Beg To Differ Logic Disputes

Joseph Agassi
Abraham Meidan
Beg
to
Differ
The Logic of Disputes
and Argumentation
Beg to Differ
Joseph Agassi • Abraham Meidan
Beg to Differ
The Logic of Disputes and Argumentation
Joseph Agassi Abraham Meidan
Tel-Aviv University WizSoft
Tel-Aviv, Israel Tel-Aviv, Israel
ISBN 978-3-319-33306-9 ISBN 978-3-319-33307-6 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33307-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016938794
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

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Preface
Most people get involved in arguments on some occasions or other. Unfortunately,

many of these arguments are frustrating. How can this frustration be avoided? How
should we conduct debates? These are the questions that the current handbook deals
with.
Our basic assumption is that you can learn the rules of conducting debates so that
you will enjoy them, and you will enjoy them mainly since you will learn from
them, but you will also enjoy the game that you can view the way you view a game
of chess.
Many other handbooks list suggestions as to how to conduct debates. Most of
them refer to debates in the debating clubs that many schools have instituted. They
list suggestions such as how you should look at your opponent, how you should
dress and how you should talk in order to win the debate without losing friends. The
present handbook does not belong to this genre. Our aim is to list the rules of debate
that make the activity as rational as possible.
The suggestions we make here are not new. Rather, they describe the way ratio-
nal debates are conducted in science. We suggest that implementing these rules in
the debates that you have with your friends and relations will reduce the frustration
and increase your ability to learn from them.
We will present our suggestions in two ways. The first few chapters present our
views on rational debate, in contrast with the views that propel other handbooks.
The next few chapters present the rules of rational debate. The following chapters
review debates in various fields and discuss the relevance of the rules to the debates.
We try there to review most of fields where popular debates take place.
The book addresses a wide audience—from students in secondary schools up to
scholars in universities, from readers with theoretical interests to readers with prac-
tical ones. We assume no previous knowledge, so that everyone can read this book,
yet we hope that our suggestions will interest and help everyone engaged in debates,
including experts in the art of debates.
v
vi Preface
We hope that you find our suggestions practical and efficient. If not, please let us
know, and tell us what is wrong with them. We thank you in advance for your
criticism and promise to correct and improve our suggestions in the next edition of
this handbook.
Tel-Aviv, Israel Joseph Agassi

Tel-Aviv, Israel Abraham Meidan
March 2015
Contents
1 On the Frustration That Debates Cause ............................................... 1

Avoiding Frustrating Debates ................................................................... 6
2 Resolving a Dispute ................................................................................. 15
Debates About Theories ............................................................................ 21
3 Improving the Wording of the Questions Under Dispute.................... 27
4 The Burden of Proof ............................................................................... 41
Generalizations and Existential Statements .............................................. 42
5 Disputes About General Facts and Theories ........................................ 45
Ad-hoc Theories ........................................................................................ 47
Simplicity .................................................................................................. 50
Predictions vs. Explanations ..................................................................... 52
The Theory of Evolution or Evolutionism ................................................ 55
Global Warming ........................................................................................ 57
6 Disputes About Statistical Generalizations........................................... 59
Accidental Patterns ................................................................................... 66
Debates About Healthy Diets .................................................................... 67
7 Metaphysical Disputes ............................................................................ 69
The Mind-Body Problem .......................................................................... 71
The Problem of Free Choice ..................................................................... 75
What Is Really the Case? .......................................................................... 77
Does God Exist? ....................................................................................... 78
8 Disputes About History and Predictions ............................................... 83
Long-Range Forecasts .............................................................................. 89
Global Famine ........................................................................................... 92
vii
viii Contents
9 Disputes About Technology, Including Medicine ................................. 93

Disputes About Advantages and Drawbacks ............................................ 97
Global Warming II .................................................................................... 99
10 Disputes About Ethics and Politics ........................................................ 101
The Choice of a Lifestyle .......................................................................... 101
Criteria for Ethics and Politics .................................................................. 102
Politics....................................................................................................... 108
Human Rights ........................................................................................... 110
The Problem of Inequality ........................................................................ 111
National Rights ......................................................................................... 112
Global Politics........................................................................................... 113
Popular Political Principles and Styles ..................................................... 114
11 Disputes About Aesthetics ...................................................................... 117
12 Conclusion ............................................................................................... 123
Appendix: Skepticism ..................................................................................... 127

A Brief History of Skepticism .................................................................. 129
Bibliography .................................................................................................... 133
Index ................................................................................................................. 135

Introduction
This handbook is an attempt to familiarize our readers in a very simple and easy
manner the rule of the proper procedures of rational debate. The aim of this exercise
is one: to reduce the frustration that many people experience when engaging in
debates. The rationale for it is our opinion that the proper conduct of debates is both
fun and great intellectual progress. It is an empirical observation that young people
who did not do well in school become excellent students after spending some time
in rabbinical schools, where they practice debates. If this is true, then it is but one
illustration of the fact that learning to debate by the rules makes debate fun and
debate is the fastest means for rapid progress in learning.
This then is a handbook on the theory and practice of argumentation. There are
many kinds of argument, public and private, everyday, political and scientific. Their
rules vary. We will touch upon this later on in some detail, but our chief concern is
in the private debate between two individuals, dialogue (two-speak), including those
dialogues that become public and engage public opinions. The paradigm cases of
such arguments are those presented in the early dialogues of Plato and the published
debates between the two greatest physicists of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein
and Niels Bohr. Those latter concern the different ways of looking at quantum the-
ory. And although today no physicist advocates the views of either Einstein or Bohr,
the debate still is a classic.
A paragraph about Plato’s early dialogues. They display the way to argue, and
they are also our documentation about the rules of debate. Indeed, one may look at
them as studies each devoted to a discussion of one rule. The leading character in
these dialogues is Socrates, the greatest expert on argument ever. Yet he viewed the
rules of the game as established and as well known. This does not mean that they are
followed. Indeed, Plato’s dialogues suggest very clearly that they were repeatedly
violated. Plato, it seems, suggested that some experts—they were called sophists
(sophos is wise)—taught aspiring politicians how to violate the rules of debates
with impunity so as to win elections. Of course, cheating in every game is to be
expected, and as we have today people who can teach how to cheat at cards or in
business, there must have been such people in antiquity; yet Plato’s sweeping charge
against all the sophists is now doubted. He disagreed with them about the purpose
ix
x Introduction
of the game itself. He taught that proper dialogues end with proofs and they said
proof is not attainable. The irony of the situation is that Plato’s teacher, Socrates
himself, was a sophist. To stress the sophist lesson that certain knowledge is unat-
tainable he disclaimed the title of a sophist, to say he was not wise but aspired to be
wise, he was not a sophist but a philosopher. (He invented this word.)
Though the rules of the game are known, their application is not unproblematic.
One of the most important philosophical texts of the twentieth century is The Logic
of Scientific Discovery by Karl Popper that presents science as a dialogue and the
rules of dialogue as the rules of science. This handbook owes much to Plato and to
Popper.
Now, speaking about scientific research, it is far from clear who plays the game;
Einstein suggested once, rather humorously, that it is the game between the
researcher and the Mother Nature. Some philosophers took this suggestion seri-
ously and offered the view of science as such a game, not the game of dialogue but
a game according to game theory. In this handbook we will not discuss game theory.
And although we will not shun from discussing scientific research—in a manner
that does not require of our reader to be in possession of special scientific knowl-
edge—our concern is elsewhere. The case studies that we present here are more
from familiar everyday situations, and for the reason that we have already men-
tioned. We want to influence your everyday conduct: we want to help you enrich
your daily experiences by helping you develop proficiency at debating that will
make you a friendly and helpful master of the art of debates. We offer many exam-
ples of common debates in the hope that some of them pertain to your experiences
and that you will try to apply our suggestions, however tentatively and see whether
they help you in your daily affairs, regardless of what occupation is or what your
interests are, provided that they contain some intellectual component. We promise
that this component will grow and to the benefit of both your intellectual and your
social standing.
Tel-Aviv University Joseph Agassi

Tel-Aviv, Israel
WizSoft Abraham Meidan
Tel-Aviv, Israel
Spring 2015
Chapter 1
On the Frustration That Debates Cause
Abstract In contemporary society disputes are usually considered frustrating and

thus painful. This handbook advocates the opposite view: disputes can and should
be fruitful and therefore enjoyable. Nevertheless, it is true: disputes can be frustrat-
ing. This book lists practical recommendations for rules that help avoid frustrating
debates and construct fruitful ones.
All societies we know prefer agreement over disagreement. This leads to stagnation,
of course, since a new idea is very likely to conflict with familiar ones. Yet the famil-
iar ones are pleasant; they come with childhood memories, they come with mutual
understanding and exchanging compliments around the tribal campfire. For, most
societies are tribal; the most forceful feeling of belonging to the tribe is sharing
values and all sorts of ideas that congeal into worldviews. The sense of tribal togeth-
erness is the sense of distinctness, and distinctness comes easy with distinct myths
and rituals. Thus, the distinction between us and them is through the difference in
traditions that comprise myths and rituals.
Come to think of it, this is not exact: first we have a vague idea of the traditions
of other tribes, and we know that we are right; as tribal traditions mature, some
members of the tribe meet with traditions of other tribes, and the question rises seri-
ously as to attitudes towards different traditions: first we know that we differ from
them and of course we are right, and then, as we learn more about their traditions,
we face seriously the question, who is right, we or they? We then compare tradi-
tional myths and find that they are not so different. Thus, Ishtar is Esther, is
Aphrodite, is Venus.
Come to think of it, this is not surprising. All these goddesses are symbols for
beauty, and beauty is one. What may be different is ideas about the nature of things;
some tribe has more knowledge about sticks and some are better informed of stones.
This hardly makes a difference between tribes: when one tribe can learn something
from another tribe, there can hardly be objection to their doing so. Some myths
conflict with each other, or at least seem to. For example, how many elements are
there? The Greeks say, four; the Chinese say five. We can reconcile these two views.
On the whole, it is ancient knowledge that any two conflicting ideas can be recon-
ciled with each other. This is hard to believe, and perhaps it is an exaggeration. This
matters little here, since this handbook does not address this issue; rather, it concerns
with disputes, and more so with the pleasure of disagreement. The idea that conflict-
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1

J. Agassi, A. Meidan, Beg to Differ, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33307-6_1
2 1 On the Frustration That Debates Cause
ing view can be reconciled is an example of an expression of dislike of disagree-

ment. This dislike is a concern of the present study, since we aim to show why
people dislike disputes and help them develop a taste for it.
Tribalism, to repeat, is a major cause for the preference for agreement over dis-
agreement, which is the preference for association with relatives over association
with strangers. This preference enhances both agreement with relatives and dis-
agreement with strangers. These agreement and disagreement refer to myth and
rituals. As to myths, they are usually reconciled; this leads to a stress of rituals,
especially taboos: one tribe does not consume fish and another tribe does not con-
sume foul. The great Greek historian Herodotus reported that Persians were shocked
to learn that Greeks bury their dead as Greeks were equally shocked to learn that
Persians leave the copses of their dead on mountaintops for birds to consume.
We will not discuss customs here, religious or social. Rather, we will stress that
these changes, and often out of disagreements about them and criticisms of them
that with public support. These criticisms usually meet with hostility; even people
who launch them or who finally admit them, do so distastefully. We think the dis-
taste is harmful: it makes necessary change come less often and less frequently than
is desirable. To repeat, they belong to our tribal past. We are far less tribal these
days; most of us befriend people and prefer their company and cooperation that to
that of relatives. Indeed, we teach our children to call our friends uncles and aunts.
We cannot easily befriend people who condone murder, but we find it easy to
befriend people who vote for different parties than we do. So we have to learn to see
that debates with them can be fun, and should be fun if we learn from debates, since
learning is fun. The greatest philosopher of all times, Plato, repeatedly spoke in
favor of disputes (despite his having advocated a tribal society). He said, consider
error as illness and criticism as cure; we hate illness and we may dislike the bitter-
ness of the medication, but we do not hate medication.
In modern society, we face disagreement daily on various issues, from the small-
est to the largest; we often argue with people with whom we disagree. Some people
prefer to disagree about matters that matter very little, that they agree about their
worthlessness: presumably they do so in order to avoid serious debates. Presumably
they prefer not to risk losing their faith in what they think matters, and so they prefer
not to face criticism of their views on what matters and so they prefer to argue about
what they think does not matter. Clearly, this is ostrich policy. If their opinions sig-
nify, then they should care to ask, are these opinions true? For this they would wish
to hear the most severe criticism of their opinions in the hope to be able to rebuff
them; if their serious views are erroneous and if they are serious about them, then
they would love to be corrected. All this is opaque: what is valid criticism? How can
it be rebuffed? How does one change one’s view as a result of criticism? We will
come to this in great detail soon enough.
Serious people usually do not argue about small matters as they are not worth the
time and effort, and they do not argue about the biggest potentially unsolvable mat-
ters, for the same reason. Indeed, we can say, this is precisely what makes people
serious: one is serious if and only if one takes one’s opinions seriously and examines
them seriously. Serious opinions are answers to serious questions, then, but not the
1 On the Frustration That Debates Cause 3
other way around: some serious issues are not fit to argue about. What issues are fit
to argue about? On this question we have no generally accepted rules, and hardly
anyone cares to give this question serious, conscious consideration and offer a rule
for possible general adoption. Of course, the question pertains both to public and to
individual opinions and conduct. People in different circumstances decide differ-
ently about what is fit for debate and what not. Publicly, the matter is more impor-
tant and still hardly governed by any rule: leading thinkers who have to decide on
such matters usually follow custom or else they do so on the spur-of-the-moment.
So do parliamentary committees as they discuss what to put on the public agenda
for debate. So do journalists, or rather editors of newspapers and periodicals. These
leading thinkers must decide quickly whether it is worthwhile to argue about par-
ticular questions in public or only with some specific people (friends, relatives,
peers or business associates). On any disagreement it is easy to find reasons for
arguing about it and reasons for not arguing about it; and when arguing, there are
reasons for terminating the argument or for continuing to debate the issue—unless
one party gives in to the other, thereby concluding the debate, of course. No clear
rules exist. High-school debating society coaches, for example, set guidelines.
Some coaches advise to never admit error; others say that there is no value to debates
unless both parties are ready to admit error honestly and say openly that they are
unfamiliar with a point made by the opponent and to concede when they consider
themselves defeated or agree the possibility that they have lost when this is how the
situation looks to them but they feel the need to sleep on it.
All this holds for all debates, public or private; in private, having offered a deadly
argument, one may desist from arguing for fear of offending the opponent and one
may insist that the opponent should openly admit defeat. Clearly, people usually
feel offended when they lose a debate and outraged when forced to admit this
openly. This is a shame. To repeat, Plato stressed this a few times: people can gain
from debates even (or particularly) when they lose, since they can learn where they
were in error and avoid such errors in the future. This trial-and-error is a very impor-
tant way of learning. While many teachers do not like to admit it, trial and error
beats learning by rote any day, as ample psychological experiments show.
To repeat, most people take it for granted that agreement may be hard to come
by, but that it is always preferable to disagreement. This view has many expressions.
In particular, we are told that collaboration requires agreement. This is not always
so: in tribal societies collaboration requires agreement; in modern societies collabo-
ration requires a shared interest. Normally, in modern societies parties to ventures
put aside their opinions and favor compromises. We will return to this soon. For
now, let us register our disagreement with the view that agreement is harder to reach
than disagreement and with the view that agreement is superior to disagreement. We
claim that it is easy to follow received opinions, and hard to criticize them, yet this
is often a worthwhile activity, since we can often learn from criticism and lead to the
improvement of public opinion and to diverse applications. It is particularly easy to
achieve agreement if we are not particularly interested in the truth: we then say, all
right, have it your way. At times, agreement clearly seems to be most desirable: for
example, when asking, “Will you marry me?” Of course, the answer, “yes, I will” is
greatly desired. The reason for this seems to be simple, but, as anyone who watches
soap operas knows, it is far from simple. “Will you marry me?” combines a few
questions, two samples of which are predominant: first, do you want to share live
with me, share property with me, have children with me, and so on? And second, do
you consider it wise for us to do this now? The first set of questions has either an
obvious answer, or one that is too complicated. Let us skip it. The second is very
important, always open to rational deliberations, and so it is always wise to debate
it before deciding on it. For example, even on the supposition that two individuals
are passionately in love with each other, there are many ways to act on this supposi-
tion. So the question is: which way is the most advisable for us here and now? This
question involves a preliminary debate on the arguments for and against any option,
followed by a debate over the initial question: is it wise for the two to get married in
the near future? Moreover, the more liberal a society, the more options the couple
face to choose from. In particular, today the choice between civil and religious mar-
riage, civil marriage, or cohabitation. (When the liberal philosopher Bertrand
Russell mentioned the option of premarital sex and of cohabitation he disqualified
himself from teaching in a New York college, which is unthinkable today.) To return
to our initial point, the preference in asking the initial question, “Will you marry
me?” is for an immediate affirmative response that does not require a prior debate
about it.
The fact remains: most people in modern society find argument painful. They
find agreement agreeable and disagreement disagreeable. Why is this the case?
More important, how can we alter it? Many possible explanations for the fact are
available; one of these is so paramount that we may ignore the others: cooperation
is essential, and agreement is considered essential for cooperation. Admittedly,
cooperation is essential; yet agreement is not essential for it. Moreover, debate com-
prises a form of cooperation, and decisions reached following a debate (on an issue
regarding which significant disagreement exists) yields better cooperation than
decision reached otherwise, say in accord with the opinion of the senior party. The
debate itself may also eliminate significant errors that may threaten the cooperation.
Cooperating parties may find that they disagree, at times even on central issues; but
then, debate may lead to compromise or to one of them granting the other the benefit
of the doubt. Thus, cooperation also evolves through debate. Of course, during the
process, one party may die (for example, if the party is a patient and the debate
concerns treatment), but the cooperation can continue: debate is impersonal. At
times, the disagreement is too deep and the cooperation stops or perhaps is avoided
in the first place. Would it be better to continue cooperating despite the disagree-
ment, or would it have been preferable had the disagreement not appeared in the first
place? Clearly, there is no general answer to this question; in certain instances, it is
better to cooperate despite disagreement and in others not. In particular, when coop-
eration must continue, say in the case of allies fighting a war, then wise parties do
postpone the debate for the day after victory is achieved. In contrast, when parties
consider whether they should wage a war against one another, then, clearly,
agreement is preferable regarding whether all alternatives to war have been tried
and failed despite arduous efforts.
1 On the Frustration That Debates Cause 5
Consider divorce proper. It is sad, to be sure. This does not mean that the divorce
is bad: it may be and it often is the best solution of a difficult problem. What is obvi-
ous though, is that marriage not well thought out is more likely to lead to divorce
than a well thought-out marriage, especially since serious thinking may prevent
ill-conceived marriages. Many people find distasteful serious deliberations about
marriage, no matter how serious they may be. Those who consider marriage a
responsible decision will disagree and will allow that they should debate this matter
before making the decision. They may then agree but admit that the debate itself is
unpleasant. We wish to discover the reason for this and we wish to show that it can
be pleasant even if it leads to a heartbreaking decision to postpone or avoid
marriage.
Nevertheless, the psychological fact remains: many people suffer from a sense of
humiliation when they lose a debate. That this is so when their wish to get married
is frustrated is obvious. But this is true even when the debate is abstract and with no
obvious consequences for the losing party: the loss of the debate in itself hurts.
Why? Even when there are no immediate personal consequences to the loss, the loss
seems a humiliation for both psychological causes and for intellectual reasons.
Listing and examining the psychological causes is beyond the scope of this hand-
book. We can offer some intellectual reasons and discuss them; this should help us
offer some guidelines, however, regarding how to avoid (or at least minimize) this
pain, and even replace it with the pleasure of learning. First, be aware of this psy-
chological phenomenon. As psychologists have repeatedly discovered, awareness
of an irrational psychological disposition reduces it. Second, try repeatedly to make
the debate as impersonal as possible. Instead of arguing about personal issues, argue
about general ideas, perhaps also change sides with your opponent: as they often
say, things look differently from different positions, and thus it is worthwhile to see
how it looks from over there.
It is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this move. All too often we are not
aware of the feelings of people whose role we have never shared and we are even
more often ignorant of how the world looks from the viewpoint of the other. At
times all that we need to broaden our view is to try: we often reverse roles unawares;
think of a near-accident on the road and of the two involved drivers who are self-
righteously angry with each other. They may try to remember such near-accidents
when they played the opposite role. At times this is very different. Think of the
effort it took experimental psychologists to convince jailers to change place with
prisoners for a day or two. The outcome surprised them all, including the
psychologists.
We are all fallible: we all make mistakes, and when others draw our attention to
our mistakes they are doing us a favor. True, some mistakes are silly and so having
made them may reasonably be downright embarrassing, and people may be highly
annoyed at having made them. They are then apt to project (in Freudian terminol-
ogy) this annoyance at the ones who point out their mistakes. This is the well-
known phenomenon of shooting the messenger. Some people are even annoyed at
their own fallibility. They are at liberty to feel that way, but they should not blame
others for it. Being sick is bad; yet, since being informed of our sickness is prefer-
able to staying ignorant about it, we condemn blaming physicians who convey bad
news.
Avoiding Frustrating Debates
Disagreements, disputes, debates, arguments, and confrontations are quite common

in modern society. Regrettably, they are all too often quite futile as well: differing
parties stick to their guns, refuse to learn anything from each other, and end with ill
feelings and frustration. The possible reasons for the displeasure with these are
many, but we will here center mainly on one: the frustration that accompanies them.
We do so for two reasons: first, it is the cardinal reason and overcoming it is a tre-
mendous relief, and second, it is the easiest to remedy and in the most interesting
manner to boot.
No matter how unpleasant confrontations are, no matter how much forethought
and energy and restraint we invest in efforts to avoid them, too often we fail. Often,
problems under dispute beg for resolutions, and so repressed disputes over them
repeatedly reemerge and finally burst into full confrontations that soon lead to regret
and resolution to be more restrained. To no avail. This experience is then repeated.
The repeated experience is naturally increasingly frustrating as they indicate some
deep-seated sense of helplessness. Frustration deepens the ill feeling. The deep ill
feelings make it ever harder to avoid future confrontations and so on. This process
can terminate in death or in a radical change: transfer of one party to another loca-
tion, a breakup of a partnership, a divorce. Divorce may be a part of the process,
however. Think of actors Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood who married and
divorced and remarried.
Clearly, the more civilized a confrontation is, that is, the more it is an exchange
of opinions, the less frustrating it may be. Yet, however civilized an exchange of
opinions may be, the parties to it are likely to still feel deep down inside that the
source of the confrontation is ugly—an expression of unfriendly, aggressive feel-
ings towards opponents, towards people who reject significant and obviously true
opinions on some important matter.
At times this is inevitable. Many a divorce came about after one party to a mar-
riage discovered a nasty streak in the other party that they could not remove by some
reproof as it rests on some prejudice. The prejudice may be political. The divorce
may be the result of one party holding progressive political views that the other
party finds too naïve as the other party holds reactionary opinions that the one party
finds cruel. We have already expressed our opinion about such divorces: they indi-
cate that the couples in question got married too soon and not responsibly: people
should know each other well enough when they get married to avoid finding their
partner’s political views after marriage. Yet many young people in love care too
little about politics to imagine that political disagreements can break their marriages.
And they are usually right: if any political disagreement were the cause of a divorce,
then most marriages would not hold as well as they do. But disagreements between
Avoiding Frustrating Debates 7
a partner who supports democracy and a partner who considers this naïve is a differ-
ent matter altogether.
Such cases are scarce, if only because hostility to democracy is rare in contem-
porary society and democracy recommends debates on principle. As experience
repeatedly illustrates, the possibility of useful debates is what makes disagreements
between spouses no threat to the stability of their marriage. We would go further
and declare it a good means for the fusion of the parties into a stable marriage.
Civilized debates may be fruitful and fruitful debates raise a sense of gratitude, as
they prevent some embarrassing and dangerous errors. Admittedly, such debates, no
matter how useful they are, may very well combine with some personal animosity
(covert or even overt; even in the family). Yet ultimately debate, however unpleasant
it may be, prevents embarrassment and dangerous error. Even if the error is not
dangerous, even when it is common, the recognition that the debate has eradicated
it may be exhilarating. And indeed, personal animosity (no matter how intense) can
give way to a sense of pleasure as frustration gives way to a sense of benefit from
debates; for, learning is always a source of great pleasure. Indeed, many philoso-
phers go as far as to say that all learning involves criticism of diverse answers to
diverse questions, including previously unimagined wild answers and previously
unimagined arguments against them.
The philosophers who go as far as to say that all learning involves criticism are
aware of the fact that this sounds strange. Think of a person who is ignorant of mod-
ern science and of the modern gadgets that surround us in the modern world and that
would be impossible but for the advancement in science. Is their ignorance due to
error? Which error? Let us go further and consider magically-minded people. It is
hard to see their ignorance as rooted in error. When pre-literate people come in
touch with the modern world, they may see airplanes descend from the blue sky and
people emerge from them. They are deeply impressed and they view it as powerful
magic. It is hard to judge whether this experience clashes with any opinion they
have, and it is hard to see that the new impressive experience teaches them anything
about the world. By contrast, consider the civilized people who saw airplanes for the
first time as the Wright brothers succeeded in building flying machines. They were
surprised because they held firmly the opinion that people cannot fly. Particularly
experts, such as professors of physics, were of the opinion that the Wright brothers
criticized effectively. The experts who knew about flights of birds and of kites and
of people who flew on kites—that are called gliders—were particularly clear about
the impossibility of flying machines—airplanes. They learned a lot from the success
of the Wright brothers to fly on kites propelled by engines. This, however is an aside
that we will not pursue, since the present study concerns all sorts of confrontations,
not ones that are specific to science and to scientific technology. People whose daily
work is scientific, theoretical or technological, have sophisticated attitudes to con-
frontations that require separate treatments.
Our claim is that debate is fruitful, then, rests on our claim that criticism is use-
ful. Who needs criticism, asked leading science-fiction writer James Blish.
Everybody, he answered his own question. Why then is debate so often futile? Why
then does it so often end up with nothing but a strong, annoying sense of frustration?
Part of the answer is psychological, which, to repeat, lies beyond the realm of this
handbook. But the answer is not all psychological: part of it is that successful debate
is rare. Notably, this is a pity, particularly since debate is not very costly in terms of
time and effort investment; on the contrary, as we have observed, it is frequently
unavoidable; and when properly conducted, it is often so beneficial as to be highly
cost-effective. Of course, when we say that debate is wonderful and dismiss evi-
dence to the contrary as due to defective performance, our conduct may be dog-
matic, and our dismissal of the evidence to the contrary may be mere defensiveness.
This is particularly so when evidence to the contrary is dismissed simply because it
is evidence to the contrary. Thus, when dogmatists fail in their effort to convince
their neighbors and they dismiss these neighbors as inept, they are likely to use the
fact that they have failed to convince their neighbors as sufficient evidence that they
are inept. Even so, in this case our dogmatist must admit error: the effort to convince
people whom it is impossible to convince rests on error, on the ignorance of their
ineptness. Usually, our dogmatist refuses to admit even this error: effort to convince
them is giving them the benefit of the doubt. We hope that the present handbook
never uses this kind of argument. First, this handbook is written not in efforts to
convince but in effort to help people improve. We address people whom confronta-
tions frustrate and who are unable to overcome the frustration; we tell you that you
are able to overcome the frustration and we offer simple exercises that will satisfy
you. If not, then we are in error, and if you will be kind enough to write to us, then
we will try to take account of your criticism and complaint and improve this
handbook.
Thinkers of the Age of Reason (the seventeenth century and more so the eigh-
teenth century) regularly repeated the broadly consensual slogan that debates should
cease rapidly, that at best only their first bouts may yield some benefit, and that
afterwards they cost more than they are worth: at first they may enlighten, but soon
they produce more heat than light. There is much wisdom in this view that was com-
mon in the Age of Reason: it is wise to avoid engaging in an activity that results in
frustration, and if the first round or two did not bear fruit, then it is unwise to con-
tinue since the opponents may be too dogmatic to be willing to learn. But some
debates are very fruitful, and usually we cannot know in advance which debate is
going to be fruitful. This renders debate a kind of wild gold rush: regardless of how
frustrated prospectors usually are, they still go on searching in the hope of hitting a
goldmine.
This sounds as if prospectors do not learn from criticism. And indeed, some
prospectors do not. Usually, they test some hunches and as a result of frustration
they may give up the hunches—about kinds of promising locations or about kinds
of prospecting methods or anything else. If they have no hunches, then there is little
for experience that they can use as criticism.
Indeed, the same assumption that a gold rush may succeed drives some people to
wild prospecting; it drives others to study the matter and seek some ideas that will
improve their odds. This tendency leads to organized prospecting, without totally
eliminating wild prospecting. Wild prospectors may of course wish to benefit from
the knowledge available to the organized prospectors, but they may be unaware of
their existence, have no access to their knowledge base, or simply distrust whatever
the organized prospectors consider reliable knowledge and prefer their own gut
feelings. The same holds true for debates: knowledge is scarce regarding which
debates are less frustrating and more promising.
We may take this example a step further. Prospectors, even lone ones, may ben-
efit from a good theory that will improve their odds. If the thinkers of the Age of
Reason were right in their assumption that debate produce more heat than light and
that thereby it creates more risks than opportunities, then in search for increased
efficiency we should seek cold debate akin to cold light. Alternatively, we may seek
unregistered, unexpected prospecting opportunities. What usually causes debate to
heat up is frustration. What then raises frustration in debate? This is a question that
we will discuss here at length. We aim to advise our readers and help them train
themselves in the art of debates, rendering debates more pleasant and hopefully
more fruitful and decidedly less frustrating.
Still, this we can say right off the bat. Frustration is due to the gap between
expectation and achievement. We can see this in some simple experiments. Consider
this example. When we get stuck in a traffic jam we are frustrated and we blame the
traffic jam. This is an error, and even an easily correctable one. For suppose you
know that you are going to pump into a traffic jam; suppose you know that this is a
possibility and you take the chance; the traffic jam then will frustrate you much less,
if at all. You may be well prepared for it and then find it amusing. The difference
between the prepared and the unprepared is the same as the difference between the
young, impatient prospector and the well-trained old one. Of course, after sufficient
frustration, most young prospectors leave if they can to seek their fortunes else-
where. To repeat, many people who try to avoid confrontations fail to do so. And
then they still expect to have the next one more fruitful. And so, the frustration from
confrontations is due to the hope that they will bear fruit. Even if you will learn
nothing more from the present handbook, this you should learn right now and ben-
efit from it at once: unless you have reason to expect the next confrontation to be
less frustrating than earlier ones and if all the same you cannot avoid it, then at the
very least do not expect that it will not frustrate you yet again. But, of course, we
promise you right now that we will offer you ample reason to expect the next con-
frontation you will come across to be much less frustrating and hopefully even to
expect that you will enjoy it. How can we promise this? Let us answer this question
right away. For, we have no secret and we pull no rabbit out of top hats. On the
contrary, the technique that we will help you acquire is ancient.
We take as our default hypothesis the following assertions. The extant rules of
debating procedure can render debates efficient to a sufficient extent that they merit
efforts to study and to master. Also, that the observed futility of debates is all too
often the result of poor attention to these available procedures. One more assertion:
These techniques are quite easy to master. They are straightforward and hold for a
number of public and private activities. Many people try their hands at writing—
poetry, stories, novels, scientific papers, scientific monographs or textbooks—and
are met with an increasing sense of frustration simply because they do not know that
there are rules to master that help avoid frustration. This is why new books regularly
appear and schools regularly open with the promise of offering training in various
skills and vocations. Training imparts skills; this does not assure success, but it
normally does reduce the sense of frustration. People purchase handbooks and reg-
ister in training programs with the hope of acquiring these skills. At times the out-
come is felicitous, at times not; some give up, and some keep trying. This is sheer
commonsense, yet repeatedly people ignore the need to acquire the necessary skills,
often being unaware of the basic need for them. Thus, many young people try their
hands in writing poetry with no idea that this discipline can be learned. This is all
the more so with debates. There is nothing inherent to debating skills. In ancient
Athens, people commonly appreciated that debates require skill, and renowned
experts (known as sophists, namely wise people) taught these skills for fees.
The most obvious case of frustration is poetry. Most people take it for granted
that there is no need to acquire any skill to write poems. This idea gains very strong
support from the fact that some of the greatest poets were born poets. This is true of
all skills. It sounds incredible that some people are born pianists or born car-drivers.
But this is an attested fact. And it is an attested fact that poetry is a skill that one can
acquire. Young people who write poems with no training usually write worthless
pieces and only if they receive criticism they either get frustrated and cease writing
or try to acquire the necessary skills. Yet skills are usually necessary, but seldom
sufficient. They are sufficient to remove the normal frustrations of the unskilled, but
more cannot be promised. We stress this repeatedly: of course, in every art there are
those who are born experts, who received no training but show remarkable abilities
and are highly productive. This phenomenon leads many to the false opinion that
learning any craft is useless: either you are born gifted or not. This is rather silly,
since most of the proficient in most fields have studied in some manner and acquired
their skills. Naturally, the same goes for the art of argumentation.
And, just as people find it easy to write poems and are frustrated if they do not
acquire some skill at it, so people find it easy to engage in confrontation and are
frustrated if they do not acquire some skill at it. Yet it is not always easy to tell bud-
ding poets effectively that they may benefit from the acquisition of skills that is
hardly problematic.
So do read this book as a handbook, as a training manual in the art of argumenta-
tion and see if it increases your debating skill and reduces your sense of frustration
when debating or not. You should not be too patient with us and you need not go far:
you can test our claim that we are helpful almost at once. You should benefit from
our advice almost instantaneously in that it should reduce your sense of frustration
almost at once. We hope that you will find that application of our proposals will
reduce your sense of frustration considerably and increase the sense of fun from
debates that you participate in.
We seek to help people master the rules of proper debate, and with ease. As dis-
cussed above, such learning will not assure success to all readers in every debate,
but it will enable readers’ experience with debate to become much less frustrating
and much more rewarding, and almost at once.
Admittedly, let us repeat, the appeal to cautious optimism is often the unfair
fending off complaints about failure. Let us specify: the excuse that failure is rare is
statistical and so it is hard to refute. This excuse may pacify the complaining party
by shifting the blame from the proposal to some rare ill luck (not to mention some
nastier excuses, such as accusation of those who complain for some defect or ill
will). But then, as complaints accumulate and reports of success falter, cautious
optimism gives way to despair. We will see to it that this will not be the case regard-
ing our cautious optimism here. Our discussion of the efficient procedure for man-
aging disputes, for presenting arguments, and for helping to render this a standard
procedure, though cautiously optimist, is meant to serve as a tool for the alteration
of public standards—no less! Finally, to repeat, any criticism of our errors we will
welcome and try to improve our advice.
The procedures we advocate have been adopted in diverse kinds of instances
with tremendous success. The most obvious examples are debates in scientific cir-
cles, in legislatures, and in law courts. Some debates have prevented wars, espe-
cially civil wars (since it is easier to argue with siblings than with strangers). Our
aim is to integrate practices from these fields into everyday life: we focus less on
innovation and more on popularization.
In this regard, we take as our starting point the familiar though oddly ignored
observation about differences between diverse societies regarding the sense of frus-
tration. It is no secret that in some societies—both traditional and modern—the
sense of frustration from debates is either maximal or minimal, simply because of
the different approach different cultures take to disagreement. Individuals experi-
ence higher or lower levels of frustration from debates as a function of the broader
social perspective regarding debates.
In most modern societies, debate is usually a familiar occurrence; some societies
have outlawed and penalized debate, with the police imposing the ban strictly—they
are known as dictatorships. Indeed, some scholars suggest that negative attitude
towards fruitful discourse is what makes a regime dictatorial. Consequently, these
scholars hardly distinguish between Fascist and Communist regimes. Others find
this characterization offensive, as they may be friendly to the Communist ideals and
thus even more hostile to the Fascist ones than their democratic colleagues, and so
they dispute the notion that the (admittedly regrettable) ban on debate in Communist
regimes renders Communism as objectionable as Fascism. Some such scholars even
go so far as to differentiate between a ban on debates for legitimate and illegitimate
reasons. Their democratic colleagues, however, are not lost for an answer: they say,
the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and debate is the best means for stop-
ping us from taking that road. They say, what makes decent Communist leaders
dictators is the Communist ban on debate. Even if the ban is on some sort of debate,
there is an urgent need to debate this very ban. This is a general truth: debate is the
best known means for revealing the mistaken judging appraising dangerous moves
as good measures. The sympathizers with Communism may respond by drawing
attention to circumstances that impose limitation on debate. Needless to say, this
debate about the usefulness of debate (this meta-debate, as philosophers would say)
is very frustrating. We therefore stop following it here, at least for a while. We will
discuss later the ways to render it very fruitful and fun.
Some traditional societies explicitly proscribe debate, although not necessarily

