I recommend emphatically that you refrain from speaking about matters of which you have no knowledge; specifically, what illusions I may or may not have. Unless you can point to anywhere in this thread where I have even suggested that emotions don’t influence my beliefs or decisions, I’ll thank you to keep your ignorant musings to yourself.
Without logic, there is no argument. The logic may be faulty, or improperly applied, but once you have made an assertion and attempted to support it, you have invoked logic.
I have no idea. I don’t even know if he has children.
We have different ideas about what constitutes an argument. Not all declarative statements arguments.
That’s an argument, but a poor one, in that you have not established that I hold this belief.
Ok. I clicked the link and the first definition was
I don’t see that contradicting my earlier post.
I do see you being emotional about logic, the point I’m making, btw. And I see you unnaturally proscribing the word “argument” to a philosophical/logical word. I think you’ll find that’s a bit off. Within common life an argument can be intensely emotional.
Please lay off ForumBot. They’re making some excellent points. Damasio’s Descartes Error is good too. Incidentally.
A statement offered *in support of an assertion *is an argument. A simple declarative statement is not.
Pleas elaborate.
So what? An emotional argument can still be logical. The two are not mutually exclusive.
Perhaps. But their points about my “illusions” have fuck all to do with reality.
Do I need to say anything more on that point? You’re being defensive and not hearing the message.
Shortly, maybe I should change my tactics. Relate with you more, become a full human, empathize with what you are saying, share your anger… you might find it easier to agree with me once I acknowledge that I get mad too when people do wildly illogical things. Or believe and espouse wholly illogical positions (and try to put them into textbooks). I do.
Does it help to know that? Honest question.
You aren’t putting this in a court context. If I were fighting for visitation with my kids (I have kids), this would be crucial. And my argument would be fundamentally emotional. Logic wouldn’t carry the day at all.
I would have to visibly show love, affection, care, and point to evidence of me doing so each day. All emotional points.
Yes, but it’s usually supported with emotion. As you are doing here. Granted, condescension, pomposity and self aggrandizement aren’t usually all that persuasive…
All that’s being asserted is that it isn’t usually logic that persuades people of a certain argument. In court? Yes. But most people don’t live in court. Most people are persuaded on an emotional level. Of course they are; they’re not machines.
On preview, I see you posted this:
That’s rather the point. No one is asserting that all arguments should be illogical. Just that those logical arguments are more persuasive when there’s an emotional element involved.
Especially when it isn’t an accusing emotion - like anger.
Love, empathy, approval, validation, active listening - those all work. Anger is a punitive emotion that tries to put people into a mold. As a species, we need it, but in certain contexts… it’s maladaptive. Kinda like logic, that.
All things in season.
So… things to which logic doesn’t apply shouldn’t have logic applied to them?
Fine. I won’t delve into your belief in God’s existence, but I’ll feel free to keep applying logic and reason to point out that God’s existence has no basis and beliefs about God’s existence are wildly inconsistent which, while people are free to believe in it, calls into serious question if it exists at all.
Not always both. In writing my answer, I kept going back to my psycho ex-wife. She would freely admit that I was right and that she couldn’t possibly argue with my conclusions, then she’d do what she had previously decided to do anyway, based on nothing more than her emotions. Knowing full well (from her previous experience) that things weren’t going to work out how she wanted them to work out. It was all “I feel X, therefore I’m going to do Y. Period.”
As I’ve implied here, and have clearly posted in other threads to which you were a participant - I am an atheist. Arguably more a strong one than a weak one.
Logic has a time and a place. When your wife comes home and is crying about some event - like someone dies. It’s not the time to bust out logic. It’s time to empathize. (Using the you general in this paragraph)
A lot of logic afficianados turn it into a near religion. And demonize, easily, those who disagree.
I have a problem with how emotional the “logical people” get. That’s all.
We agree on more than you might think.
That happens. I have an ex, too… :-P. I saw some of the same. 
I think MOST people don’t do that very often. We all do it (“It’s the principle!!!”). But… it’s a matter of frequency. I will concede that there are those who fit with your point.
They scare me.
This commercial contains within it the argument that you should spend money at McDonalds. Nestled within that argument is a number of other arguments, each of which you may or may not accept. A few ones are: black people like McDonalds, McDonalds makes you happy, McDonalds understands you, McDonalds is fun, Chicken nuggets are fun, McDonalds will better your relationship with your children. Any one of these points you may accept or not accept, but they each serve as a support for the argument “you should spend money at McDonalds.” You may not accept this argument(although, as I showed earlier, you probably do, whether you realize it or not), but is very much an argument with different reasons for why you should accept it nestled within.
You may dispute my use of argument supporting argument. Let’s instead go back to my example, “I didn’t rape that woman.” I want you to believe that, just as McDonalds wants you to believe that spending money in their stores is a good idea. If I simply say that, and you have a belief that I did rape her, then my argument was not persuasive. If I instead bolster my argument with “I didn’t rape that woman, I was in another state at the time,” I have introduced a second argument, which you are also free to accept or reject. This argument may require further bolstering (this photo proves I was in Georgia. This receipt proves that I was in Georgia), but none of this changes the fact that the essential argument, regardless of whatever else I may or may not say to persuade you of its truth, is “I did not rape that woman.”
A declarative statement is a matter of grammar, completely unrelated to topic. All declarative statements are an argument that you are free to accept or reject and their relation to other declarative statements does not change that fact.
And for the record, ForumBot is not a “they.” I am a “he”, which I don’t expect you to guess, but I do expect you to at least get the number of people I am correct.
Fine. If not God, then whatever beliefs you want to protect from logic. What difference does it make?
Well, duh. Logic tells us to behave in a manner that doesn’t make the situation worse for no good reason. If this means being soothing and consoling, fine. If, however, the wife is crying because someone told her the family kitten was run over, a logical response to the situation might be to show her the kitten, unharmed, if possible.
Whaddya want, a rule or something?
Again the accusation stuff. I’ll grant that some of your assumptions seem reasonable, but you are wrong again.
I’m not trying to protect anything from logic. Quite the opposite. I’m saying that given a logical premise that contradicts what someone believes, you will be more effective in persuading them if you empathize first. Relate. Admit that you can see how they arrived at that conclusion.
Then explain why you think what you do. Build good feeling. Build validation. Build them up, make them want to relate to you. Then bring in the logic.
Instead… logic is made to look like an ass rather often.
I like logic too much to see it made to look that foolish.
But no one is saying that. Just that logic, in and of itself, is not persuasive. If the logical argument is one with which you happen to agree, it will probably resonate more. If you disagree, you’ll look for ways to punch it full of holes. But either way, it strikes an emotional chord. No one views anything completely dispassionately and without emotion.
Well, not really, but I’ll be even more direct if it’ll help.
Sometimes logic is the best response, sometimes not-logic is the best response, sometimes it’s a combination of logic and not-logic, and it is logical to use logic to determine which.
I agreed with everything until your “use logic to determine which.”
I’d submit it’s reason. We confuse reason for logic all the time. My emotional understanding of how to respond to my hypothetical wife situation would be far more effective than logic. I’d have to relate to how she would feel.
If I’m really using logic alone to make that determination, I’d be worried that I’m not a supportive spouse.
You don’t need logic to identify a need. Or to fill it.
As i always said:
It’s not that I’m opposed to using logic, I just rarely need to.
I’m not getting the difference between reason and logic, as you’re using it, OP.