Logical arguments are actually the weakest arguments.
Discussion
We haven't gotten to that chapter in The Rhetoric, yet.
help me understand
Logical arguments are useful for establishing yourself as knowledgeable on a subject, so that you can later appeal on your expertise.
They aren't usually convincing without some amount of trust.
Got it, makes sense, it's the heart where change happens
But then again, what‘s trust?
Erwartung von zukünftigen Ereignissen unter der Prämisse vom nötigen Gottvertrauen (so oder ähnlich von Decartes)
Or modern: tit for tat?
doesn‘t a logical argument help with that?
And on the internet?
And what about inter-AI-trust?
and and and…
Yes, you can use logical arguments to establish trust.
Hrm, is that because they don't move the appetites as much? Logic only appeals to the intellect and reason, but it doesn't inherently bring the rest of our motivations along for the ride.
Yes, definitely. 💯
People actually find logic more difficult to understand, if it's conveyed by someone they don't like and the arguments from people they do like inherently sound sensible because they mentally fill in missing/incorrect information.
Also, people can't fully understand every logical argument about everything because they do not have full comprehension and full knowledge.
We all have to rely, to some extent, on trusting others and patterns of reliability.
So, a reputation is the strongest argument. Then appeals to emotion. Then logic.
Of course, "strongest" is not the same thing as "best." People being as they are, those two things often differ.
In rhetoric, strongest=best and weakest=worst, as the goal is to persuade a particular audience, not to uncover the truth.
The latter is dialectic and only the most brilliant, detached minds can even engage in it.
Everyone should strive to bring themselves and others up to the level of dialectic. The goal is for the intellect to rule, not the passions.
If the intellect is in charge, then most logical=best.
I think dialect is a different art than rhetoric, a tool with a different purpose.
I think our ability to trust or distrust, and our passions and emotions, are conveyers of important information. They are irrational, but not unreasonable.
It is, so to say, the dialectic of our ancestors. A sort of... genetic tradition.
That makes sense. It has to stay well-ordered, though. Our instincts and emotions often hint in the direction reason should go, but even there the intellect has to swing in and sort everything out.
Apologetics is rhetoric, not dialectic, by the way. That the highest form of argument.
Experience certainly bears this out. However logical faith or religion may be, some people just refuse to believe it.
I think more and more that some personal experience with Christ—often through other people—is necessary to win people over to the point where they can reason clearly about Christianity.
I often distrust my heart and stick to my head, and that has caused me much grief. My heart was saying something important. It was picking up on input that I couldn't rationally process and that I wasn't even consciously aware of.
It's like a sensor.