politically and so with no police force imposing the ban; they merely consider it bad
manners and often declare it religiously or socially detrimental. Notably, in all soci-
eties, even in relatively modern ones, magic is still widespread simply because suf-
ficiently many people consider it very rude to argue against current magical
practices. In traditional China and Japan, the customary sensitivity regarding embar-
rassment is so great that the tradition discourages asking a question that might
remain unanswered or raise controversy, and it encourages answering a question in
the manner that will please those who are so insensitive as to ask that very question.
The cultural tendency to avoid debates creates a communication barrier that is so
tremendous as to be scarcely surmountable: any attempt to question this tradition is
conceived as an act of questioning tradition as such, which tradition naturally pro-
scribes. The situation can be even worse: to be efficient, debate about manners
requires some knowledge about manners, yet societies such as the traditional
Chinese consider it bad manners to inquire about manners. This forces people to try
to decipher what the customary manners are. This is a most frustrating situation, and
pondering on it will explain why in the West, the practice of debating persists
despite all the enormous frustrations that it brings in its wake and despite great
efforts to block it: the absence of debate is even more frustrating. The knowledge of
this fact—that the suppression of debates is more frustrating than the participation
in debates—is thus already a factor that may reduce the frustration of debates.
This then is our central point: efforts at reducing the frustration that debates
cause by seeking to avoid debate is useless; there are better and more efficient ways
to reduce the frustration that debates cause.
So much for societies that place this or that sort of restriction on debates. Let us
then move to enclaves in Western societies in which on the whole debates are com-
monly admitted and their presence does not cause as much frustration as in more
traditional parts of these societies. The first example that comes to mind is tradi-
tional scholastic or Talmudic disputations and their derivatives usually known by
the general name of casuistry. Strangely, casuists never found the futility of their
debates frustrating. This has an important and enlightening explanation: the futility
of debates did not frustrate them because they saw in them a religious value, and an
assured value at that. Moreover, they took it for granted that other than religious
value, debates have little value; moreover, as we have already observed, (quite gen-
erally) a low expectation come with a low level of frustration, since frustration is
due to unfulfilled expectations.
Casuistry is of course beyond the scope of this handbook and we mention it here
only as an enclave of standard disputations and as a case of low expectations that
prevent a high sense of frustration. Unrealistic expectations from debates and their
resultant frustrations are evident, for example, in cases of arguments conducted in
the hope of swaying the political opinions of peers rapidly—say, in one prolonged
discussion—especially on the eve of some important elections. The high expecta-
tion often persists although the matters in question are subject to ongoing debates
over the course of generations by wise scholars and politicians, with no conclusion
in sight. This situation raises the question, why do people who habitually engage in
political disputes not learn from their own experiences? Why do they not learn to
lower their expectations? The answer is that they take their views as obviously true
and so they ascribe unreasonableness to their peers’ disagreements with them. Since
they know their peers to be eminently reasonable, they may repeatedly expect that
they will be able to show their peers quickly what oversight leads to their dissent,
and thereby destroy it. And such cases do occur (see below), and they are impres-
sive, no matter how rare they are. The trouble is that all too often all sides to a politi-
cal debate share this expectation, so that each expects opponents to capitulate fast,
which of course is impossible. The parties remain puzzled but see no other course
but to retry. This mounts frustration. This leads to despair rather than to efforts to
modify expectations.
The crux of this situation, let us repeat, is that all sides to a dispute are intelligent
and each finds the opinions of the others unintelligent. The obvious fact is that we
are all fallible and that therefore the view of our friends as intelligent should not
lead us to the conclusion that they are usually right and their dissent form us on the
point at the present issue is an exception. Rather, it is the paucity of intelligent think-
ing that makes us all so much in agreement with our friends.
Hence, we should not always expect debates to be fruitless. On the contrary, we
will later discuss casuist debates and explain what imposes futility on them, so that
those who wish to avoid futility (our intended readers) will know how to do so. Such
knowledge will not assure success, but it will prevent assured failure. That is to say,
the conduct that causes failure can often be found and avoided, by a sort of mental
hygiene—the sort of mental hygiene that we recommend. Indeed, much of what we
hope to impart to our readers are some simple rules of mental hygiene that with little
effort will reduce frustration drastically. (The best medicine, we know, is preventive
medicine. Indeed, modern medicine began in the middle of the nineteenth century
(or a few bit later) with (or soon after) the discovery of preventive medicine that was
more efficient than was known before. But even traditional medicine was largely
preventive, such as quarantine of the sick, which is ancient. In debate, by the way,
avoiding entering debates with casuists is the parallel to this, and a very good
method indeed. This raises the question, what is the best method for identifying the
casuist? We will answer this question later in some detail.)
Clearly, not all debates are fruitless. For one thing, fortunately, some debates can
end in quick conclusion, regardless of the parties’ debating skills. An obvious
example of this type of resolution can involve the deadline imposed on newspaper
editors by default: not deciding to print an item by the print deadline amounts to
deciding to reject it. Hence, the debates that go on regularly in newspapers editorial
boards are never futile although they can frustrate the journalists whose contribu-
tions are always rejected. Thus, dramas, movies, or TV series that deal with the
press often appear as immensely frustrating for the struggling hero the young or
dissident journalist. Such frustrations are inevitable, and we cannot hope to elimi-
nate them; we can only hope to reduce them to a reasonable level. Another example
is from the world of commerce, which also offers a plenty of instances of deadlines.
Every time that outside factors impose a deadline on a commercial firm, members
of that firm must curb debate, since leaving it open forces the deadline to close it by
default. It is always wise to accept the decision that a deadline imposes some time
before it arrives, when the deadline is near enough for those who should abide by it
to realize that soon the time is up. And, of course, the most obvious deadline is any
lull before a storm, including the quiet before a battle.
This is equally true of time-restricted court cases. In law courts, the rules of
debates are usually entrenched just in order to prevent delay in reaching decision. In
courts, presentations of disputes and arguments follow a relatively clear procedure,
largely determined by the laws of evidence. Obviously, these procedures are largely
artificial and thus not always applicable even in courts, so that mistrials are unavoid-
able. Court procedures balance the cost caused by the waste of time against the cost
of handling such cases. In particular, there are strict laws as to the possibility of
reopening a trial. It follows that court procedures are seldom applicable to regular
out-of-court disputes or even to mere arbitrations. Yet they may serve as evidence
that supports the hope that the use of proper procedure will reduce frustration con-
siderably, in order to make it reasonable. (Talmudic legal procedures as practiced in
traditional Jewish law courts ignore deadlines as much as possible and spare no time
in efforts to go to the roots of problems. There is no pretense at practicality there,
even though there is hope that a deep examination will produce a reasonable
precedent.)
Let us make an additional observation about court procedure. Even when that
procedure is not fully determined, the system expects judges to fill gaps and supply
missing details with the aid of sheer common sense. (Indeed, at times judges are
encourages to prefer commonsense to a law and thus create a significant precedent.)
We propose, therefore, that without the use of the laws of evidence, and with no help
from any judge, parties to any dispute should use their common sense and agree on
a reasonable procedure, thus increasing the chances of alleviating frustration. This
eliminates the need for judges—at the cost of the parties to the debate acquiring
some competence.
The first point of procedure that we propose, then, is this. Whenever a dispute
begins to frustrate, the disputing parties should consider the option of taking a break
in the discussion in order to examine the procedure that they were following and to
return to the debate, if at all, only after having cleared matters and agreed between
themselves about a decision on a procedure that may hopefully reduce frustration
somewhat. Even if that decision is erroneous, it need not frustrate, as they may
repeat the process as much as they judge necessary. Also, they may find the proce-
dure we propose interesting. Even when all efforts at rethinking procedure fail, the
result need not frustrate, as it will guide the parties to the debate to terminate it
instead.
Chapter 2
Resolving a Dispute
Abstract Do not try to resolve disputes by measuring objectively the plausibility

of the opinions under dispute. Very plausibly, no objective measure exists for the
plausibility of statements.
In this chapter we offer a review of some suggestions that popular teachers of argu-
mentation offer as the best methods for resolving disputes. Let us say at once, most
of the methods that popular advisers offer we reject right off the bat. We offer,
instead, the very best methods that the best experts use, among them top scientific
researchers, lawyers, even philosophers. When we learn a skill, we do not use
instruments that differ from those that the best experts use. True, some parents play
chess with their young offspring in a manner different form the manner they play
with adults: they usually begin with taking off the chessboard one of their pieces,
usually their right rook. This insures that their offspring will have great difficulty
adjusting to the normal chessboard. The matter differs with child violinists: they use
small violins simply because the usual size ones are too big for them to hold. They
get normal size ones as soon as they can hold them. In computer courses a custom
developed of teaching beginners out-of-date program languages that were supposed
to be simple and so preferable. Fortunately, this custom stopped. In other courses
teachers often use tools for beginners that are different from those that experts use.
We find this deplorable. We offer in this handbook nothing but the very best.
First, some popular teachers of argumentation have suggested that disputes may
be resolved by a successful search for some statements upon which the differing
parties may be in agreement so as to build on it a case that will not be under dispute
so that it will replace the disputed option or options. At times, however rarely, the
parties to the dispute may agree to proceed on the supposition that they do agree
about some statement that can lead to some relief and see how it evolves. It then will
transpire that the statement will not lead to results that all parties will agree upon, so
that the discussion would be sheer waste of time. It will be very unlikely that the
agreed-upon statement will lead to statements that all parties will agree about and
thus have the dispute resolved. It most likely, almost inevitably, turn out to tip the
scale in favor of one of the parties in the dispute. And then, naturally, the other party
will recognize it and withdraw its initial agreement. To avoid this, the statement that
the parties should agree upon before the debate starts may express some middle
position that the disputants could possibly reach at the end of the debate. This

16 2 Resolving a Dispute
method seldom works, since in many cases such statements are unavailable, whether
in principle or in practice. When the dispute is theoretical, it is a matter of principle
rather than of interest, so that a priori a compromise is silly. A compromise makes
sense when the dispute concerns some advantage that the disputing parties seek.
When the parties go for one object of their desire, say a rare work of art, clearly a
compromise is less obvious an option than when it is financial asset. Even then,
when it is linked to control over a financial firm, things get harder to get compro-
mise about. In many cases, both extremes are obviously superior to a compromise—
if it exists in the first place. We have already referred to the idea that is well known
in economics, as there are examples in that field of cases where the best is not avail-
able and the second best is not the option nearest to the best. The very suggestion
that there is a statement—for the disputing parties to seek—that will dissipate the
dispute, shows that the dispute is not serious and that the disputing parties aim at a
compromise. Even then, however, resolution is not easy, as parties to a dispute may
cling to some relevant views—dogmatically or rationally: even if the statement that
should resolve the dispute is available, noticing that endorsing that statement
amounts to the admission of defeat may very well make any party to a dispute reject
it rather than admit defeat.
A view that some popular teachers of argumentation suggest is that of resolving
disputes looks more serious. Indeed, it is popular among philosophy professors. We
will argue that it seems realistic but it is the very opposite, and the philosophers
engaged in it do not mean to offer it as a practical advice, although many of their
fans misunderstand them to mean that. The advice is to resolve all disputes—all of
them—with ease by agreeing to measure objectively the plausibility of the diverse
opinions under dispute, and then to opt for the most plausible one, whatever it may
turn out to be.
This suggestion is obviously futile, as no criterion exists for a measure of plausi-
bility, let alone one generally endorsed. (Philosophers are aware of this fact, as they
declare the measure of plausibility to be a probability measure and they admit that
they have no idea how to apply it as they have no idea what that measure is. Their
interest is to explain the agreement that prevails in science, not in practical affairs.
They suggest that were we all more scientifically-minded there would be less dis-
pute all round and so les strife. These philosophers are convinced that this is fine
even though admittedly full of holes, since science is so successful. In truth, how-
ever, science is so successful because it engages its adherents in constant disputes
with very clear-cut means for their resolution by appeal to experience.) Naturally, in
any dispute, theoretical or practical, the different parties are disposed to consider
different view the “most plausible” (which is the source of the dispute.) Skeptical
considerations suggest at once that it is impossible to measure the plausibility of
statements, let alone to do so objectively. (We present skepticism in some detail in
the Appendix.)
One need not be a confirmed skeptic to doubt the viability of this idea: it is too
good to be true. Indeed, it was first proposed by Laplace, the famous philosopher-
mathematician-physicist, about two centuries ago. Were it true, its application
would be so successful in amicable terminations of disputes that its employment
2 Resolving a Dispute 17
would become very common. As we know, this is not exactly the case. Of course,
advocates of this popular suggestion have good explanations for the failure of their
method, but these are irrelevant here, as what matters here is their failure to over-
come the glaring insufficiency of their method. The potential success of their
method rests on the possible general acceptability of some criterion for the plausi-
bility of opinions; and until such a criterion becomes broadly accepted, this method
is still futile. Oddly, Laplace was well aware of the Utopian character of his pro-
posal, as he expected it to prevent wars. He suggested that the very possibility of
rational resolutions of all disputes, no matter how remote, should suffice to convince
people to see that replacing fighting with rational means is advisable even without
the ability to offer detailed rational means for the resolution of all disputes. We laud
this; we think that it is indeed wise to replace war with rational means; the rational
means, however, are those of tough negotiations and tougher debates. We hope to be
able to show you how, and in sufficient detail for you to start practicing, not in the
prevention of the next world war, but in things —theoretical or practical—that you
judge significant and that are within your province.
Allow us to make a small digression so as to introduce some historical perspec-
tive, so as to update our mention of the utopian nature of the desire to avoid all
dispute and all conflict that characterized the last thinker of the Age of Reason. A
century later, the rise of modern logic re-raised the utopian hopes among disciples
of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, among them Rudolf Carnap in
particular, that they would convince every reasonable person in the absolute objec-
tivity of their philosophy. This forced them to view most people around, particularly
peers, as not quite reasonable and even as not quite honest. Ironically, they were not
in agreement among themselves about politics (some but not all of them were
socialists). Hence, they failed to agree about the use of their own criterion to resolve
their own disagreements to their own satisfaction, let alone do so with their oppo-
nents, not to mention their inability to communicate on anything with the people
who could (and alas! soon did) declare war. War was declared, and the most devas-
tating ever, yet Carnap went on with his project, and in 1950 offered a book with a
detailed presentation of the machine that Laplace had dreamt about. As it happened,
this machine can say very little; it could not even say that 2 + 2 = 4. Posterity finally
pronounced him and his peers unreasonable and their philosophy lost its once tre-
mendous popularity (due to the hope to alleviate the frustration that debates cause).
Ultimately, then, the suggestions of the followers of Wittgenstein are as obviously
inapplicable as they looked before he entered the scene. The suggestions we endorse
here, by contrast, are applicable, and even with ease, but their promise is much less
grandiose.
Let us then add a note on the psychological process involved here, since we are
wary of calling irrational or blocked the people who do not share our views. On the
contrary, we find it reasonable to assume that our views on disagreement are not
shared by most people, ignorant and learned, plain and sophisticated. Attitudes to
disputes are often quite ambivalent, for reasons that we have already sketched.
Thus, engagement in disputes that most people in contemporary society participate
in, are mixed with a sense of satisfaction that is often strongly tied in with a sense
of dissatisfaction. It likewise often comes with a sense of strong bonding that is

often strongly tied in with a sense of strife. Thus, even when the use of our recom-
mendations increases efficiency and pleasure, it may also incur displeasure. In such
cases, when the stress is becoming overwhelming and the debate is not utterly man-
datory, the wise thing to do is to stop it: fighting ambivalence head-on is always
unwise. Notoriously, alas, ambivalence often blocks this move too, as usually
ambivalence is tied in with obsessive insistence (including the insistence on efforts
to solve problems unaided and the refusal to consider help or advice). Therefore, in
all cases in which our suggestions incur pain—in any way—we suggest that you
desist from employing them.
In disagreement with all the philosophers tainted with the utopianism of
Wittgenstein, we say this. Some disputes cannot be resolved. This does not make
them less real; on the contrary; pain is always real, no matter how unreal or unneces-
sary its cause may be. Obviously we should not hope to attain the impossible.
Nevertheless, continuing engagement in impossible pursuits may be great fun. As
long as you find the very search enjoyable, you need not worry about Wittgenstein
telling you to stop your search, of course, and you may increase the pleasure of the
search if you will be patient, and you will be patient if you realize that some dis-
putes are hard to resolve. They are usually theoretical, and theoretical research is
known to be a cause of pleasure and of frustration. So it is better to be cautions. Our
aim here is practical (even regarding theoretical affairs). And we remain cognizant
of the fact that in the world of practice disputants are keen to resolve as many dis-
putes as they can and as rapidly as they can.
We will go further. We do not know what is possible and what is impossible.
Most of the things that we take for granted today were deemed impossible but one
century ago, not to mention the sages of ancient times whose ideas still have enor-
mous influence on us to this very day. Bernard Shaw said, “The reasonable man
adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the
world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” What
he meant, of course, is that what some people consider unreasonable as a matter of
course turn out to be eminently reasonable, and we owe this progress to people with
vision who dare doubt common wisdom. The conclusion from this is, do not rush to
dismiss the unconventional. They may be in error, as regrettably we all so often are;
if you take them seriously, argue with them. They may show you in error, and you
may show them in error. Assuming we are all sufficiently open-minded to learn, of
course.
Plato said, theoretical disputes too must come to rest. He declared unserious
those who taught differently, the leading sophists—the then experts in the art of
disputation who made a living teaching it to budding politicians. He said that if we
are after the truth (rather than after fame and fortune) as we should be, then we
should strive to end each important dispute with the truth in hand. He charged the
sophists with insincerity, ascribing to them relativism about the truth: the theory that
truth is not an absolute; your truth is different from my truth. This appalled Plato,
and his charge that the sophists were insincere is reasonable when applied to those
sophists who were indeed relativists. All of them, including the postmodernists,
2 Resolving a Dispute 19
assert that there is no one absolute truth, that all truth is relative. Hence, more than
one party to a dispute is in possession of some sort of a truth, and hence that resolu-
tions of disputes are neither necessary nor possible. Indeed, they declare as an abso-
lute truth, debates are absolutely redundant. We reject wholeheartedly all forms of
relativism, including postmodernism. We consider it a dangerous absurdity (the
absurdity of the absolute rejection of the absolute truth). Admittedly, we do ignore
many promises that we find impossible to fulfill, but if we like them, then we do so
with heavy hearts. Relativists, including postmodernists, promise the impossible
conquest of the need to argue. Let us repeat: people go on arguing despite the frus-
tration that this activity incurs, since its avoidance is even more frustrating than its
persistence. Some postmodernists admit this; they have two different ways to over-
come this objection to their philosophy.
Their first way of overcoming this objection to relativism is by differentiating
between terminable and interminable disagreements and admitting ways to over-
come this objection to their philosophy that the terminable ones are open to debate
but to insist that ways to overcome this objection to their philosophy are not the
interminable ones. (Assuming that Wittgenstein was a relativist in his old age, then
we may ascribe to him this move. Yet he then no longer claimed to know which
debate is terminable, which not.) Moreover, this defense of relativism rests on the
assumption that participants in debates can know that their debates are terminable.
Terminable debates, some relativists say, take place within premises that are not
open to debate. Thus, the terminable debate will be terminated differently when the
parties to the debate are Christians than when they are Buddhists. Debates about the
choice between these two religions are interminable, as each faith comes as a rela-
tive truth.
The second way to overcome the objection to relativism is to undergo a “detoxi-
fication program”, to receive training to prepare us to learn to live happily without
the need for debates and thus avoid the frustrations that they incur. Those making
this proposal offer a choice: we may go into seclusion to follow some postmodernist
program, or continue practicing debates despite frustration, or attempt some method
(such as the one we offer in this handbook) that helps to reduce the frustration of
your debates considerably while increasing its fruitfulness and taking you to new
intellectual vistas.
Indeed, as noted above, the proposal to avoid dogmatism, that we take here as the
default proposal, all thinkers endorse with the exception of some relativists.
(Opponents of relativists rightly assert that they cannot avoid dogmatism; yet, as
discussion about this assertion lies beyond the scope of this handbook, we will not
insist on this here.) Our default proposal rests on the fact, as also noted above, that
dogmatism frustrates: dogmatists may argue, and even avidly, yet by definition they
will not budge. If all parties to a dispute are dogmatists, frustration is assured; more-
over, it is assured to rise with the ongoing insistence to continue the (clearly futile)
debate.
There can hardly be any objection to the proposal to avoid dogmatism; we do not
make it, however, given that avoidance of dogmatism seems to us inoperable. Very
few dogmatists admit openly that they are dogmatic. On the contrary, most dogma-
tists are profoundly convinced that their advantage over their opponents is that they
have overcome all dogmatism and thus they can and do see the naked truth. The
following (ancient and mediaeval) proposal was popular in the Age of Reason:
whenever you are sure that you are right, seek some wise people who disagree with
you and ask them to argue with you about your conviction. This advice is hardly any
good, since those who fail to see the naked truth hardly count as wise. This is a
catch. How then are we to overcome it?
During the Age of Reason, the popular view on the matter was psychological. It
was Francis Bacon’s idea that dogmatism is a kind of self-flattery. Traditional self-
flattery is similar to today’s ego-involvement: it is the received opinion (dogma?)
that good will should suffice as a tool for overcoming all dogma and all prejudice.
Bacon proposed that we should all contribute to the common good by doing some
research, and that doing so requires good will in two ways, first in overcoming our
disposition towards self-flattery and second in devoting time to research. This is
lovely, but not quite true; many dogmatists are full of good will, yet they are unaware
of their own dogmatism and ego involvement—perhaps with good reasons. Clearly,
good will alone is insufficient as a cure for dogmatism. Moreover, how does one
create the needed good will?
Thus, quite contrary to common wisdom, we regretfully admit that we are all
dogmatic to varying degrees. To claim oneself free of all dogma, said the wise phi-
losopher Bertrand Russell, is humbug. He did not take this as a sign of defeat. On
the contrary, it is heartwarming that, the ubiquity of dogmatism notwithstanding,
people do manage to change views and learn from experience, even if there still is
much room for improvement. Indeed, how else is the little progress that we experi-
ence at all possible? Here common experience is the very opposite to common wis-
dom: however dogmatic we may be, we all are susceptible to facing strong arguments
that force us to give up some dogmas, no matter how hard we may try to stick to
them. Indeed, how else do people lose their faith in the ugliest aspects of the reli-
gions of their forefathers? They may deny this, yet no Catholic sides with the
Inquisition these days, and no Lutheran will sanction Luther’s proposal to burn
synagogues, and no Jew advocates an eye for an eye. The ability to learn is more
pronounced in cases of people’s desertion of newfangled religion surrogates like
Marxism, Freudianism, scientism, and other systems.
Our question, then, is the following: what is the most efficient, rational way to
treat disputes? How should we steer clear of excessive dogmatizing and excessive
toleration of error? How can we avoid despair and argue reasonably while treating
the views we hold with a right measure of skepticism and while keeping our expec-
tations not too high and not too low?
All this would be much easier to discuss were it possible to decide in advance
how much time and effort the termination of any given dispute requires. We would
then be able to decide whether the investment of time and effort in debate on a given
question is worth our while or not. This, however, is in principle impossible.
Evidently, then, we may err in our assessment of the time and effort required, and
then our efforts to close a debate successfully may be futile and thus frustrating.
This raises an additional question: when is it wise to continue despite frustration,
Debates About Theories 21
and when is it wise to yield to it and stop the debate? This, again is the same as in
any prospecting venture, or any venture at all. Thomas Alva Edison said, “Many of
life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when
they gave up.” Obviously, this is only half of the story: many of life’s failures are
people who did not realize how far they were from success when they refused to
give up despite repeated frustration. Frustrated parties to disputes continue in des-
perate efforts to conclude them and thus overcome frustration. And indeed, no one
wishes to quit when success is around the corner. Yet success may elude us, repeat-
edly seeming to be hiding just around the corner. When then should participants to
a dispute curtail it? When does it cease to make sense to continue a debate? And if
we stop the argument, under what conditions does it make sense to reopen it?
Debates About Theories
Before continuing with this vexing question, we should make another necessary
detour in order to avoid some common pitfalls, in order to avoid frustrating you as
a reader of this handbook. We sincerely wish you to enjoy reading it.
Our interest here is limited to cases of disputes about the truth. Is the opinion
under dispute true? Which of the alternative answers to a given question is true? Not
all arguments are devoted to the search for the truth. For example, people may tell
lies and argue in effort to make their opponents believe their lies. For another exam-
ple, people may argue about the price of a product in order to negotiate a compro-
mise. Even in such cases, however, at least some disputes involve questions to which
the true answer is unique. In the case of a debate about the right price of a given
commodity, the relevant question to which there is a unique true answer is, what is
the price of the product that is the lowest that seller is willing to accept, and what is
the highest price that buyer is willing to pay? (Clearly, these two may differ, in
which case there may be no deal: trade may be frustrating too.)
Our interest here is to help you develop debating skills, and so we will limit our
presentation to cases of rational debates, or, more generally, we will concentrate on
disputes whose participants try to behave within reason: we will discuss cases of
disputes that are rationally conducted to include the rational decision to open a
debate or not, and if so, on what conditions. (For a conspicuous example, if you can,
do not open a debate under stress or when you are busy or distracted but postpone it
to a more propitious moment. Of courses, this may become a technique of procras-
tination that is a mode of self-deception. Obviously, those engaged in undesired
disputes, especially if they are people who wish to win at all costs, have to take
stock and come to some general tough decisions.)
Here we go with the general trend of the literature on disputes, since it ignores
self-deception (unless it is concerned with obsessive contrariness) as well as efforts
to win by foul means (unless its concern is with magic tricks or with manipulative
techniques like brainwashing). The one exception to this concerns rhetoric: the
literature pays attention to the distinction between rational arguments and rhetoric,
where the default aim of rational argument is the truth and that of rhetoric is to win
one way or another, to convince. Since rhetoric follows different methods than ratio-
nal debates, the literature should ignore it, yet since Plato and Aristotle paid much
attention to it, tradition does the same. Tools specific to rhetoric—to efforts to con-
vince by any means—are emotional, aggressive (raising one’s voice) or amiable
(conveying or inviting sympathy). They intrude rational debates but should stay
marginal. Otherwise they become anti-rational; they are then deliberately manipula-
tive and may even use inferences known to be invalid. Still, as marginal they have
one role to play that is reasonable—as long as they remain marginal. It is this: in
public debates, especially in politics, one who is ready for a rational debate may
bump into a rhetorician who spoils the game. The question is, what does one do
under such circumstances? In western movies the hero draws a gun and forces liars
to show the cards that they have up their sleeve; in domestic comedies chess players
stop the game when they face a breach of the rules of the game. In private debate,
we have said repeatedly, the way to treat a frustrating debate—and this usually
involves violations of the rules of debate—it is likewise advisable to stop the debate.
But in public this luxury may be unavailable. Similarly, unavailable is the method of
exposing the rhetorician as a rhetorician. There are however simple techniques that
most of the time suffice for overcoming the unpleasant situation. We will state them
now and then ignore rhetoric as much as possible.
First, let us observe: like prejudice, rhetoric is never fully avoidable. As it is
unavoidable, the limit of its use is an unproblematic matter of commonsense. Hence,
no argument is fully rational. Relativists use this as proof that there is no rational
debate, only rhetoric. (No one is totally clean; hence, no one is dirty. Hence, let us
wallow in dirt, or at least do not condemn me for my disposition to do so.) We wish
to ignore both the rather non-rational and the distinctly anti-rational arguments here.
They have their place, of course, but not in the present handbook, in which we aim
to reduce frustration that debates incur and to increase of their fruitfulness. Indeed,
rhetoric can only increase frustration. All too often, rhetoric succeeds in helping to
close a debate, but the cost of this success is increased frustration as the losing party
realizes that they yielded only because they were successfully manipulated. So let
us close this point by mentioning the few simple rules that should suffice to encoun-
ter the excessive rhetoric that threaten to bring the rationality of a public debate to
utter ruin.
The most important thing to remember is not to lose your cool. This is the prime
target of able rhetoricians and you should not let them have the pleasure of seeing
you lose our cool. Wait for your turn and be ready to respond to the rhetorician only
when you are clearly expected to do so, and even then count to 10 before answering.
Second, repeat the point or the line of argument of the rhetorician; make it as verba-
tim as you can and do not make it a caricature. This done, the damage that the rheto-
ric has caused is almost totally repaired. What is missing is a simple assessment of
the rhetoric that the audience has just heard. After that you can count to 10 again and
continue as if the incident has never happened. If all this does not work, you can
shrug your shoulder—literally—and cut your losses.
A general note on Dialectics and Rhetoric. The word "dialogue" means two peo-
ple talking; one proposes a theory and answers questions that the other asks in effort
to criticize that theory. The dialectical method is the way a rational argument is
conducted on a given question: competing answers to it are examined in search for
the truth (or at least the approximation to the truth). This activity is the concern of
this handbook. The difference between them has engaged thinkers through the ages,
as it is the concern of a famous early dialogue of Plato (Gorgias). Nevertheless,
efforts were repeatedly made to show these two to be the same. Traditionally, as
Plato has put it, the aim of dialectic is to refute and of rhetoric to persuade. Since the
rules of the two procedures are identical, it is understandable that people wish to
identify them, especially those thinkers who deemed the real aim of refutation is to
clear the way to persuasion. Nevertheless, obviously the use of the tools specific to
rhetoric in efforts to criticize is very limited; the role they play in efforts to persuade
is a matter of psychology that we will try hard to ignore.
To sum it up, dialectic and rhetoric should follow the same rules, yet the tempta-
tion to cheat or break the rules is great in rhetoric and small in dialectic. The aims
of the players nevertheless influence conduct within these rules in subtle and unin-
teresting manners. Still, the most significant difference may relate to cheating:
cheating defeats the purpose of dialectic, and so it is in the interest of the players to
behave as honestly as they know how. In rhetoric, cheating that is not caught may be
just what is required to make a difference between win and loss. A subtle difference
is this: in a dialogue it always pays to admit errors and ignorance, and in rhetoric it
is often better to conceal them. The rules of the game require that one answer truth-
fully when asked about these things, but if the opponent overlooks them, then a
good rhetorician will let it ride. Another subtle difference is this: when the discus-
sion approaches a doubtful area, the dialectician would wish to learn something
about it and participate in the inquiry into that area; a good rhetorician might then
make an effort to lead the debate in different directions. The rules require that con-
sent of the opponent is necessary for such a move, of course, but a good rhetorician
will tempt the opponent to move to an area that may deceptively look more
promising.
As our concern here is to reduce frustration, we suggest that often frustration is
the outcome of a debate that looks dialectical to one party and rhetoric to the other.
We are not interested here in rhetoric, even though we do admit that at times it
serves its users well. We are trying to help a dialectician, especially a beginner dia-
lectician, and only by listing the situations that are frustrating, in order to help
change or avoid them. How then should one who is seeking the truth and is engaged
in a private debate handle the rhetoric that may sneak into the debate? We suggest
that the answer is relatively simple. Assume that your opponents are dialecticians
and not rhetoricians. Make sure that they do not violate the rules of the game. If you
are not sure, say so, and, we suggest, stop the debate for a while and begin a (meta-)
debate about the rules. If the opponent plays by the rule, wins, and is happy about
it, just ignore this fact and ask yourself if you have benefitted from the debate. If not,
be less eager to open a debate with the same party than before. Remember, the joy
that an opponent derives from having won a debate is childish and it should not
upset you. Remember, the joy derived from a good debate—and debate should be
very joyful—is from having learned from it.
The study of rhetoric is vast. Many studies in the field of psychology are devoted
to its character and influence; these issues, once again, lie beyond the scope of this
handbook. To make sure that we discuss dialectic and not rhetoric even though there
is no clear-cut division between them, we apply a distinction similar to the one used
in linguistics between competence and performance. When linguists study the rules
of proper speech, they take as their data for research the grammar that native speak-
ers display, and then these linguists must ignore cases of clearly substandard perfor-
mance—due to neglect or other factors, such as fatigue, limited memory span, or
even plain ignorance. For, they are interested in rules displayed not in any perfor-
mance but in the performance of the competent, namely in the conduct of native
speakers able to follow the rules. They seek rules by the study of the conduct of
following these rules. The task is subtle: linguists want to avoid idealizing and stay
with grammar of a living language and avoid errors of earlier linguists; yet when
they seek rules by studying proper speech they idealize. This cannot be helped, and
the only tools at the hand of the linguist are commonsense and the critical attitude.
We too are not interested in performance, such as trying to win, but rather in the
competent use of rational argument only, and we too try not to idealize too much but
are aware that some idealization is unavoidable. Therefore, if you learn to follow the
traditional rules that we describe more or less, perhaps you should be content and
not invest the excessive efforts that may frustrate. You can use rising frustration as
a meter: when this happens try to do something about it, perhaps simply do some-
thing completely different for a while. Contrary to most handbooks, this one rests
on the supposition that trying hard is often self-defeating.
Our interest in the rules then is not theoretical but practical: knowledge of these
rules should render debates both less frustrating and more fruitful. (These two, we
repeatedly claim, go together.) To take a practical example, lawyers in courts aim to
win, but since the aim of the court is to find the truth (and to act upon it in accord
with the law of the land), its conduct is following the rules of rational debate. This
is not to say that all court procedures are as rational as they can be, since lawyers
can and often do use rhetoric, but the task of the judge is to warn the jury not to be
swayed by rhetoric and to curb the lawyers’ rhetoric if it is excessive. At times
judges take bribes, of course, but then in the study of the rules that courts should
follow their conduct is ignored since bribery is obviously against the rules of every
civilized court-procedure.
Thus, we had to begin with helping you to be able to neutralize rhetoric, as it is
a major source of frustration in debates. We want to help you distinguish with
ease—in debates that you may encounter—between cases of performances that dis-
play competence and those that do not, namely, between rational and non-rational
aspects (we have already discussed the anti-rational aspects as best we could). Some
non-rational tools are unavoidable, but fortunately they are such that once you are
aware of the way in which they work, their influence diminishes or even disappears
and you can overlook them with profit. The paradigm case is being aware of the fact
that a raised voice intimidates; you know that you should neutralize its effect with
little or no effort. If you find it hard to resist the intimidating effect of an argument,
however, then we strongly recommend that you should stop the debate. At times
stopping is not an option; under such conditions, the frustration is caused not by
ignorance of the rules of debate but rather by violence. Discussion of violence dis-
guised as rational argument (a. k. a. brainwashing) lies beyond our scope of this
handbook. Needless to say, though, people in the unfortunate situation of suffering
from harassment should know that they face an irrational situation that cannot be
guided by the norms of rational debate. This does not neutralize the frustration, but
it does eliminate an aspect of it that is very annoying, namely, not seeing how the
bullies manipulate us. Seeing it enables us to seek improvement—of kinds that we
cannot discuss here.
In other words, mere awareness comprises but a partial solution. Cases such as
brainwashing in prisoners-of-war camps, in particular, are more challenging. They
involve non-rational arguments, yet awareness of the situation does not void the
influence of the arguments being employed. But even in these cases, those aware of
the brainwashing attempt are usually much less influenced than those who are not.
Our rule here then is dual: avoid using rhetoric and ignore your opponent’s use
of it as much as you reasonably can, or else stop the debate if you can. Common
wisdom suggests fighting rhetoric, such as, for example, demanding of our oppo-
nents that they lower their voices. We decidedly avoid making this suggestion, as it
is futile and even counterproductive. (It can be useful in court, to repeat, but it is not
the concern of this handbook.) Ignoring the volume of the speaker and ignoring the
aggressive words in written correspondence is more useful than protest, but if shouts
and aggressive words persist and distract the debate, we recommend that it cease.
(Before that we recommend that in the reply you quote the passages that you respond
to, but quote them not verbatim.) Cases in which the prevention of annoyance is
impossible are cases of harassment. They have little to do with argument and have
no room in this handbook.
And so back to the question, when should participants to a dispute curtail it?
When does it cease to make sense to continue a debate between well-intending par-
ties? Yet before discussing the rational termination of a debate, we should ask, when
is it rational to begin it? For, obviously, the better the debate is prepared, the less
likely are the parties to encounter the need to terminate it abruptly. (This is true of
all human encounters, of course.) When, then, is it rational to begin a debate? What
are the prerequisites for a rational debate?
We stress this point, since readiness to stop a debate with opponents who violate
the rules may render debates successful as it is the best way to bring opponents back
to following the rules. As an illustrative example, consider refereed fights in a ring
that follow clear rules. Contrast them with street brawls that do not. Most debates in
modern society take place in living rooms between friends and thus, quite counter-
intuitively, they resemble street brawls more than scientific or parliamentary or
court debates. Hundreds of books about debates are now on sale. Most of them offer
strategies for successful use in high-school debating societies or techniques regard-
ing how-to-win-a-debate-without-losing-a-friend. This book differs from these
guidebooks mainly in two ways. First, our aim is to guide you not to win a debate
but rather to benefit from it with as little frustration as is reasonable. Second, these
guidebooks concentrate on rhetoric, while we discuss the rational conduct of debates
and let the better idea win. For example, guidebooks often include suggestions such
as “refrain from saying you are wrong” or “smile when disagreeing.” Do not expect
this kind of suggestion in this book. We will discuss here the logic of debate, not its
wrappings, especially not ones that we do not find particularly agreeable.
Chapter 3
Improving the Wording of the Questions
Under Dispute
Abstract Make sure that the debating parties agree as to what is the question under
dispute. The question should be worded as an interrogative sentence (one that begins
with a question word and ends with a question mark). Questions with vague word-
ing such as, “how about x, y or z?” are better not taken up. The same goes for
unspecified questions, like the question of this or that topic or person or situation.
Do not debate definitions of concepts. Instead of trying to argue about the “right”
definition of a certain concept, clarify its meaning by presenting examples, mainly
paradigm cases. (If the concept is technical, its definition is usually not under dis-
pute.) Once the question under dispute and the presuppositions behind it are reason-
ably clearly stated and agreed upon, the debate can start. Notably, there is no need
to worry whether this precondition has been sufficiently met or not: if the back-
ground information proves not to be adequately clear and the debate starts getting
frustrating, then it is always possible to take a step back and discuss the background
material a bit more before proceeding.
Here is a reasonable advice: do not rush into a confrontation. You are not obliged to
respond to a challenge positively or negatively. Except for cases where the law
imposes a confrontation, you may ignore it. The challenger may call you a coward
and otherwise tease you; this is childish. Any response to a challenge has its costs
and benefits, and it is wise to assess these before doing anything. Of course, there
are exceptions. At times there is little or no time for deliberation. In such cases there
is no room for advice. At times you may see the challenge coming and you may
prepare your possible responses to possible sorts of challenge. These cases are so
rare that we will be forgiven if we ignore them.
To repeat, some debates are obligatory. They may be legally or at least morally
obligatory; or our bosses may impose them on us. The paradigm case is indeed the
court case: it is usually dumped on us; we often have no choice but to participate in
the action, to take sides, to argue our cases or opinions as best we can. Even then, it
is not clear whether we are invited to apply the rules of dialectic or of rhetoric. All
too often lawyers take it for granted that rhetoric is superior to dialectic. Indeed,
they say that when dialectic is superior to rhetoric, then obviously rhetoric recom-
mends dialectic, so that it always has priority. This is a sleight of hand. In courts we
want judgment in our favor; in dialectic we want the better opinion to win. Is it right
to aim to win a case in court at all cost? Some lawyers take it for granted that it is.

