Isn't Parmenides worried about Argumentation that depends on the form/content Distinction? It's not just about Logic.
I've wondered whether Parmenides was only concerned about reason being a matter of logical argument. I thought his concern was that if reason is thought to be a matter of logical argument, then we would not be able to rely on reason to resolve conflicts because logical argumentation makes us have certain problems with truth. If we cannot appeal to truth, as Parmenides argument suggests, then we cannot resolve conflicts between the Americans under Bush and the Iranian government, for example. However, in considering some of the things that Don Levi has said about both rhetorical and logical arguments, I am wondering whether I have inaccurately limited the scope of what concerned Parmenides. Might he be interested in more than just logic, but in any account of argument that involves the form/content distinction.
This has been my thought since recently arguing that Parmenides is concerned to connect the dots. By saying he's concerned to "connect the dots" I mean to say he wants to lay out the "big picture" involving his understanding of reality. I mentioned at that point that doing this is not something that people do much these days. I'm now wanting to take that back. people do try to lay out the big picture. The problem is that there's much controversy about these pictures, and whether it's a good idea for us to "connect the dots," at all.
One conflict has to do with the difference between the religious and the scientific pictures of reality. That is, one way of laying it all out includes
http://www.csicop.org/si/2002-03/science-religion.html
a God that is responsible for everything that happens and who exists in heaven a realm that cannot be investigated by trying to touch it, feel it, see it, hear it, or do any of the things you can with investigational technologies. It's heaven and you can't go there. Another way of laying out the nature of reality is to include only what scientists would say about what exists and how it all works. For this view, there is nothing that exists beyond what a scientific theory has evidence for. This conflict goes to the argument between evolutionists and creationists. One is the larger background for the other more particular debate.
The conflict here is between two different ways of explaining what all exists and how it all fits together. The scientific account would lay everything out and explain how everything fits together through the theories of science. If we looked at any particular piece of reality, we would be able to understand it in terms of science. If on the other hand we looked at the religious account we would see reality in a completely different way. So, suppose we just see life in terms of the Jewish and Christian account, then we would have to include their God in an explanation of just about everything in what exists and in how it worked or was connected to other things. So, for the scientist, the account one might have for droughts would involve only climate and weather facts, whereas, the religious account would insist droughts, as well as anything else that happens or exists, is part of God's plan for us and his efforts to move this plan along.
I thought the interesting thing about Parmenides was that his account of things involved both sides of a very contentious conflict. Parmenides thought that most people traveled upon the Subjective Way to Truth, whereas, in order to get at Truth one had to travel on the Objective Way to Truth. I first tried to argue that Parmenides might have thought our President has been traveling on the Subjective Way to Truth and that this explains the problems we've been having with his war and the gutting of our civil liberties. I then wanted to point out that certain modern philosophers have thought that it was impossible to travel the Objective Way to Truth, at least as Parmenides understood it. He thought we needed to somehow get to the perspective of his Goddess in order to see what was objective. The modern view, according to philosopher's like Randall, argues that the Goddess's viewpoint is impossible, but we can look to see what is common amongst all the subjective views, and argue that if everyone says the same thing, then it must be right. I hastened to point out that where one person's subjective opinion cannot tell us true things, then a mob of subjective opinions cannot do any better.
At the end of that discussion I wanted to suggest a way to resolve the conflict between Randall and Parmenides. The conflict between these two philosophers had to do with both the seeming impossibility of getting at the Truth if we travel along the Subjective Way, and the equal impossibility of getting at the Goddess's position. If both ways to the Truth, according to Parmenides' understanding, are impossible, then we must conclude that we can never resolve conflicts.
I ended my discussion saying,
So, my question is whether Parmenides and his critics Randall, et al, got off on the right foot. I'm suspecting that as they all end badly, where we have no knowledge, or values, they did. So, where did they begin and is there some other way of starting off? My thought is that one thing we need to do is challenge the claim assumed by Parmenides that reason is a matter of logical argument. If he assumes that, then he has the problem with subjectivity that Parmenides or Randall cannot go on to solve.
