationship of argument to the process of truth seeking and inquiry, we can't help but discuss a tension that arises between the two, which also happens to raise an ancient issue in the field of argument. And this issue is the arguers first obligation to truth or to winning the argument. And just what is the nature of the truth to which arguers are supposed to be obligated? So if you if you take this back millennia, to early Greek rhetoricians and philosophers, think of the sofas, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, they all wrestled with this tension. I mean, in Plato's dialogues, these questions were at the heart of Socrates disagreement with the Sophists. The Sophists were professional rhetoricians, who specialized in training orders to win arguments. Now, Socrates, who valued truth seeking over persuasion, and believes that truth can be discovered through philosophic inquiry, opposed the Sophists. For Socrates and for Plato, truth with a capital T resided in the ideal world of forms, and through philosophic rigor, humans could transcend the changing shadow like World of everyday reality, to perceive the world of universals, where truth, beauty and goodness, all in caps, right, all capitalized, where truth, beauty and goodness resided. Through his method of questioning, Socrates would gradually peel away layer after layer of false views, until truth was revealed. The good person's duty, Socrates believed, was not to win an argument but to pursue this higher truth. Socrates and Plato distrusted professional rhetoricians, because these professionals were interested only in the power and wealth that came from persuading audiences to the orders views. In contrast, Plato's people, Aristotle maintain Plato's commitment to ethical living but valued rhetoric as a way of reaching conclusions or what he called probable truth, that in quotes, in the realm of everyday living, and what he means by probable truth is the best answers available to people who are willing to think deeply and argue reasonably about a problem. So Aristotle taught rhetoric and arguments is collective inquiry in search of new understanding of new understanding, a kind of news, if you will, probable truths and best solutions supported persuasively by reasons and evidence that can be shared and agreed upon. Let me say that again. Aristotle taught rhetoric and argument as collective inquiry in search of new understanding probable truths and best solutions supported persuasively, by reasons and evidence that could be shared and agreed upon. That's the new understanding that we're talking about. So now, let's think about these perspectives. On a modern example, suppose your community is divided over the issue of raising environmental standards versus keeping open a job producing factory that doesn't meet new guidelines for waste discharge, in a dispute between jobs and the environment, which is the best course. Now, this is a really tough question, because it's essentially putting the means by which people are able to live their lives against where they are living their lives, right. Path versus place, if you will. So the Sophists, what would they tell you they would train you to argue any side of this issue on behalf of any lobbying group willing to pay for your services? It's a matter of what kind of practical means taking one side versus another can produce. Already we were maybe hinting there at a kind of capitalist future. But that's not really the point here. The point is to think about what this relativism and willingness to manipulate language did to argument by having the term sophistry be associated with trickery in argument, it added that element of trickery.
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Now, on the other hand, if you applied Aristotle's practical concern for probable truth, you would be inspired to listen to all sides of the dispute. You'd peel away unsatisfactory arguments through reasonable inquiry. And then finally, commit yourself to a course of action that you have come to believe is the best for as many stakeholders as possible. And some Plato was concerned with absolute truths residing in the spiritual world of forums, while Aristotle valued rhetorics focus on probable truths in our messy human world. The truth the search for best solutions, is messy and complicated and needs to be negotiated in an ongoing spirit of argument ongoing, because every day we face complex situations with multiple stakeholders. Do sanctuary cities make citizens safer, as many sheriffs and police departments argue? Or do they shelter criminals and endanger citizens as some people content? Should all controversial speakers be allowed to speak on college campuses? Or should universities carefully monitor and restrict these public forums? There are no simple or clear cut answers to questions like these. But one thing is pretty certain people can't and aren't going to carry on productive argument if they retreat to siloed echo chambers, where they encounter only those views with which they already agree. argument works only if we're willing to question and clarify our own positions and, and engage in dialogue with those stakeholders with whom we disagree.
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This truth seeking approach to argument helps us combat various traps that we may fall into. A first trap is that we might become intellectually lazy. Failing to question easily found or sensationalist information and news, we might succumb to something called desirability bias. desirability bias is the tendency to accept information that we want to believe. Or we might cling to what some would call sacred values. sacred values, of course, are those religious or even secular beliefs that are so central to our worldviews and identities that we accept them as absolute, unquestionable and inviolable, and will buy them wholesale all day long. If we hesitate to question these values, our emotional adherence to them can create a network of beliefs that actually interpret the world for us, stands in place of the Aristotelian method of looking at all sides, and then choosing a course of action. So what do we need to do? First thing, get out of the echo chamber emerge from it, it's the best way to seek a shareable reality in what otherwise might seem a post truth world. However, as we have seen, truth seeking takes intellectual work, and ethical commitment, and a lot of attention and time, frankly, to restore the value of argument is true seeking, we must accept the world as pluralistic, recognizing that others may not value what we value, and that's okay. But no, we're not done there yet. Let's think about what this means. If we accept this pluralistic view of the world, do we then endorse the Sophists? Radical relativism, freeing us to argue any side of any issue? Or do we doggedly pursue some modern equivalent of Aristotle's probable truth? If your sympathies tend to have you land on the side of argument is truth seeking if you're with argument as truth seeking, then you must admit to a view of truth that is tentative, cautious and conflicted. And you must embrace argument as process. So what does this mean? What do we do that? How do we find truth if there apparently is maybe not truth at all, or at least not as we would prefer to conceive it as not as conveniently packaged as absolute?
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In the 21st century, truth seeking does not mean finding the right answer to a disputed question. But neither does it mean a valueless relativism in which all answers are equally good. Those are both extremes. seeking truth means taking responsibility for determining the best answer, or best solution to the question. It means considering the good of the entire community when taking into consideration the interests of all stakeholders. It means making hard decisions in the face of uncertainty, it means making a decision. And it sometimes means not making a decision, or at least not quite yet, until other information comes in, then we can think about it a little bit more instead of rushing. But sometimes it means that we have to rush that rush is what's demanded and that we can't take the time to slow down. It all just depends, you know, sometimes we have to use the little bit that we have to come to something right, because something is necessary sometimes. It's very complicated, right? If you think about this a lot, it's just a maze of language, in some ways, considered as a whole anyway. So what does this mean for argument? Well, it means that argument cannot prove your claim. It can't. But it can make a reasonable case for it. That's the only thing you can do really argument can only make a reasonable case for something that you're trying to prove or claim that you've made. Even though argument can't provide certainty. Learning to argue effectively, effectively, has deep value for society and democracy because it helps communities settle conflicts in a rational and humane way. By finding through the exchange of ideas the best solutions to problems without resorting to other means.