28 3 Improving the Wording of the Questions Under Dispute
And then these lawyers take it for granted that they have no moral obligation as long
as they avoid penalty for contempt of court. We think that even pragmatic reasons
render this kind of conduct undesirable. But as this is no handbook on lifestyles, we
let this ride.
One way or another, for most people in contemporary society most debates are
optional. (Lawyers, physicians and researchers are the exception, and they are the
minority.) In many circles, it is customary to challenge people to argue, and it is
considered dishonorable to dodge the challenge. Yet it is usually unwise to jump
right in without forethought; the right to decide which conflicts to enter and which
to avoid is valuable. We assume that in some cases, people can exercise their right
to choose which debate to instigate or to join. And then, to repeat, each decision
incurs its costs and its benefits. We should mention here that one who belongs to a
circle in which challenges to argue are too frequent or too rare may consider the
option of moving from their circle to more normal ones and figure their cost-benefit
accordingly.
We should then specify here the difference between practical (obligatory) and
theoretical (non-obligatory) debates. The usual distinction between practical and
theoretical debates rests on the suggestion that there is no use for theoretical debates,
or at least no need for them. Both these suggestions are greatly mistaken. Also, their
refutations are obvious. One of them is the fact that practically all of today’s tech-
nology is science-based and that research in science is chiefly theoretical. Criticism
is the heart and soul of rational debate, and with no criticism there is no theoretical
progress. Moreover, learning is a basic need (albeit, as Abraham Maslow has notes,
less basic than the needs for food and for company). Still, although we feel a strong
need to learn as much as debate provides a learning tool, we always have a choice
when it comes to any specific item that we may wish to learn. Here there is the ques-
tion of opportunity cost: we all want to know more things than we can learn. Hence,
if we invest in learning one item we thereby give up learning another. Assuming that
we have a limited budget that we utilize as best we can (in this case it is the time to
allot to learning), the cost of the acquisition of each item (in this case, of knowl-
edge) is the giving up of other options that it ousts. This is known as opportunity
cost. Members of different circles, to repeat, may allot different spans of time for
debate. In each, however, there is opportunity cost for debating time. The wise does
not squander it.
Once you decide to enter a debate, the first prerequisite for an enjoyable and
hopefully fruitful debate is to frame a good question. This is easier said than done.
What question is good, then? This is one of the toughest questions in the diverse set
of situations that call for debate, including every field of learning. For, even those
interested in a specific field or sub-field of learning must find a specific question
within it that they find particularly interesting and that they consider promising to
investigate. We know that some past studies in these fields were very fruitful and we
usually ascribe it to their success in part to the wise choice of a problem. In specific
cases we even go further and say, the choice of a question was itself a great contribu-
tion to human knowledge, as it was a replacement for some traditional questions
that had gone stale and so it was a great improvement on it. For example, modern
3 Improving the Wording of the Questions Under Dispute 29
science emerged (as a scientific revolution) in the seventeenth century when (among
other things) researchers stopped asking what is the essence of things, or what are
the teleological reasons underlying their presence, and started asking what things
are made of and how they move around. Moreover, a great change in the scientific
revolution was a shift (that Johannes Kepler effected) from the question, how can
orbits of planets be described with least deviations from the ideal circular orbits, to
the question, can the orbits be not circles?
If a particular question interests you sufficiently and you share it with anyone in
the vicinity—be it in a quest to contribute to human knowledge or only to please
your own self—you can suggest to open a debate on it. This condition, however,
may be too constraining (as it is hard to find a shared interest) and not suffice to
create fruitful dialog (since the interesting question can be too difficult and none of
you can come up with any answer to it). For example, theological questions bore
many people, yet they interest many; yet debates on them are stale and very frustrat-
ing. Such things are of course alterable. Consider the questions, why the sky is blue,
or why is the grass green; these always interested many researchers but until a little
over one century, no one came up with a possible answer to them. It turns out that
the blueness of the sky is much easier to explain than the greenness of grass. This
no one could imagine before the answers were given.
One rule of thumb for the avoidance of frustration (whenever it is applicable) is
to choose a good controversial question. A question is controversial if competing
answers appear in the literature (including the internet). It is a good question if the
parties to the dispute agree that the answers of their competitors are reasonable.
This is obviously not always possible: the question on the agenda may be new, for
example, or it may have been absolutely overlooked to date, or there were no
answers to them for debates about them to proceed. But whenever this option is
applicable, it saves the frustration of futile debate.
We consider this a matter of great importance: arguments against worthless opin-
ions tend to be intellectually worthless. Of course, they may be valuable otherwise.
In particular, there may be a great social need to argue against worthless opinions
simply because they are widespread and harmful. The paradigm case is racism.
Criticizing racism is important as educational act, but usually it makes no intellec-
tual sense to debate with a racist. As it happens this obvious fact has a strong scien-
tific basis. It is this. Racists used traditionally intuitive ideas about race that did not
make much scientific sense. The modern racists claimed to be applying Darwinian
ideas. They argued that the human race needs protection by eliminating undesirable
genes from the common gene pool. This claim is erroneous: Darwinism relies on
natural selection and so it does not call for intervention. The racists answered this
by claiming that the contemporary humane treatment of degenerate samples that
should be eliminated by natural selection block this selection and threatens human-
ity. This answer is contrary to the Darwinian idea that a wide gene pool is superior
to the filtered one that prefers blue-eyed blond-haired fair-skinned individuals and
excludes others. It is amazing that such great biologists as Conrad Lorenz, later a
Nobel laureate, supported the Nazi racial segregation during World War II in a sci-
entific paper. Yet today anyone who cares to study the matter learns fast that racism
is an idea too easy to criticize. This, however, does not close the social need to criti-
cize it publicly. A good question to debate, though, is, what is the best way to over-
come racism—or xenophobia in general.
A pointless debate, even when necessary, is tedious and frustrating and quite
unenlightening for the better informed. Unfortunately, this handbook offers little
advice to alleviate educational frustration. We suggest that our readers consider
debates that they have some information about, and ask themselves whether the
debated issue is useful and whether the debate is held between respectful parties.
Obviously, racists are no respectful party. We suggest that you debate only under the
two conditions of respect for your opponents and usefulness of debates with them.
Arguing with the young and with other kinds of inexperienced people as a part of
educating them may be enjoyable if we respect them and remember that they are at
an unfair disadvantage. Otherwise, debate with a disadvantaged opponent will be
very tedious and cumbersome as well as futile. Indeed, the identity and learning
potentials of opponents plays a significant role in determining the utility of debates
with them.
To summarize this point, in cases of debates voluntarily undertaken, our rule of
thumb should be to choose a good question that you find interesting, important or
urgent. A question should be considered good only if among the competing answers
to it, at least one, but by far better two or more, seem to you reasonable. You can
then consult the literature or friends (and better both), especially friends who share
your judgment about what answers seem reasonable (or else you can debate this
matter with them) but you do not agree about their truth or falsity, or at least about
the question, which of the extant answers is the best. The purpose of limiting discus-
sion to good answers is that it is all too easy and hardly reasonable to criticize
answers that no reasonable people will defend (even such theoretical exercises may
be needed for the purpose of improving the educational level of the electorate in a
democratic society).
Of course, a good question may have unreasonable answers; this, indeed, is the
usual case. We suggest, then, that you list all the answers you can think of, but dis-
cuss only the reasonable ones (according to your choice, preferably after discussion
with others, and always keeping an open mind about the matter; otherwise you will
be the dogmatists who know that others disagree with them but who dismiss them
with finality). Of course, this is not always possible. The known answers to an
urgent question may be all unreasonable. They are often even popular. In such cases,
often those who hold the unreasonable answers not only deem them reasonable, but
also deem unreasonable the known alternatives as well as the search for new ones.
Obviously, these are the cases of dogmatists. In such cases, the very possibility of
rational debates is questionable. If you overlook this fact, be prepared for frustra-
tion. And there are incentives for this. People who hold popular but unreasonable
answers often wish to argue with their opponents, but they usually have no idea
about the rules of rational debates and they aim at convincing their opponents, not
at learning from them through debates. Whatever the challenge they present, argu-
ing with them will only frustrate. We definitely recommend avoiding such debates
or at least entering them with open eyes. If you must argue regarding unreasonable
populist views, the following rules for preparation may hopefully yield fruitful
debate.
Even if an interesting controversial question is agreed upon, there is no guarantee
that participants in it will manage to sidestep frustration. Regrettably, many disputes
frustrate as they are conducted in too confused a manner to be interesting or fruitful.
Even when participants know the difference between clarity and confusion and pre-
fer the one to the other, they may stay confused anyway. Much of the confusion that
fairly educated people perpetrate dwells on the border between competence and
performance that we have already visited; participants in them could improve their
competence by paying some attention to the rules. To avoid at least some of this
confusion, we suggest starting a debate, especially if you must argue with people
whose views you do not consider very reasonable, by discussing some preliminary
questions. If your opponent has no patience for them, it is most likely a situation in
which rational debate is not possible in any case, and so it is better to give up hope
of a fruitful discussion. If your opponent does have the patience, you may start with
the following three questions:
1. What is the question put for debate?
2. Is the question interesting or important?
3. Can the answers under dispute be simultaneously true?
Consider the first question: what is the question? It is a somewhat surprising
empirical fact that many people who regularly engage in debates (politicians, schol-
ars, celebrities) are convinced that they know what question is under debate, and
that all parties to the debate know it too and agree about it. Often, they only seem to
know what the question is but they do not, as a simple test for knowing the question
should illustrate. Yet the test is no good. For one thing, they suggest that they know
the question when in response to the test they say its name or title. Obviously, con-
fusion emerges when different questions have the same name. (One question having
different names is less confusing than few questions have the same name.) At times,
an old name of a question persists while the question has already altered or split.
And so, to offer the name of a question is often fairly useless. At times, a question
splits into a few sub-questions, and so we have to ascertain that all parties stick to
the one sub-question that they agreed to discuss. In other instances, still, a question
is specified by a descriptive phrase, such as “the race problem” or “the main prob-
lem in contemporary physics.” This is too vague to prevent frustrations. Indeed, a
good debate question requires an explicit statement. That is to say, it should open
with an interrogative word (who, what, which, when, why, where) and end with a
question mark.
If you take our advice and stop a debate with the question, what is the question
under debate, you may be surprised at the hostility that you may generate. You will
find that often people will try to overrule your question as distracting. This violates
a very important rule of debate: your question (what is the question under debate
here and now?) is technically known as a point of order, and points of order always
have priority. (This is also open to abuse. The notorious Senator Joseph McCarthy
repeatedly interrupted debates by declaring the wish to make points of order and
then made speeches instead.) People may then object that discussing your question
is both tedious and unnecessary, since the debate will make the answer to your ques-
tion clear. This is an excellent point: it is always right to ignore difficulties that
resolve themselves; alas, it happens to be amply refuted: clarity and vigilance about
it are essential and they do not resolve themselves.
And so, the explicit wording of the question under debate as a question is very
important and spending time about it is wise. And, as mentioned above, it is better
to seek a verbal formulation in the form of a question proper than formulating it by
reference to a concept or to an idiom, since concepts and idioms might refer to sev-
eral different questions. By wording the question under debate, the parties to it can
avoid wasting efforts in an apparent, seeming dispute. Whenever we find that we are
engaged in a seeming dispute, it is wise to seek the real question that hides behind
faulty wordings. For example, “the problem of poverty” may refer to several differ-
ent questions. What is the moral responsibility of well-to-do people towards the
poor? What is the most efficient way to reduce poverty? Whose duty is it to reduce
poverty, the state or the community, or some other body? These and many other
questions may meet the description “the problem of poverty”. So, instead of debat-
ing on “the problem of poverty,” we recommend that you start by formulating the
specific question you are debating.
Moreover, some sentences are grammatically formulated as questions, but are
not questions under dispute, and therefore should be avoided. Examples:
1. Does A relate to B? The answer is always “yes” (this is a point of logic).
2. What are the relations between A and B? (There can be infinitely many relations,
most of them uninteresting.)
3. What is known about A? (There can be infinitely many true assertions that refer
to any subject.)
Consider the first question (Does A relate to B?) for which, by logic, the true
answer is always Yes. Proof: Assume that there is no relation between A and B. It
follows that their names share the previous sentence. Hence they are related. Hence
they are necessarily related. Indeed, this way it is provable that there are infinitely
many relations between A and B, no matter what they are, which is the true answer
to the second question. For example, one relation is that neither was mentioned in
the first chapter of this book. This relation is clearly uninteresting, but it still is a
relation. A similar consideration leads to the answer to third question.
Now, the above questions were taken here literally. This is often a mistake. Their
vagueness is intended, and its aim is to provide latitude. Indeed, there is as much
room for vagueness as the parties to the encounter feel comfortable with. They
should know that to be fruitful a debate should start after vagueness is eliminated to
a reasonable extent, on the understanding that the option is always open to return to
the question and word it better still. If there is no agreement on this point, it is better
for discussants to recognize the sad fact that at that stage they are not prepared for a
debate, that to start it anyway will cause too much frustration. Admittedly, there is
no guarantee against frustration, but there are fairly good guarantees for frustration,
and debating vague questions is one of them. And so it is a fairly good guideline to
suggest not to rush into a debate but to avoid frustration, say by efforts to avoid
debates about vague questions as vagueness will almost guarantee that a debate will
frustrate.
When considering the question on the agenda for debate, the contesting sides
should also check the presuppositions to it. If the parties disagree about these pre-
suppositions, then the question is not yet suitable as the subject of the dispute before
this matter is cleared to the satisfaction of all parties to the debate. For example,
when the question is “What is the explanation for (the occurrence of) A?” the pre-
supposition is that A has occurred. If it did not, obviously there is often no point
debating this question. When disagreement emerges regarding presuppositions, it
may be useful to devote some efforts to a preliminary dispute. In court cases, for
example, preliminary disputes are common; indeed, deliberations on a case may be
put on hold for the preliminary dispute to be settled first. Moreover, during the
Middle Ages, several disputes dealt with question of which is the “right” religion:
Christianity, Islam or Judaism. These disputes presupposed that one of these reli-
gions is the right one, ignoring the (logical) option that none of them is. Nowadays,
for instance, a popular debate involves the most efficient legislation to fight drug
abuse. The presupposition behind these debates is that the government should fight
drug-abuse. We will not delve here into the issue of whether or not the presupposi-
tions to any given debate are true or false. Rather, we point out that the parties to a
dispute should try to be aware of its presuppositions, and if one of them disagrees
with the presupposition of a debate, then perhaps they would do better to abstain
from it and suggest instead another, preliminary debate, concerning its presupposi-
tions. One may, of course, join a debate on a presupposition that one considers false.
This is known as supposition for the sake of the argument. Often such debates are
theoretically instructive, say, if we are not dogmatic about our view that the presup-
position is false, but also if we insist on it and rightly so. For, we may learn from this
the extent of the damage that some false presuppositions cause.
So much for now on our first question, what question is on the agenda for a
debate? Let us turn to the second question, then: is that question interesting?
Alternatively, is it important? A question is not interesting and not important if the
parties engaged in it do not mind what the right answer to it is. A question is cer-
tainly interesting or important in at least the following two kinds of cases:
1. The true answer to it has practical implications (for example, the question is
medical and pertains to an urgent case).
2. If it is helpful in the discussion of an answer to one of the “big” or central ques-
tions that engage us constantly, such as, what is the meaning of life? (There is no
point in asking whether this question is interesting, since no “bigger” questions
exist; everybody can take interest in one or another component of this
question).
Unfortunately, many well-known discussions refer to uninteresting questions.
Consider the frequently asked kind of question, do males and females differ in
regard to mathematical ability? Such a question is not interesting since, a priori, its
true answer is obviously in the affirmative. The probability approaches zero that any
observed ability of females and males is on the average exactly the same. Also, a
demographic change may change the observed averages, but scarcely equate them.
Statistically speaking, if the samples are large enough, you will almost always find
a statistically significant difference between two independent sub-samples. The
gender difference in any regard is only interesting (if at all) if it is big enough to be
important. But then, one must decide in advance what the threshold for an interest-
ing difference is. Moreover, since we all agree that mathematical ability depends to
some extent on education, and since it is well known that girls in many societies are
more discouraged than boys from studying mathematics, it is reasonable to expect
females to show lower proficiency in mathematics. The useful question then is
slightly different. It is, will their ability be still lower if they acquire equal educa-
tion? Moreover, clearly, the question is affected by gender stereotyping: the stereo-
typical woman is better at doing work that the stereotypical man hates to do, and
such men justify their expectation from women by holding low views of them, and
they justify these low views of women by the claim that women are not good at
math (regardless of most men being no good at math either). Since degrading ste-
reotypes are better ignored without much ado, we recommend replacing the ques-
tion about the relative proficiency of the genders in math with such questions as,
what is the most efficient way to eradicate contempt in our society.
As another example consider the frequently asked questions: Who are the best X
(for instance, who is the best singer or football player, or: Who was a better soccer
player – Diego Maradona or Pele?). These questions are neither interesting nor
important since they can hardly teach us anything about the big questions. One may
sincerely claim that Pele was better player than Maradona, and another one may
claim the opposite (and a third one may claim that they were at the same level). No
matter who is right, none of the possible answers implies anything we know to the
questions such as, what is the meaning of life, and none of them has any practical
implication. It is amazing how frequently questions of this type of are under public
discussion. Looking up websites such as Quora.com one may find many questions
that have the following structure: What are some of the best …” These questions are
not recommended for debate since they are not interesting. Anyone who could make
them interesting will thereby make them candidates for interesting discussion and
will thereby enrich our outlook.
Another kind of question that engages intellectuals and in many cases is guaran-
teed to frustrate is this: is an ability under discussion (say, the ability to learn a
language) due to heredity or environment? Evidently, the answer is that both hered-
ity and the environment contribute to every ability. Take language; as humans have
the ability that other animals do not, heredity contributes to it; and as the ability
expresses itself differently in different environments, say, children acquire their
mother tongues, the environment contributes to it as well. Yet learned discussions of
this question and of similar ones fill highly frustrating literatures.
So much for now on our second question, is the question under debate interest-
ing? Alternatively, is it important? The third question that we recommend be exam-
ined before launching a debate is this. Can the answers under debate be simultaneously
true? This question eradicates reasonably well (although not fully, of course) cross-
purpose debates. For, if two answers are not mutually exclusive, then they are iden-
tical in content, or they are parts of one answer to a question, or else they do not
answer the same question. Hence, if the answers to the given question can be simul-
taneously true, then either the dispute is not real or else it is too vague. The common
confusion in such cases does not necessarily relate to one answer being given differ-
ent wordings. To avoid this type of confusion is easy, by requiring that the answers
be worded as similarly as possible, and that they include the question. Consider, for
example a question of the kind, on what day of the week did a certain event happen?
The answer “Sunday” should be replaced by, “the event happened on Sunday,” and
then all the answers—there are seven of them—should be worded the same way:
“the event happened on …” However, note that if the list of answers is complete,
then all but one of the answers offered are false. If the disputing parties offer an
incomplete list of answers, then all of them might be false. Regrettably, all too often,
refuting all the available competing answers but one, is taken to be a proof of the
non-refuted answer. This amounts to the supposition that the list of available
answers is complete. All too often it is not.
Frequently the confusion lies elsewhere: the alleged answers are parts of one
answer. We have a finite list of answers, and if the question invites a list of items
(who belong to …?), then each answer is a list. To be clear the controversial ques-
tion should specify that it is answerable only by complete lists. And then, but only
then, finding that a list is incomplete is a refutation of the answer. Otherwise, a
partial list is an answers, and then a long list and a short one that it includes are two
answers that will not be in conflict with each other. For example, the question, on
which day of the week an establishment is open, if it is understood as a request for
a complete list, then the list that mentions only two days will conflict with one that
mentions three. Not otherwise. This is a vagueness that is better settled before the
debate begins. Another vague well-known example of this kind depends on precise
meaning of the word “better.” Is the better good or not? (For example, although my
better friends are among my good friends, a small obstacle being better than a big
obstacle does not make any obstacle good.) Such words are relative, and so if the
question under dispute concerns usage of such words, their exact meaning in the
context of the dispute is better determined before it begins.
This kind of confusion can appear in somewhat more complex a situation. If each
party to a dispute lists the benefits or the drawbacks of a certain item, then all posi-
tions can be simultaneously true, in which case (obviously) no genuine dispute
exists. Especially since all those who defend monogamy, to take the paradigm that
Bernard Shaw discussed (in his preface to Getting Married), name its merits and
those who oppose it name its defects, the result is assured to be confusing. The
debate can only start after each party offers two lists covering the benefits and the
defects of monogamy, and if these lists are deemed complete then any discrepancy
between them comprises a genuine dispute—but not necessarily otherwise; even if
the lists are complete and identical, there can be a dispute if one party views the
balance between these factors (the overall picture) differently from the other.
Admittedly, behind any case of a confused seeming-dispute, a genuine dispute
may be lurking. And then it behooves the parties to the dispute to pull their resources
together in order to word their dispute as best as they can before they continue with
the arguments for and against this or that answer. Unfortunately, as Bernard Shaw
has noted, quite frequently most bachelors argue by listing the advantages of bach-
elorhood and disadvantages of married life, whereas most married people argue the
other way around. This makes no sense, as all sane people agree that both alterna-
tives—any set of alternatives—under dispute is a mixed bag. Shaw, once again,
found the debate more interesting if people exchange positions, so that bachelors
argue against bachelorhood and vice versa. This suggestion is very wise, but not a
part of the rules of debate (we will return to this later). The rule—try to avoid talk-
ing at cross-purposes—suggests that participants list the advantages and disadvan-
tages of their alternative choices and debate them first if need be. Afterwards, when
they reach sufficient agreement about the list of advantages and disadvantages of
both each option, they can argue intelligently, interestingly and usefully about the
question of which option is the better one. The preliminary discussion of the advan-
tages and the disadvantages of the diverse options will prevent the frustrating situa-
tion of considering a minority opinion obviously true.
As it happens most political debates are frustrating because of the custom of list-
ing only the benefits or only the defects of a given option. A possible excuse for this
folly is that it is popular because it is properly applied in courts. Now even in courts
wise lawyers concede to their opponents. (My client is no model citizen, but this is
not at issue now, but rather the allegation that he has committed a crime that I will
refute.) Moreover, in courts judge and jury take care of considering different parties.
Thus, whereas under ordinary circumstances we may object to the question, did you
stop beating your wife? since it is misleading, in court this question is not objection-
able, since there are competing cross-examiners and the other one may rectify the
impression by asking, why did you not stop? and provide the party under cross-
examination the opportunity to say, because I have never started. Since political
debates are not conducted as court procedures, each party must concede to the other
or else misunderstanding is bound to occur. Of course, misunderstanding is never
fully overcome, but all parties aiming at a balanced picture does help. This can be
easily seen by comparing political debates in countries whose electorate are edu-
cated to varying degrees.
As it happens, there is one clear and easy means for overcoming the very frustrat-
ing situation of a minority opinion that seems obviously true and that is presented
by opponents unfairly. It is one not likely to be taken at once in political debates, not
even in countries with the best educated electorates. But it is easy to insist on it in
scientific debates or between friends eager to learn. It is healthy then to ask intelli-
gent opponents not to debate the opinion in question but rather to check that both
parties agree on which question they disagree about. The first step to take is to check
that the dispute is between parties that offer competing generalizations. When both
parties to a dispute presents existential propositions (a sentence that starts with
“there is” or a similar expression), then they have not presented a genuine dispute,
although the situation indicates one—to be found in cooperative effort. If one party
presents a general proposition and the other party presents an existential proposi-
tion, then either the other party disagrees with the one party without offering an
alternative—which is quite legitimate, of course—or there is no dispute at all. These

are cases where the agreement about the disagreement is easy to reach, although this
is not always the case: disputes about definitions are persistently troublesome.
The matter of definitions is complicated, since statements that include descrip-
tive terms like “the mill on the floss” are existential, yet the Mill on the Floss that
George Eliot described is fictitious: it does not exist. This matter has troubled phi-
losophers greatly. Fortunately, however, this issue pertains mainly to debates about
logic, since in all other debates that refer to problematic matters, the parties can cut
things short by agreeing as to what exactly they have in mind in the context of the
debate. When explaining what the trouble is, things get usually sufficiently clear for
those who wish to overcome the trouble in question, and it is advisable then to
ignore matters of definition altogether. To take the funny example that philosophers
waste ink on, when she wants to marry the mayor, perhaps she is in love with the
fellow who happens to be the mayor and she may simply want to secure a good fam-
ily life and so she goes for the mayor because he is available. Which option is true?
This is a silly question, since when we care enough about the matter to discuss it,
we can ask which option is true or conduct the discussion, whatever it is, once on
the supposition that the one option is true and then that the other is.
The confusion regarding universals and particulars is prevalent in the arts, espe-
cially in philosophy. Words like “people” can serve either as a universal categoriza-
tion (“all people”) or as a particular one (“some people”). Many statements of the
form “people are …” may be read as universal, and then as obviously false, or as
particular, and then as obviously true. “People are sinners” is an example. Readers
who stumble upon this statement face a dilemma: reading it as universal (all people
are sinners) makes it trivially false, and reading it as particular (some people are
sinners) makes it trivially true. The escape from the dilemma is to (mis) read this
sentence to mean, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and
never sins” (Ecclesiastes, 7:20). This is equivalent to the statement “All people
commit some sins.” This is not what the sentence in question says, and confusing
the two sentences, the vague or ambiguous one and the clear one, is common in
literature and literary debates. The incentive for it is to avoid explicit, blunt criticism
of the vagueness of the vague proposition, on the false assumption that explicit blunt
criticism is rude. We strongly suggest to avoid arguing with people who prefer not
to state their criticism bluntly. If you must argue with them, all you can do is express
regret for your need to offer your criticism explicitly and bluntly. This is quite advis-
able, since overruling people’s sensitivity is regrettable indeed. Moreover, if you
can, ask the people who make the vague statements to clarify them. If they do not
and if you must continue with the debate regardless, then clarify the statement your-
self, or offer competing clarification, as we have just done. This may get you out of
a tough spot. But, to repeat our previously made point, there is never a guarantee for
this and the present handbook is no devised for solving such problems; it can only
touch upon the aspects of such problems that belong to the theory of
argumentation.
Remember, then: some people are intent on proving themselves always right.
When they say some vague or ambiguous sentence of this or that kind, they express
indignation at people who read it as obviously false or as obviously true. We should