I'm wanting to question the debate that Randall and Parmenides are having. In doing that I say they ended up badly, that is, they seem to be in an endless irresolvable dispute, and so I wanted to ask whether they began that way. I figure that if they both got off on the wrong foot, in making some wrong headed assumption, or allowing themselves to accept some bad bit of reasoning, then no wonder they would end up on each other's backs. This colloquial way of speaking is just the thought that Ramsey had when he came up with what's called his maxim. That is, ...and here I will quote a good explanation of it, here,
To clarify what I mean, consider Ramsey’s Maxim. (F. P. Ramsey was a gifted English philosopher of the early twentieth-century who died young.) Ramsey counseled his readers to try a different tactic for escaping from dead-ends in argument. He advised that whenever a person is faced with two arguments, one of which concludes A and the other not-A, the best tactic for the person is not to choose sides (choose the argument for A or choose the argument for not-A) but rather to discover the suppressed premise both arguments endorse, and deny it. Denying the suppressed premise frees the person from the mazeways of the traditional arguments. (Those who frequent Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason should recognize the kinship between what Ramsey counsels his readers to do and what Kant does in the Antinomies.)
So, where I take Parmenides to be saying A, and Randall to be saying not-A, I want to find the suppressed assumptions that each of them made upon which they are fighting. I had thought it was about logical argument, but now I wonder whether Parmenides was concerned about any argument understood to involve the form/content distinction. The reason I think it isn't just about logic has to do with the difference between Parmenides' account of argument and the one offered by Don Levi in his text Critical Thinking and Logic. I want to contrast the way these two writers think about subjectivity. I think it's interesting that where Parmenides thinks subjectivity has to do with the determination of the meaning of the terms of arguments, Levi thinks it has to do with rhetorical arguments as an alternative to logical arguments. Here is Levi,
Logic offers an objective, scientific, approach to argumentation. It does not deal with persuasion. That is a subjective matter. Even in ancient times there were people who claimed that they could make you more effective in debate or the law courts. But Logic is not concerned with how to win over an audience, but with whether the arguments used in doing so are any good. It considers whether an argument is correct, not how or whether it is persuasive or influential."
Don Levi, Critical Thinking and Logic, page 210
This is a surprising thing to say in light of any consideration of Parmenides. Let us allow that Parmenides is not concerned for any particular kind of argumentation, but, would he allow that logical arguments were objective without qualification? Well, it might depend on whether you thought he was thinking the Subjective or Objective Ways to Truth had to do with logical arguments. I think there's some reason to think that Parmenides was concerned about how the terms of logical arguments were to get their meaning. So, on an account I want to give about Parmenides, there is a question about whether logic is objective, and it has to do with how the terms of logical arguments get their meaning.
Levi does not seem to consider any objections to his characterization of logic as objective. But there are considerations that would make us wonder, apart from Parmenides. Here, we can consider Russell and Frege's concerns,
We all know the story about Hesperus, the evening star, and Phosphorus, the morning star. At one time they were believed to be two different objects, but it was later discovered that they are in fact the same planet (which we now call Venus). Now consider an ancient astronomer, Ralph, who is living prior to the discovery of the identity of Hesperus and Phosphorus. He writes down the following pair of sentences.
Hesperus has a moon
Phosphorus has a moon
Do they have the same meaning, or two different meanings? Do they express the same proposition, or two different propositions? We now know that Hesperus and Phosphorus are the same planet (Venus), so the sentences have the same truth conditions. They represent the same possible state of affairs. But for Ralph, our ancient astronomer who (in the absence of evidence) does not believe that Hesperus is Phosphorus, they express different beliefs. He might say, for example, that he thinks it unlikely there’s any moon orbiting Hesperus (having failed to see one). Yet he wouldn’t know about Phosphorus, as he never gets up early enough to see it.
Most discussions of this problem attempt to make sense of it without introducing subjective propositions. Russell’s theory that names abbreviate definite descriptions is the most obvious example. None is as compelling as the observation that:
For the ancient astronomer (in his epistemic state) Hesperus and Phosphorus are two different planets.
