Back to this. I guess I need to make sure I finish it before April, when I hypothetically go look at Adler's other stuff. (Maybe, if I work out how I'm actually going to use the Synopticon or whatever.)
In any event, this was a pretty good chapter. He starts by laying out three rules for having a good debate, which I think are helpful today (especially in our modern era of flame war bullshit):
1. Acknowledge your feelings.
2. State your assumptions.
3. Try to be impartial.
I think most debates will be pretty productive if both people keep to these. If only one person does, you wind up in a chess with a pigeon/prisoner's dilemma scenario.
He also lists four reasons to disagree:
1. The other person is uniformed.
2. The other person is misinformed.
3. The other person is being illogical.
4. The other person's logic is incomplete.
I never really thought about it, but I guess that does pretty much sum up all the reasonable causes of disagreement. He also accepting someone's facts/logic and just not liking it, which I think is a much less passive aggressive way of saying "agree to disagree."
Good chapter.
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