ignore such responses, since it is never wise to argue with people who must always
be right if it can be avoided: the only way to make sure that one does not say any
false sentence in such a context is to keep silent. Some people prefer to talk not to
the point. Our advice is to try to dissuade them, but not to make any effort if they
refuse; it is easier to consider intended irrelevant talk a form of silence: you need not
respond to it. On the whole, it is important to realize that you do not have to respond
to anything said to you, except in courts, where you can appeal to the judge for help
in case the layer who interrogates you does not behave by the book.
Many disputes, mainly in philosophy and in jurisprudence, concentrate on the
clarification of the meanings of concepts involved in a given discussion. At times
clarifications is obviously required. The paradigm case for this is when a speaker
uses technical terms that are not familiar to their interlocutors. This is particularly
important when the technical terms in question sound like ones that belong to ordi-
nary parlance. Many philosophical disputes concern efforts to clarify ordinary well-
understood concepts. Such clarifications may be helpful when the discussion refers
to obviously vague or ambiguous terms that the parties can easily disambiguated, on
the condition that the clarifications are not so detailed and lengthy that they will take
up all the time allotted to the debate, leaving no time for the meat of the debate. This
prolongation is assured by the demand for an ultimate definition for each and every
concept involved. This is obviously impossible, since the search for them leads to
an infinite regress: efforts to define the meaning of a concept involve more concepts,
and they may want definitions too. Nor are definitions always the best means for
clarification; paradigm cases are better for explicating the meaning of concepts. In
most cases involving only normal parlance, clear examples are better than defini-
tions. For example, instead of trying to define the concept “love” (which usually
leads nowhere), it is better to give some examples of paradigm manifestations of
love, especially in disputes that allot great importance to the difference between
physical love (eros) and spiritual love (agápē). Finally, if two parties disagree about
the meaning of a specific concept and the situation is otherwise relatively clear, then
there is no need to resolve the difference: we can speak of that concept as Tom
understands it, and of the same concept as Dick understands it, and so on. As long
as we are careful enough to not confuse the meanings of Tom and of Dick, we are
on safe ground. All we must remember here is that there is no such thing as “true
meaning,” only received meanings and other meanings clearly differentiated. If dif-
ferent disputants insist on different definitions, then this need not cause a dispute, as
they can take care not to confuse the two meanings of the word and then the case is
not different from any other case of one word with two meanings.
This is not to deny that even obvious words may invite clarification, say in cases
of contested wills. This is a famously tough matter and courts are usually right when
they try to avoid such discussions by suggesting compromises. We need not go into
this matter here, as we have already explained. Let us take the opportunity, though,
and note the obvious and oft forgotten difference between conflicting or contradicting
opinions and conflicting interests. Conflicting or contradicting opinions cannot be
simultaneously true; yet the assertion of conflicting interests is often true: it is true
that both toddlers want to play alone with the same toy, even if this is impossible,
yet the assertions that the toy belongs exclusively to one is in conflict or contradic-
tion with the assertion that it belongs exclusively to the other. While this statement
may seem too obvious, possibly it is not: followers of the famous philosopher Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, including all followers of Karl Marx, repeatedly confuse
conflict with contradiction and they even use these two words as synonyms when
they declare that some contradictions are true. This makes debate with them useless,
since the way to help people see a mistaken of theirs is to show them that they con-
tradict themselves. This obviously does not work if they respond with, “so much the
better, showing me that this is inconsistent only reinforces my conviction that it is
true.” To argue with people who think so is obviously useless. The case is similar to
that of a chess-player who is glad to sacrifice the king and is intent to go on playing
after checkmate. More generally, it is better never to forget that we cannot force
people to correct their mistakes. They can always stick to their errors by declaring
your counter-example the exception that prove the rule, or that it is true in theory but
not in practice, or by some other witticism or paradox.
Before we close this chapter, let us make one more suggestion that might reduce
frustration in debates. Many people refer to debates as competitions of sorts, ones
that we want to win. Losing a debate usually leads to frustration, like the disappoint-
ment we have when losing a competition. This need not be so. As long as you debate
for the sake of research and of learning, you should consider it a success if you have
learnt something interesting through it. Whether you win or lose should not matter.
Nevertheless, many people do want to win, and get disappointed and frustrated if
they do not. This is a psychological phenomenon, but it has its natural limitations.
Thus, suppose you think that you have cancer and discuss the matter with your phy-
sician, who disagrees. Surely, you will be delighted to lose that debate. Consider
error, at least a significant error, as a cancer of sorts, and you will see why Socrates
insisted that defeat in a debate is the real win. Even in sports, whether physical or
mental, when you are disappointed that you are less good a player than your oppo-
nent, you may enjoy the game and you may enjoy learning to improve. There is little
more that we can say on this matter here.
A way that may reduce the influence of the sense of loss that accompanies
defeat—in a debate or in any other game— is to make the best of it, as we have just
noted. Another way is to remain aware of the desire to win throughout the game. As
many psychologists have discovered, the very awareness of any irrational disposi-
tion decreases its intensity. Thus, for example, the awareness that a certain person
irritated you for no good reason suffices to lessen that irritation somewhat. Finally,
the most useful suggestion, already mentioned above: switch roles with your oppo-
nents. Try to argue for their position and against yours. This will lessen your sense
of identifying with one side of the debate; consequently, you will care less about
which side wins and more about the benefit accrued from the debate. You will iden-
tify more with your proficiency in the art of debate and enjoy the growth of
self-esteem independently of what opinion you happen to consider the true answer
to the question at hand.
In closing, let us expand a bit on the last suggestion. Usually, we do not expect
people to present different sides of a dispute. For example, to repeat, the standard
system that operates in courts worldwide expects each side to present one case, with
no expectation of objectivity. The judge and the jury are expected to be objective
and should therefore be a third independent party. We may consider unjust any vio-
lation of this method. For example, when a journalist interviews someone and func-
tions as both prosecutor and judge and jury, we may say that the interview is not fair.
The same may hold for business people in encounters with tax collectors. However,
we suggest here quite a different view. When the aim of a debate is learning, the
parties to it may benefit by switching positions; judge and jury are then redundant.
This may also contribute to the efficiency of debates on practical matters, such as
damage claims. If the plaintiff and defender change positions, even merely as an
experiment, they may raise the possibility of reaching a reasonable compromise.
Chapter 4
The Burden of Proof
Abstract Pay attention as to who bears the burden of proof. Those who claim that
their opponents are inconsistent should prove their claim (it is impossible to prove
that one is consistent), and those who claim that a certain generalization is false
should point at cases that refute it (there is no way to prove a factual generalization).
Finally, the side that presents an existential statement (X exists) bears the burden of
proof.
Once agreement about the question under dispute is reached, how is it possible to
resolve rationally the dispute over the answers to it? What are the rational proce-
dures for arguing or “proving” that your side is right and my side is not? Who
should bear the burden of proof?
When someone presents an idea, one may meet one or the other of the following
popular objections:
1. What you say is inconsistent (or inconsistent with a background idea that we
share).
2. What you say is not new (someone else has already said it before).
3. What you say is trivial.
Suppose that you claim that your opponent’s idea is inconsistent (or inconsistent
with a background idea that we share). You then bear the burden of proof. Let us
spell this out. You have to present the two statements that cannot be true together,
show that they cannot be true together, and show that they follow from the idea that
your opponent has expounded (with or without the background idea that we share,
as the case may be). The individual who expounds the idea in question then has to
accept your criticism, and then it is the end of the dispute until a corrected version
of it is put for a renewed scrutiny. Alternatively, the burden of proof shifts to your
opponent, whose task it is now to refute your criticism (namely, to point at a fallacy
in your argument). Note that the presenter of the idea under scrutiny cannot prove
that it is consistent. (Even the consistency of arithmetic is too much of a challenge:
before the year 1900 or thereabout even the greatest mathematicians had no idea
about how to begin to prove consistency.)
Consider the strangely popular debate on whether men or women are signifi-
cantly oftener engaged in sexual intercourse. (The question can split to different
questions about different kinds of sex: before or after marriage, with their spouse or

42 4 The Burden of Proof
out of marriage, etc.) Since the number of men and of women are approximately
equal, and since usually every sexual intercourse involves a man and a woman,
obviously both statements are inconsistent. (If we include homosexual intercourses,
then the proof has to include the additional observation that homosexuality is
equally common among men and women, so that homosexual intercourse is on the
average equally common among the two genders.)
Such inconsistencies are rare. In many cases the consistency of an apparently
inconsistent theory can be saved by modifying it ever so slightly. For example, the
above inconsistent theories can be saved by saying that the theories refer to talking
about sex, claiming men talk about sex more than women. Alternatively, the consis-
tency can be saved if instead of referring to the average number of intercourses the
theory refers to the median: since women-prostitutes have much more intercourses,
the median among women is lower than then the median among men.
The claim that what someone says is not new is irrelevant, since many opinions
are very old still and under dispute, and some of these disputes are very interesting.
This is not so if the claim is made that the opinion put up for dispute is new and
therefore deserves special attention. If you then object, saying that the assertion put
forward not new, then, obviously, you bear the burden of proof; you have to show
where the idea has been already presented. Note also that such a criticism still does
not refer to the truth or falsity of the idea (to its truth-value, so-called) but rather to
its novelty, and therefore to the special and new attention that novelty may require.
Finally, if you claim that the idea put up for debate is trivial, once again you bear
the burden of proof; you have to show that the idea is already widely accepted or
that it obviously follows from some widely accepted idea (or set of ideas). Note
however that if a certain idea is trivial it follows that it is true, but since it is trivial
the individual who presents it does not deserve special acclaim for having presented
it. In any case, the claim that a statement is trivial is hardly interesting; the claim that
a popular opinion that was presented as trivially true is false is much more exciting.
Think, for example, of all the views about sex that were deemed trivially true a
century ago that nowadays sound so weird.
Generalizations and Existential Statements
When reviewing disputed statements, you should check, for each statement, whether
it is a generalization or an existential statement. A generalization is a statement that
starts with “All”, such as: “all ravens are black”. Existential statements start with
“there are” or “some” such as: “some ravens are black”. These statements might be
formulated negatively, for example instead of saying that all the raven are black one
may say that there are no ravens that are not black, or that there are no non-black
ravens; instead of saying that some ravens are black or that there exist black ravens,
one may say that it is not the case that no raven is black or that not all raven are not
black. (Classical and modern versions of logic both recognize these two equiva-
lences. Classical logic also allows to infer from all ravens are black that some ravens
Generalizations and Existential Statements 43
are black. This is a mistake—a fallacy —and even obviously so, since all unicorns
have one horn but there are no unicorns.)
A generalization might be true by virtue of their structure. “All ravens are ravens”
is an example for this. A generalization might also be true by the meanings of its
words. For example, all ravens are bird since ravens are birds by the very meaning
of the words. Such statements are logically true. They should not be disputed.
Except for logically true generalizations, theories cannot be proved. There is no way
to prove that all the infinitely many ravens (including ravens in the future) are (and
will be) black. When discussing such theories, the burden of proof rests on the
opponent that should present a case that refutes them. By presenting ravens that are
not black one can refute the theory that all the ravens are black. In other words, such
a theory cannot be proved, but (in principle) can be refuted. The theory that all
ravens are black is scarcely a theory. We can make it more of a theory by saying that
every species has its own specific color, so that black and white ravens should count
as different species, and so we should discuss not ravens but black ravens and white
ravens. When we refute this theory about the colors of birds we can try to replace it
by another.
So much for universal statements. The rule that applies for existential statements
is the opposite. If one of the parties presents an existential statement, this party
bears of burden of proof. The side that presents an existential statement should pres-
ent examples that prove the statement (for example, pointing at some black raven in
order to prove the statement that some ravens are black).
The previous few paragraphs belong to formal logic. They are not contestable.
Their significance is for the theory of scientific argument; in science generalizations
are called for as explanations. They are often called theorems, since scientific theo-
ries are often viewed mathematically when the question of their content is at issue
(namely, what statement follows from what statement). This is important both when
the explanatory power of a theory is at stake and when their truth value is.
Explanatory power is examined when one generalization is supposed to follow from
another, the question of the truth of the explanation is the question of what existen-
tial statement contradicts it. Such an existential statement follows from some empir-
ical report that those who wish to refute it try to observe.
Things get complicated because by scientific tradition an observation statement
is disregarded unless it is generalized. Yet the observation that entails the existential
statement that contradicts the theory refutes it (and the failure to observe what it
describes corroborates it) yet only its generalization is a candidate for scientific
explanation.
You would expect that nevertheless researchers are not able to confuse a gener-
alization or a theorem with its refutation or its negation that is existential. We have
at least one such important example. It is called the second best theorem and it
belongs to economics. It is this. Within economic theory we encounter theorems
that tell you that optimizing one variable leads to optimizing another. And, natu-
rally, we often wish the other quantity optimized. Suppose it is impossible to opti-
mize the quantity whose optimization we are concerned with as we wish to optimize
the other. It stands to reason that the way to do so is to get as near to the unattainable
44 4 The Burden of Proof
target as possible. The second best theorem is a refutation of this reasonable idea:
there are important cases in economics where the optimization is not the nearest to
the unattainable optimum.
The second-best theorem, thus is not a theorem, not a generalization, but a refu-
tation; it is existential statement. Hence, it is not enough to prove it mathematically:
one has to point at an example for it. This, of course, is what the discoverers of the
interesting second-best theorem have done (R. G. Lipsey and K. Lancaster, “The
General Theory of Second Best”, The Review of Economic Studies, 24, 1956–1957,
11–32). Unless the presentation of an example for an existential statement is
required, the task of disagreeing with a theory becomes too easy: everybody can say
of any theory that it is false. Arguing against a theory is much harder and so it is
much more of a challenge. This is why we have an elaborate system of rules about
the challenge that criticizing a theory is, especially if the theory has already passed
the first and most obvious tests. We are now coming to this, and thus the role of this
book as a handbook is now on its way.
Chapter 5
Disputes About General Facts and Theories
Abstract Debates on answers to factual questions invite considering first what

answer reduces the strangeness of the world, and perhaps also to what degree.
Check which answer is simpler; of two theories that explain the same items, the
simpler is usually preferred. Check also whether the theory under dispute success-
fully predicts previously unknown surprising facts or rather just explains known
facts (the latter is much the easier one). Avoid debates with people who repeatedly
change the wording of their assertions in response to refutations by applying ad hoc
corrections to them, especially those who pretend that these corrections are mere
clarifications. In general, adversaries who admit error frankly are preferable; more
so those who admit error with no fuss.
Let us assume that agreement about the procedures (the burden of proof) is taken for
granted, and the question under dispute is determined. Let us also assume that the
question concerns the choice between universal theories (or sets of statements or the
statement that is their conjunction). Next, as many answers to the question should
be proposed, and some of them eliminated from the debate (tentatively, of course).
Their merits and defects have to be debated one by one; the order in which they are
debated is to be agreed upon. It is of extreme importance to realize that the order of
discussion of the different answers is fluid. (It is easy to sabotage a debate by declar-
ing the unpleasant answer so low a priority that it will never reach the top of the
agenda.) And so the central task is now at hand, namely to resolve rationally the
dispute over the answers: we want to find the right answer or at least to grade them.
What is the procedure for that? To repeat, general skeptical considerations ensure
that no final proof and no final refutation are possible of general facts and about
informative theories.
Science has a rule that supposedly imposes refutations: a general fact that rests
on repeated observations that contradicts a theory refutes it. In other words, the
observation that contradicts a theory has priority over it. This rule presents the
default option, but viewing it as hard-and-fast may cause unnecessary trouble; so,
from time to time, researchers try to violate it while still remaining within the
research tradition. On a rare occasion, researchers may admit the general fact and
the conflict between it and the theory that they examine, and then put the fact aside
for a while. As long as their research is interesting, people may pay attention to
them; otherwise, they might find themselves scientifically isolated. Thus, atomic

46 5 Disputes About General Facts and Theories
chemists in the early part of the nineteenth century admitted that there are cases of
two different chemicals whose molecules contain the same atoms, which was con-
trary to their chemical atomism known as analytic chemistry. Yet they refused to
give up their view and finally came up with the idea that not only the same atoms
but also the same structure of the molecule is what makes for the identity of a
chemical. This idea is known as stereochemistry. The exciting case was that of mol-
ecules that share even structure, except that one is the mirror image of the other—
they are called isomers—yet one of them is a nutrient and the other is a poison. This
was the discovery of Louis Pasteur that made him famous. The chemists of the
earlier generation who had overlooked the refutation of analytic chemistry were
rational as they admitted that they were in error, but it took them time to locate the
error and so they continued the researches into analytic chemistry while admitting
that they owed answers to their critics. Nowadays analytic chemistry is a respected
sub-field of stereo-chemistry that sets limits to it. This is not the end of the story,
since similar cases take place in quantum chemistry. This is just to say that research
is endless and that at times in the absence of a solution to a problem, some research-
ers may circumvent it and pretend that it is solved.
Back to the question, how factual debates can be resolved. Since skeptical con-
siderations ensure that no final proof and no final refutation are possible, what meth-
ods should be used for argumentation? Fortunately, we can find some help in
psychology. In modern society, most people share a simple psychological trait: they
change their opinions (at times with great efforts) in a way that makes the world
look to them less strange. Therefore, when engaged in a dispute about factual gen-
eralizations and theories, the parties to the dispute may benefit from considering
which answer makes the world appear less strange. If they do not agree whether
situation A or B is stranger, then they can argue about this disagreement, along the
same guidelines mentioned above. This procedure bears no logical difficulties, as
the new dispute is about a dispute (it is on the meta-level). However, if one of the
parties to a dispute sincerely suggests that they are not interested in which answer
makes the world appear less strange, then possibly the debate about it will be fruit-
less. In this case, it makes sense to consider aborting it.
Let us observe certain circularity here. The supposed disposition to adopt views
that reduce the strangeness or weirdness or oddity of the surrounding world is psy-
chological and the supposition is that the disposition is not the outcome of con-
scious decisions. This disposition parallels the conscious effort of scientific
researchers to explain the world. In particular, they try to explain both common
phenomena like the blue color of the sky and the green color of grass. They also try
to explain the odd phenomena, those that conflict with the opinions that they wish
to replace by better ones. The better theories exclude the refutations of the older
theories thereby reducing the strangeness of the world as it appears to them. We
have said, the psychological disposition we describe is specific to the modern world,
namely to science-oriented society. Nevertheless, even on the assumption that in
science-oriented society science and psychology mirror each other, it is easier to
discuss the psychological aspect of science than the rules of scientific research. For,
Ad-hoc Theories 47
science can be inaccessible to common people, and referring to their psychology is

a way to keep out of the inaccessible aspect of science and of its rules of conduct.
Ad-hoc Theories
Philosophers of science, or rather methodologist, namely, students of the rules of

scientific research, have observed several pitfalls that influence the degree of rea-
sonability that we assign to considering a theory true, given the circumstances.
These pitfalls are cases in which the theory renders the world stranger rather than
less strange and so they are objectionable, both philosophically and
psychologically.
The first and best-known pitfall is the admission of ad hoc changes to theories
(scientific or commonsense). The Latin expression “ad hoc” means “for this”; thus,
the difference between parliamentary standing and ad hoc committees is this: stand-
ing committees are permanent whereas the ad hoc are created for a purpose and
disperse once their declared purpose is reached (usually after it had submitted a
report on the issue for which the parliament instituted it). In science the term “ad
hoc” applies to changes that one makes in a theory for a very limited purpose: just
to circumvent refutations. The easiest way by which to achieve this is by declaring
the unpleasant refuting cases mere exceptions. Consider the people who share a
prejudice against Ruritanian people: they honestly judge all Ruritanian people stu-
pid. Suppose that on some occasion they bump into a Ruritanian, Tom, whom they
judge wise. Consequently, they change their view and assert that all Ruritanian
people but Tom are stupid. On some other occasion they bump into another
Ruritanian, Dick, whom they also judge wise. Consequently, they change their view
yet again and take both Tom and Dick to be exceptions. This way it is possible to go
on changing view whenever a counter-examples to a prejudices appears, without
considering the option of dropping the prejudice altogether. This is what makes
changes of this kind ad hoc; a theory that one alters to encompass corrections ad
hoc thus becomes an increasingly ad hoc theory. Credence in it diminishes. A psy-
chological explanation of this decrease in credibility refers to the above-mentioned
psychological disposition of people in science-oriented societies to change their
opinions in a way that makes the world look to them less strange. The tendency then
is to doubt a theory that underwent many ad hoc modifications because—according
to the psychological theory—it involves the highly unexpected event that all the
exceptions to the initial theory have already been accidentally observed. The prob-
ability that the Ruritanian individuals we have met and no other Ruritanian indi-
viduals are wise, is anyway very small. Thus, the theory that has been repeatedly
modified ad hoc tends to increase the strangeness of the world rather than decrease
it.
This holds not only concerning a prejudice; it holds also for any received view,
including a successful scientific explanation. For an example of a scientific theory,
let us consider our psychological theory that says, in science-oriented societies
people are disposed to change their opinions in order to reduce the strangeness of
the surrounding world. Suppose we meet people who refuse to change their views
despite their recognition of the evidence to the contrary. We will not say, the theory
holds for all members of a science-oriented society except for Tom, Dick, and Harry.
We will call them all dogmatists and change our psychological theory to say, the
theory holds for all members of a science-oriented society except for dogmatists: all
members of a science-oriented society change their views in order to make the
world look less strange except for dogmatists. We then find people who change their
views in order to agree with the last people they talked with; we can find such peo-
ple with ease even in science-oriented societies. We will call these people fickle and
alter our theory yet again, to say, unless people are dogmatic or fickle, they change
their views so as to render the world look less strange. This reaction renders our
psychological theory even more ad hoc. Suppose, however, that we say, some peo-
ple find it easy to change their views and other people find it hard to do so, and we
want to find out why. We then ask, do those who change their minds after delibera-
tions have any criterion for doing so, or do they make these changes on a completely
ad hoc basis? Of course, we can ask them. The result is very disappointing: people
who are willing to change their minds and who do so fairly systematically do not
know what makes them behave as they do, and they often offer poorly reasoned
answers to this question. (The discovery of this phenomenon, and that it is common
even among well-educated members of science-oriented societies, is known as the
prospect theory of Daniel KahnemanandAmos Tversky; it won Kahneman Nobel
Prize after Tversky died.) We may suggest that they do so in order to make the world
appear less strange. Before we can examine this psychological theory and put it to
empirical test, we have to decide clearly what kind of people we have in mind, or
else it will be too easy to dismiss any possible counter-example that we may find by
declaring that it is a seeming counter-example, as the individuals who deviate from
our hypothesis are excluded as they are either fickle or dogmatic. Things can get
worse: if we are asked, how we know that they are fickle or dogmatic, we can
answer: we know this since they do not conform to our hypothesis. This will not
enlighten anyone.
When people engaged in a debate change their view in an ad hoc manner, it
makes sense to ask them if their last change is the final, and whether the next refuta-
tions will change their minds. We can ask people prejudiced against Ruritanian
people, how many wise Ruritanian people will make them give up their opinion that
the Ruritanian people are stupid. Of course, they may say that for this they need
some statistics. This is reasonable, especially if they will admit that if statistically
wisdom, defined any way they like, is as common among Ruritanian as among our
native people, then they will change their opinion. This also will make them abide
by our hypothesis. If they intend to cling to their opinion, and if it seems that they
are going to save their opinion by applying more ad hoc changes, then there is little
sense in continuing arguing with them. (In science-oriented societies dogmatism is
permitted even if it may be frowned upon.) If they do agree that the last change was
the final one, and if their previous changes were indeed ad hoc, then you may seek
another refutation so as to conclude the debate. This, however, will not help if the
Ad-hoc Theories 49
question under dispute is vague, as is the case with our psychological hypothesis
that enables us to dismiss all people who do not fit it as fickle or dogmatic. For,
fickle and dogmatic people are very common (yes, even in science-oriented societ-
ies), and we have declared our hypothesis inapplicable to them. So we have to say
to whom it clearly applies, so that we can try to criticize it in a reasonably clear
fashion.
Note then that not any ad hoc change makes holding a theory unreasonable.
Sometimes it helps render them clearer and better open to criticism. Science pro-
vides some examples of theories that were changed ad hoc and remained scientific.
One famous example is the abnormality of water. The theory was, the volume of all
kinds of matter expand when heated. But then it was discovered that water expands
when it approaches freezing temperature (this is why ice floats on the sea) and the
theory changed: the volume of all kinds of matter except for water expand when
heated. (The maximum density of water occurs at 3.98 °C.) Another famous exam-
ple comes from economics: the theory was: if price goes up, then the demand for it
goes down and vice versa. But then Alfred Marshal discovered cases of what he
called Giffen goods (after Robert Giffen, who first mentioned the possibility of such
goods). A Giffen goods is any staple food of inferior quality. The poor consume it
more than the rich; and so, when its price goes up/down, they are left with less/more
money for superior substitutions, and therefore increase/decrease the demanded
quantity of the staple food. So the new theory is: for all goods except for Giffen
goods, if their price goes up, then the demand for them goes down. The question
then is, how do we identify a Giffen good? This question was indeed answered con-
clusively. What then characterizes the cases of ad hoc changes that are desirable?
The answer to this question must remain ad hoc: desirable ad hoc changes are those
that help rather than impede critical discussion. In particular, they are not an endless
process followed just for the sake of not allowing for the possible case that the the-
ory in question is refuted; hence, desirable ad hoc changes may be quite rational.
When do we stop examining whether such changes are rational? When the debate
becomes frustrating.
The specific to scientific ad hoc hypotheses is that those concerned who are sus-
picious about them tend to test them. When the ad hoc hypothesis is corroborated,
it ceases being ad hoc as the case of heat expansion of water shows. Newton’s the-
ory of gravity was twice rescued this way and twice the ad hoc hypotheses were
corroborated very impressively. In one case in which it looked as if Newton’s theory
of gravity seemed refuted, an ad hoc hypothesis blamed the error on optical theory,
and indeed, the hypothesis was corroborated and optical theory was altered (the cor-
rection is called the aberration theory of light; it takes into account the distortion
due to the relative motion of source and recipient of light). When the new optical
theory was considered the theory of gravity appeared to fit the facts. The second
refutation was overcome by the assumption that an unnoticed planet caused a shift
from the expected orbit of a distant planet. The location of the unnoticed planet was
calculated on the assumption that Newton’s theory of gravity is true. The unnoticed
planet was then observed. The last refutation of Newton’s theory of gravity was the
perihelion motion of Mercury that is its secular motion. Secular means once in a
century, namely, very slow. The planets nearest to the sun have their elliptic orbits
rotate very slowly. Einstein knew of ad hoc hypotheses to account for this motion,
but he took it seriously and refused to consider any ad hoc hypothesis for its rescue:
he had argued that acting at a distance is impossible and so he looked for a radical
change of the theory.
So when we exclude from our psychological hypothesis the dogmatist and the
fickle ad hoc it remains for us to test this exclusion and thus either to refute it or to
render it non-ad hoc. To do so we have to decide who is fickle and who is a dogma-
tist. How then do we do that? We suggest as the default option the same conventions
for the degree of tolerance required of people so as to have an opportunity to change
their minds in case they are or seem to be in error. The default option, note, is not
always reliable: there may be theories with some degree of merit that deserve more
attention before they are declared false. A standard example of such a situation
(which many lack the physics background to understand) relates to a very advanced
theory in quantum mechanics known as Dirac’s equation for the electron. When
Dirac hit upon it, he found easy evidence against it, yet the theory appealed to him
so much that he decided to work on it some more and check the evidence against it
after. And this decision proved to be right. Another famous example is Darwin’s
theory of evolution. When Darwin presented his theory of evolution, he claimed that
hereditary traits are the average of the parents’ traits. Critics of his view observed
that hence traits created by mutation should disappear within a few generations. He
ignored this criticism. The criticism was resolved only by the application of a vari-
ant of Mendel’s theory, according to which the genes usually do not change during
fertilization, except for cases of mutation. (Mendel’s publication of his theory was
earlier than Darwin’s publication of his, but Darwin did not know about it. We will
return to Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism shortly). To repeat, such things happen in
science regularly, and many people love to dwell on them as they seem to justify
dogmatism. Of course, we do not agree, especially since we do not think dogmatism
needs justification: dogmatists do not look for it and they use it only in order to
prove that they are not dogmatists. This may interest them very much; it does not
interest us. We admit that we are all disposed towards dogmatism but counterbal-
ance this with our proposed theory that in science-oriented societies there is also a
disposition to change opinions. In any case we prefer to present techniques to limit
our dogmatism, as we are doing just here.
Simplicity
A second pitfall refers to the degree of simplicity that different parties to a dispute
assign to theories. As a matter of psychological fact, as well as a point of methodol-
ogy that most philosophers of science admit, people, especially researchers, tend to
prefer simpler explanations of facts over complicated ones. When several measure-
ments of three measurements of a parameter on a grid appear as if they are more or
less on a straight line, we tend to conclude that a straight line is going through these
Simplicity 51
points. This line is not there: the conclusion that the data are on a straight line does
not follow from observations, since there are infinitely many ways to draw a line
through them (for example, an infinite number of wave functions coincide with
them). The conclusion that the correct line is straight, then, is an extrapolation. Our
hypothesis—namely, that we change our opinions in ways that make the world look
to us less strange—explains the phenomenon as follows. The linear function is the
least arbitrary. Once we allow any function, we have too many candidates. And so,
the assumption that by sheer luck we hit on the right one does not reduce but rather
raises the level of unexpectedness. And, to continue with our parallel, as the linear
function is least arbitrary, says Karl Popper, it is most easily testable. Hence, if we
test our hypotheses, we thereby render simplicity less a dogma and more a default
option. Having a default option too is a dogma or a prejudice, so following Popper
we prefer our default option to be anti-dogmatic.
A similar analysis applies to Occam’s razor, which is the demand to eliminate
unnecessary entities. People tend to disbelieve theories that they judge as multiply-
ing entities needlessly. (We will come soon to the question, what is a need here.) the
way our hypothesis explains this psychological phenomenon is the same way we
explained simplicity: holding on stubbornly to defunct entities, to entities that have
no longer any function, is at best a mere guess, and the assumption that such guesses
comprise reliable sources of information increases the level of unexpectedness of
experiences instead of reducing it. Note that many if not most superstitions assume
the existence of unspecified entities that are responsible for the events that draw the
attention of the superstitious. And so we should exclude from our psychological
hypothesis not only the fickle and the dogmatist, but also the superstitious. This may
sound excessively ad hoc, but as we specified from the start that our hypothesis
describes on members of science-oriented societies, perhaps this is no added quali-
fication and so not ad hoc in the least. It is hard for us to judge this matter. One way
or another, whatever reason we offer, we must exclude such people, and so our
theory that people are reasonable is modified ad hoc a bit too often to our taste. To
narrow this undesirable aspect, many people declare superstition a form of preju-
dice and prejudice a form of dogma. These hypotheses are amply refuted, and you
can try to compare people’s conduct that looks more dogmatic than prejudicial or
more superstitious than dogmatic, or vice versa. You will find that all these traits are
conducive to arbitrariness, but in diverse ways: there are ever so many ways to be
arbitrary, and the tough job is to come up with a simple one.
In some cases, the selection of the simplest explanation is obvious, and usually
once it appears, it is not under dispute: very seldom do we have alternative hypoth-
eses of equal degrees of simplicity. The above-mentioned straight line is one such
example. But in some cases the selection is disputable, and this is the pitfall you
should be aware of. History provides many examples. Consider the dispute about
phlogiston. Wanting to know what makes some substances combustible, Georg
Ernst Stahl said, combustibles can emit large quantities of phlogiston (“phlox” is
the Greek for flame), which they do as they burn: combustion, he said, is the emis-
sion of phlogiston. Antoine Lavoisier then said, combustibles can absorb large
quantities of oxygen, which they do as they burn. Combustion he said, is combina-
tion with oxygen, whether the oxygen compound is absorbed or emitted. For a
while, there was evidence against the older theory and none against the new one.
Nevertheless, some people found it very hard to let phlogiston go. They could, of
course, consider Lavoisier’s theory true, give up any refuted assertion about phlo-
giston, but still insist that while absorbing oxygen, combustibles also emit phlogis-
ton. From the historical perspective, this case seems to demonstrate that advocates
of the theory of the phlogiston were reluctant to abandon their view and failed to see
that it makes the world more complex without gaining any explanation of unex-
pected phenomena. Psychologically, this is quite natural. The traditional theory
seems to be simpler than the new one. Beware of this pitfall. One reason that some
advocates of the theory of the phlogiston (especially the great Joseph Priestley) gave
for their clinging to their view was that their theory was scientific, and scientific
theories are proven and thus they cannot be overthrown. This led their opponent to
call them dogmatists and argue that the theory of the phlogiston was never scien-
tific; for a scientific theory cannot be refuted, and the theory of the phlogiston was.
This is an example of extending a dispute about combustion to include the question
of which views are and are not scientific. This extension demonstrates another pit-
fall. Keep focused and refuse to broaden the discussion, unless you find it interest-
ing to do so or unless it helps develop the critical debate about it (as Popper has
recommended).
Predictions vs. Explanations
Finally, the third pitfall that we wish to discuss rests on the difference between pre-
diction and explanation. Predictions that come true are more convincing than expla-
nations of known events. An obvious explanation for this fact is this. It is usually
easier to create a new theory that successfully explains given events by offering
generalizations than to predict correctly previously unobserved events, ones pre-
dicted only by the new theory. So the event of coming up with a theory that provides
a new true prediction is more unexpected than coming up with a theory that pro-
vides a new explanation to past events. Consider an explanatory theory that also
provides new testable predictions that turn out to be true. We do not expect a con-
jecture to be successful in predicting unexpected events. Hence, when a theory suc-
cessfully predicts them, the assumption that the theory is true reduces the level of
unexpectedness drastically, and so we tend to adopt it, at least for a while. As
Einstein taught us to consider seriously the option that the new theory is nearer to
the truth, this option is more attractive than the option that the new theory is true,
and so it is preferred—even though we would prefer to have the truth rather than an
increased approximation to it.
It follows then that in a dispute about an explanation (what is the true or at least
the best explanation of the event A? Why did event A occur?), it makes sense to
look for unexpected predictions that the competing explanations imply and to check
if these predictions come true, and the less expected the better.
Predictions vs. Explanations 53
Conspiracy theories so-called provide an example for the difference between