Taking this idea seriously requires that we admit two kinds of sentence meaning: the subjective meaning (in the epistemic state) and the objective meaning (in the real world). Since Hesperus and Phosphorus are distinct planets, in Ralph’s epistemic state, the two sentences have different subjective meanings. Since Hesperus and Phosphorus are the same real planet, the two sentences have the same objective meaning.
Richard Johns, "Subjective Logic, Logic as Rational Belief Dynamics"
The question of whether Logic is objective is a real question for Johns because he thinks there is an issue about how the meanings of the terms of
http://www.southwestart.com/sculpture/9
logical arguments get their meaning. Are we to think of Hesperus and Phosphorus in the subjective or objective sense? It seems we should allow that Parmenides had the same idea about logic, or as I would prefer, any kind of argument where there was a form/content distinction.
I'd like to allow that Parmenides was thinking that the terms of logic could have two ways of determining their meaning. Surprisingly, perhaps, Parmenides may have thought of the same example as Frege, et al. See here,
Parmenides of Elea (early 5th century BC) composed a poem in two parts, "Truth," and Doxa, "Opinion." "Truth" offers an a priori deduction of the defining criteria of "what-is" or "the real," including such counter-intuitive criteria as "indivisible, unitary" and "immobile"—criteria no observable entity could possibly meet. Doxa is explicitly branded by Parmenides as a scheme that is "off-track," "deceptive," and "lacking genuine credence." Even though Doxa is considerably more fragmentary in our sources than "Truth," it is clear that Doxa comprised a full-fledged cosmology. Most surprisingly for a doctrine disparaged by its own author, it propounded breakthrough astronomical discoveries—notably, that the Morning Star and the Evening Star are the same celestial object, and that the moon gets its light from the sun; perhaps also that the cosmos and the earth are spherical.
http://dissoiblogoi.blogspot.com/2007/10/parmenides-morning-star-is-evening-star.html
So, I've here shown that we can think that logic could be subjective, or objective, depending on how the meaning of its terms were determined. This would be how Parmenides thought of it. Yet, Levi argues that logic is objective. Not only that, but Levi has a different idea of what would be subjective. He thinks whatever deals with persuasion is subjective.
He also wants to separate out logic from truth. This is how Levi explains his thinking,
"Logic is not concerned with whether the argument is persuasive or convincing. These are considered questions of rhetoric rather than logic. Logic is interested only in whether an argument is being given and whether that argument is logically correct; it is not interested in how it affects an audience.
Nor is it concerned with why the arguer says what she does or with her thinking, with questions of psychology. Logic deals only with the question of whether the conclusion follows from the premises, not with anything the argument reveals about the person giving it.
This question of logic is to be distinguished from any question of truth or falsity. Logical correctness or incorrectness is the term used in appraising the logic of an argument. whereas truth (or falsity) is used in appraising the premises or conclusion. An argument is logically correct or incorrect, not true or false, whereas a claim that is part of the argument is true or false, not correct or incorrect."
Don Levi, Critical Thinking and Logic, page 235
The business of persuasion is a concern of rhetoric, and hence it is rhetoric that is subjective, while logic, for Levi is objective. Whereas rhetoric is concerned with winning over an audience, logic is concerned only with, as Levi says, "whether the arguments used in doing so are any good. It considers whether an argument is correct, not how or whether it is persuasive or influential."
And so, there are two ways of thinking about subjectivity. There is the idea that subjectivity has to do with rhetoric and one's concerns about persuading an audience. This notion of subjectivity is contrasted with the idea that logic is objective and concerned with whether or not an argument used, say to persuade an audience, is any good or correct. Then, there is the second idea that subjectivity and objectivity is a matter of how the terms of a logical argument are determined. According to the moderns like Frege and Russell, this distinction amounts to the difference between an "epistemic state" ( i.e., subjective) and what goes on in the real world (i.e., objective).
Levi seems to either not be aware that there is any dispute about what one might mean by subjectivity, or he takes the position he does keeping in mind that the Parmenidean understanding of subjectivity and objectivity involves deep philosophical problems. I have to say I think it's the latter explanation. I think Levi is aware that you cannot let the meaning of logical terms involve any subjectivity. I think he wants to avoid the Parmenidean position because Levi is aware of the problem of psychologism in logic. Here is a brief discussion of that problem from the introductory essay in Philosophy, Psychology, and Psychologism, edited by Dale Jacquette. Prof. Jacquette tells us,
Logic concerns identical objects of distinct thoughts, and so cannot be reduced to the contents of individual psychologies. This is a very popular objection to psychologism. If psychologism were true, and logical entities were merely psychological, then any two different psychological subjects could immanently possess distinct logical entities by virtue of having different thoughts. The subjectivity of psychology by this argument entails that psychologism leads immediately to idealism, relativism, and even solipsism or skepticism about the existence of other minds.
The problem is most easily illustrated in the case of numbers. If numbers are immanently psychological entities, then there is no single entity such as the number 2 for two different psychological subjects to think about -- I will have the number 2 that belongs to my thought, and you will have a different number 2 that belongs to your thought. This implication seems untenable, because we suppose that logic and mathematics has to do with entities and relations that are independent of any particular subject's thought, but that can be thought about as the same thing by many different thinkers. The idealism and relativism that might be thought to follow from psychologism according to the criticism are evident in this description. Solipsism may further be implied by the fact that if ever abstract logical and mathematical entities are subjective, then the privacy and epistemic inaccessibility of the contents of thought by which one mind is sealed off from other minds, then there seems to be nothing outside the mind on which there can be a definite meeting of different minds, and thus no justification for belief in the existence of other minds."
Dale Jacquette, "Psychologism the Philosophical Shibboleth," from Philosophy, Psychology, and Psychologism, pages 14-15
With a substitution of Jacquette's term "Psychologism" for the Parmenidean term "the Subjective Way to Truth," we can get a sense of what concerned Parmenides. If we would be subjective, then we would in no way be able to arrive at truth for the reasons explained here by Jacquette.
The possibility of degenerating into complete skepticism makes going along with Parmenides too risky. So, instead of allowing that logic allowed for any kind of skepticism, Levi instead adopted the idea that subjectivity was a problem for rhetoric instead of logic.
There is a problem with Parmenides' account of how one can resolve conflicts by relying on logical arguments. If one tries to answer the question how their terms could get their meaning, one is faced with a dilemma. Both the Subjective and the Objective Ways seem impossible. And so, one might be tempted to argue that in argumentation, one is faced with a choice between logical and rhetorical arguments. I think Levi sees the field of argument divided in this way. At one point Levi is trying to explain the contrast he's been working with between "critical thinking" and "logic." He says,
"As used in this book, the term (critical thinking) seems to be a synonym for "Rhetoric" because most of the first part of the book is written from the viewpoint of Rhetoric. For example, to determine whether an argument has been given, you are told to consider whether the speaker or writer is engaged in an argument. By contrast, Logic has nothing to say about the need to consider whether any arguing is being done, whether the position taken is on a controversial issue. To properly read an argument, you need to take into account the audience being addressed, the point of view of the arguer, the issues that divide the arguer from his or her opposition. Nothing was said about the need to consider these aspects of the rhetorical context in the lessons on Logic."
Don Levi, Critical Thinking and Logic, page 426
I want to grant there is a difference between "Critical Thinking" and Logic in their accounts of argument. One way to show the difference is in the differences between their definitions of argument as Levi specifies them. So, if we look at the definition of argument according to "critical thinking," we see,
"An argument is given when an arguer takes a position or stand on an issue and offers support or backing for it.
An argument is given in connection with a controversy, but the controversy is not the argument. We are talking about an argument given for or against a position in the controversy: to be giving an argument, arguers must be doing more than merely taking a stand; they must offer support for it."
