Thursday, August 6, 2009
+ Argumentum focuses discussion on specific points of contention
When a person claims "if you believe point A, then point B is the logical conclusion," he makes an implicit assertion that you Should believe point A. In the majority of these cases, you will find that point A is a moral assertion and one that is often politically incorrect to deny. You might preface your response with the fact that you do not accept the premise of his point, but this is often lost or misfit in the overall argument you intend on making. Either way, the fact remains that point A exists, and it is often tangential to the primary argument. How then can you attack point A without interrupting argumentative flow? On Argumentum, all you have to do is create a follow-up proposition with the same fundamental meaning as point A. You can then oppose it, without interfering with the original discussion. Hidden assumptions are the scourge of rational discussion, in the sense that once taken they allow for all sorts of obfuscation. Argumentum allows reason to triumph over such assumptions since it allows them to be attacked on an individual basis.