explanations of given unpleasant events and prediction of new ones. Conspiracy
theories explain known events as caused by some unnamed and undescribed people
who have profited from them. They avoid systematically issuing any prediction
regarding future events, especially unexpected ones, as they avoid offering descrip-
tions of the conspiring parties and of the exact profits that allegedly accrues from the
unpleasant events that they explain. Conspiracy theories likewise avoid describing
the ways they have caused the explained unpleasant events. So whenever you are
involved in a dispute involving a conspiracy theory, ask the theory’s proponents to
provide such a description that should allow for a search for such a prediction. If
they refuse, then they expose their theory as uninteresting as too easy to produce to
fit the evens in question; if they agree, both parties can check whether the prediction
that follows from their theory comes true. (Some such checking has to be success-
ful, since some conspiracies do take place in one place or another, on one day or
another.) The conspiracy theory is a form of superstition, except that most supersti-
tious people refer in their explanations to some vague causes that may but need not
be human, whereas conspiracy theories refer vaguely to some unspecified people.
Indeed, their popularity rests on the ease with which one can conjure them with no
fear of criticism, yet with a semblance of scientific character: they seem to enjoy the
prestige of both magic and science; they also seem sophisticated and even clever, as
any theory that claims to unmask a villain; except that its defect is that it does not
unmask anyone in particular. We all begin our lives as morally naïve, and in contem-
porary science-oriented societies during our adolescence we lose our naiveté and
tend to become cynical and reject all morality and all ethics. It is only if and when
we move away from this second stage of adolescence that we face as adults the
problems of morality and of ethics. Conspiracy theory aficionados are out of the first
stage and so they consider themselves sophisticated, even though they are stuck in
the second stage.
Another example is the dispute about the so-called Bible Code. The claim in
question is that somehow the Bible contains all possible (significant) information.
This is no answer to any specific question, let alone an interesting one. Let this ride.
Efforts were repeatedly made to find in the Bible the latest scientific theories and the
latest significant political information and similar data, or simply some impressive
major event such as the assassination of a leading political leader. People who advo-
cate this idea have repeatedly tried to show that a series of prophecies can be “read
between the lines” or revealed by selective reading of words or letters. The favorite
example is reading a certain letter in the biblical text, then skipping a certain num-
ber of letters, reading another letter, skipping the same number of letters, reading
the next letter, and so on repeatedly—in effort to find one example of this kind that
displays one message or another. Sooner or later, this way bound to construct some
text that makes some sense as a message, allegedly demonstrating foreknowledge.
Allegedly, the existence of such texts is unexpected, except on some supposition
about the power of sacred texts. Simple statistical considerations point at the enor-
mous number of possible text messages to be found by following this kind of pro-
cedure; statistical analysis suggests then that any case that answers the aficionado’s
expectation is a mere coincidence. Therefore, any dispute on whether the existence

of such textual messages demonstrates the sanctity of sacred texts or is due to a
mere coincidence that signifies nothing can be easily resolved by seeking predic-
tions. The former explanation (that the messages demonstrate the sanctity to sacred
texts) implies that similar messages should not be revealed in secular text, such as
novels or even telephone books, not to mention texts sacred to other religions. The
latter explanation (that the messages are the result of highly probable coincidence)
predicts that secular text will include similar messages. And, indeed, the latter was
found empirically.
The dispute about the Bible Code so-called illustrates a risky pitfall: it is all too
easy to find regularities in any sufficiently large data-base (Bernoulli’s law). These
regularities might seem unexpected, even though careful calculations suggest that
they result from probable coincidences. Hence, theories that explain them do not
reduce the strangeness of the world. And as far as science is concerned, the situation
is even worse: scientific explanations deal only with repeatable events. Random
evens like some unusual correlations are unrepeatable, although in some sense they
are indeed repeatable. The simplest case is what is known as the gambler’s fallacy.
A gambler who sees an unusual series of events, say a long series of throws of a coin
that turn up to be all heads may reason thus: since the longer a series of heads is, the
less likely it is, the likelihood is that the next throw will be a tail. Or the gambler
may reason that since he has observed so many heads, it is more likely that the next
throw will be a head. This reasoning is called Laplace’s rule of succession as the
great theoretician Laplace has offered it, though in a different context. Trying to
justify projections he argued that since we have observed the sun rise for at least
three millennia, it is almost certain that it will rise tomorrow. Very oddly, all thinkers
who tried to justify science tried to prove that the sun will rise tomorrow, even
though no one doubted it; and then science claimed that one day the sun will
explode, we do not know when, but possibly even tomorrow. Back to our gambler.
If the coin that gamblers put their hopes on are thrown randomly (by flipping them),
then given a series of heads, no matter how long, the chance that the next throw can
depend on its predecessors is but an illusion. We will discuss all this in more detail
in the next chapter. Before that, in the next section, we will discuss another example
of the phenomenon of statistical illusion.
Before that, let us suggest the following observation. Our psychological hypoth-
esis may be true or false, we do not know. Nothing rests on this, and we mention that
it is a useful tool, no more than that: debates are possibly tools for convincing peo-
ple, so that the more persuasive party has the better likelihood to win. As stated
above, though, we hope that this is not the aim of all debates; we focus on the edu-
cational role of debates, on those conducted with the aim of coming as close to the
truth as possible, in part by weeding out troublesome errors.
The Theory of Evolution or Evolutionism 55
The Theory of Evolution or Evolutionism
To repeat, parties to a dispute about factual generalizations and about theories may
benefit from considering what answer makes the world look less strange. The clas-
sical arguments in favor of an explanatory theory are unexpected empirical predic-
tions that follow from the theory and are supported by observations that contradict
its extant rivals or at least do not follow from them. Since the predicted empirical
phenomena were initially counter-expected, the theory explains more than its rivals,
and thus its use turns the initially counter-expected phenomena into expected ones
and thus the exercise reduces the strangeness of the apparent world. However, this
process is not the only way to reduce perceived strangeness. The discussion about
Darwinian evolutionary theory, as well as its neo-Darwinian heir, can serve as
examples for an alternative.
Darwinism comes to answer to the question, what is the origin of species? What
explains the variety of observed species? Prior to Charles Darwin, leading natural-
ists considered the variety of species inexplicable, or explicable, if at all, as expres-
sions of divine intervention (which amounts to the same). Evolutionism is not the
invention of Charles Darwin: it is ancient. Also, his grandfather Erasmus Darwin
was an evolutionist. Evolutionism rests on the intuitive idea that members of some
species resemble members of another species. It does not explain the origin of spe-
cies, namely the rise of new species. Darwin’s immediate predecessor, Charles
Lyell, did try to explain the rise of new species; his idea was unsuccessful although
it was historically important, as it put the problem on the research agenda and as it
was the first theory that referred to ecosystems, an item central to the evolutionism
of Darwin. By his theories as well as by those of his heirs, the variety of species is
explicable as a natural process: changes occur (accidentally or in any other way) and
most of them vanish; those changes that survive do so because they improve the
likelihood of survival of the animals in which they occur. And they do so because
the new sort of animal fits its environment, its ecosystem, better or worse; those that
survive fit their environments well enough to live long enough to reproduce. The
question is what is well enough? Answer: animals compete for eco-niches, and
among competing individuals only those that fit better survive long enough to have
offspring. This then suffices also to create new species as Darwin redefined the
concept. (Unlike Aristotle, and the multitude of his heirs, Darwin considered a spe-
cies not as a set of typical characteristic but as a set of animals liked by blood rela-
tionship. Thus, according to Aristotle, animals in two continents that have the same
typical characteristics will count as one species, whereas Darwin considered them
as two different species. Thus, he said, had white-skinned and black-skinned
humans not shared offspring, he would count them as two species; the presence of
mulattos keeps the human race one.)
Darwinism is hardly refutable. This is so since we do not know whether a new
trait is conducive to survival or not, since quite possibly it is detrimental to survival
but is associated with a trait that is conducive to survival. (The paradigm case is
sickle cell anemia that is decidedly detrimental to survival yet it comes with inborn
immunity to malaria that is.) Since refutability is the possibility of finding counter-
examples, to find out whether a theory is refutable it is necessary to consider an
experiment, to begin with a mere thought experiment, that can in principle be per-
formed with the possible outcome that might make adherents to that theory admit
error. Suppose that geologists find several geological layers that contain petrified
bones in the opposite order than the one expected by Darwinism (for example,
remains of humans in the deeper geological layer than those of their ancestor). How
can such a find comprise a refutation of Darwinism? Of course, the question is not
easy, since most people will find this kind of find hardly thinkable. Yet the disap-
pearance of dinosaurs and the appearance of small mammals afterwards is not vastly
different from the result envisaged here. Indeed, with some ingenuity, one can con-
jecture an evolutionary process that hit a brick-wall and that has only some fossils
to testify to its initial occurrence. The literature includes many conjectures of this
kind. The evolutionist framework within which such considerations take place is
still not testable, as it will absorb any result of such a test.
Not only is evolutionary theory itself scarcely refutable; most of the explanations
presented through this framework are too. For example, it allows for the explanation
of the giraffe’s long neck by assuming that the long neck was developed acciden-
tally among several giraffes but those giraffes gained a survival advantage in com-
parison with the other giraffes (since they could eat food available on tall trees). As
a result, their rate of reproduction increased, while the short-necked giraffes became
extinct because the two kinds of giraffe compete for the same eco-niche. This expla-
nation is irrefutable. Thus, were there no long-necked giraffes, we would not see it
as a refutation of Darwin evolution theory. Moreover, some observations show—not
unexpectedly—that the giraffe’s long neck has some obvious disadvantages.
(Famously, every change has both advantages and disadvantages.) The disadvantage
is that the long neck makes it hard for the giraffe to drink water and so while drink-
ing it is vulnerable. We cannot comparatively assess the relative advantages and
disadvantages of long necks. The mere existence of long necks, though, suggests
that they are more advantageous than disadvantageous, of course. Still, we some-
how do find this argument regarding the giraffes as a rational argument in favor of
Darwinism, since Darwin’s evolution theory reduces the level of strangeness of the
world by explaining how the variety of species can be explained as accidental. To
repeat, prior to Darwin, the variety of species and more so the similarities and the
changes in this variety were left unexplained. Darwin shows that each such a case is
given to a possible explanation as a process of accidental changes where the fittest
survive. Following this mode of explanation, the variety of species as such becomes
less surprising, although the details of the variety are still surprising and are still
awaiting detailed explanation. Thus, although Darwinism is scarcely refutable, it is
a powerful system within which to state refutable hypotheses and test them, includ-
ing such hypotheses as this about sickle cell anemia and about giraffe’s peculiari-
ties. (The ideas available as frameworks for scientific explanations are known as
metaphysical or intellectual frameworks for explanatory hypotheses.)
Refutable predictions then are only one kind of reducing strangeness, one kind
of such arguments; it is the strongest kind, though. Another kind, as the discussion
Global Warming 57
about Darwinism indicates, is offering some intellectual frameworks that turn the
inexplicable into hopefully explicable, or by showing that inexplicable phenomena
are inexplicable due to some unspecified accidental causes, so that though they are
individually inexplicable, they are explicable as series of phenomena.
What kinds of arguments are relevant for criticizing Darwinism? Several argu-
ments pointed at cases that allegedly cannot be explained by a theory that follows
Darwin’s explanatory scheme. The eye is presented as paradigm case. Repeated
claims have been made that the eye is so complex that it cannot be developed by one
change (especially not an accidental change), and it cannot develop in stages, since
in all the stages leading to the appearance of a complete eye, it was useless for sur-
vival or perhaps even more detrimental to the survival of an organism than useful for
it. Whether this or similar arguments are valid or not lies beyond the scope of this
handbook. All we can say here is this. Obviously, this kind of argument is rational,
and so it is one that requires further study.
The case of religious arguments against evolution is very different. A famous
example is the claim that Darwinism is false since it is inconsistent with Scriptures.
This argument ignores the idea that Darwinism makes the world less strange (or
assumes that any inconsistency with Scriptures makes the world stranger). Following
our recommendation in the introduction of this handbook, we can hardly expect
current debates about the status of Scriptures to be fruitful. In this case it makes
sense to avoid for now all such arguments as a default option. Indeed, many reli-
gious biologists feel this way about the matter. (Others reinterpret Scriptures to
accord with Darwinism, a possibility that greatly appealed to Darwin himself.)
Global Warming
We will end this chapter by reviewing the debate about global warming. This is a
debate about factual question, and therefore can serve as a test case for the sugges-
tions presented in this chapter.
The questions under dispute are: Does the word become warmer? If so, why, and
what is the best way to prevent it?
Most students of global warming agree about most of the relevant facts. The
world is getting increasingly and significantly warmer since the beginning of the
twentieth century to date. This is a trend that will probably not desist overnight. One
of the main reasons for this trend is the burning of fossil fuel that humans activate.
This makes most of the students of global warming issue repeated warnings: they
declare that if this trend goes on, the damages to the human society will be unbear-
able and probably irreversible. Now this set of agreed upon assumption that raise
worry about global warming and invite some action, is attenuated by another set of
agreed upon factual information. The globe undergoes warming and cooling repeat-
edly and for thus-far unknown reasons and with thus-far unpredictably. This raises
the suspicion that there is nothing that humanity can do about the danger. Quite a
few of the students of global warming, and some of them are members of conservative
think-tanks, disagree with the majority of the students of global warming. They
claim that (1) the warming during the twentieth century is within normal tempera-
ture variations, and there were several periods in the past where the temperatures
were as high as they today; and (2) the contribution of human to the global warming
is quite marginal.
One of main arguments of the conservative think tanks is the following:
Researchers have proposed several models for the global climate, but unfortunately
each of these models have failed to predict climate changes. In other words, all the
models have been refuted, and we have no model that explains satisfactorily the
known facts, let alone one that in addition stands up to new tests. Therefore, there is
no rational basis for the predictions that global warming will continue and cause a
global catastrophe. Against this argument we suggest to consider the following
question.
Consider the theory that the globe become ever warmer for quite a while, that
this trend will continues so that human society will suffer enormous damages; con-
sider also the theory that no big risk is to be expected; which of these two theories
makes the world stranger? The conservative think-tanks people do not present a
theory that explains the observed climatic change, and as such they do not reduce
the strangeness of world. They present an existential statement to the effect that
some observed cases do not agree with every known climate model. Indeed, the
students of climate change keep modifying these models, and these modifications
are still somewhat ad-hoc, but still these are the best theories we have to apply when
we consider which theory reduces the strangeness of the world.
There are other relevant considerations to be taken into account when reviewing
global warming, such as costs of the following two scenarios—the scenario that
global warming continues and the damages to the human society will be as severe
irreversible as the students of climate changes predict, versus the scenario that we
will drastically cut the pollution, and eventually will discover that there was no need
for this measure. We will return to this kind of consideration in Chap. 9.
Chapter 6
Disputes About Statistical Generalizations
Abstract Discussing differences between samples, remember that within large

samples, even a small difference might be statistically significant yet not necessarily
interesting or relevant to the concern that has prompted it. So you may still want to
inquire whether any given difference is worth discussing. Prior to debating asser-
tions that explain certain event, investigate first the assertion that the event in ques-
tion is due to a mere accident. Avoid debates on causality (unless your concern is
philosophical). Discussing the degree to which the appearance of one variable
makes us expect the appearance of another usually suffices.
Many disputes refer to statistical generalizations, such as:

1. The use of cellular phones causes cancer.
2. Most students forget most of what they have learned for an exam a short time
after it.
Such statements do not present strict generalizations. Rather, they are statistical.
They describe what happen often, but not necessarily always. To be more precise,
considering any generalization of the form, if a then b, we expect every appearance
of a to be accompanied by b; not so in statistical generalizations. When we say,
Ruritanian people are wise, we are imprecise; we mean adult Ruritanian people, and
we mean usually, or most of them. The first example above says that those who use
cellular phones often enough are more likely to suffer from cancer than those who
do not. And even that is not precise enough: to be testable it has to correlate the
length of time of the use of the cellular phone with the degree of increased probabil-
ity of suffering from cancer within this or that time period. Often enough statisti-
cians do not specify these correlations and expect their empirical finds to tell them
that. This is a cause of many statistical errors. Still, what matters to us here is that a
critic who says, here is a person glued to a cellular phone and not suffering from
cancer has not offered a criticism of the hypothesis, although if a critic says, here is
a worker who fell from a scaffolding to the ground and was not harmed does refute
the (true) hypothesis that declares such an event impossible.
Likewise, the second example above says that most but not necessarily all stu-
dents forget most but not necessarily all of what they learn for an exam soon after-
wards. Indeed, many teachers endorse this assertion, and they estimate that only
about, say, one tenth of the material memorized is remembered, and so they demand

60 6 Disputes About Statistical Generalizations
ten times more than they estimate that students need to remember. (In truth, as
Einstein noted, you need not remember what you can look up; just learn how to look
up the information you may need.) Moreover, we know that this does not hold for
students with total recall. We can, of course, qualify our second example above for
students to exclude those with total recall. This may defy the purpose of this state-
ment. The purpose is to replace exams with some other means for motivating stu-
dents to study, and here ignoring any kind of students may defeat this purpose.
In brief, statistical generalizations are neither confirmable nor refutable by single
examples to the contrary. This is contrary to the case of existential statements.
Consider “some cellular users suffer from cancer”. Most people will say, it is con-
firmed by merely one example of a person who uses cellular phone and suffers from
cancer. This is highly questionable: in the modern world many people take vitamins
and most of those who take vitamins do not suffer from cancer, and yet the existence
of (many) people who take vitamins and do not suffer from cancer does not lead to
agreement with the claim that vitamins prevent cancer. This is perhaps the greatest
difference between popular acclaim or reputation and scientific tests. You may think
that this is obvious, yet it is not. The most popular philosophical theory is one that
Carl G. Hempel has advertised, according to which every case of a person who takes
vitamins and does not suffer from cancer corroborates the theory that taking vita-
mins prevents cancer. Also, a college that admits only students that belong to the top
one percent and whose graduates belong to the top ten percent is said to have done
a good job. This is how statistics can mislead: one looks at results instead of com-
parative results. Thus, at the very least, the existential statement that does confirm
our suspicion about cellular phone causing cancer is that people who use them are
more likely to get cancer than others. And Popper says, this is not enough:
Statisticians should look at those cases under which cellular phones should make
cancer most likely to show that they do not; or they should look at the cases least
likely to show that they do.
This is common sense. Nevertheless, objections from commonsense may appeal
to some hidden causal links. To repeat our caution, we do not know what causes are.
Let us wave this objection in favor of commonsense causal talk. This is tricky, and
for very commonsense reasons: we usually do not spell out our causal assertions.
We say, the king was beheaded, meaning he was executed and so he died. But there
is more to it, said Karl Popper. Consider the commonsense example of causality that
since David Hume’s discussion of causality became the paradigm case. The stone
thrown at the window shattered the glass. So the flying stone caused the glass to
break. Hume argued that we do not see this causation. We overrule him here in the
name of commonsense. So consider a quarry, where stones fly all the time. Window-
panes made for quarries are made to withstand flying stones. Suppose a window-
pane in a quarry is shattered. We do not blame a flying stone then. Rather, we
suggest that there was an air-bubble in the glass and that accidentally a flying stone
hit it just where the air-bubble was. Again we see that commonsensically we omit
much relevant information on the assumption that we are understood anyway. If we
are mistaken, then we may repeat the information more explicitly. We do that also
when a debate requires it, namely, when we disagree about what are the relevant
6 Disputes About Statistical Generalizations 61
conditions for an event; for, to repeat, we never know. In contemporary western

society this ignorance is part and parcel of commonsense. And if need be, we say so
explicitly. As in science all this is commonsense and more emphatically so, in dis-
cussions that belong to natural science it is now more customary than in common
situations to avoid talking about causality and to talk about putative laws of nature
instead.
So to find out about cellular phones and cancer, at the very least it is wise to avoid
talk about causality and instead to compare the occurrence of cancer in the popula-
tion of heavy users and of non-users of cellular phones. In this sense, statistical
generalizations are similar to strict generalizations. You cannot confirm the general-
ization that “all cellular-phone users suffer from cancer” by presenting one or even
by many cellular-phone users who suffer from cancer. Likewise, finding many
cellular-phone users who suffer from cancer does not confirm the rule that “most
cellular-phone users suffer from cancer.”As the rule refers to infinitely many
cellular-phone users (including those who will be users in the future), there is no
way we can assess all of them. However, contrary to strict generalization, obviously
the statement “most cellular-phone users suffer from cancer” cannot be refuted by
one example of a cellular-phone user not inflicted with cancer. By saying that most
(contrary to all) cellular-phone users suffer from cancer, the statement allows for
some cases of healthy cellular-phone users. To refute a statistical generalization, not
to mention comparative ones, the analysis of statistical data is needed, as well as
some careful statistical calculations.
How then is it possible to criticize rationally the statement that the use of cellular
phone causes cancer? Here are some suggestions.
Whenever possible, avoid speaking about causality; rather, speak about what will
happen if one uses a cellular phone. Philosophers have been discussing causality for
ages, and they are far from any agreement about the matter at hand. Suppose
cellular-phone users tend to suffer from cancer at levels higher than the population
average. Does this mean that their use of cellular phones is the cause of the cancer?
If so, why do some people who use cellular phones not suffer from cancer? And is
our biology not also a cause? These are complicated questions, and it is easy to
shake the faith that causality is obvious. True, we do observe causality. (Hume said
that we do not, but he employed a perception theory that is refuted over a century
ago.) Consider this: when we see in a movie a sequence that defied causality, we are
incredulous without even thinking about it. Yet at times our strongest intuitions can
be curbed by simple commonsense. This is so well-known that we like common-
sense teased. Thus, magic tricks are examples of our senses tell us that we see viola-
tions of causality and we know that this is not the case. Philosophers who insist on
the veracity of our sensations promise to say how they insist on this despite magic
tricks and, worse, despite sense illusions. They do not, since they cannot. They can-
not even try.
Our example from stones that cause window-panes in quarries to break shows
that the cause of an event can be very complex, and that we ignore many items in
our description of a causal course of events as belonging to the context and we
single out one item that is rare in the context and say, this is the cause of that event.
Except for expert philosophers (of certain schools), disputing parties to causal dis-
cussions are most likely not interested in all this. In order to keep to their interest,
we can replace the discussion of causality with a discussion of the following ques-
tion that is detached from causality: (all other things being equal) does the use of
cellular phones increase the probability of suffering from cancer?
Logically speaking, as a single singular statement contradicts a strict generaliza-
tion, so a single proper sample contradicts a statistical generalization. It is important
to speak of a proper sample, since the selection rules that go into the sampling
method may easily guarantee that the sample will agree with the statistical general-
ization in question, and equally easily it will contradict the generalization—as you
will. This is so common, it has a technical name: it is called a biased sampling.
(Most statistical evidence that you meet is likely to be biased, especially ones
referred to in commercial advertisements.) This should not annoy you; rather you
should center on the central question at hand. That question is, what sample is
proper and how do we find it? There is no general answer to this question. To avoid
bias, researchers try to collect a random samples. If someone declares the sample
biased by criticizing the sampling method, then the criticism is used for a new sam-
pling. For example, if one claims that the sample is of literate people and that this
makes it biased, then we can seek a sample some of whose people are literate and
some not. You may think this example bizarre, but it is not in the least: diets of liter-
ate people are known to differ from those who are not, and food is known to contrib-
ute to cancer. You may still refuse to take our example as reasonable and as why
should the food of literate people differ from that of illiterate people as far as cancer
is concerned. We need not be able to answer this question for our example to be
reasonable: any objection to sampling should be used for a new sampling the way
we have described in our example. But as it happens we have the answer to this
objection: as we know, processed food is more easily available in advanced societ-
ies, and their populations are more often literate than those in other societies; hence,
literate populations consume processed food much more frequently than illiterates,
and processed food is a standing suspect to blame for the rise in incidents of cancer
in contemporary industrial society.
Every sampling method can be suspect, and every suspicion, we say, is properly
taken care of if it leads to repetition of the test with some new, appropriate sampling
method. This is naturally very tedious. To avoid this, scientific researchers prefer
running a controlled experiment. Subjects (people who agree to partake in the
experiment) sampled as randomly as is possible are divided into two samples, again
as randomly as is possible; subjects in one sample, say, use cellular phones, and
subjects in the other sample (the control sample so-called) avoid using them. If after
a certain (predetermined) time, the frequency of cancer in the first sample is indeed
higher than the frequency of cancer in the second sample, a statistical test is applied
to calculate if the difference is statistically significant. (A difference is deemed sta-
tistically significant when it is unwise to overlook it. Ignoring the difference between
the two samples is allowed if it is deemed sufficiently small, or if it is very high but
deemed due to a freak accident. The calculation often comes to show that the
probability of a freak accident is very low, so that we may ignore it.) Such experi-
ments did take place indeed, finding that in the population, no difference exists
between those who use cellular phones and those who avoid using them, and there-
fore the difference that was found in the experiment between the two samples’ can-
cer rates was merely coincidental. This, however, is debatable, and critics try to
show by sophisticated means that the use of cellular phones is dangerous. For this
they need a theory that should help them prove their point empirically. For example,
both parties to the dispute agree that certain cancers are irrelevant to the test and
other cancers are very relevant to it. This may help conclude the debate faster.
Suppose that they argue about the proper use of the instrument: suppose they agree
that holding the instrument in a certain way as in taking self-photos is the possible
culprit. They then can repeat the experiment with one sample using the cellular
phones but no selfies and others taking selfies often enough.
Whenever possible, this method is indeed the best one to resolve disputes. Note,
however, the following pitfalls.
First, as was already mentioned in Chap. 2, a difference may be significant but
not interesting. When the samples are large, even small differences become statisti-
cally significant, and yet they may not be interesting. If, for example, the difference
between the two samples under discussion is just one per cent or one per thousand
or lower (in measuring rates of presence of medications or of poisons such as air-
pollutants, we often discuss parts per million) then even if this difference turns out
to be statistically significant, you may say that you are not interested in such a small
increase in risk. As mentioned above, a difference is significant if the probability is
small that the event appeared by sheer accident. So when a difference in samples is
significant, it makes sense to assume that a difference in the same direction holds in
the population at large but still claim that being small, the difference as such is not
interesting.
Second, the experiment rests on the assumption that the only relevant difference
between the two samples is that the subjects in one sample, say, use cellular phones
and in the others refrain from doing so. This assumption might always be chal-
lenged and then it found problematic—especially when the samples are small.
Allegedly, assigning the subjects to each of the two samples randomly may solve
this problem. But when the samples are small, the random division of one sample to
two may not be sufficiently adequate. So the designers of the experiment usually see
to it that the two samples are equal in the parameters that are known (or suspected)
to be relevant: say, the same proportion of men and women, the same distribution of
ages, etc. Obviously, the designers have to decide which parameters are relevant
since they cannot refer to all possible parameters (there are infinitely many of them).
They rely on their theories and assumptions regarding what is relevant to the issue
under research. (In our example the issue is of suffering from cancer.) But, clearly,
researchers are of necessity in the dark regarding all the possibly relevant parame-
ters, since the theories and assumptions that they rely on might be erroneous (and to
repeat, we can never be assured that we are free of all error).
History is full of such examples. Every occupational disease qualifies if it was
hard to locate, and every poison that evaded observation. Even in common medical
treatment this happens regularly. For centuries, children sensitive to lactose were
given milk-rich diets; stomach-ulcer patients were given diets rather than medica-
tions, even after the discovery of antibiotics; they were instructed to take it easy on
the supposition that their irritability had caused their ulcer rather than that the ulcer
had made them irritable. And then it turned out that contrary to received opinion,
cancer is due to a microbe that is able to live in acid environments. The paradigm-
case still is that of thalidomide, the medication first marketed in 1957 in West
Germany that was found immensely effective against headaches. As it turned out
soon, pregnant women who used it gave birth to deformed offspring. Consequently,
these days the wrappings of many medications bear a label warning pregnant women
against using them.
Third, in many cases, ethical considerations prevent conducting possibly enlight-
ening experiments. The case under our present discussion may serve as an example.
If researchers seriously suppose that using cellular phone might largely increase the
probability of suffering from cancer, then we may consider unethical to assign ran-
domly some of the subjects to the sample that uses cellular phones. In the present
case we may say, most people use these instruments anyway, so that the experiment
may cause no damage. This raises different questions that we will skip here, observ-
ing that at times these are answerable adequately, at times not.
In the latter case, as in cases where practical problems in issuing experiments are
impractical, we may wish to resolve disputes by other means. Possibly, the study of
extant data may help, possibly patients who have nothing to lose and much to gain
are willing to volunteer and undertake risk, and so on. More generally, whenever
desired factual data (from controlled experiments or otherwise) is unavailable, par-
ties to a dispute can still argue on the basis of some known data. They should try to
figure out which theory that explains the data makes the data (and the world) less
unexpected. Considering the case under discussion, for example, one may start by
finding the frequency of cancer among cellular-phone users in general, and compare
it against the frequency of cancer in the entire population.
Suppose the frequency of cancer among cellular-phone users is indeed found to
be higher than the frequency of cancer in the population at large. This observation
does not close the dispute about whether or not the use of cellular phones increases
the probability of cancer. There are two reasons for this.
First, as long as no controlled experiment was issued, the difference between the
samples (regarding the frequency of cancer) might result from some other differ-
ences between them (rather than the specific difference of cellular phone usage). We
have mentioned one example already. For another example, it might be the case that
city-dwellers are more likely than the entire population both to use cellular phones
and to suffer from cancer due to the higher degree of pollution in urban and rural
environments. The higher rate of cancer among the cellular-phone users therefore
might be the result of living in cities, rather than of using cellular phones. Of course,
it is possible to check this hypothesis and filter the data in order to hold constant the
frequency of the subjects living in cities (in both samples). But this was just one
possible hypothesis; many more factors might be relevant. However, since we do
not have a satisfactory etiology of cancer, that is, since we do not have a good theory
about the factors related to cancer, we cannot hold constant all the ones that the dif-
ferent parties to the dispute may agree to consider reasonably relevant.
(This last paragraph, incidentally, shows that efforts to ignore causality, even
when successful, may be very partial: ignoring some troublesome ideas does not
always make them go away.)
Second, the samples may be not representative and thus it may mislead: the
observed difference between the samples might be accidental and not reflect the
situation in the population at large. In that case the difference in samples does not
hold in the entire population. The reason for the higher of frequency of cancer
among the cellular-phone users (relative to the average frequency in the whole pop-
ulation) then is a result of a coincidence. (Statistical theory tells us that almost for
sure among many samplings, some results will happen to be biased no matter how
careful and how correct the sampling methods are. This is called Bernoulli’s law.
The trouble is, this law does not help us spot the error.) Allegedly, we can calculate
the probability that the observed phenomenon is misleading, and if this probability
is very low we may reasonably conclude that the explanation according to which the
difference is coincidental is improbable. This reasoning, though proper, has a flaw,
and one that at times shows up most forcefully. It is this. The assumption behind this
reasoning is that events with a low probability very rarely or never appear in any
sample although plenty of them do occur now and then. For example, guess a phone
number and think of the name of a person. The probability of that person having that
phone number is obviously very low since there are many alternative options here.
But because just many people have phone numbers, at sometimes such a guess will
come true for sure. (This, again, is an example of Bernoulli’s law.)
One way to avoid this pitfall is to issue predictions. For example, following the
hypothesis that the use of cellular phones increases the probability of suffering from
cancer, you may predict that higher cellular phone invoices will be strongly corre-
lated with the frequency of cancer. Only after issuing the prediction you should
check the data. And if after several such trials you do not find the predicted correla-
tion, you may reasonably conclude that the hypothesis is (tentatively) refuted.
As we have noted in the previous chapter, people want theories to reduce the
strangeness of the world. When a theory predicts an otherwise improbable event,
and this event turns out to be observed, the theory reduces the strangeness of the
world simply by rendering the event probable. But observing such events does not
tell the whole story. It also makes sense to consider the accepted theories that are
relevant to the dispute. In the example under discussion, it makes sense to consider
the accepted theories about cellular phone radiation and the influence of such radia-
tion on the human body. (Radiation is assured to have ill-effect on us if it is hard,
short-wave, such as x-rays and if it is in high intensity; cellular phones use low-
intensity soft or long-wave radiation.) Since these theories imply that cellular phone
radiation is too week to increase the probability of cancer, then accepting the idea
that the use of cellular phone does increase the probability of cancer implies that
these theories are false, and such a conclusion increases the strangeness of the
world. Indeed, we should be open to considering data that seem to refute theories,
but when the theories under discussion have been well tested, we should ask for
strong evidence in order to act on the found refutation. Remember: evidence never
impose the view that theories that conflict with it are false. This depends on your
decision, and here we do suggest that you use commonsense, as here its use is vital.
Accidental Patterns
To repeat, one of the main risks involved in discussions of statistical generalization

is that the observed facts that “lead” to the generalization under discussion may be
accidental. That children are often in error when they generalize indiscriminately is
well known. The following pitfall is not. Beware of it. When a data set includes rela-
tively few cases with many features, it is easy to find patterns in them. Each of these
patterns may look reasonable, but not all of them. They are then results of the enor-
mous number of possible patterns. Since there are so many possible patterns, some
of them turn out to hold by sheer accident.
For an example, consider the following table:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O
9 8 2 8 9 2 3 2 1 7 6 3 4 2 T
3 8 0 7 5 2 6 2 5 8 4 4 3 1 T
3 2 4 0 9 6 5 4 1 8 2 2 8 9 F
1 1 6 7 2 4 7 1 9 6 7 5 8 1 F
7 0 3 6 6 2 2 5 4 6 9 6 6 6 T
0 5 9 5 5 2 3 7 6 5 1 6 8 7 F
7 2 3 6 9 2 6 8 5 3 4 2 3 8 T
3 1 4 4 2 6 8 4 4 4 8 8 1 3 T
5 7 3 4 0 7 8 3 4 7 6 3 8 9 F
3 1 0 3 6 9 9 2 9 2 6 1 6 8 F
4 7 4 0 9 4 4 8 4 9 2 0 1 1 T
6 4 1 9 1 1 7 7 0 6 5 3 2 4 T
1 5 0 8 2 0 5 5 0 1 4 1 7 2 T
1 7 8 1 7 3 0 2 1 1 4 2 0 1 F
2 6 4 8 1 0 7 0 1 0 9 1 6 3 T
This table includes 15 columns and 15 rows. Such data are quite common in
medical research (alternative medicine included) where the number of subjects is
quite limited (especially in the study of rare diseases), while the number of qualities
measured for each subject is quite large. So assume that this is indeed a table of
some medical research, where each column denotes a specific medical feature or
measurement, and each row denotes a particular subject.
Now, all the values in this table are random numbers. (They were created by an
Excel Random function.) And yet, in spite of the fact that they are random, it easy
to find allegedly interesting patterns. For example, one pattern is the following:
The value in column O is F if-and-only-if the value in column M is 8.
Debates About Healthy Diets 67
The accuracy of this rule is almost 90 % – it holds for 13 out of the 15 subjects.
Still, since the data are random, obviously this rule is not valid: in a repeated experi-
ment there will be no trace of it. It therefore obviously makes no sense to use it in
order to issue predictions for new cases.
How can we avoid this pitfall? Two methods are recommended; we have already
mentioned them:
1. To test the validity of a theory, issue predictions for new cases.
2. Check the consistency of the suggested theory with your other ideas.
Debates About Healthy Diets
We will end this chapter by reviewing the debate about the question: what is the
recommended healthy diet? This is a debate that both scientists in nutrition science
and common people are interested in for obvious reasons.
As we explained above, the most valid method to check this question is by run-
ning controlled experiments. Several groups of people are selected randomly, each
group eats another diet under consideration, and after several years the health of
each group is tested. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. People may not
follow the diet instructions when they eat at home, and they may drop from their
group because they dislike the food. And indeed the number of successful con-
trolled experiments in this field is quite low.
The alternative, less accurate method is looking for correlations between various
diets and health of the people that eat these diets. Many research surveys followed
this method. But due political and self-pride interests many of these research have
doubtful validity (for a detailed description of these researches see Nina Teicholz,
The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet,
2014).
It is easy to find some counter examples for any recommended healthy diets. For
example, a popular recommendation is to reduce saturated fat. But the Inuit and the
Maasai eat food that contains a lot of saturated fat yet they suffer from heart diseases
less than people in the Western world that avoid saturated fat.
This is the time to check the preposition of the debate, as we recommended in
Chap. 3. In this case the presupposition is that the same diet feet every human being.
The fact that there are so many counter examples for each diet might point that this
is not the case.
Chapter 7
Metaphysical Disputes
Abstract Metaphysical opinions under dispute often entail strange conclusions.

Noticing these conclusions may be interesting, yet they need not be valid counter-
arguments; they may, however, suggest to advocates of the metaphysical opinions
under dispute to reconsider their views. Some views, mainly metaphysical, refer to
claims about future events (for example: one day, it will be possible to construct
conscious machines). In debates on such predictions, the contending parties are sup-
posed to show that such events in principle cannot happen or alternately that they
should happen as no principle prevents their occurrence. Avoid arguments about
whether some entity exists, unless you can agree in advance regarding manageable
criteria for admitting or denying its existence. Indeed, such criteria may be subject
to preliminary debates.
In what follows, we shall apply the ideas that we have presented thus far to several
well-known disputes. Our aim is not to resolve these disputes, but rather to use them
as examples of pitfalls that as the default option we recommend to avoid whenever
possible. We will review the questions and the main arguments presented in these
disputes, and will examine them with an eye to those ideas.
We start with three well-known disputes in the field of Metaphysics. The dis-
putes in this field illustrate three points:
1. No general agreement exists as to the particular question under dispute;
2. Some of the questions that have been under dispute have ceased to catch the
interest of knowledgeable parties;
3. Confusion emerges from the fact that several disputants present theories as uni-
versal statements while others present them as existential statements.
Before we delve into examples, we should note that the confusions we are dis-
cussing are easy to overcome, leading to the disputes being sharpened, not dimin-
ished, and thereby made less frustrating. Of disputes that fully diminish or that
dissolve, namely that leave no disagreement behind, we say that there were not
disputes in the first place, that they only seemed disputes. Wittgenstein-style phi-
losophers find it very satisfactory, and the end of the exercise, the understanding that
there was no dispute in the first place. We, on the contrary, follow Kant and Popper
in considering this a challenge to rescue the dispute by restating it in a better way or
by replacing it with a better one on the same line of concern. We do not deny, how-

70 7 Metaphysical Disputes
ever, that Wittgenstein-style philosophers are at times right. Even then we disagree
with Wittgenstein’s disciples and say, a dispute may dissolve because a presupposi-
tion that was the cause of it disappeared; this means that the dispute did exist and
that it disappeared only with its presuppositions. That seems to us eminently reason-
able, and preferable to Wittgenstein’s exposure of metaphysicians as impostors.
All this does not obliterate the fact that, regrettably, on occasion Wittgenstein’s
disciples are right and the dispute rested on sheer confusion. If so, then, contrary to
Wittgenstein and his followers, occasionally vagueness is preferable to clarity, since
the study of history requires understanding thing as vaguely or ambiguously as once
they were understood. As our example here we take a vague or ambiguous assertion
that is unclear about whether it is meant to all or to some of the items it describes:
we may speak about a given subject S vaguely or ambiguously, leaving it unclear
whether we mean all or only some S. As vague or as ambiguous, then, “people are
stupid” may mean, some people are stupid, and it may mean, all people are. This
example is not good, as the former statement is obviously true and the latter is obvi-
ously false, whereas the significant vague or ambiguous cases are those in which
their students were not clear in their minds or unable to decide about the precise
meaning of what they were saying.
(This is the greatest folly of Wittgenstein. He claimed that everything that can be
said can be said clearly. This is an understandable exaggeration, since originators of
important new ideas often learn to say them clearly only after some time, by which
time new important ideas are said vaguely or ambiguously. And this process is prob-
ably endless. And he deduced from his understandable exaggeration an intolerable
proscription on vague or ambiguous speech. For, we learn everything by trial and
error, including proper speech. And this means that stuttering is essential for proper
speech, so that proscribing stuttering is proscribing all speech.)
And to understand that often the poor statement of problems is the inescapable
prelude to their suitable statements helps understand quite a few traditional debates
that by now are extinct. This will permit us to comprehend history and see the ratio-
nality of the repeated restatements of one problem with increased clarity. What we
have said thus far will permit right away to offer a very significant example with no
need to explain. The problem that David Hume has raised, the problem of induction,
is understood for a century now not as he worded it but as Bertrand Russell did in
his classic and very influential Problems of Philosophy of 1912. Unlike Hume
Russell worded it with no reference to causality.
Ambiguity about all or some—about quantifiers—still excites many philoso-
phers. We do not know why, but we have a conjecture. These philosophers speak of
the essence; they find it disturbing that although in essence we are rational, in
observed fact we are not, or at least many of us are not. To accommodate for this sad
fact, these philosophers find it necessary for the description of the essence of human-
ity to include the explanation of the fact that rationality is not universally practiced.
If this reading is true, then we will stay out of this discussion, since all Aristotelian
theories of essence are defective, as modern logic has amply shown; and until the
rules of what may count as an essence is reasonably well worded, we find debating
essence futile. If and when such a presentation would appear, then they will have to
The Mind-Body Problem 71
undergo critical discussion in which it should be examined in some detail. It is not

that we are not sympathetic to such a discussion, but that we want it to run along
proper lines. In particular, stupidity is challenging, no doubt. As Bertrand Russell
said, (too many) people would rather die than think; indeed, that is what they usu-
ally do. He had in mind such cases as the excitement with which volunteers joined
the forces in World War I, for example, only to be slaughtered mercilessly and
pointlessly. This event and the general phenomenon of stupidity are puzzling, and
they are subject to many interesting and enlightening debates, even if we still do not
know the cause of voluntary stupidity. Unfortunately, the philosophers who debate
assertions like “people are stupid” do not help clarify this issue because of the
inbuilt confusion that they refuse to clear. Russell could use the same words without
being too vague or too ambiguous because he had rejected the Aristotelian doctrine
of essences offhand. All this is thought provoking. It shows that not the rejection of
Aristotelian essentialism but the avoidance of excessive vagueness that counts as
advantageous. This raises a simple and vital question: how are we to avoid vague-
ness? This question is annoying because there is no general rule for it. Still worse,
if we do have such a criterion, it may be mistaken and then play havoc. Indeed, the
already mentioned famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed that he had
such a rule, and for a long time his followers suggested that following his rule leads
to utter clarity and prevents prolonged debates, especially the perennial metaphysi-
cal ones. It took a generation or two for his fans to admit that he had no such crite-
rion, that indeed he relied on commonsense and on the good sense of those able to
put things clearly.
In clear dissent form all versions of Wittgenstein’s demand, we will demand
nothing and make do with some suggestions that look to us sufficiently reasonable.
Indeed, we are often puzzled by the need for restating them. Rather than debate then
critically, we will now report on three or four specific examples of classical meta-
physical disputes that cover much though not all of classical metaphysics and so
much of classical philosophy. We leave it to our readers to decide whether our
examples are beneficial or not. If you find them somewhat enlightening, we will be
satisfied. If not, we hope that you keep your mind open for efforts of others to
improve upon our presentation.
The Mind-Body Problem
Our first case study is the mind-body problem. New scholarly studies devoted to it
appear regularly and discuss one aspect of it or another. Most of them do so without
wording the question. Some attempts at wording the question are easily available,
of course. For example, the Encyclopedia Britannica presents the problem by the
following sentence:
Mind-body problem: Metaphysical problem of the relationship between mind and body.
And Wikipedia presents a similar statement:

The mind-body problem in philosophy examines the relationship between mind and matter,
and in particular the relationship between consciousness and the brain,
This is no good, since it is not a question. (Notice that we use the words “prob-
lem” and “question” as synonyms, unlike in textbooks, where often problems are
exercises and not questions.)
Even papers that do pose the mind-body problem as a question, often do so in a
manner that is far from helpful. Ignoring the publications that do not present a ques-
tion, we list here some questions frequently presented in the relevant literature as
the mind-body problem.
What are the relations between the mind and the body?
This question is too vague, since there are infinitely many such relations, and we
find most of them not interesting at all.
Can a valid distinction be made between the mind and the body?
The answer to this question when taken literally is obviously in the affirmative.
A distinction can be made between any two things, and all such distinctions are
valid according to some standards of validity or another, though most of them are
quite useless.
Can the mental be reduced to the physical (or vice-versa)?
Reduction is a technical word. As long as “if-then” statements are enough for

reduction, the answer is obviously in the affirmative, and most reductions are silly
and quite unenlightening. If by “reduction” one means logically necessary “if-then”
statements, however, then the answer is obviously in the negative, and perhaps in
principle so, we do not know.
Are the mind and the body two different substances?
Since a substance is an entity that exists necessarily and independently of all else, how can
the body and the mind interact?
This question has the great merit that it is the traditional question that great think-
ers between Descartes (early seventeenth century) and Russell (early twentieth cen-
tury) pondered about. It has the drawback of being out-of-date since the substance
theory is defunct (due to different assaults on it, by Russell and by Einstein.)
Many philosophers discussed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
the last questions in our list. They found it interesting for many reasons, good and
bad. One reason is that it smuggled religious discussion into a secular literature: the
view of the soul as a substance implies that it is indestructible, as every substance is,
being by definition independent on anything else. (The traditional idea that every-
thing utterly independent is indestructible sounds very reasonable. In the early
twentieth century the integrity of the nucleus of the atom was deemed independent
yet it was assumed that some heavy atoms—the radioactive ones—are likely to
disintegrate for no reason at all and with no possibility of any outside influence on
their stability or instability. And then it turned out that their instability can be
enhanced—as in nuclear explosion—yet the idea of spontaneous disintegration
The Mind-Body Problem 73
remained a part of nuclear physics to date, so that we no longer take it for granted
that the independent is indestructible.) The allegation that the soul is a substance,
then, was taken to be the same as that the soul is immortal, that the life of the soul
continues after the death of the body. Regrettably, the question whether the soul is a
substance or not is no longer interesting; today most philosophers are not interested
in substances, much less in their necessary existence. Let us ignore all this and
review the discussions to see the patterns of the arguments.
Whatever the traditional mind-body question is, let us look at the answers to it to
see if they help us word the question better. The traditional answers are these.
Interactionism: The interaction between the mind and body takes place only in a
very small place, the pineal gland (René Descartes).
Parallelism: The mind and the body do not interact but rather operate in parallel
according to a Godly pre-determined harmony (Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz).
Dual aspects theory: The mind and the body are not two substances but rather
two aspects of one and the same substance (Benedict Spinoza).
Idealism: The mind and the body are not two substances; rather, the body exists
in the mind (Bishop George Berkley).
Materialism: The mind and the body are not two substances; rather, the mind is
part of the body (Julien Offray de La Mettrie).
Epiphenomenalism: The interaction between the mind and the body is unidirec-
tional: the body causes mental activity, but not vice-versa, very much the way the
body throws a shadow. The mind is then just an epiphenomenon of the body
(Thomas Henry Huxley).
Neutral monism: there is no substance; rather, both the mind and the body are
complex structures of sensations (C. D. Broad).
Each of these answers was criticized as implying strange conclusions. And
indeed, all of them are strange. Still, this poses a question: which answer makes the
world less strange? And considering this to have been the question under dispute,
we should judge quite rational the dispute and the leading arguments in it. In par-
ticular, let us report: Berkeley was painfully aware of the strangeness of his idealism
and he argued like a lion for his view that materialism was even stranger, since it
makes matter indestructible contrary to all experience, and since dualism is even
stranger, being inconsistent.
To repeat, nowadays this particular dispute in no longer found interesting, since
most of those who discuss the mind-body problem interestingly do not assume that
the body or the mind is a substance in the sense of entities whose existence is neces-
sary and independent of anything else. And without this assumption, the whole
discussion of substances collapse.
So how should we word the mind-body problem? One suggestion is the follow-
ing question.
How (if at all) can a physical machine with consciousness be constructed?
(The words “if at all” are redundant, since every question about how or about
which way anything happens or takes place, has as one optional answer, “in no way
at all”.)
The question is challenging: those who claim that we are only physical entities
should explain the phenomena of consciousness. Obviously, today no one knows
how to build such machine. But our staple question holds. Can one argue these days
for/against the view that building such a machine is possible/impossible?
The dispute refers to possible future machines. One party claims that such
machines will never be built; the other party claims that they might. When arguing
about what will be in the future, the arguments should present difficulties that are in
principle insurmountable. The first party should present statements that explain why
such a machine cannot be built, due to some familiar difficulties, and should explain
why these difficulties should be considered insurmountable. The other party should
try to refute these statements or render them highly questionable. Now, as far as we
know, all the arguments in defense of the claim that such a machine cannot be built
in principle are easily open to criticism. And, obviously, there are no arguments
insuring that such a machine will ever be possible to build. As a result, the dispute
about the question of whether a machine with consciousness can ever be built is
interminable as far as we know. Those who wish to see it continued have to find
ways to keep it interesting—to themselves and to their opponents alike.
When considering the arguments in this dispute, one should check whether those
arguments that the contesting parties present are universal or existential statements,
as we have discussed in Chap. 2. Let us mention two examples. Associationism is
the idea that all cognitive activity is explicable as a series of associations, where two
mental objects are associated if they are similar or if they occur in sufficient proxim-
ity of time and place. The arguments that the supporters of this idea present com-
prise lists of examples of cases that are explicable as associations. Opposing such
arguments are usually members of the Würzburg and the Gestalt schools of psychol-
ogy, who present examples of cases that—they say—are not explicable this way.
These arguments presented by the Würzburg and the Gestalt representatives pro-
pound an existential statement. They do not have a full-fledged explanation of
known information about the working of our cognitive processors. Rather, they
alleged that their examples refute the associationist theory of perception and even
any similar theory that offers a (quasi-)mechanical explanation of them.
The second example refers to the well-known Chinese room argument. Like the
Gestalt’s argument, the Chinese room argument and its likes offer no explanation of
how we think, but rather they present a thought experiment, alleging that it refutes
the theory according to which thinking can be explained as the operation of a com-
puter program. (On the technical sphere, unlike people, computers have no under-
standing because their operations are all extensional: they have no aims and no
preferences although they can be given sets of options with degrees of preferability
and then they can behave in a manner that for a while deceives even good experts.)
Our expectations from the arguments presented by rival parties are different.
Consider those who present associationism or any other theory that presents mental
activity as one that emulates closely a computer-software guided conduct. The rules
of the debate may require of them to present arguments showing how such theories
explain all the phenomena in question. This they cannot do, and so they may reason-
ably ask for time out. Those who criticize the theory in question are expected to
The Problem of Free Choice 75
offer refuting observations, namely, they should present proof of the inconsistency
between their observations and the theories that they claim to refute. Hence, it seems
that nowadays almost no dispute exists concerning the mind-body problem in the
new wording adopted here, since no one has yet succeeded in building a machine
that has consciousness or that at least has offered interesting arguments for the claim
that such a machine can be built but for some irrelevant limitations (such as limited
budgets); nor has anyone presented proof that such a machine cannot be built.
Of course, you may claim that our translation of the mind-body problem to a
similar problem is objectionable. You may then try your hand—we greatly recom-
mend this—in translating it differently. Even if you fail, we suggest that the exercise
may be worth your while. Alternatively, you may open a discussion about the
requirements from a translation of a defunct problem. This is a tough assignment,
so do not let it frustrate you: true to our system, we recommend that you stop before
you get frustrated.
The Problem of Free Choice
We now turn to another classical dispute—about the so-called problem of free

choice. In a nutshell, the problem of free choice is as follows: consider any ordinary
action, such as raising one’s hand. This occurs in the physical world, and as such it
is supposed to be determined by natural laws, like any other physical event.
Nevertheless, I have a clear sense of being free to choose whether or not to raise my
hand, in which case physical laws do not control my choice. The problem of free
choice is: what is the proper resolution of is this dilemma or apparent paradox?
Many philosophers have compounded the problem with the dispute between
determinism and indeterminism. In a nutshell, this dispute runs as follows: the
determinist says that every event that happens in the physical world is predeter-
mined, while the indeterminist claims the opposite, that at least some events in the
physical world are not predetermined. It is commonly held, for example, that
Newtonian physics is deterministic, while quantum mechanics is not. Furthermore,
and still according to received opinion, though not unanimously held, determinism
precludes free choice, while indeterminism allows for it. Each of these items is
questionable and indeed under dispute. Consider, however, the following obvious
argument. To say that a certain event is not predetermined is to say that it is acciden-
tal; to say that a certain event is chosen freely is not to say that the choice is acci-
dental or capricious. Hence, whereas determinism (allegedly) precludes free choice,
indeterminism offers no explanation for free choice, or even for our mere sense of
free choice. Very importantly, there is no theory as to how free choice fits in with
physics—this regardless of whether in physics current theory is deterministic or not.
As there may be different reasons for advocating determinism, there are diverse
versions of it. The version most popular these days is called scientific determinism,
which is a misleading name, since scientific determinism is not scientific but meta-
physical. It rests on the understanding that Newtonian mechanics presents a deter-
minist worldview, an understanding that Laplace strongly advocated, so that at

times it is called Laplace’s determinism. It is inherently deferent from that of the
twelfth century philosopher Maimonides that rests on his view that God is omni-
scient: since He knows the future, it is predetermined. Maimonides was an indeter-
minist, but he found the determinist argument from God’s omniscience disturbingly
unanswerable. He found it disturbing, incidentally, since it seems to conflict with
the theory of personal providence, namely, the theory of divine rewords and punish-
ments to individuals after their death for their right deeds and for their wrong deeds.
Those who do not worry about this as they consider the rewards and punishments in
afterlife the results of nothing but God’s will are called fatalists.
Note that the problem is neither whether or not we have free will (almost every-
body agrees that we have), nor whether or not our conduct is governed by physics
(again, almost everybody agrees that it is). The problem rests on the fact that these
two ideas seem to clash. Since a clash between accepted ideas is intolerable, we
must wonder whether it is real, and if so, what its right resolution is. Notice also,
that rationalists do not appeal to providence and perhaps they even deny it, and that
the determinism that they may discuss is Laplacean or scientific determinism. To
repeat, no one claims for determinism scientific status; rather, it is the affirmative
answer to the question, does the latest advanced versions of science claim that the
laws of nature fully determine our bodily movements?
When considering a paradox, such as the one that free choice presents, where
two statements seem to be both true and yet inconsistent with each other, the options
are that either one (or both) of the statements that seem to be true is false, or that the
two are consistent with each other. Contrary to what many arguments present in the
literature, it is inappropriate to argue that our physics is refuted since we have free
will, and it is equally inappropriate to argue that we do not possess free will since
(let us agree for the sake of the argument) physics does not allow for it. We have to
find a solution that rests on different arguments, showing some deep fault in our way
of thinking. Such a solution will enable a better understanding of the world, or, to
put it differently, it will decrease the strangeness of the world.
This is the place to mention the philosophy of the influential philosopher Benedict
Spinoza. He advocated both scientific determinism and the doctrine of free will. He
said, if a stone could think it would think that it wishes to fall in a parabola (the
course that Galileo’s law of gravity imposes on a falling stone). This may be true or
not; not enough is known about either determinism or free will to decide. Participants
in this dispute are invited to say more about either or both of these ideas.
We may go further. Suppose determinism is true. Then, as Laplace claimed, a
thinker with sufficient information and sufficient calculation power—it is called
Laplace’s demon—will be able to describe the movements of any object, including
the human body, with no reference to any theory but physics. Hence, let us con-
clude, the demon could calculate the movement of the quilt of a Mozart on a page
and thus describe a written piece of music with no knowledge of what music is.
This, said the famous quantum physicist, is a pre-established harmony that is hard
to conceive. In technical terms this kind of event is said to be over-determined: the
What Is Really the Case? 77
written page of music notes follows two sets of rules, those of physics and those of
music, where the rules of physics should suffice.
Notice that this is no solution to the problem. It only is the claim that it is hard to
believe the idea of Spinoza that the motions of the quilt of a Mozart is determined
both by the laws of physics and by the rules of music and the aesthetic sense of the
renown composer.
What Is Really the Case?
The mind body problem illustrates a pitfall that is very easily found in many other
cases. That we have minds or souls is as obvious as that we are alive: to say that we
have souls is to say that we are alive, and living flesh has properties that dead meat
does not. Some people object, and wish to distinguish between mind and soul and
between having one and being alive. So let us take an adjacent problem that dodged
this troublesome move. Consider the question, are we or are humans good or bad?
Of course, we know the answer: both. Some of our actions are good, some bad,
some of us are good people, some bad. This is not contested. Yet the question is
debated for ages. Now whenever a dispute goes on about a question that has undis-
puted answers, we may suspect that the question is not properly worded. Many
people are very happy to destroy a question in hope that it destroys a disagreement.
At times they destroy the claim that the two parties debate the same question or the
same answer. This is called talking at cross-purposes. All this, we have argued
repeatedly, is done in effort to avoid frustrating debates without notice that this kind
of move easily increases frustration, since disagreements do not go away when
debate about them is suppressed or postponed.
The question, are we good or bad is easily remedied: are we really good or really
bad? Some new-age people replace the expression “really” with the word “on the
astral plane”. Both expressions indicate that the known refutations of the views
under debate do not count. Leaving the astral plane aside, let us look at “really”. The
opposite of the real is the accidental or the apparent, as you wish. The idea is that
although our conduct happens to be good or that it happens to be bad, we all have
characters, and these reveal themselves only in moment of crisis, whatever these
are. The word “character” refers to the theory that each of us, though changeable,
has an unchangeable core, and that the core of a person is the real person. This
theory is a challenge to find both what characters are possible and what character
this or that neighbor of ours has. Thus, the application of the theory of intelligence
quotient, of IQ, comes to tell us not what our intelligence is, as this is changeable,
say by education, but what is our inborn, unchangeable IQ. There is no such thing,
but this does not stop experts apply the theory that it exists and has some characteristic
or another. The intelligence quotient does not change; the theory of it does,
repeatedly.
We suggest that you avoid discussing what things really are; it suffices that we
want to find what they are, and the best way to do so is to ask questions about them,
seek answers for these questions, and try to argue about them. It is only when people
refuse to lose debates that they move from the search for knowledge about things to
the search of real knowledge about them. If they are well trained, they start the
debate under conditions that they know make it impossible for them to lose it. Their
signal is the question, what is your definition of this, that or the other. What is your
definition of life, of the soul, of goodness? Do not argue with these people. The
answers they seek are metaphysical and of the kind that blocks all criticism. Respect
their wish not to lose a debate, and do not engage in debate with them.
Does God Exist?
Our final example for a metaphysical dispute refers to the existence of God. Any
discussion of existence in general is very difficult to manage. Is there a golden
mountain (somewhere in the vast universe)? Finding a golden mountain leads to the
view that it does exist; otherwise, efforts to find out empirically whether it exists or
not are frustrating: one cannot search for it everywhere in order to find out; more-
over, we scarcely know where to begin such a search. More generally, whereas
existential statements may at times be supported by observations, by themselves
they are not undermined by any amount of failures to support them. This is not
always the case when the existential statement comes with a full-blown scientific
theory. The paradigm case here is that of the rare metal Hafnium. The existence of
something like it was predicted already by Dmitri Mendeleevin 1869, as a part of
his table of chemical elements, but only when it was repeated as a part of the table
of elements of Niels Bohr it became possible to test Bohr’s theory by searching for
in beds of other rare metals.
Prospectors do seek golden mountains or gold deposits or some other natural
resources, be they gold or black gold or any other valuable deposits. Can we not
seek out God that way? Let us see how these prospectors seek treasures and see if
their techniques work also for the search of God. How then do prospectors go about
their business?
Notoriously, different kinds of treasure invite different methods of prospecting;
even different prospectors for the same treasure may look for it in different ways.
This means that they have some idea as to their probable locations. In particular,
they have scientific theories to guide them. But when these suffice, they leave no
room for prospecting. And then prospectors leave the scene and applied scientists or
engineers replace them. Hence, although prospectors do use scientific theories, they
must supplement them with clues, not to mention sheer inarticulate hunches. These
are shifty and unreliable, but still they are possibly helpful; alternatively, successful
prospectors owe it to sheer luck that they see some success in their prospecting. In
this case, prospecting is just a form of gambling, and a wild form at that, since in
their case there is no way to calculate the odds. Even when clues and hunches do
improve the chances of intelligent prospectors as they guide them in taking their
chances, they always take into account the possibility of ending their searches
Does God Exist? 79
empty-handed. (Otherwise, to repeat, their actions are not that of prospectors but of
applied scientists.) Thus, intelligent prospectors are neither fully guided by theory
nor blind nor given to sheer luck; usually, they have a reasonably good idea about
what a find is, and where it is more likely to find it. (In particular, intelligent pros-
pectors are critically-minded. They tell many stories about mistaken claims for suc-
cess, and these are warning signs for beginners about kinds of mistakes to avoid.)
High-risk investors who invest in gold mining may doubt that specific prospectors
have good guidance for their search, and so they may reject the plans of some pros-
pectors, but they also listen to other prospectors and then debate matters with them.
If prospectors look for golden mountains, then their debates with possible financial
backers about it are better if they follow simple commonsense rules. They should
then specify how big a lump of gold must be in order to count as a golden mountain,
how pure it must be, and so on. Also, they should explain why the likelihood of
encountering a golden mountain is greater in one territory than in another and why
they think their clues are promising, as well as what will happen if they do or if they
do not find the sought-after treasures. Indeed, before undertaking a debate on the
question, “does a golden mountain exist?”it is wise to clarify sufficiently the very
ideas of existence and what comprises a golden mountain, so that failure to find one
should not lead to a new dispute as to whether what was found does or does not meet
our expectations. In other words, although a good debate leads its participants wher-
ever its arguments lead them in an open minded and not pre-determined manner, it
is advisable to have a pretty clear initial idea regarding what is the item on the
agenda and what proof will be deemed proper termination of the debate.
This advice is dangerous. People who hate to decide can always ask for clarifica-
tion. Since utter clarity does not exist. (This is the major contribution of Ludwig
Wittgenstein: he developed an idea of utter clarity and demanded that it be followed,
thus provoking people, such as Bertrand Russell and Kurt Gödel, to disprove this
idea.) This raises the question, how clear should we be? What degree of clarity
should we aspire to? Karl Popper had a brilliantly simple answer: be sufficiently
clear to be able to entertain criticism. This advice is general. Its application may be
erroneous. This is why we suggested that discussants should be always ready to stop
a debate and move to a meta-debate for a while. This advice is amply illustrated in
Plato’s early dialogues that are tremendous fun to read as manuals for the conduct
of fruitful dialogues. This advice too may be misused: one who wishes to sabotage
a debate, you may remember, may constantly demand to shift it, to other debates or
to a meta-debate. A foolproof manual cannot exist. This should suffice as a prelimi-
nary to our discussion of discussions of the existence of God.
We have tried to dodge this traditional discussion. Noticing that prospectors seek
gold without knowing whether our surrogate question is this. Is it possible to seek
the Creator the way prospectors seek gold—not knowing whether He exists?
Perhaps. First let us ask how far the parallel between theology and prospecting can
go. When a golden mountain is found, we may decide that it exists and avoid further
discussion of the matter. For this, you remember, we have to specify in advance
what qualifies as a golden mountain. Do such specifications exist for the conceiv-
able success in the search for the Creator? This question is unavoidable if frustration
is to be avoided. And so we would like to dwell on it, yet it is a very difficult ques-
tion. How then should we go about it? We do not know. But let us try, very tenta-
tively. To consider the question of the existence of the Creator as akin to the question
of the existence of a golden mountain, then, we suggest, one should first inquire
regarding what theory and which clues may lead the search and improve the odds of
a successful outcome, not to mention the decision as to claims that we have found
Him. Existent theories are thus far all worthless, as it is not clear to us as yet to what
kind of Creator the discussion concerns, let alone claims to have found Him. We
may try to decide on this by looking at received traditions. As it happens, two
Western traditions concern two characterizations of the Creators: the one described
in the western monotheistic or Abrahamic religions (Jewish, Christian, or Muslim)
as described in their relative scriptures and the other that philosophers—ancient and
modern alike—discuss with no reference to any sacred text. The two kinds of theo-
ries, or rather the religions that they represent, philosophers call by different names:
the revealed (where the revelation is described in given Scriptures) and the natural
(or universal or rational). As Heinrich Heine has already complained (Religion and
Philosophy in Germany: A Fragment, 1834), these two kind of theories (or of reli-
gions) are confused regularly and systematically. As to clues, one big clue exists,
traditionally known by the name that Robert Boyle (of Boyle’s law) gave it: the
physico-theological argument for the existence of God. Later on it was rechristened
by other names, the latest being, the argument from intelligent design: the world is
a marvelous clock; hence, there should be a designer and maker of this clock. This
notion has raised much discussion about the question, how marvelous this clock-
work is, given global injustice. (There are many examples for this. Ivan Karamazov
discussed the case of a parent who mistakenly punishing an innocent child; today
the staple examples are Auschwitz and/or Hiroshima). Neo-Darwinians use exam-
ples from allegedly faulty design of animals, since Darwinism stresses that the fit-
test survives even though they are not quite fit. Quite generally, the argument from
design raises the question, how really intelligent is the intelligent design when
Nature shows so many seeming defects? This question is often dismissed by the
observation that the beauty of the world of ours is breathtaking regardless of all its
faults. This observation is eminently true but quite irrelevant. For, the Creator is
described as perfect, and this world of ours, wonderful and admirable and delightful
as it may be despite its faults is faulty nonetheless, and so it does not quite become
the Creator if He is almighty. The answer to this most obviously valid and reason-
able objection is that the Creator is impeccable but as He gave us free will we have
used our freedom and created evil. This introduction of free will raises more diffi-
culties than it resolves, of course; moreover, there is enough evil for the objection to
hold that has nothing to do with human interference. To this the defender of the
argument from design say, the ways of the Lord are mysterious. This is most likely
to be true. So it sounds as if it is a reasonable answer to the latest version of the
objection to the argument from intelligent design. It is not. Indeed, it is a declaration
of bankruptcy. For, had the defenders of the view that the Creator exists began the
discussion by admitting that His ways are mysterious, we would not take recourse
to the argument from design in the first place. We asked, what can we say about the
Creator, so that when we encounter Him we will agree that He does exist indeed.
Does God Exist? 81
The preliminary discussion as we have developed it here in order to avoid frus-

tration has thus become extremely frustrating. We suggest that this is so because a
clue with no theory cannot lead to a simple assessment that should be initially
agreed upon (if frustration is to be avoided). So we do not know under what condi-
tions which party should concede defeat, the party that speaks for the existence of
the alleged Maker of the clockwork that our wonderful universe is or the party that
denies this existence. If we cannot agree about the way to identify the Creator’s
handiworks, we cannot identify the Creator either, even if He will reveal Himself to
us on Mount Sinai or on Mount of Olives or in Mecca (or elsewhere). This amounts
to the assurance that the dispute will frustrate its participants.
Can we then prepare the debate about the question of the existence of the Creator
by seeking a theory about Him? This is doubtful. The great mediaeval theologian
Moses Maimonides declared it impossible to know what attributes if any become
the Lord; indeed, he said, human language is too poor for that. How then can we
prepare for such a debate so as to avoid frustration? We propose to take a step back-
ward and ask, why does this interest us and what does it matter? We mean this not
as rhetoric question, of course, and not as a mere preliminary, but as a debate-stop-
per. (Indeed, we have asserted repeatedly, we find most of the debates that take place
quite pointless, so that the discussion of the question, why do they matter, would
have prevented them and thus saved much frustration and waste of energy.) Not in
the present case, though: in the present case it is very easy to answer the question.
Whether God exists or not is indeed the most important question we could possibly
ask, since if He does exist, then worshiping Him is clearly the most valuable task.
But this answer is not trouble-free. Suppose that He does exist, what then is the
proper worship of Him? The default answer is, proper conduct: the right way to
worship Him is by behaving properly. This answer is too good, as proper behavior
is imperative regardless of the answer to the question at hand. What conduct then is
the proper worship of Him if and only if the Lord does exist? For example, is it
proper to sacrifice animals for his greater glory? In ancient times Jews said, yes, of
course. Maimonides said, of course not: it is an insult to the Great God. We cannot
know unless we know something about Him. True, traditional religion tells us.
Modern philosophers—including some who were very religious—rejected the tra-
ditional answer offhand, before hearing it, on the ground that traditional religion has
no authority over us. It imposes itself on us rationally or unjustly. If rationally, then
we do not need it as we should use reason; if unjustly, then it robs us of our freedom
of thought. Those philosophers, who were religious despite their refusal to accept
that authority of religion, claimed that reason directs us to the endorsement of tradi-
tional religion. This, to repeat, other philosophers find doubtful. They may also find
it harmful, as reason unifies humanity yet religion splits it. Still, some philosophers,
notably Martin Buber, said that accepting traditional religion in the name of reason
cleans it of its rationally unacceptable parts, while offering the religion we were
born into as our own default option, or even the only option available. This does not
solve the problem: we should know when it makes sense to accept our religious
tradition and when it does not; hence, what is the default option is not the issue, and
we have no idea which religion to follow—yours or mine. No matter what your
answer to this question is, you must consider it. Hence, you have to consider some
idea, be it originally a part of your traditional religion or any traditional religion or
a religion that is not traditional at all.
Of courses, some people—perhaps most people—will disagree and say that
some traditional ideas, especially some traditional religious ideas, are obligatory to
endorse and are not up for negotiation. Yet, although many people would agree with
this, few of them mean it literally. It may be wiser to avoid debate with such people:
they may wish to convince you of the validity of their own religion, but they refuse
to put theirs in question, which is legitimate, of course; so is the refusal to argue
with them that we recommend on the basis of our view that lacking reciprocal will-
ingness to accept criticism, debate is useless. So, if you must argue with them, per-
haps you will do well to insist on speaking with them only about what they and you
are in agreement about. Those who say that traditional religion is obligatory and do
not quite mean what they say, they often know that they exaggerate. They know that
no ancient religion will be fully endorsed today by any reasonable person, and even
they will reject at least some ancient traditional religious ideas. They may take this
in their stride, considering the religious ideas that they reject marginal and not
intended to take literally. Indeed, all religions require some reconsideration or rein-
terpretation in the light of new knowledge. And so we are back at the need to weigh
ideas, even traditional religious ideas. Which brings us back to the critical attitude
to religion that most philosophers adopt, no matter how sympathetic to religion they
may be or how religiously committed they are.
This in turn brings us back to the Creator as philosophers have conceived Him,
not the Creator of traditional religion. What is known about Him? After the Middle
Ages traditional philosophy defined the divinity as perfection itself. We know now
that Maimonides was right: we do not know what perfection is; we can scarcely
imagine it without getting into paradoxes. What else then is known about Him?
Nothing.
This, we say, is where our discussion should better stop. We advise you then to
decline the invitation of those who want to follow it further. Otherwise, we advise
you to condition the acceptance of the invitation to continue the discussion on the
ability of your interlocutors to explain a bit better the question they wish to discuss
further with you. The latest effort in this direction, to repeat, is the famous idea of
intelligent design. The advantage of this idea is that it expresses no bias in favor of
any specific religion, or, more precisely, that it suppresses such expressions as a
kind of temporary accord between leaders of different American churches to over-
look their differences while struggling in courts with those who want them to keep
out of politics (more specifically, to keep prayers out of state schools) as the consti-
tutional separation of church and sates requires. The disadvantage of our advice is
that we despair of efforts to understand the traditional idea of the Creator (religious
and philosophical alike). Efforts to understand this idea (or its parallels in Oriental
thought) will continue, and if someone will be able to meet our challenge better than
we can see, then the debate may reopen with little or no frustration. All this lies well
beyond the scope of this handbook.
Chapter 8
Disputes About History and Predictions
Abstract Debates on certain historical narratives may suggest looking for predic-
tions implied by the hypothesis that they are (or are not) true and then to test these
predictions by studying more detailed texts or even historical records. It might also
be advisable to check whether the events narrated could be expected under common
general assumptions regarding human behavior. The same holds regarding some
long-range predictions. In debates about subjunctive conditional statements
(answers to questions of the form “what would have happened if …?” of the form
“if x were the case than y would be too”), it is advisable to consider the degree to
which one event usually serves as means for predicting the other. This advice
resembles the above-mentioned one about causality.
The above discussion of some major metaphysical issues came to illustrate our sug-
gestion that discussions of existential statements are frustrating and so they are bet-
ter avoided when possible. (Note: not all metaphysical assertions or theories are
existential. Indeed, the report of Aristotle on the ancient metaphysics in his famous
history of metaphysics that is the opening of his book on the subject mentions only
universal theories. The first, of Thales, “All is water”, is still the paradigm case. The
assertion that God exists did not interest Aristotle; his discussions of existence sys-
tematically referred to observed phenomena, such as change, and their causes and
their effects; this seemed to him sufficient reason to refer to God as the perfect being
that will not change, the unmoved mover. This is his version of the philosophical
divinity.)
There is a limit, of course, to the possibility to follow our advice to avoid discus-
sions of existential statements and our suggestion is that if you do discuss them, try
first to put them as much in context as possible. Our advice rests on the fact that the
introduction of existential statements into a theoretical debate either plays a signifi-
cant role as refutations of universal statements, which is at the heart of all critical
debate, or else they are often introduced into theoretical debates as theories, and
then they are highly frustrating, and thus items that we advise our readers to avoid
whenever possible in effort to reduce their frustration, or at least describe their con-
text first. This will help, since discussing the reason why an existential theory is
introduced helps contrive a context to it that may help see the point of the discussion
and then at least we can see if the point was reached or missed. Our example, from
the existence of God, comes because we admit that the question may be very impor-

84 8 Disputes About History and Predictions
tant, and we have tried to see whether the debate does hope reach or come close to
the aim of the discussion that this aim prescribes. Some readers may find this exam-
ple unsatisfactory since theology always has a special place in our tradition, for
good or ill. So let us take another example of discussions of existential statements,
and one that is scarcely avoidable: history; any history, especially political or social.
The limit to our advice to avoid discussions of existential theories is in historical
discussions, since all history deals exclusively with existential statements. This
sounds false, as there is also hypothetical history subjunctive-conditional or hypo-
thetical or conjectural history, at times called the history of the what if. For, contrary
to severe reprimands, this history does exist. And we do not object it: we think it is
all to the good, as those who proscribe it need not read it. (They do.) Even this kind
of history, we contend, is all existential. It opens with descriptions of some past
facts, including events that did happen due to chance or to some choice, on the
hypothesis that some accidents or some choices or other could happen differently,
and assuming for the sake of their discussion that these happened differently. In
discussions of hypothetical history, a question arises, what would have been the
course of history had it developed on a different possible line. These teach us in
depth about the accidents and the choices that (we all agree) did take place in the
past. An example will make this easier to perceive. Dramatist Carl Zuckmayer said,
had the Nazis won the War their regime would have collapsed as it was hopelessly
corrupt. This is the observation about the existence of corruption in that regime, the
assertion that it was a part of the ideology of that regime, and the unproblematic
theory (the theory that all participants in the discussion endorse) that there is a limit
to the corruption that a successful regime can tolerate. Whether the observation of
Zuckmayer is true or false is not our concern in the present paragraph (we will take
this up soon enough); rather, here it is an example of our contention that historians
too make and discuss existential statements. Zuckmayer did observe something
about the Nazi regime that was not sufficiently noted by others: it was corrupt intol-
erably, and its corruption was due to its violent ideology.
This example is terrific. And so we have to issue a warning: examples may be
seductive; indeed, good examples are. And so it is important to say, especially in a
handbook for rational debates, against everything seductive: when you are open to
seduction, you are better off knowing this. And you are always better off knowing
that a seductive instance is no substitute for a rational argument. A good example
for a theory may be presented artistically in a powerful narrative, and it is then to be
enjoyed, but as propaganda not as arguments. (Not all propaganda is objectionable,
but even propaganda for a good cause is objectionable if it is an argument-surrogate.)
Often, books that advocate outlandish ideas comprise series of examples. They do
the job of making their theses seem less strange in the sense that they help their
readers get used to them, but they do not even make them less strange in the sense
that we have used this word in this handbook, let alone making them rationally
appealing. And so we do not intend to use our example from conjectural history as
convincing, since all conjectural history is strange, and we want to discuss a bit
more critically our contention that all history is a series of existential assertions and
rational—critical—discussions about them. Intuitively, then, we have now a few
8 Disputes About History and Predictions 85
options as to what aspect of history to discuss next. Several types of disputes have
emerged regarding history, and naturally we may now take up any one of them.
They are as follows.
1. Disputes about historical facts: what exactly happened in a certain place and
time, or, is the report about a certain historical event true. For example, did
Socrates exist or is he the invention of Plato?
2. Disputes about historical causes: what were the causes for a certain historical
event? For example, why was Socrates sentenced to death? More interestingly,
what are the causes for the First World War? What led to it?
3. Disputes about historical subjunctive conditionals or hypotheticals (of the kind
that the example we have just offered): what would have happened if a certain
historical event had occurred or had not occurred? For example, what would
have happened had the USA dropped nuclear bombs on the Second World War
on Mount Fuji rather than on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (as some of the scientists
involved say they had preferred)?
Before delving into these questions, we may find it helpful to consider why some
questions about history are interesting in the first place. For, to repeat, an answer to
this question may guide us in our effort to reduce frustration in debates. We may
also ask, why do many historians proscribe debating hypothetical historical ques-
tions, and are they right?
Let us start then with the most basic question: why are some questions about his-
tory interesting? One popular answer to this question is that history can teach us
some practical lessons. Some historical cases are similar to present cases, and they
may help us avoid repeating historical mistakes. Here is a famous example. In 2008,
economists in the USA said that the financial crisis of that time resembled that of
1929, and they recommended avoiding the mistakes that rendered the consequences
of the 1929 crisis so abysmal. Such a conclusion is easily contested: we do not know
what mistakes aggravated the situation then. Instead, we can learn from history by
finding cases that refute ideas. Consider, for example, the most popular argument in
favor of keeping illegal the use of mind-affecting drugs, according to which decrim-
inalizing the use of these drugs will render drug use excessively popular and thus
risk the very ability to maintain civil society. The idea behind this argument is that
the availability of drugs and the freedom to use them renders their use excessive.
This idea is refuted by historical evidence from the availability of drugs and the
freedom to use them, say, in nineteenth-century China (and, indeed, in all countries
prior to the twentieth century). Moreover, it is possible to learn from the failure of
the more recent prohibition in the USA to reduce the consumption of alcohol and
choose to abolish similar current prohibitions. This argument need not be devastat-
ing, and indeed the debate goes on; our point is that it is valuable because this argu-
ment may be useful to some extent.
This is not the complete answer to our question: the study of history is useful for
additional reasons. We need not go into them, as we are interested in history even
when we do not learn any practical lesson from it. Indeed, another reason for
learning about history is our wish to understand our current situation from a broader
perspective than we already have: the wish to broaden our perspectives on current
affairs invites the study of history in the hope that history will somehow help us
understand the current situation by telling us how things have come to be as they
are. The events recorded by historians, then, are supposed to throw light on the pres-
ent state of affairs. In other words, by studying history, we hope to reveal the pro-
cesses that brought about the present situation and that understanding these
processes will make the present state of affair less surprising or less unexpected.
This is true for all the fields of study: the history of economics, technology, or sci-
ence can help us understand the current situation within economics, technology, or
science. There are special aspects to special kinds of history. Thus, the history of
mediaeval music teaches us differently than recent political history; moreover, the
worst errors in the history of mediaeval music have a different status from the worst
error in recent political history. The latter are a part of our heritage and we have to
do more to correct them than we have to do to correct mistakes in the history of
mediaeval music, where at times publishing a correction in a learned periodical will
do. Similarly, errors about the role of political history in the life of the nation are
unfortunately not easily corrected.
Thus, teachers of political history often ignore the best explanations for the inter-
est in history. School history curricula pay much attention to ancient and mediaeval
history, advancing slowly to modern times, usually failing to reach the present—
thereby failing to point at the relevance of historical events to the present. Not sur-
prisingly, then, many students find history dull and uninteresting. History teachers
may inspire interest by considering the following half-baked idea: start with a very
quick review of human history, and then review the historical events backward,
starting with events relevant to current affairs, and then moving to the still older
events that explains the old events, and so on into the mist of our distant past.
Back to the questions raised in the opening of this chapter. When debating
whether or not a certain historical assertions are true, obviously we cannot resolve
the dispute by direct observation, since the alleged event was in the past. However,
we can still try to find facts that are implied by the alleged event and can be observed
today. For example, archeologists may dig into battlefields and check the devasta-
tion that battles allegedly have caused. Suppose our interest is in considering events
whose legal registry the law requires. One may consult record books to check
whether these events are recorded as was required. Suppose such records are not
found where they should be present. This need not disprove the claim that the event
took place, as it is possible to try and explain why the event has evaded recording in
light of how the law in question was understood at the time. (If the explanation of
the absence of a record refers to some unspecified conspiracy, though, then it is
worthless—as we have already explained.) Suppose the case is still more problem-
atic: suppose someone suggests a new theory about the assassination of President
Kennedy. It makes sense to try to find some non-trivial implications of the sug-
gested theory that can still be observed. If the theory relates to the number of bullets
that hit the President, then we may try to check the available photos, the autopsy
report, etc. As was mentioned in Chap. 4, there is big difference between predicting
something that we do not know yet and explaining an already known fact. This
8 Disputes About History and Predictions 87
example becomes interesting if a predicted item of evidence to be found in records

is new, or if it evaded earlier inspections because no one had paid attention to it as
it was not considered interesting. The basic principle is the one mentioned in
Chap. 4: a theory (about a historical occurrence) is interesting if it makes the world
less strange. President Kennedy’s assassination is quite strange given the tremen-
dous apparatus of his bodyguards, and perhaps this is the reason why so many theo-
ries have been suggested about it. We leave it to our readers to decide whether one
of these theories succeeds in making this event less strange. We might add here,
perhaps, that historians committed to the conspiracy theory tend to see history, per-
haps the whole social world, as very strange, like movies of Oliver Stone, especially
his 1991 movie JFK about the assassination. This is not specific to conspiracy nar-
ratives. Consider the books by the sociologist Erving Goffman that are mainly series
of very interesting case studies. The supposition that all everyday social events are
as strange as the ones he describes render the world very strange. What we can learn
from the events he describes, incidentally, is that many common ideas that are
deemed commonsense and so obviously true are not true.
Let us move, then, to a more intricate matter, to our second question. It concerns
disputes about the historical causes. Causal questions are more difficult to handle
than the questions of mere occurrences, and as mentioned in Chap. 5, we have rec-
ommended avoiding discussion causality when possible. The analogy from natural
science suggests that an explanation should have the structure of a logical argument
implying the event to be explained from a theory (putatively considered true) and
some known facts. Admittedly, this model has been under a long dispute among
philosophers of history. Some of them claimed that there are no non-trivial general-
izations that hold throughout history, and therefore the model that applies in the
natural sciences is inapplicable to history. This dispute is insignificant. It is possible
to skip it and yet follow the suggestion made here in regard to the search for a theory
that makes the world less strange, and even while applying to the case under study
only generalizations that we may take as trivial, namely, generalizations not under
dispute. (This is not a limitation: when a thinker presents a case history while apply-
ing to it a controversial generalization, then the debate about the presentation will
include a debate about that generalization, and that debate will not be considered
history. Thus, when Sigmund Freud applied his theory of the Oedipus complex to
the case of Moses the law giver, the study is deemed more a part of psychoanalytic
theory than of history.) Disputes regarding historical causes often include efforts to
check how much the explanation under discussion agrees with our expectation in
regard to human behavior and ideas. A mistake is lurking here, however: it seems
natural to assume that a familiar event plus a familiar theory cannot yield a surpris-
ing result. Consider the explanation of the strange fact that in the famous Moscow
show trials of leading communists, the accused confessed to crimes that obviously
they could not have committed, so that the confessions were acts of self-sacrifice.
One possibly reasonable explanation for this is that the accused were trying to coop-
erate with the regime to the last. Another is that they were promised safety for their
loved ones in exchange. We offer these explanations not as true but as reasonable
and possibly true. They both rest on trivial generalizations: that people dedicated to
a cause are prone to sacrifice themselves for it and that people will sacrifice them-
selves to save their loved ones.
Historical explanations that do not employ trivial generalizations, like the one of
Freud just mentioned, are easy to find. All one needs is the application of a contro-
versial theory to history, such as Marxism or psychoanalysis. A number of historical
explanation use Freud’s theory of the Oedipus complex that we have already men-
tioned. To repeat, we need not dismiss his explanations because the theory of the
Oedipus complex is still quite controversial, as we view it as a part of the discussion
as pertaining more to Freud’s theory than to history. If and when we will consider
that theory trivial, if and when it will be admitted with no question, then we will
deem some Freudian explanations historical rather than psychoanalytical. Until
then, such explanations are taken more as discussions of those theories than as dis-
cussions of history. Thus, nothing hinges on the fact that the generalizations used in
historical explanations are or are not trivial. The fact that they are usually trivial is
used to explain the strange fact that historians seldom refer to laws (i.e., they do not
make generalizations). For example, when they use evidence to support or refute
historical explanations, logic requires a link between the explaining and the
explained statements of particular events, and the link is either an ad hoc hypothesis
or a generalization. If the generalization is not stated, says Karl Popper (The Open
Society and Its Enemies, final chapter), this is because it is too trivial to require
explicit assertion. Taking his explanation of the conduct of historians out of context,
critics considered it a generalization about historians, although it is but an explana-
tion of an oddity in their conduct, given the theory of explanation. He has thus ren-
dered a phenomenon that looks strange quite commonsense and thus not strange at
all.
To repeat, the conduct of historians (who explain with no reference to generaliza-
tions) seems at odds with the view of philosophers of history (that every reasonable
explanation includes a generalization). This may seem odd (to people who have
high opinions on all of them as serious scholars). And then this may be challenging
to seek some explanation that will make their conduct less odd. Popper has offered
one. There may be other: quite a few candidates propose themselves. We leave this
discussion to our readers to complete as an exercise.
We now turn to our third question, and it is even more intricate. It concerns hypo-
thetical history. Clearly, this is a kind of subjunctive conditionals, so-called: were x
true then y would hold. Conditional statements (if x then y), with false antecedents
(x is false) are always true (vacuously true). Not so subjunctive conditionals: we all
agree that whereas the statement “had I jumped from the Empire State Building I
would die” differs from “had I jumped from the Empire State Building I would fly”
and most of us, if not all of us, will agree that the first is true and the second is false.
When discussing subjunctive conditionals we face the problem: how, if at all, are
they open to examination? Subjunctive conditionals come in a very great variety.
The example that we have just given assumes false statements about situations
while taking the laws of nature to hold, or, what would have happened if a certain
event would have happened differently from the way it did. (When I stood there I
could fall but did not.) An example may concern what would happen if a certain law
Long-Range Forecasts 89
of nature were slightly different from what it is. Strictly speaking, such a question
is awesome. Any event that has happened is the result of events going back to the
Big Bang (assuming that this event did take place), and any effort to explain the
assumption that it happened differently from the way it did might lead to assump-
tions of changes along the entire history of the universe; or not—this depends on the
extent to which laws of nature have determined the event in question, strict ones or
merely statistical. If the latter is the main cause, then perhaps explanation of a sub-
junctive conditional here on earth should go back only as far as the formation of the
solar system or much less. We do not know, and it does not matter at all. For, obvi-
ously, this is not what is interesting about discussions of questions such as, what
would have happened had the USA not used nuclear weapons in World War Two or
had it dropped the bomb not on Hiroshima but on Mount Fuji. Usually we just look
for a reasonable possibility: one that concurs with our expectations in regard to
human views, values, and conduct. We speak in the subjunctive mode while imagin-
ing a reasonably minimal difference between a real and a hypothetical case—assum-
ing we can get to agreement about it. In this sense, our third question resembles the
second: discussing whether one event usually follows another is relevant to the
question of what would have happened had the causal event not occurred. And so,
to prevent frustration in debating subjunctive conditionals, we propose that the par-
ties to the debate prepare it carefully by clarifying to themselves reasonably well
both what propels the debate and what kind of subjunctive conditional is on the
agenda for debate. Moreover, let us repeat, we contend that standing debates have
important core even if they are poorly conducted so that the core is hidden. Hence,
when some possible case histories persist, they look significant. As this significance
may be unclear, the effects of one answer or an alternative to it may be not easily
made apparent. They may be consequences that matter under conditions greatly dif-
ferent from the ones we live in, or they may relate to different places or different
times. These matter if, say, the different time is the remote future. Somehow, we
care about the future of our great-great children, which may make us care about
questions that pertain to our distant future. This leads us to debates about situations
that may occur in the near future. Let us glance at such debates.
Long-Range Forecasts
Disputes about long-range forecasts are similar to disputes about history: neither is
given to resolution by straightforward observations, although in some cases, some
ingenuity may lead to some unexpected and intriguing tests of such theories. These
tests will of course comprise some predictions, and these may help resolve the dis-
pute or at least advance it somewhat so that it will not be as utterly frustrating as
such disputes tend to be. For example, when disputing about long-term predictions
regarding global economy, it makes sense to search for the theory that would yield
the prediction under discussion and to check this theory in the same way we check
any scientific theory or hypothesis: by appeal to repeatable observations that we can

perform here and now with reasonable efforts.
Some scholars have claimed that historical development obeys certain rules and
argued that we could uncover these rules and apply them to make scientific predic-
tions regarding future events. They admit that the means for detailed predictions of
the distant future of social or political affairs are not available, but the state that
great events, like eclipses, are already predictable. These phenomena are called
revolutions. An example of an important and predictable revolution is a political
revolution like a change of regime. This is the doctrine of historical inevitability that
Karl Popper has called historicism and severely criticized as unscientific, as untest-
able in principle: all known sufficiently precise versions of it were refuted long ago.
He repeated the powerful argument of Henri Poincaré: nothing influences the course
of history as profoundly as new ideas, and new ideas are inherently unpredictable.
(Predicting a future idea makes it present. Of course, there is an obvious answer to
this objection: we can predict the future idea in general but not in the details needed
to make it present. This answer is valid and therefore historicism is not refutable;
only the versions that are sufficiently detailed to be refutable are already refuted.)
Other scholars have suggested that we can predict future events by extrapolating
current trends. This is another type of historicism, which can have an indefinite
number of versions, as there are many variables to extrapolate and (infinitely) many
ways to extrapolate every one of them from any given set of data. This is obviously
true, unless some theory limits the options to a reasonably small number. We may
have some partial theories that explain given trends and try to extrapolate on the
basis of observations of these trends. But then there would be no theory to help
predict which among various conflicting trends will continue and which will termi-
nate. Karl Marx noted that industrial enterprises grow steadily. This growth had a
good rationale: bigger steam-engines are more efficient and bigger concerns may be
better organized (compare the supermarket with the traditional local store). So Marx
predicted that competition will radically reduce the middle classes (such as store
owners). The appearance of the electric dynamo changed all that, however, as it
enabled the creation of myriads of small enterprises. And then came aviation and
destroyed the trend of building ever bigger boats, yet without creating small avia-
tion enterprises; this may change any day with the advancement of aviation tech-
niques. Is this a refutation of Marx’s theory? It is not clear. Marx expected the
socialist revolution to take place in the industrial part of the world. Vladimir Lenin
disagreed with him. Some people considered Lenin’s revolution to be in disaccord
with Marx; others said the two might coincide. As long as we do not know what
exactly Marx’s theory is, this dispute is very frustrating and so it is better avoided.
If you must partake in a discussion on this or on a similar matter, you will avoid
much frustration by insisting on agreement between participants about what par-
ticular theory is under scrutiny in that discussion.
This sounds obvious and commonsensical; yet many discussions concern
unstated theories, especially in psychology and in economics but also generally in
politics. We should explain why. Perhaps the reason is that defining the initial terms
is actually not so simple. Other options are obvious; we will not discuss them here.
Long-Range Forecasts 91
Can Marx’s theory be put to test? To answer this question, we need a definitive
version of his theory, the way we have a definite version of Euclidean geometry or
of Newtonian mechanics. (Such theories, or their agreed-upon versions, may gain
consensus, and then people declare them canonic. The word “canonic” means
accepted; the expression “canonic version” stems from the version of a sacred text
that is officially recognized as the right one.) These definitive versions were achieved
over centuries of great efforts. So perhaps at some future moment, we will have a
definitive version of Marx’s theory of history, which will then be easier to discuss
with little or no frustration. At present, however, we may disagree as to whether the
failure of the communist countries developed on the basis of this theory. To repeat
our earlier suggestion, if you wish to avoid frustration, do not enter such a debate
before the diverse parties agree about the sufficiently precise version of Marx’s
theory that they wish to debate, or, better still, agree to the question that his theory
came to answer and hopefully also the alternative answers to it.
Perhaps we are too categorical. People often behave as if they hope that discuss-
ing a doctrine that is not properly and definitely worded may help clarify it and word
it satisfactorily. When doing so, then refuting the theory does not count as it is con-
sidered a refutation of an initial, tentative wording of it. Only after it was debugged
can it be put to a real test. This is a common if seldom articulated idea. It is nonethe-
less mistaken. It is an attitude that is simultaneously defensive and hyper-critical. Its
defensiveness is clear: it is the tendency to view all errors as verbal. Surprisingly, it
is still also hyper-critical since it encourages making a correction whenever an error
was found: it rests on the false premise that any possible refutation serves as possi-
ble evidence for a mistake. Nevertheless, we are willing to endorse such means as a
temporary measure, leading to rewording prior to a point when we have a version
ready for a critical debate. For, evidently, a debate starts in earnest when a question
and its competing answers are on the table. All else is preliminary. To repeat, we
greatly recommend good preliminaries as they prevent much frustration. Yet they
can be frustrating too, when we are anxious to begin the debate yet some of us who
are more cautious than the rest of us insisting on continuing with the preliminaries.
In such cases, conduct that may be highly frustrating is taken in good humor in the
hope of seeing some progress. As usual, in seeking any progress, like in prospect-
ing, it is good to identify how much patience we have before declaring the venture
futile. In general, though, we recommend avoidance of any dispute that rests on
historicism, as it is more likely to frustrate than to bear fruit.
Let us draw attention to one ploy that prevents all knowledge to avoid certain
kinds of debate, scientific and more so metaphysical: dilute the question. Thus,
when we learn that we cannot profit from historicist debates, we can easily dilute
them: rather than discuss the historicist question of the future of humanity, we can
discuss what is known as global politics. Look at the map of the globe and see it
divided into circles of influence. Consider that influences increase by expansions
and try to guess the next probable expansion of this or that empire. This sounds
exciting but it is rather boring as it is much more arbitrary than it looks at first sight.
Global Famine
We will end this chapter by reviewing the debate about the risk of global famine.
The question under dispute is:
Is the world face a high risk of hunger? If so, what is the best way to decrease this
risk?
The question became popular in political discussion following the very famous
An Essay on the Principle of Population of Thomas Robert Malthus, published at
the end of the eighteenth century. He extrapolated the increase of the human popula-
tion and the potential increase of food: the size of the population increases in geo-
metrical series and the size of food in arithmetical series. Hence, he concluded, the
world’s population will soon face famine. The only way to prevent this is to apply
drastic steps in order to reduce the growth of the population. The most valuable
aspect of his theory is his criticism of a very important tacit assumption in classic
economic theory, namely, that all natural resources are unlimited although the
investment of labor to access them vary. The detail of the theory, namely the growth
rate, is of course most inaccurate, just as the assertion about starvation is, since
starvation takes place all the time. The most important influence Malthus had was
on Darwin’s theory of natural selection. For, the idea of Malthus that food grows
less rapidly than the human population is questionable: why should all species grow
geometrically? Any single plant species, said Darwin, has so many seeds, that
unchecked it will cover the whole earth in little time.
The prediction of Malthus about global catastrophe led to the idea of family
planning. Human population still continues to grow in great rate, but it is reduced
with the rise of standard of living, and food production also grows, largely but not
only due to innovations in agriculture. The fear from global famine due to over-
population is nonetheless still under debate.
There is no way to predict future innovations (if we had a theory that would
enable prediction of them, we would test it and possibly apply it now). The most
important factor seems to be the rise in the standard of living—including the rise in
life expectancy. It seems that all over the world, whenever people can hope that
almost all their children will grow up healthy and that having fewer children will
allow them to provide improved childcare and improved education, then they volun-
tarily decrease the number of their offspring. The question remains under debate
whether this suffices as means to avert the danger of global instability due to
overpopulation.
Chapter 9
Disputes About Technology, Including
Medicine
Abstract In disputes about technological, ethical, and political problems, the dis-
puting parties may agree about the list of advantages and disadvantages of each of
the possible options that the competing answers offer, yet disagree about the bene-
fits of these advantages and the cost of these disadvantages. Such disputes are usu-
ally not theoretical, and then disputants may try to concentrate on evaluating these
costs and benefits.
Many disputes refer to technological questions regarding technology in general (or

applied science), physical technology, biological or human nature, military affairs,
medical issues, the media, and other issues. Here are examples of some types of
common technological questions.
1. Should we (i.e., humanity, my country, my firm, my family, myself) adopt a given
technology? Example: should governments/the government of my country/
medical authorities demand/encourage/allow/prohibit/the use of a given drug/
medication?
2. Which technology is best for solving a given problem? Example: which alterna-
tive energy source should we (humanity/my country) adopt? Another example:
what energy (gas/electricity) is preferable (nationally/personally) for the running
of household implements?
3. Which technological problem should we tackle and how? Example: which medi-
cal research should the government support as top priority, cancer research or
AIDS research? Another example: as any foundation supporting cancer research
is flooded with applications for grants to support diverse cancer research proj-
ects, how should it decide which of these applications to support? Still another
example: should we (my government/my research institute/my car manufactur-
ing company) investigate the possibility of mass-production of cars with engines
run not on internal combustion?
Two major differences exist between disputes in technology (and applied sci-
ence) and disputes in other fields (pure science, basic science, metaphysics, etc.).
First, questions in pure science and in metaphysics are interesting as long as they are
relevant to the big questions, such as, what does it mean to be human? What does it
amount to? How was the world created? Technological questions do not meet this

94 9 Disputes About Technology, Including Medicine
criterion. They are interesting as long as they are relevant for increasing our welfare,
even if they contribute nothing to the understanding of the world. Even when tech-
nological research concerns a law of nature, the law may signify more practically
than intellectually. And then it is called basic research.
The automation of any manufacturing process may serve as an example of a
technological problem that has scarcely any intellectual value. A more intriguing
example is the effort to create a variant of some medication—say to serve as a cure
for some disease—even when we have no understanding of how the initial medica-
tion works, let alone its variants. The discovery of aspirin (salicylic acid) and the
search for its better substitutes or for its derivatives offer a famous example of a
medication whose utility was discovered before any theory was available of the
working of its mechanism and those of its early substitutes and derivatives.
The second major difference between disputes in technology and in other fields
is this. When asked whether a certain scientific theory is true, one option we have is
to suspend judgment, to abstain from providing an answer. If we have no idea
whether a theory makes sense or not, we can simply say so. In the abstract, cautious
abstention from taking a position regarding the truth or falsity of a theory need not
incur any penalty. Often researchers express assent to a theory that has just won the
consensus even if they have not yet studied it in depth, and this is but another way
to suspend judgment for a while. This is particularly true of societies where the
opposite is not true, where asserting the wrong answer may lead to public shaming
and even loss of income. This is not the case, however, when considering technol-
ogy, for example, the use of a new, potentially effective medication: as long as it is
not explicitly approved of, it is forbidden, and then those who could use it might
suffer needlessly. This is not true of researchers: they have to follow a promising
lead and may even be charged of neglect if they do not. Indeed, researchers may
prefer to apply refuted theories, since their refutations make it clear what are the
limits of their applicability. This is also true for the generals whose task is to equip
their armies with the up-to-date most efficient weapons.
We have to apply here a somewhat formal terminology, but this is hardly prob-
lematic. Discussions about the advisability of the adoption of a given technology
involve two types of errors: false negative and false positive. False negative is the
error of preventing the use of an efficient means (say, medication; the error is in the
adoption of the false assumption that it is not efficient); false positive is the opposite
error—that of allowing the use of inefficient means, particularly of harmful medica-
tion, say one that has adverse side effects. These two terms are synonyms of missed
opportunities and of false alarms, respectively. They signify in different ways in
defense in attacks. A signal on the military radar screen may be understood as a
warning signal or not, say of enemy missiles or airplanes or of a flock of geese or
some other phenomenon of no military interest. The wrong reading of a warning
signal as neutral is a false negative that puts the battlefield in needless risk. The
opposite error, the wrong reading of a neutral signal as a warning and activating the
alarms, is a false alarm or a false positive that is inconvenient but lass troublesome.
Generally, then, action that may turn out to be a false positive is obviously prefera-
ble to one that may turn out to be a false negative. The paradigm case here is the fear
9 Disputes About Technology, Including Medicine 95
of appendicitis: a mistaken assumption that an appendix is ill is preferable to the

mistaken assumption that it is healthy: it is better to remove a healthy appendix than
to leave an inflamed one unattended, often even a postponement by a day or two
may prove fatal. It was thus considered proper to remove healthy appendices. This
must have a limit of course, since not every complaint that sound like a sign of
appendicitis leads to the removal of an appendix. So if no more than a quarter of the
cases in a given department of surgery are needless removals of healthy appendices,
the error was deemed tolerable. Of course, the improvement of the diagnostic tools
reduced this error rate. It now rests on seven percent or thereabout. It has still not
reached zero, and it will probably come nearer to that goal, but perhaps it never will
reach it. Moreover, suspecting a case of appendicitis, a family physician may
instruct a patient to take a painkiller and return after a few hours if the pain persists.
This move is reasonable: it is also subject to false positive and false negative devel-
opments, but usually the odds are better when taking it than not. Still, when family
physicians have relatively easy access to better means to examine patients for
appendicitis, then they ought to use them rather than postpone a decision pending
the outcome of the use of a painkiller. However, we must also consider that the use
of other means may have high opportunity-costs. That is to say, in some situations
the available means may be better used for other ends. This complicates the consid-
erations beyond the scope of the present discussion as it moves from doubts about
given diagnoses of given patients to the question of how to optimize the utility of
given public services. So we return to false positive and false negative, as disputes
about them are simpler and so reducing the frustration that they may cause is also
simpler.
Decision theory begins with the commonsense suggestion to write down the list
of options open to the individual who has to decide upon a solution to a given rela-
tively pressing problem. This suggestion is so obvious and so inexpensive, that you
would take it for granted that people employ it regularly. Instead they do it in their
heads. We do not know why, but we do observe the reluctance of ever so many
people to use pencil and paper (or a word processor). This reluctance is the result of
education, as is obvious from the fact that educators who insist on training their
charges to use paper and pencil avoid infecting them with this malady.
Each solution may be true or false (or else there is no decision problem). Each
solution has its costs and its benefits once it is true/false and the decision-maker
does/does not act on it. In other words, there are four options for each possible solu-
tion and each has its costs and its benefits. This is a long list. The first item that a
reasonable, responsible decision-maker examines and tries to avoid is the possibil-
ity of a cost that is too high, especially if it cannot possibly be defrayed. The prob-
lem may be such that this is not in the field of possibilities. The next thing is to
divide the errors into the two types that we have mentioned, the false positive and
the false negative. It comes handy here, in the commonsense consideration of the
decision in question: they are relevant to any technology that under consideration
for application. Discussions of the question, which of the possible technologies to
invest in, should include investigations of both the expected cost and the expected
benefits of false negatives and of false positives.
For example, when considering whether or not it makes sense to invest in the
development of an electrical car, we should estimate (1) the expected loss that we
will suffer if we invest in developing the car and find out that the investment was a
loss, and (2) the expected loss if we refrain from developing the car, leaving its
development to competitors who thus corner the market. (Obviously, in this case the
expected loss due to investment that turns out to be futile is small in comparison
with failure to come up with a superior technology that drives an entrepreneur or a
firm altogether out of the market. This is why many corporations allot some funds
for research in technologies that do not look promising.)
The calculation of the expected loss is the product of the following two factors:
1. The welfare or utility (for example, the welfare we gain by having electrical car,
and the damage we suffer by not having such a car);
2. The likelihood of achieving this welfare (for example, the probability of success-
fully developing the electrical car).
Consider the question whether or not a government or an entrepreneur should
invest in a certain technology, or whether a government should encourage the use of
a certain technology, or whether a government should take the risk and allow for a
new technology to enter the market. When disputing such questions, two different
issues are at stake so that the dispute may be broken down into two features: the
estimation of the amount of increase of human welfare due to the successful devel-
opment of the technology under discussion, and the assessment of the likelihood of
success of developing that technology. As these issues are obviously interrelated,
many people often mistakenly forego notice of their distinctness. It is advisable to
study distinct issues separately and then to correct the results by considering their
interdependence. This requires of parties to any dispute to be patient while the con-
siderations are made and wait for their corrections. Just knowing this suffices to
reduce considerably any frustration involved.
Some people cannot bring themselves to study issues on obviously erroneous
suppositions: they may know that no study can be assured freedom from error, and
nevertheless they cannot stand the idea of employing ideas they know are erroneous.
This in itself is a great error. Just think of the idea of indirect proof in mathematics.
It is the reasoning on a false assumption meant to get to a blind alley: it is having got
into a blind alley that is the proof. A bit more complex is the approximation method:
seeking a numerical solution to a problem just guess any number; it is almost certain
to be false. Take it to be true and work it out and you will find that it is false and even
that it is too big or too small. Make your next conjecture in light of this information;
if the approximation method works, your results will improve and for practical pur-
poses they do not have to be true: the problem situation prescribes the degree of
precision required, that is, the maximal permitted distance between the approximate
and the true solution. It sounds odd that it is possible to know if the approximation
is sufficiently good or not even without knowing the true solution. But this is suffi-
ciently often the case.
Most engineering projects rest on scientific ideas that are good enough, even
though better theories are available that correct some of their errors. The paradigm
Disputes About Advantages and Drawbacks 97
case here involves studies of flow in hydrodynamics or aerodynamics, which rest on