Don Levi, Critical Thinking and Logic, page 27
I want to point out that this account of argument involves three main points, they involve controversies, positions, and support. I want to contrast this account with what Levi says is the account of argument offered by Logic. He tells us,
In Logic the word "argument" is used in the sense it has when we speak of giving an argument for or against something. This was true for the use of the word in Critical Thinking, and it is also true for its use in Logic. In Logic, as in Critical Thinking, an argument is not a verbal fight or controversy. Rather, it is a position taken and backed up or supported by evidence or reasons. When an argument used in a fight is considered, Logic is interested only in the argument, not the fight.
A definition is offered in this lesson that refers not to the argument as actually stated, but to a paraphrase of it:
An argument is a statement that is given support, support that takes the form of a statement or statements.
This definition is to be used in determining whether something is an argument."
Don Levi, Critical Thinking and Logic, page 212.
I want to point out that in the definition Levi offers here for argument from the point of view of Logic he tells us they involve only two of the elements involved in critical thinking. Logical arguments involve only positions and their supports.
This is not just an oversight by Levi. He thinks it is important that Logical arguments do not involve anything about controversies. He thinks that the interest in the controversy is a psychological matter. If it has to do with
what might satisfy the audience of an argument, then it cannot be of interest to Logic which is only concerned with whether the conclusions of an argument follow from their premises. He tells us,
What is the fight about? For the logician, it does not even matter whether the argument is given by a participant in a controversy. Nor does it matter what the participants are really fighting about. What concerns the participants is a psychological matter. And this is of no relevance when it comes to logical appraisal. The question of appraisal is whether the argument is correct. And to answer this question, you do not need to know what is bothering the other side if that means considering something psychological rather than logical. So, the flaw in the rhetorical approach can be stated quite succinctly:
The emphasis on what is at issue confuses psychological with logical matters.
From the point of view of Logic, it is irrelevant how someone came to think something; all that matters is whether the premises provide sufficient support for the conclusion.
Don Levi, Critical Thinking and Logic, page 428.
Levi has an argument that Logic is objective where its alternative is subjective. He argues that the alternative is rhetoric and that rhetorical arguments involve psychological, and hence, subjective matters.
I began by saying I thought that I was initially wrong about Parmenides being concerned just about whether logical arguments were subjective or objective. I had supposed that since there is a question about what the terms of logical arguments might mean, Parmenides tells us we have a problem with the Subjective Way, whereas for him, these problems are solved by taking the Objective Way.
Levi argues that Logic just is objective, and it is objective in contrast to rhetoric which is subjective. For Levi, there seems to be no Parmenidean problem about how logical arguments can lead one to Truth.
I think Parmenides has a good reply to Levi. He can argue that Levi has a confused understanding of Rhetoric. The problem is with any account of argument that involves a form/content distinction. For any such argument, according to this interpretation of Parmenides, there will be a problem finding one's way to Truth. The account that Levi gives of rhetorical argument is confused, according to Parmenides, because rhetorical argument is like logical argument in an accurate account of it involving a form/content distinction.
In order to explain what I mean here, and support my claim that rhetoric is like logic in that both are matters of a form/content distinction, I want to first show how this distinction works in logic. A good argument in logic, or at least in deductive logic, has to do with validity. Levi explains this,
Assessing an argument after it has been put into strict form -- this is where Logic shines. It offers both a theory and a practice. The theory tells you what makes an argument correct. Because of the theory, Logic is also able to offer something practical: techniques for determining whether an argument is correct.
This chapter discusses a concept that is of critical importance in Logic: the concept of validity. Validity is deductive logical correctness. You will recall from the last chapter that logical correctness is a term of argument appraisal; what is appraised is the relationship between the premises and the conclusion. An argument is logically correct just in case the premises constitutes good support for the conclusion. In Deductive Logic, this relationship of logical correctness --validity-- is even stronger: an argument is valid just in case when the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.
This chapter is about how Deductive Logic explains the "must" in this definition; how when the premises are true the conclusion must be true. The necessity has nothing to do with the subject matter of the argument--it is field invariant. This is the first lesson of this chapter. The validity of an argument is a function of its form, not its content. The second lesson is about this concept of logical form. An argument is valid just in case it has a valid argument form. This is the subject of the third lesson. When an argument has a valid argument form then no argument of that form can have true premises and a false conclusion. This is where the must comes in: when an argument has a valid argument form then there is no possibility of refuting the argument by finding another one of the same form with true premises and a false conclusion.
Don Levi, Critical Thinking and Logic, page 249.
So, according to Levi, a good argument in Deductive Logic is a valid argument, and validity is a matter of the form of the argument, and nothing to do with the content of any of its terms.
Now, according to Levi, Logic involves a distinction between the form of its arguments and their contents. For example, in the following argument,
If p, then q.
p, therefore q.
the form of the argument involves there being an if this, implying then that. So if this occurs, then that occurs. The content involves whatever this or that might be in any particular case. The content is whatever the p's and q's might stand for. Levi is saying the validity of this argument is about the form of it, and has nothing to do with whatever the p's and q's might stand for. This is why Logicians can talk about good arguments, or valid arguments, without ever having to talk about specific examples.
The question that Parmenides raises, I believe, is whether Rhetorical arguments must be understood to involve the same distinction. So, what I have in mind is the fact that Logical arguments involve only position and support. Do Rhetorical arguments involve only controversy and position?
Even though I've raised this question, I'm not sure it needs to be answered in detail. All I think I need to do is suggest that Levi has equivocated his account of critical thinking which involves the three elements of controversy, position, and support, with a quite different account of rhetorical argument that involves only the elements of controversy and position.
http://dansdata.blogsome.com/2006/10/13/ultrasonic-baby-cleaning/
There is something to a distinction between style and content in rhetoric. We can see this in this comment,
The premise that in many cases writers entertain, move, and inspire us less by what they say (their matter) than by how they say it (their manner) would seem irrefutable. To name some obvious examples, Charles Dickens, Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion, and Dave Barry are read and honored hardly at all for their profound insights about the human condition, much more for their intoxicating and immediately identifiable ways of expressing themselves -- their styles.
http://chronicle.com/subscribe/login?url=/weekly/v50/i49/49b01601.htm
If what we do in rhetoric is accomplished by the manner in which we present an argument, and not the content, as suggested here, then one might be able to argue, unlike Levi, that rhetoric is like logic in involving a form/content distinction which raises the question how the terms of rhetorical arguments get their meanings.
There's also some support to the idea that rhetoric is just a matter of controversy and position in how Plato was taken to oppose the sophist practitioners of rhetoric. His idea was that rhetoricians were not so much interested in the supports he thought that a position need to have, and they were interested more in how the way they made arguments won people over. We can see this in this comment,
Some of the early philosophers, like Plato (428-347 B.C.), disliked the sophists not only because of their boasting and costly fees for instruction, but also for their apparent willingness to forego the pursuit of the truth in lieu of winning a case or defending their position through stylist devices (Plato, p. 31-32). Plato associated the term "rhetoric" with the sophists as having only to do with aspects of speech delivery, not the search for "truth" which he described to be "noble" (Plato, p. 37).
The claim I'm making here is in support of the idea that we understand rhetoric, as well as logic, as kinds of argumentation that involve a distinction between form or style and content. Parmenides is claiming in On Nature, not just that logic has a problem with how the terms of its arguments are determined, but any way we would understand argumentation that involves a form/content distinction would have the same problem. He would intend to include rhetoric along with logic as having this problem. The problem would be that the Subjective Way would lead to skepticism, and the Objective Way involving our having to obtain the viewpoint of the Goddess would be impossible.
It is not surprising to claim that rhetoric involves skeptical conclusions. We can go to this discussion to remind ourselves that practitioners of rhetoric were said to propound skeptical views,
The Sophists' skepticism, noted by Hamlyn, was connected to their advocacy of rhetoric; many key Sophists (e.g., Gorgias) were teachers and practioners of the emerging "art" of rhetoric. At the risk of oversimplification, the sophistic attitude might be summed up as follows: People cannot, in any ultimate sense, determine knowledge or truth, but they can make determinations about what is better or worse for them and their community. Rhetoric became crucial for the Sophists because it was a means for making determinations of what was better and what was worse. Plato's attack on the Sophists in works such as the "Gorgias" focused heavily on their skeptical or relativistic approach to knowledge. Plato argued that rhetorical practice was dangerous precisely because it was based on doxa (unreliable opinion) and not episteme (truth or knowledge).
James Jasinski, "Episteme, Rhetoric as," Sourcebook on Rhetoric, Key Concepts in Contemporary Rhetorical Studies, page 219.
This may be a crude way of putting the problem for Levi, but he wanted to avoid the problem he saw allowing logical argument to have any issues with subjectivity, so he argued that rhetoric itself was a matter of psychology and thus subjectivity. I am imagining that Parmenides would say, in response to Levi, that the problem is not just that logic has terms whose meanings need to be determined, but that logic is understood to involve a distinction between the form and the content of its arguments, and that's why it has a problem with the determination of the meanings of its terms. The problem with rhetoric is that it too should be understood as being a matter of the form and content of its arguments. According to this argument, Parmenides would claim that rhetoric as well as logic has a problem with determining the meanings of the terms of its arguments.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Haze_and_clouds_obscure_the_setting_sun_-_NOAA.jpg
Levi obscures the problems rhetoric has with Parmenides by equivocation rhetoric with critical thinking. Yes, we can understand how our arguments deal with controversies, how we might support the positions we take on those controversies, and how in the course of arguing we might resolve disputes. This would be what we would get out of critical thinking. But, this is not to say that we can do this based on our understanding of rhetoric because critical thinking, and the understanding of argument it provides in terms of controversy, position, and support, is not the same thing as rhetoric, understood as argumentation in terms of just controversy and position.
It may seem odd to argue that Levi has conflated critical thinking with rhetoric when it seems to many people profitless because it is impossible to come up with a definite clear account of rhetoric. We can hear this in Jasinski's discussion,
For over two millennia, philosophers, teachers, scholars, and citizen advocates have discussed the concept of rhetoric and formulated definitions of it. Looking back on this multivoiced tradition of thought, Douglass Ehninger has written: “The continuing dialogue on the question, What is rhetoric? except as an academic exercise, is largely profitless. If there is no one generic rhetoric which, like a Platonic Idea, is lurking in the shadows awaiting him [sic] who shall have the acuteness to discern it, the search for a defining quality can only end in error or frustration.”
http://www2.ups.edu/arches/2002Spring/biblio_sourcebook0602.htm
James Jasinski, Sourcebook on Rhetoric, from Introduction
Levi suggests that his discussion of critical thinking could have been easily called a discussion of rhetoric, he doesn't see much of a difference. But, he and others have a fairly clear idea of "critical thinking." At least, they don't seem to have philosophical problems about it. Here's a fair shot at characterizing "critical thinking,"
To think critically is, among other things, to be fair and open-minded while thinking carefully about what to do or what to believe. If you are a critical thinker, you will assess the reasons for and against doing something and then make your decision on the basis of a fair assessment, not on the basis of your emotions nor on what your astrology column says nor on whether the person giving you the reasons is looking you in the eye while sounding sincere.
Someone claims you should buy their old sofa. When faced with whether to accept this claim, the critical thinker doesn't flip a coin to decide, but rather weighs the pros and cons.
Thinking critically about a claim involves interpreting it correctly, accepting or rejecting it only for good reasons, and drawing reasonable conclusions from it.
I want to say that this account of "critical thinking" is consistent and involves the definition of argument presented by Levi,
An argument is given when an arguer takes a position or stand on an issue and offers support or backing for it.
