• neomac
    1.4k
    People aren't interested in conversations where everybody agrees on the issues and perhaps differ only in nuances. Nope. A heated debate is what people want to follow. Even here in PF this is evident: the threads where people disagree get the most comments.ssu

    That’s a very good point to me. I would go further in arguing this. Notice that we are in a philosophy forum and lack of consensus in philosophy is neither a big issue nor uncommon. In Western philosophy, be it metaphysics or ethics or epistemology, there is lots of disagreement, and no matter how weird a philosophical theory may sound, one may find advocates supporting it. And also philosophical debates can get heated due to intellectual straining. I think some disagreement can be found also in the scientific debate, especially in the human and social sciences. And also this disagreements can get heated.
    There is a difference however with the kind of disagreement one experiences in political debates. Political debates are more directly and intentionally oriented toward political decisions and actions. And in this case the debates get heated not due to the intellectual effort per se but because people feel more materially threatened in their economic, social, biological conditions and of those they care about.
    IN A PHILOSOPHY FORUM, what should be more than welcomed is a more PHILOSOPHICAL approach, not a political one even when we talk about politics and divisive political subjects, like the war in Ukraine or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So our intellectual efforts shouldn’t move from beliefs to actions/decisions, but the other way around: from actions/decisions to beliefs. We SHOULD NOT GIVE FOR GRANTED notions of human rights, democracy, freedom of speech, international law, nations, self-determination, states, morality,propaganda, etc. we should find ALL OF THEM open for debate. We should SUSPEND our pro-active approach (like the open and crypto-activists in this thread and the like are doing) and dig into our assumptions. Make them explicit and open for questioning, further explanations or justifications.
    And such an approach should be backed by adequate means to do that like clarifying ambiguous terminology, articulating reasoning from premises to conclusions, provide accurately reported evidence and source, provide illustrative examples, avoid to replace literal/descriptive language with non-literal/value language, avoid to replace actual arguments with insults and dismissive remarks, etc.
    Constructive discussions are not necessarily the ones where people converge in conclusions (which is rationally possible when people agree on premises and procedures to get from premises to conclusions like in mathematics or logic) but also the ones where respective views are presented in a way that is rationally compelling, ALSO WHEN TALKING ABOUT DIVISIVE POLITICAL SUBJECTS WHICH WILL LIKELY REMAIN DIVISIVE.
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