#Rational Discourse

[omegaphilosophia]

Enhancing Everyday Conversations: Applying Logic for Effective Communication

Logic is a powerful tool that can greatly enhance our everyday conversations. By employing logical frameworks and models, we can construct sound arguments, analyze information, resolve disagreements, and foster a deeper understanding of various topics. In this blog post, we will explore some valuable models and frameworks that can assist us in using logic effectively during our conversations, promoting rational discourse and critical thinking.

Socratic Method: Uncovering the Truth through Inquiry- The Socratic Method, named after the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, involves the art of asking insightful questions to stimulate critical thinking. By engaging in thoughtful questioning, we can challenge assumptions, identify inconsistencies, and encourage a deeper examination of our beliefs and reasoning. This method helps us navigate conversations with intellectual curiosity and promotes logical analysis.

Toulmin Model: Constructing and Evaluating Arguments- The Toulmin Model provides a structured approach to constructing and evaluating arguments. Its elements include the claim (the main statement), grounds (supporting evidence), warrant (connecting the claim and grounds), backing (additional support), qualifier (specifying the strength of the argument), and rebuttal (addressing counterarguments). By employing the Toulmin Model, we can formulate logical arguments and critically assess the strength and validity of others' arguments.

Rhetorical Appeals: Balancing Emotions, Credibility, and Logic- Rhetorical appeals, comprising ethos (credibility), pathos (emotions), and logos (logic), are persuasive tools that help us communicate effectively. While emotions and credibility play important roles in conversations, incorporating logical appeals allows us to present sound reasoning, evidence, and logical coherence. By striking a balance between these appeals, we can influence others through rational persuasion.

Argument Mapping: Visualizing Logical Structures- Argument mapping involves visually representing the structure of an argument using diagrams or software tools. This approach helps us visualize the logical flow of information, identify premises and conclusions, and evaluate the strength and coherence of an argument. Employing argument mapping can bring clarity to complex discussions and facilitate a more systematic evaluation of ideas.

Decision-Making Models: Weighing Options with Logic- Decision-making models, such as cost-benefit analysis, SWOT analysis, or decision trees, integrate logical reasoning to assess options and make informed choices. By applying these models, we can organize relevant information, consider different factors, and weigh the pros and cons based on logical evaluation. These frameworks enable us to make decisions that align with our goals and values.

Critical Thinking Frameworks: Nurturing Rational Discourse- Critical thinking frameworks, such as Bloom's Taxonomy or Paul-Elder's Model of Critical Thinking, provide a structured approach to developing and applying critical thinking skills. These frameworks guide us in analyzing information, evaluating evidence, and constructing logical arguments during conversations. By cultivating critical thinking skills, we can engage in more meaningful and intellectually stimulating discussions.

By incorporating logical models and frameworks into our everyday conversations, we can elevate the quality of our communication. The Socratic Method encourages inquiry and critical thinking, while the Toulmin Model assists in constructing and evaluating arguments. Rhetorical appeals help us balance emotions, credibility, and logic, ensuring persuasive effectiveness. Argument mapping aids in visualizing logical structures, decision-making models facilitate informed choices, and critical thinking frameworks nurture rational discourse.

[artist-issues]

Yesterday my German coworker yelled at me because she firmly believes no world religion can know anything, for sure, about God, so there’s no way to call anyone “right” or “wrong.”

And it took all my strength not to say, “so you’re saying I’m wrong”

because truth in love, truth in love

But seriously. What actually is the deal with the discourse that goes: “you can’t know anything for sure about God.”

“Wait, yes you can, like I know you well enough to know for sure that you’re from ____ Place—“

“—no no, no, that’s different. This is about God.”

“How’s it different?”

“You can’t say someone’s wrong about God.”

“…Well, can I say anything that’s wrong about you? Like, if I say, ‘_____ Person likes to kick puppies,’ can’t you say I’m wrong about you?”

“Yes but I’m not God.”

“Right, but you’re a real person who exists, so there are some things that I can know for sure about you—“

“THAT’S DIFFERENT”

No it’s not! It’s not ‘different.’ Quit acting like it’s different. Christians don’t believe in a set of ideals or the properties of rocks or some mystical vibe that nobody can be right or wrong about. We believe in a living and existing deity with an unchanging, eternally constant personality, and will, and DESIGN, outside of ourselves. So we can be wrong about Him. You can be wrong about Him. Everyone can be wrong—OR RIGHT—about Him, because He actually exists.

He’s not some imaginary friend who’s open to anybody’s interpretation. You get to claim an independent identity, character traits, and a personal history, but the God of the universe doesn’t? What is happening?

I’ll tell you what’s happening. You’re fine with me believing in an imaginary figment that’s only real to me, but as soon as He starts having an effect on the outer world, as if He actually exists and you have to start making some decisions based on that fact, THEN you’re not fine.

[morlock-holmes]

I didn't say I think "dominant" culture values rational systems (and what dominant culture do you even mean), just that rationalism falls way short on its claims to do so. And I dunno, this is personal, but I can't agree that the subculture that told me "actually you should reframe your entire life around your scrupulosity" is much of an improvement, even if the bar is extremely low. Not when that subculture is full of all the kinds of social manipulation and cruelty it claims to be above.

I'm making very narrow claims that don't really have anything to do with what you're talking about here.

I have trouble communicating how much even high functioning autistic people have struggled with things that allistic people "just know", (a phrase I've heard again and again when interrogating allistic people).

Here's an example, which I believe I heard as a real life example although I can't recall where:

You have issues with the texture of clothing and there are only a few dress shirts you have that you can stand to wear. You have a sudden nose-bleed on one of your shirts and get blood all over the collar and down the front.

You launder the shirt but the blood stains have set in and are still very visible.

Should you wear that shirt to the office?

Most allistic people already know that the answer is, "almost certainly not."

An autistic person is likely to go through this process:

I have no idea if I should wear that shirt to the office or not, so let's figure it out.

Well, I have laundered the shirt so it is clean and sanitary, the stains are just visual blemishes.

All the social messages I've heard since I were a kid say that you can't judge a book by its cover and that looks don't matter, it's what's inside that counts.

And, I have a desk job, I wasn't hired to look a certain way, but rather to produce a certain kind of work, and wearing this comfortable shirt makes it easy for me to work without being distracted by uncomfortable clothes.

Therefore, logically, I can't imagine that anybody at the office will object to my wearing this shirt.

That last sentence is key, and I really want you to focus on it. You **aren't** thinking, "Well, maybe the button down drones at the office think this is a problem, but I know better than they do."

No, you aren't thinking that at all. You're thinking, "I put together the clues so I'm sure everyone at the office will feel the exact same way as I do"

And when they don't, it's a shock.

Now, I want you to further imagine that this is how you reason about other people and the world, but through some cosmic joke you've ended up at an employer where dressing right is incredibly important.

You'll get yelled at by your boss if you wear the wrong thing and your coworkers will turn on you. But there's no published dress code, you're just supposed to "just know" what an employee should wear.

But look at your reasoning above! You *don't* "just know" what the fashion is. Imagine you eventually say, to your boss and some coworkers, "I'm starting to get really stressed about not knowing what to wear to work, I really want to wear the right thing and be part of the team but I don't know how and I'm getting stressed out."

Immediately everybody turns on you. Your boss calls you into his office to ream you out. Your coworkers start a petition to fire you because you're obviously trying to undermine the valuable work culture that they have worked so hard to create. Concerned work friends pull you aside and go, "Jesus, are you crazy? We all stress out about what to wear but you never say it in public!"

Think about what that might feel like.

Now imagine you get fired and at your next job the boss is like, "Hey, the dress code is pretty important here, here's a list of what we expect. Sometimes some stuff is kind of on the edge so you won't know, but it's always fine to ask me if something is appropriate, and if you accidentally wear something that's on the wrong side that's fine, I'll let you know and we'll work on getting you some more appropriate stuff, but you won't get in trouble."

I want you to really think about what it would feel like, as an autistic person, to be at that second job after decades working at the first. To suddenly know you could ask questions or make mistakes at something that doesn't come easily to you after so much time in an environment where you're told that this stuff comes easily to everyone and people only *pretend* to be bad at it to get away with things.

What you're doing is coming in and going, "Well, that second job might be bad for other, unrelated reasons."

I will completely grant that, you're utterly correct. That second job might be terrible for a bunch of unrelated reasons.

But I'm never going back to that first job.

[hexagr]

The nice thing about small talk and seemingly boring thoughts is that they help break up narratives on the way to more interesting thoughts.

[ingravinoveritas]

"Can't wait to see you lose" "Goodnight from me and my favorite loser"

Move along. Nothing to see here...

[thirdity]

“I don’t know,” “I refuse to judge”: as scandalous as an agrammatical sentence: doesn’t belong to the language of the discourse. Variations on the “I don’t know.” The obligation to “be interested” in everything that is imposed on you by the world: prohibition of noninterest, even if provisional.

Roland Barthes, The Neutral

[sad-endings-suck]

and if I said that lots of mizu/akemi shippers are actually mizu/fem self-insert and mizu/fem oc shippers then what?

[tuituipupu]

wait are people for real for real mad about the hair like actually? mad? i get having preferences and complaining (as long as it’s not to his face or abusive like calm down it is hair) but like… actually?

[razistoricharka]

porn discourse on this site is so frustrating, it inevitably revolves around vague bullshit social critique and platitudes. it presents no solution other than "x and y are bad, food for thought" and "no it's not". the existence of an industry is the problem, as financial and material pressures are an unacceptable modulation of consent. if this industry is done away with and there is a strong legal barrier to the commodification of sex, there is no systemic issue. all that'd be left would be, what, pornography made by willing exhibitionists which i wouldn't care about - as it's no longer a systemic issue. can anyone be level-headed about this.

[vestaldestroyer]

I really don't want to put "proship" in my desc because I don't want to invite stupid fandom discourse into my house, but also every time someone with "proship dni" in their desc or pinned follows me, a day is shaved off my lifespan.

I've said it a billion times and I'll say it again:

IF YOU THINK IT'S OKAY TO HARASS PEOPLE OVER LIKING FICTIONAL CONTENT YOU DEEM PROBLEMATIC, GET OUT.

[fookinstevienicks]

so I replied this elsewhere but I think I have an excellent point so I'ma recreate it here so you all have to see it

if it's racist for buck to date a white guy when Eddie hasnt been presented as an option

then why do you even want Eddie to date buck (a white dude)

and how isn't it racist to want Eddie to dump his latina girlfriend (or cheat on her) for buck, a white dude? 🤔🤔🤔

the answer is that none of those things are racist (well, a Discussion could be had about wanting to turn a Latino character into a lying cheater just to get your ship but y'all know what I mean) y'all are just once again appropriating fandom racism for your own purposes

[crownedwille]

I've come to the conclusion that loving young royals doesn't mean I can't be critical about it, maybe especially bc I love the show so much I have such strong feelings about it, good and bad and I can love parts of canon and agree with it and appreciate it but I don't have to love it all. I have accepted that it's okay if I don't accept the ending and I don't have to force myself to support it. It's okay to not agree with all of canon and it's okay to not side with all of the creators' intentions/views. Loving a show doesn't mean you have to take everything the writers say on face value and that's the only version that is allowed to exist. Canon isn't everything and fandom is about curating your own experience that makes you happy and not miserable. You don't have to dismiss canon in every aspect and ignore it entirely, that's certainly not what I want but there is a fine line between being canon respectful, allowing some parts to exist and sometimes, yes, you just have to say "fuck canon" and move on for your own sanity and wellbeing

[dreemurr-skelememer]

you're tagging utmv with 'undertale' hmmm, i get it.... It's that one person isn't it?

hilariously, ive been tagging all my work as undertale (both au and non-au) since like. 2016. and frankly im not changing my own system for whatever is going on LMAOOOOOOOOOOOO

[statementlou]

He cannot be the same man unfollowing mason greenwood and firing jordan green within days of the accusation coming out lol now that its liam he suddenly deems everything ok it seems

I'm sorry if you don't see a difference between how you treat a celebrity you don't know who repeatedly brutally raped and beat their partner while threatening their life, or an employee who serially engaged in predatory premeditated grooming and rape of multiple minors VS how you deal with a situation with a friend who, yes, committed emotional partner abuse, both by being clueless about the impact of their actions and by directly manipulating and pressuring their partner.

But I don't actually think the solution to a friend doing problematic things is necessarily to say "ah well, we had a nice run but you're dead to me now" rather than attempt to help them be better (which can in fact look like/ mean supporting them) although yes, I am aware that in that I differ from the bulk of people driving online discourse culture. We don't know for a fact that that's what Louis does! But we don't know it isn't either, and I personally do feel that there might be grounds for hope that the man who unfollowed Mason Greenwood and fired Jordan Green and tried again and again to singlehandedly put Anthony Russell in a better place, as well as various other people in his personal life struggling with addiction issues, including Liam himself for years now, might in fact care and have something to say to his friend about it all (over the last months and years one assumes, since unlike us he's had a front row seat to this whole situation all along). And yeah, about that... you do know that Louis has to have known about all this since long before yesterday right? And yet the suggestion seems to be that it becoming public knowledge should be the breaking point... like in the named situations above, them becoming public was relevant because he found out at the same time as us! If I believed Louis knew what JG was doing and that he only fired him because we found out I would NOT be here, yk? But no way is that the situation here, like hell I assume him and Liam were on the phone for hours at a time with Liam drunkenly freaking out like I can't raise a fucking kid! So I told her... blah blah blah... etc.

[musical-chick-13]

Wow, some of y'all really took the true statement "It's fucked-up that society tries to tell women what to do with their bodies" and somehow twisted it into, "It is impossible for a woman to ever truly make an informed decision about what to do with her body because she is at all times completely brainwashed by society."

[ingravinoveritas]

Taking a child with cancer and her story and actually making it about you/using it as an excuse to post a selfie is a level of self-absorbed and self-serving that I honestly did not know existed...