Notes to Myself, 19.09.12

I’m finding that I need to create a different kind of post. I’m going to call them Notes to Myself. Rather than containing content that a reader might be interested in, they will function more in the role of a narrator that explains the thought processes behind the content-related posts. A reader can skip them if they want; I won’t feel slighted in the least.

So, what has happened in the last several weeks was that what started out as a post on the importance of clear and precise definitions in rational debate turned into a post about what constitutes a rational debate on a subject to begin with. By the time I was done, it was clear that what I had written really wanted to be divided up into four separate posts.

What is a rational debate/discussion? To have a rational discussion on any topic requires that participants have done at least three things.

• First, state as clearly and rigorously as possible one’s definitions and starting assumptions. Then all parties involved need to accept these as given before any further discussion proceeds. If a discussion devolves back to a disagreement on basic definitions or starting assumptions, then the discussion is over.

• Second, all participants must adhere to the rules of logic. There is a covenant between truth and logic; and if that covenant is broken by the deliberate use of logical fallacies, then there is no more rational discussion to be had.

• And third, there needs to be an agreed-upon metric to decide the truth value for a proposition expressed in natural language. This gets us into the subject of epistemology and natural versus formal languages.

This third point I find the most important, while, at the same time, the most neglected aspect of rational discussion; that while rational discussions follow the rules of logic, they are not themselves logical arguments.

What separates rational discussion from the concept of a rigorous logical argument is the language in which the process is expressed. Rational discussion takes place within a framework of natural language, while logical arguments, of necessity, must be framed in a formal language; one specifically created for such purposes.