Eristic
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Eristic, from the ancient Greek word Eris meaning wrangle or strife, often refers to a type of dialogue or argument where the participants do not have any reasonable goal. The aim is to win the argument and to not potentially discover a true or probable answer to any specific question or topic. Eristic dialogue is arguing for the sake of conflict, fighting, and often to see who can yell the loudest.
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[edit] Philosophical Eristic
Plato often contrasted this type of dialogue with the dialectical method and other more reasonable and logical methods (e.g., at Republic 454a). In the dialogue Euthydemus, Plato satirizes eristic.
Different from Plato, Schopenhauer considers that only logic pursues truth. For him, dialectic, sophistry and eristic have no objective truth in view, but only the appearance of it, and pay no regard to truth itself because it aims at victory. He names these three last methods as "eristic dialectic"[1]
According to Schopenhauer Eristic Dialectic is mainly concerned to tabulate and analyse dishonest stratagems[2], in order that in a real debate they may be at once recognised and defeated. It is for this very reason that Eristic Dialectic must admittedly take victory, and not objective truth, for its aim and purpose.
[edit] Argumentation theory
Argumentation theory is a field of study that asks critical questions about eristic arguments and the other types of dialogue.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Controversial Dialectic on CoolHaus.de accessed at January 19, 2008
- ^ In his Dialectica Eristica Schopenhauer presents 38 eristic stratagems
[edit] References
Schopenhauer, Arthur. Eristische Dialektik,1830.
[edit] External links
- Arthur Schopenhauer's Eristische Dialektik:
