Counterarguments are not in short supply
Sep. 11th, 2013 02:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoyI want to remind everyone of two things:
1. Paul Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement
2. Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided
So, counterargument (in Graham's sense). Obviously it's a lot better than mere contradiction, let alone the lower levels. Thing is, a lot of the time, it still isn't worth very much.
This is because much of the time, in a two-sided debate, the basic arguments of both sides are already well-known. Counterargument then is typically going to just restate the standard case made by the other side -- one everyone is already familiar with. Remember, policy debates should not appear one-sided; the hard part isn't making an argument for one side, it's figuring out which arguments are actually stronger and which ones are actually weaker and where the appropriate balance is (if anywhere -- good chance it may not lie on the axis they're arguing over[0]).
That is to say, counterarguments, despite their appearance, don't really respond to the particulars of the other side's argument, and as such are really just basic arguments -- often, the sort that don't even bother to anticipate other people's objections and reply to them in advance. And those sorts of arguments are, on many issues, common and well-known and not worth very much.
There are some exceptions. Sometimes an argument really is rarely-made, or a position little-held, and then pure counterargument (or even just contradiction) can be worth something. And of course this doesn't apply to proofs in mathematics because a proof is rather more solid. Of course, pure counterargument (proving the negation of what's believed to be a theorem) is still hardly complete without refutation (finding the mistake in the proof), but in the case of mathematics, counterargument alone is enough to show that *something* is up. (And there always is the remote possibility that our foundations of mathematics are inconsistent and you've found a real contradiction.) Although, while the flavor is kind of different, it does kind of already fall under the "the opposing case has not been made" exception.
-Harry
[0]Of course, really, a large fraction of the time when people are arguing, they're really arguing past each other. I was actually going to do a whole series on this, analyzing some common instances of this, but, eh. Way too lazy for that.
1. Paul Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement
2. Policy Debates Should Not Appear One-Sided
So, counterargument (in Graham's sense). Obviously it's a lot better than mere contradiction, let alone the lower levels. Thing is, a lot of the time, it still isn't worth very much.
This is because much of the time, in a two-sided debate, the basic arguments of both sides are already well-known. Counterargument then is typically going to just restate the standard case made by the other side -- one everyone is already familiar with. Remember, policy debates should not appear one-sided; the hard part isn't making an argument for one side, it's figuring out which arguments are actually stronger and which ones are actually weaker and where the appropriate balance is (if anywhere -- good chance it may not lie on the axis they're arguing over[0]).
That is to say, counterarguments, despite their appearance, don't really respond to the particulars of the other side's argument, and as such are really just basic arguments -- often, the sort that don't even bother to anticipate other people's objections and reply to them in advance. And those sorts of arguments are, on many issues, common and well-known and not worth very much.
There are some exceptions. Sometimes an argument really is rarely-made, or a position little-held, and then pure counterargument (or even just contradiction) can be worth something. And of course this doesn't apply to proofs in mathematics because a proof is rather more solid. Of course, pure counterargument (proving the negation of what's believed to be a theorem) is still hardly complete without refutation (finding the mistake in the proof), but in the case of mathematics, counterargument alone is enough to show that *something* is up. (And there always is the remote possibility that our foundations of mathematics are inconsistent and you've found a real contradiction.) Although, while the flavor is kind of different, it does kind of already fall under the "the opposing case has not been made" exception.
-Harry
[0]Of course, really, a large fraction of the time when people are arguing, they're really arguing past each other. I was actually going to do a whole series on this, analyzing some common instances of this, but, eh. Way too lazy for that.