Don Levi, Critical Thinking and Logic, page 27
I am wanting to separate what Levi says about critical thinking from what understanding we might have of rhetoric because I do not think they are the same. They are different for a number of reasons. But, I want to highlight the claim that rhetoric has involved a distinction between form and content that I do not think we should find in critical thinking. Here is a comment made about the form/content distinction in rhetoric,
...rhetoricians divided form and content not to place content above form, but to highlight the interdependence of language and meaning, argument and ornament, thought and its expression. It means that linguistic forms are not merely instrumental, but fundamental—not only to persuasion, but to thought itself.
This division is highly problematic, since thought and ideas (res) have been prioritized over language (verba) since at least the time of Plato in the west. Indeed, language is a fundamentally social and contingent creature, subject to change and development in ways that metaphysical absolutes are not. For rhetoricians to insist that words and their expression are on par with the ideals and ideas of abstract philosophy has put rhetoric at odds with religion, philosophy, and science at times.
http://rhetoric.byu.edu/Encompassing%20Terms/Content%20and%20Form.htm
I think we can explain the difference between rhetoric and critical thinking along the lines of the way I have previously distinguished critical thinking and logic by the differences in the way these things understand argument. Whereas critical thinking claims that argument involves the three elements of controversy, position, and support, logic claims argument from its point of view involves only position and support. Rhetoric, as I think Parmenides would claim for it, involves a definition of argument involving only controversy and position.
The reason philosophers like Plato looked down on Sophists who advocated rhetoric as an account of reason was that rhetoric did not argue that an arguer should be able to give reasons or support for their position. Plato thought that an argument had to promote strong reasons for one's position, or it wasn't reasonable. We can see that Thrasymachus's problem when he promoted his view of justice wasn't that he didn't have a number of positions, all of which Socrates seemed able to knock down, but that he did not offer much if anything in support of the positions he claimed answered Socrates' question. This response to Sophists would be a problem for rhetoric as understood by the definition I have offered for it involving controversy and position, but not for rhetoric if it was understood as having the definition of argument Levi claims comes from critical thinking involving controversy, position, and support.
I'm not arguing that Levi has come up with some innovative way of characterizing Rhetoric when he said it was subjective, whereas logic was objective. It seems philosophers have tried to save logic from the attack made upon it by Parmenides ever since Socrates. I'm saying to understand Parmenides correctly, one has to see that rhetoric as well as logic are ways of understanding argument, and therefore reason, which involve a distinction between their argument's form and their content.
Parmenides argues that any argument, whether logical or rhetorical, will find itself unable to arrive at Truth because one will have only two choices. Like all mortals, one will have to follow the Subjective Way to Truth which doesn't get one there. It degenerates into skepticism. Knowledge and Truth is impossible if we determine the sense of these arguments subjectively. Or, if we try to determine the meaning for their terms Objectively, we have to rely on fictional literary devices like the Goddess.
Socrates and Levi may try to obscure this dilemma by arguing that Logic doesn't have a problem with the determination of the meaning of its terms. They may argue that rhetoric understood as being about psychology, is where argumentation is subjective. At this point one might hear from Hume, another philosopher who has thought about this question, who will point out that reason, understood as a matter of logical argument, cannot move us to take a stand or to change, and that it is the passions alone that get us to do, say, or think anything. This argument is to say that logic as well as rhetoric understood in terms of the form and content of their arguments cannot explain how we might resolve conflicts.
http://www.bun.kyoto-u.ac.jp/phisci/Gallery/hume.html
According to Parmenides, if we rely on an account of reason involving either logical or rhetorical argument, and both are understood to involve a form vs. content distinction, then we cannot allow that reason will allow us to resolve conflicts. We will be forced to travel the Subjective Way to Truth and fail because knowledge and truth are impossible, the Objective Way to Truth and fail because the viewpoint of the Goddess is fictional, or have to rely on our passions, and the reliance on force, including violence, stealth, and deceit, to resolve conflict.
One could wonder, then, what we should make of critical thinking. I will suggest that critical thinking understood as advocating the claim that reason is a matter of argument involving controversy, position, and support, is contrasted with any of the variations on the claim that reason is a matter of arguments understood to involve form/content distinction.
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