the supposition that the medium (water or air) is continuous, although we know that
it is atomic. Moreover, since the supposition is erroneous, some of its conclusions
are erroneous too, as for example the conclusion that no airplane can cross the
sound barrier. To study this phenomenon, the atomic character of air must enter the
considerations.
Back to the two separate issues noted above: regarding a new technology, assess-
ing the likelihood of its success and assessing the increase of welfare that its suc-
cessful implementation should cause comprise two separate issues, each of which
comprises a challenge that is quite difficult. There is no direct way to measure the
likelihood of successful development and implementation of an innovation, be it a
machine, software or a medication. (Again, this is the case for any act of prospect-
ing.) Having experienced many cases in which overly optimistic engineers failed to
meet their predictions, investors and managers increase the margin of error for the
budget estimations that they receive from engineers. Nevertheless, all too many
projects exceed their budgets despite this measure.
Moreover, in many cases there is also no simple way to measure the welfare or
utility that an innovation may bring about. Consider medicine. The utility of a life-
saving pill is the value of life. If you say that life is invaluable, namely, that the value
of life is infinite, then you must conclude that it makes sense to invest in the devel-
opment of any pill that might save life, which is clearly impossible. Politicians,
physicians, military commanders and even ordinary drivers do consciously risk
lives; hence, they do not assign an infinite value even to their own lives. And indeed,
some studies comprise efforts to figure out the value that people do assign to their
lives; these assessments are based on the estimations of transactions that involve the
possible rescue of lives. For an example consider the question of how much money
buyers might agree to add to the cost of car in order to increase its safety. The
trouble with this exercise is that people do not think of the cost of saving lives (per-
haps because they constantly hear that it is infinite) and so their estimations of it
vary with the methods by which their answers to the question is elicited.
The estimation of the welfare or utility is even more difficult when we consider
environmental protection technology. Here the welfare of future generations enters
the equation. And then we must determine how much we discount their welfare, if
at all. (The discount rate is the rate of reduction of payment in order to advance the
time of its defray.) This question, however, lies beyond the scope of this handbook.
All we say here is, to reduce frustration, beware of the pitfalls of considering esti-
mations that efforts to calculate a bit more precisely gets quickly on a reef.
Disputes About Advantages and Drawbacks
We are not done with the cost of saving lives. We have said, there is not enough
money to invest in all life-saving projects. This is true but somewhat superficial: to
have no money for any commodity means that it has no priority over any
commodity for which there is some budget. Thus, when we need some medication
and we have no savings, we spend less of our income on some commodity or another
in order to have the money needed for the medication. We usually try to reduce
consumption of the item in our budget with the least priority. Thus, we usually
spend some money on luxury, but when pressed for money we reduce their con-
sumption. The same holds for national budgets, by the way, and the fact that the first
budget cuts are from education testifies to the fact that governments take education
to be a luxury. Not by considering national needs but party needs; but this is a dif-
ferent matter. Our question here is, why do we spend on luxury, such as cosmetics,
when we can use the money spent on them for efforts to save lives? The answer is
that we prefer the lifestyle with cosmetics and somewhat lower life expectancy over
the lifestyle with no cosmetics and higher life expectancy. To be precise, there is a
limit to the reduction of life expectancy that we tolerate, so that when the rate of
death on the highway is higher than we tolerate, we increase the budget for highway
safety. This shows how complex such questions are and why they are so frustrating.
So you should know this before entering disputes about such matters.
Many disputes in the field of technology concern lists of advantages and disad-
vantages of diverse options (in accord with decision theory, you may remember)
rather than disagreement about theories. Consider the dispute regarding whether or
not we (the nation or the corporation) should invest in electrical cars. Supporters of
this investment list the expected advantages of the use of electrical cars: the reduc-
tion of pollution (at least inside big cities), of servicing costs, of dependence on
fossil fuel, etc. Opponents to this investment list the drawbacks of electrical cars:
batteries are expensive; the span of travel enabled between stops to charge batteries
is more limited than between fuel tanking, etc. This procedure is apt for courts of
law, you should remember, where advocates for the different sides are expected to
be biased since the judge and jury are expected to weigh the differing sides of the
argument. This is not true of parties to a dispute within one and the same corpora-
tion. Both sides there agree on the list of advantages and the list of drawbacks. They
disagree on one or both of the following aspects of the issue:
1. The costs of the advantages and drawbacks, and/or
2. The likelihood of successfully developing technologies that will change these
lists and their costs.
These two items may lead different parties to opt for different steps despite their
agreement on the advantages and disadvantages of each step. Not knowing this
obviously creates immense frustration rooted in impatience. Again, our advice is
that you be aware of the situation and see how it prevents frustration or at least
reduces it.
The dispute about genetically modified foods may serve as another example.
Although the dispute seems like a huge fight, there is a general agreement as to the
current advantages of genetically modified food (higher yield, less need for pest
control, and more). They disagree, however, about the risk that genetic modification
incurs, as, for example, the likelihood that their resistance to disease will transfer
Global Warming II 99
from desirable plants to undesirable plants. This is a dispute about the likelihood of
future scenarios; it is not a dispute about theories or other generalizations.
Now although genetic engineering could not enter the discussion before the dis-
covery of the genetic code (in the mid-twentieth-century) this is not to say that it
was not practiced. It was practiced unknowingly. The latest activity of this kind (of
unknowing modifying genera) is the use of antibiotics. But many other activities
interfere with our ability to survive, and some of them are genetically transmitted,
including our changing of our environment, our diverse medical technologies
(including immunization), and more. This leads to some precaution measures when
these are not too expensive, such as keeping in store seeds of all sorts of vegetation
and even semen of living things, especially humans. This may sound frustrating but
it does the opposite as it reduces the pressure of conservative arguments in favor of
avoiding certain kinds of innovations, since innovation is unavoidable and we never
know what it brings on its wings.
In the field of technology, only a few extant disputes fall outside the patterns
depicted here. One such example is the dispute about how much governments
should invest in space research by launching human-occupied space shuttles. One
party says that such space shuttles are too expensive, and contribute almost nothing
to scientific research relative to spaceships run by remote control. The other party
claims that we must concentrate on sending people to outer space in order to con-
quer it sometime in the not too distant future. Both parties agree about the advan-
tages and drawbacks of each technology, and they even agree as to the costs involved.
The disagreement then rests on the targets of research into outer-space, and in this
sense this disagreement is not about technology but rather about the targets for the
future of human society.
Global Warming II
We have already discussed the debate about global warming in Chap. 5. We reviewed
there the debate about the question, whether the world become warmer, and if so,
why. We will now turn to the next question: What is the best way to reduce the risk
of global warming?
Wishing to develop the discussion a bit further, we have to estimate the costs of
two scenarios—the scenario that global warming continues and the damages to
human society will be as severe as the students of climate change predict (that is the
cost of a miss), versus the scenario that we will drastically cut the pollution, and
eventually will discover that there was no need for this (the cost of false alarm). The
difference between the damages in these two scenarios is huge.
The problem is much more complex, since once we decide to take steps in order
to reduce global warming by reducing pollution from fossil fuels and by other meth-
ods, the next question is, how much effort and money should be allocated to effect
this reduction, and when should we start. Remember: the effort and money that are
allocated to war against global warming could be used for other good purposes such
as reducing poverty.
These considerations lead us to disputes about ethic and politics which are the
subject of the next chapter.
Chapter 10
Disputes About Ethics and Politics
Abstract When debating moral questions, it is advisable to consider the extent to

which each view rests on sympathizing with the suffering of others versus the extent
to which its adoption rests on the hope that acting on it will increase human welfare.
Such understanding can help clarify some rather abstract notions that might other-
wise disrupt such debates.
The field of ethics and politics is known as that of proposals and decisions—perhaps
together with aesthetics. Yet aesthetic considerations are less burdened with consid-
erations for other people and with one’s ability to interfere with other people’s lives:
unlike ethical and political decisions, the aesthetic one seldom causes pain to other
people, at least not the way moral and political decisions can.
This is not quite true. There is one decision that is paramount in any individuals’
life that concerns chiefly that individual’s well-being, and it pertains to ethics, poli-
tics and aesthetics. It is the matter of one’s own choice of a lifestyle. Let us discuss
this for a short while before turning to the rest of the theory of proposals and
decisions.
The Choice of a Lifestyle
The most important decision available to every individual is that of the choice of a
lifestyle. Since the options are too many, we should limit our discussion to available
lifestyles to choose from. These are limited first and foremost by our abilities: most
of us have to earn a living and most of us cannot become professionals in ever so
many fields: one is able to be a professional in one field and another in another. Nor
is it all: some of us would enter a profession that is satisfying despite poor remu-
nerations, and others prefer remuneration to satisfaction. These are personal choices,
and the standard advice that all wise advisors offer is that we remember that many
people find in the eve of their lives that they have made the wrong choice, so that it
is advisable to think carefully about this matter. Now this advice, to think carefully,
is not very useful. It is easy, however, to translate it to a practical proposal: try to
engage in debates with advisers who disagree with each other and continue debates
that do not frustrate you. Some advisors specialize in the choice of profession,

102 10 Disputes About Ethics and Politics
others in matters religious or other common matters. Choose different kinds of advi-
sors and, again, of different persuasions. And, remember, you are the best judge
about what debate to continue and what to truncate.
Since we are social animals, our options are largely determined by available
options in every society and by available societies. Since migration is a very radical
option, and since it is open to very few, we can dispense with it right away: one need
not decide on it in one go: more often one moves to another country for a specific
reason and stays there only after further decision, given the options that open up in
due course.
The most significant choice is of one’s lifestyle in a very personal sense: should
one choose to be socially active? Should one decide to live by high moral standard
or will one be content with being of average virtue. And so on. On this the slogan of
Socrates signifies most. It is, the unexamined life is not worth living. And the exami-
nation he recommended is, of course, by dialogue. We will say no more on this
except that it holds with particular force in our contemporary society, where there is
more social freedom than ever before, and where religious freedom enables one to
decide on one’s religious affiliation and practice as never before. And of course, one
always has the choice of political affiliation and practice as never before. We are
now moving to the fields of ethics and politics, with proposals as to what rule may
help us most in fruitful and enjoyable debates in these fields.
Criteria for Ethics and Politics
Many disputes refer to questions in ethics and politics, such as:

1. To what extent should we help the poor?
2. What is the best system of governance?
3. When it is morally permissible / imperative to lie?
Philosophers concerned with ethics have traditionally searched for methods to
measure the plausibility of moral judgments. However, skeptical considerations
lead to the conclusion that no such method exists. (For skepticism see Appendix.) If
any moral judgment follows from this it is fallibilism: we have to learn to live in
uncertainty and we should try to make our lives as good as we can even though we
will never know if we have succeeded, since no (moral) judgment is certain or fully
plausible, no (moral) knowledge is ever available, and no (moral) judgment can be
fully justified. Hence, a valid method for the resolution of ethical disputes by mea-
suring the plausibility of the judgments of the disputed sides is likewise
impossible.
Still, in many cases people agree about ethical issues and many moral disputes
end in agreement, whether certainty in moral judgments exists or not. Admittedly,
unanimity is no criterion of correctness. For example, for millennia there was una-
nimity about slavery, and when the first anti-slavery movement began, its members
were dismissed as obviously unrealistic. Moral agreement, thus, often rests on
Criteria for Ethics and Politics 103
agreements on matters of fact, and the views agreed upon are often false and even
silly. Indeed, ever so much traditional moral agreement concern gender and sex, and
they are quite silly, as today we easily agree. Leaving factual judgments aside, we
observe that moral agreement is often due to shared psychological traits described
well enough in two principles. They are as follows.
1. The sympathy principle (David Hume’s principle): We sympathize with the suf-
fering of others and we do consider it immoral to perform any act that increases
it needlessly.
2. The welfare principle: Were we able, we would gladly legislate for the whole of
humanity rules that would optimize human welfare.
We tend to sympathize with the sufferings of others. This is a psychological dis-
position that almost all of us share, even if to varying degrees. Those who lack this
disposition totally we deem defective; we consider them immoral or rather a-moral,
unable to possess moral sentiment or judgment. We thus view their defect as pathol-
ogy, psychological or social.
Notably, we sympathize not only with humans but also with other animals. This
disposition explains the efforts of some thinkers and their followers who advocate
animal rights. Admittedly, they are the exception. Yet we all share with them the
idea that animals have some moral rights: we all agree that torturing animals for fun
is immoral and we all support the laws that forbid making animals suffer needlessly,
not always in detail but always in principle.
The disposition to sympathize has evolved slowly over eons. For example, to
repeat, until recently slavery was taken as morally permissible as a matter of course;
significantly, this is no longer the case. We explain this as a result of the growth of
our ability to sympathize. In the past, slave owners considered slaves not quite
human, at least not human “like us”. Indeed, whenever the sympathy with slaves
grew, it became ever more desirable to enslave only others. We have as a prominent
example the transition period, in which slaves of our own tribe were kept only for a
limited period, and only slaves of other tribe were kept for good. This is recorded in
Scriptures. It says (Exodus 21:2), “If you buy a Hebrew slave, he is to serve for only
six years.” A later version seems to forbid this altogether, saying (Leviticus 25:44),
“you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live
among you”. In the United States in the last stage of slavery all slaves were deemed
black, even though most of them were of mixed ancestry, and they were declared
not-human, of pre-Adamite descent, created before Adam. We refer to this folly as
means of suppression of sympathy, as was the vulgar derogatory expression “nigger-
lover” that came to replace the older “Jew-lover”.
The sympathy principle is insufficient for proper morality. It does not explain,
for example, why breaking promises is reprehensible, and why charity is commend-
able. This is where the second principle enters, the welfare principle: we advocate
keeping promises and donating to charity just because we expect such acts to
increase welfare. Indeed, those who in principle oppose all charity—socialists and
anarchists of all sorts—explain their opposition by the argument that despite good
intentions and despite impression to the contrary, charity reduced welfare. The
question of whether they are right is very important, of course; in the present discus-
sion, however, it is not, as it is but an illustration for our claim that arguments for or
against the characterization of this or that mode of conduct as moral or immoral
often rests on estimates of resultant welfare. It is, indeed, hard to identify the effect
of charity, since clearly its immediate consequences are favorable: it raises welfare
visibly at once. Opponents say that in the long run it reduces welfare, since charity
competes with other arrangements to alleviate suffering and its application reduces
likelihood of the implementation of these arrangements, whatever they may be. This
is a dangerous argument, since in some cases immediate charity saves lives, and it
is impossible to improve the welfare of the dead. Nevertheless, people argue this
way, adding that even the immediate outcome of charity is tainted, since the right to
live in dignity is immediate and charity deprives its recipient of this. At this point
we have to stop reporting on this discussion as it gets too intricate to serve as mere
illustration.
Here a new idea has sneaked in: the right for dignity. We in the modern world live
in welfare states, since every modern state provides for its needy citizens one way
or another. A strong movement in contemporary society opposes welfare but not
charity. Sometime this movement was called Raeganism, after the United-States
President Ronald Reagan, who was elected on an anti-welfare-state platform. He
repeatedly stressed that his opposition was not to welfare but to the state bureau-
cracy that runs welfare institutions, including the great institution of social security.
He said, let churches and other non-governmental organizations run the welfare
system, not the state. Supporters of the welfare state said, if the government bureau-
cracy is too heavy, then it needs overhaul, but not at the expense of the citizen. The
citizen’s right for welfare is no charity; it is the right to life with dignity. We do not
intend to resolve this dispute here; we use this as an example of the force and the
popularity of our second principle: those who wish the dispute resolved one way or
another—and being a practical matter it calls for a resolution—have one tool to
apply to that end: the welfare principle: comparing the assignment of the tasks of
caring for the welfare of the citizen to the government with its assignment to non-
government organizations (NGOs), which of the two causes a greater increase to
human welfare in general?
Let us stress this: our psychological theory cannot replace ethics with psychol-
ogy, nor is it meant to do that. This handbook concerns disputes, not ethics. For our
purposes of helping the facilitating disputes, our psychological theory is relevant in
this chapter as a means for helping resolve some sorts of moral disputes. Indeed, we
generally advise that if and when a debate about factual issues may replace moral
issues with no party to the dispute complaining, then they should attempt to do this
for a while—but reverse the change if it starts frustrating any participant. (This
advice, let us notice, clashes with our advice to be patient. This clash is general and
unavoidable. It therefore calls for good sense, for tentative judgments and decisions
that seem reasonable.)
To render practical our suggestion to render moral disputes factual, let us add
this. Moral disputes can be rendered factual in at least three ways.
1. Different parties have different intuitions regarding sympathizing with the suf-
fering of others.
2. Different parties have different views as to what means are best for enhancing
human welfare.
3. One party’s intuitions regarding sympathy conflict with the other party’s intu-
itions regarding the means for increasing welfare.
As an example of the first case, consider disputes about the morality of abortion.
Indeed, in this case, as in many other cases, sympathy with fetuses plays a central
role: some sympathize with fetuses, viewing them as people, and others do not,
viewing them as no different from brain-dead individuals. A dispute that results
from a disagreement about sympathy might lead the disputing parties to attempts to
find arguments showing that the object of the contested sympathy does or does not
resemble humans like themselves. When discussing the morality of abortion, then,
they may try to determine how similar human fetuses are to full-fledged humans.
Indeed, the major tool in the hands of anti-abortionists is the illustration of the simi-
larity between fetuses and babies.
Disputes about sexual freedom can serve as examples for the second case. Those
who oppose such freedom take it for granted that it threatens the survival of society,
and those who favor it disagree on this. (The advocates of sexual freedom may also
claim that it increases human welfare. But they need not do that, since in our con-
temporary liberal society the onus is on the party that demands restrictions on free-
dom to argue that the constraint is necessary. So it is up to the advocates of sexual
freedom to decide whether to demand sexual freedom or to merely oppose con-
straints on it. Of course, this way they argue for liberalism as a moral principle. It
also rests on the welfare principle as advocated here. The difference between these
two debate strategies becomes important if anyone argues that constraints on sexual
conduct is needed not only for the welfare of society in general but also to protect
some weak individuals form some suffering that sexual freedom may inflict on
them.)
The advantage of replacing a moral dispute with a factual dispute is obvious. It
gets to the root of the disagreement, and it offers better chances for resolutions.
Thus, a dispute that results from a disagreement about a theory concerning human
welfare might bring the parties to it to attempts to test that theory scientifically. For
example, they can test the theory that free sex risks the survival of society. To repeat,
one may claim that society might benefit from this phenomenon: its advocates
should then seek scenarios in which different kinds of sexual codes are beneficial or
detrimental to a society or to its individual members. For, it is indeed generally
agreed that every change has both positive and negative aspects. Moreover, we
should repeat our observation.
A new factor enters the theory of disputation here. Whatever a dispute is, we
stress, it is no longer reasonable to defend the conservative attitude that favors the
status quo for fear of change alone. Traditional society needs reform badly as it
treats too many people (mostly women and children) too cruelly, while the modern
world makes too many traditional customs no longer viable. So propaganda for any
social reform as opposed to the defense of the status quo has become one-sided. The
same goes for propaganda for uncontroversial cases, such as those of child abuse
and child pornography, where the scenarios have become almost entirely one-sided.
To be effective, all scenarios should be specific, detailed, and, above all honest.
One-sided writers of scenarios are not forced to be as cautious as those who write
against powerful opponents. So they will do well to remember that and keep vigil
against self-deception. And, to repeat another observation of ours, mere preaching
against self-deception is of little value unless it is boosted by the assertion that the
best means for this is to invite honest criticism, and the best incentive for this is that
nothing is better than criticism for learning and improving and growing.
Finally, the dispute about the morality of economic globalization serves us as an
example of the third case. Like all reforms, globalization too has its victims. Many
people sympathize with the suffering of these victims, among them certain European
farmers. This sympathy is expressed in moral intuitions that may (rightfully or not)
lead to opposition to globalization. A different moral intuition yields support for
globalization. It usually stems from the fact that globalization facilitates the flow of
capital to poor countries that need it badly, plus the endorsement of neo-classical
economic theory that presents free trade as a promise of rapid increase of welfare all
round. To resolve this kind of dispute, the parties might attempt to clarify the source
of the difference (the sympathy principle and the welfare principle) and spell out the
arguments in sufficient detail to be able to discuss them critically and reassess them
in the hope of approaching agreement. The details of such a discussion easily pro-
liferate and we will not discuss them here. Let us mention only that in general, when
some economic reform causes pain to some individuals, it is worthwhile to compen-
sate them handsomely. If this compensation is difficult for economic reasons, then
the economic reform is not economic enough. We say this as we find that econo-
mists are not always as disinterested as they imply when they claim scientific status
for their ideas on the tacit understanding that it is foolish to contest a received sci-
entific idea. In any case, such claims are beside the point, as the dispute belongs to
applied science, not to science proper.
Our presentation does not cover all cases of moral dispute, of course, since our
examples are of cases where the nub of the moral disagreement may be factual.
Some moral disputes are different. Consider revenge. Some people find revenge
morally justifiable. Obviously, it does not follow from the sympathy principle (nei-
ther sympathy with the attacker nor sympathy with the victim), nor does it follow
from the welfare principle (as an act of destruction, revenge as such cannot possibly
increase the welfare of humanity). Hence, in a dispute about revenge (should one
take revenge, and if so, under what conditions and with what means?), it makes
sense to check if both parties agree that revenge is morally justifiable. Disagreement
about this question makes it premature to argue about the type and the scope of the
revenge. It seems to us that revenge is slowly disappearing from our moral maps,
which is all for the better for many reasons. We also explain this phenomenon by the
views, common among anthropologists, that feuds are the only means for adminis-
tering justice in primitive societies. Notice that this is relevant to the discussion
about revenge, as the feud is a kind of revenge. Hence, those who advocate revenge
may agree to include in the discussion about the morality of revenge the idea of the
feud and its function in decentralized society. This will be the appeal to the welfare
principle, so that we need not expand on it here.
Noticing that the feud has advantage over modern system of justice as it needs no
administrators, operating as it does with no police and no judges, may sound irrel-
evant to moral disputes about revenge, since in primitive society it is the only sys-
tem available and so it is commendable there, whereas it has no function in modern
society and so it is immoral here. This seems to us quite possible, yet not conclusive.
We see traces of feud in organized societies. (Thus, biblical law tolerates feuds nut
limits them.) Hence, possibly, this shows that the problem is possibly more com-
plex. So one may claim that survival of primitive customs is unavoidable and so
ethics should take this into account. This is a mix of a factual and a moral claim.
Both aspects of it, incidentally, gain support from the existentialist theory of authen-
ticity: we should be honest with ourselves and admit that we are still primitive. This
is primitivism. True to our advice, we will tackle here its factual component. Not
only is the renunciation of slavery an argument against this primitivism. The pas-
sion for dueling is a stronger example. It is well known that despite legal proscrip-
tion of it, dueling survived into the twentieth century. Yet these days it is laughable.
The same holds for the hostility to homosexuality that waned ever since Lord John
Wolfenden’s 1957 Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences
and Prostitution declared its widespread and today they win recognition that was
unimaginable only a half-a-century ago.
We should conclude this point by saying this. We do not know what human
nature is and what traits of it are such the any reasonable moral theory should admit
them. Suffice it to say that since this is not obvious, it is open to debates. If debates
will not do, then perhaps the diverse arts can help by inducing sympathy and by ridi-
culing defunct customs. And there is nothing like old works of art to show us how
much our moral sentiment has evolved. Yet we should repeat our caveat: art settles
no dispute even if at times it can provide terrific arguments in favor of one party and
against the other. To show this let us show that the theory of revenge does not leave
the scene without trace even as it gives way to its replacement, the theory of social
responsibility and the legal system.
We show this by the example of an argument that does not fall under our two
principles. It concerns the responsibility of individuals for actions of members of
their (small) families. How responsible are the offspring of Nazis who participated
in crimes against humanity? To what extent are they to blame for their parents’
crimes? This is not a matter of guilt. It is more practical. Should the offspring com-
pensate the surviving victims of their parents’ crimes? Once again an answer to this
question (be it positive or negative) follows from neither the sympathy nor the wel-
fare principle. Indeed, before entering disputes about such questions, it makes sense
to examine whether both parties agree or disagree on the principle that families are
responsible for some crimes of their members. This dispute is not much different
from the previous dispute, about the morality or immorality of feuds, yet it belongs
to the law of torts, not quite to ethics.
We can generalize this. Traditional ethics seeks for the justification of the right
morality. It centers on the possibility of justification before it goes into discussions
of the question, what are the right rules of morality? We gave up the search for jus-
tification and we seek the right rules. We confess ignorance and claim that this ques-
tion is on the agenda for debate. Is that moral on our part? How? Yes. And on the
principle that it is a moral imperative to confess ignorance and seek to remedy it. We
claim that this is a moral imperative. Moreover, we contend that we cannot improve
our views on morality without considering the factual issues that ethics involved, at
times issues to resolve by natural science and technology, more often by social,
especially political considerations. This we introduced obliquely through the wel-
fare principle. This is not enough as the previous paragraph illustrates. We have to
do so more directly. Let us move then from ethics to politics. Before that let us make
two final observations on ethics.
As we have noted, people change their minds about morality, at times for the
better. We already mentioned a few examples of practices that many societies con-
sidered morally permissible and now most of them consider immoral. We have
neglected one very important example: torture. Not long ago, torturing criminals
was considered morally permissible (perhaps as revenge, perhaps as a necessary
evil). Now, many people concur that this practice is immoral and international con-
ventions forbid it. Our moral sense as human beings has grown and will hopefully
continue to grow.
That morals improve may be taken for granted, but a very popular philosophy
says the opposite: moral relativism. Beware of moral relativism: it is the view that
all moral views are equally justifiable or equally unjustifiable. A paradigm example
is clitoridectomy or female circumcision. Many moral relativists claim that in the
societies in which it is practiced it is moral. Entering a dispute about moral ques-
tions with those that hold this view is useless and frustrating. Do not confuse our
hypotheses about morality being forever fallible with moral relativism. We assert
that some psychological tendencies that most people share (the sympathy and wel-
fare principles) may facilitate some moral disputes and render them more reason-
able. This view recognizes the possibility of moral growth, unlike (moral) relativism
that does not, as the view that all (moral) views are equally justifiable blocks any
dispute about moral questions and voids all incentive to improve morality. Debating
with relativists is bound to bring about nothing but frustration.
Politics
Many disputes refer to politics, and many political debates deal with specific and
with general questions:
1. When does / should the government undertake a certain kind of activity?
2. What is the best system of governance?
Politics 109
When discussing such questions, it is advisable for the contending parties to take
into account considerations of the kind mentioned in the previous chapter (on dis-
putes on matters technological) regarding the cost and benefits of false negatives
and of false positives. To repeat, when the question arises as to whether a certain
scientific theory is true, one option is to not to answer it. We can simply say that we
do not know; abstaining from commitment need not incur great cost. This option is
not always present in discussions of political issues: these belong to practice, not to
theory; to technology, not to science. When governments consider given options to
decide upon, they face two kinds of potential damages: (1) the chosen activity is
useless or worse yet the government decides to apply it; and (2) the activity is useful
and possibly even vital yet the government decides not to apply it. When debating
potential government activities, both such kinds of damages should be considered.
As with disputes on other matters technological, in many political debates, dis-
puting parties may agree about the possible merits and risks of the activity under
dispute. The disagreement in these cases rests on their estimation of the likelihood
of success and on the value of the success or failure in question, namely the resultant
increase or decrease in public welfare. Therefore, to resolve such disputes, it makes
sense to list the components of the disagreement, so that the parties can see what
exactly is at issue.
Consider disputes about taxes. One party proposes to raise a certain tax; another
party demands that the proposed tax be reduced or even abolished. Criteria for good
taxes are easy to list: they should not have too many undesirable qualities such as
raising inequality (they should be progressive), they should not encumber collection
(preferably they should employ existing means for collection), and they should not
disturb economic activity (they should not reduce productivity). Unfortunately, no
tax mechanism would fully meet all these criteria. Therefore, when discussing
whether a certain new tax is desirable and should be legislated, or whether an exist-
ing tax is to be abolished, it makes sense to evaluate its advantages and its disadvan-
tages according to some agreed-upon criteria, such as the criteria mentioned above.
As long as the criteria are agreed upon, the dispute involves evaluating how much
the tax under discussion meets the criteria (in comparison with alternatives). This is
not a dispute about theories or generalizations, but rather about measures. Such
disputes are often very frustrating because parties to them do not check whether
they employ the same criteria or not. If neither party has a criterion, the debate can
proceed nevertheless; it is when criteria are different, yet each party is convinced
that their criterion is the obvious one to employ in that dispute, that frustration is
assured.
In discussions of changes in current policies, another issue regularly arises: the
fear that the change would result in excessive social and political disorder (or in a
significant deterioration of the current situation), bringing about needless suffering.
In particular, fear repeatedly emerges that great changes in governance bring about
chaos. This may be explained by the application of the economic or quasi-economic
idea known as the law of diminishing marginal utility. The suffering caused by the
loss of one dollar depends on the current amount of money in one’s possession: the
richer one is, the less one suffers from the loss of one dollar. Thus, the expected
pleasure from gain must be smaller than the expected suffering from loss. Hence, it
makes no sense to take a bet with even chances of gaining or losing the same amount
of money. Now, since changes in governance may fail (and we learn from history
that regrettably this happens all too often), this law makes it sensible to initiate a
change in any system of government only when the suffering that the current system
incurs is excessive and if the expected gain from the change is reasonably higher
than the potential loss from it would be, or if the injustice it is expected to rectify
and pain it is expected to reduce is considerably greater than the injustice and pain
that it might unwittingly engender. In this sense, under normal conditions, as Karl
Popper has observed, some degree of conservatism may be rational and it may be
advisable to set the default option, which would be upset only in cases of urgency,
in cases of great social distress or risk, and in cases of significant opportunity.
This explains why the seventeenth century thinkers who have inaugurated mod-
ern political philosophy repeatedly endorsed powerful monarchies, even though
today many consider such political systems downright immoral. Indeed, even the
British public, for a conspicuous example, supports the British constitutional mon-
archy but would likely admit that had they live in a republic, they would not advo-
cate monarchy, much less an automatically transmitted one with no control
mechanisms.
The strongest argument for conservatism is that even the best reform takes much
effort to implement, whereas current self-supporting systems require no investment
of effort to run. Let us repeat, whether this argument is valid or not does not signify
any more since we no longer live in a world that is so stable that we have to think
twice before reforming it. We have declared World War I and World War II and have
found ourselves in an increasingly unstable world that requires serious global
reforms for it to survive. This idea developed before the great threats to human sur-
vival developed: it is a part of the Charter of the United Nations. Unfortunately, this
Charter has proven not good enough and not strong enough. Yet it was not total
failure. Its Declaration of Human Rights stand out as a fine achievement despite all
frustrations.
Human Rights
Some disputes refer to cases that relate to conflicting human rights. For example,
the right to free speech may conflict with the right to privacy or with national secu-
rity, leading to the dispute of which takes precedence. Following our principles, we
suggest that rights are useful as a kind of shortcuts, since usually we cannot calcu-
late the expected influence of actions upon the welfare of all citizens. Therefore, to
resolve such disputes, it makes sense to judge these rights and their relative weights
on the basis of empirical hypotheses about the best way for legislation to raise wel-
fare and test these hypotheses in accord with received rules. Similarly, in disputes
about questions pertaining to the enactments of new laws concerning rights, oppo-
nents may try to refute claims that such laws increase welfare.
The Problem of Inequality 111
All this squares with the claim that the greatest achievement concerning human
rights is their very endorsement, as a part of international and global politics. It
sounds too smug to brag about the laws of human rights despite their frequent viola-
tions. Yet the fact remains, human rights organizations (including Amnesty
International) demand that even tyrannical regimes endorse, say, conventions
against torture, even though obviously undertaking to avoid torture does not stop
tyrants from torturing dissidents. This leads to many questions that should be
debated. Debates on such practical matters may improve moral conduct and so they
are superior to discussing ethics in the traditional mode. We hope that these words
will move some of our readers to try and improve philosophy curricula.
The Problem of Inequality
We will end this chapter by reviewing a few problems that are debated in many
forums. The first example is the debate on questions of inequality. In what follows
we will suggest how this debate should be conducted.
The first stage is formulating a question as an interrogative sentence. Below are
some possible examples:
1. What is inequality?
To repeat, we suggest avoiding "what is" questions. Indeed, there are various
methods of measuring inequality, and rather than ask which the real one is, we can
discuss the success or failure to deliver the goods. For example, one method mea-
sures inequality by the difference of gross domestic product (GDP) per person,
another method measures the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) which takes into
account the differences among the prices in each place. Still other measures the
welfare by taking into account education and health. But this is a technical question,
and the parties to the debate should agree upon it in advance. They may also agree
to use several methods in parallel. (All this the theory at the background to "what is"
questions renders impossible.)
Another popular formulation is:
2. Should we decrease inequality between people?
This question might be debated only if at least one of the disputing parties sin-
cerely thinks that inequality is a virtue. Most people—and most politicians—do not
think so. At least as a default position, most people claim that large inequality is
bad, and that therefore we should try to reduce it, as long as we do not reduce other
qualities that we deem virtuous.
A better formulation is:
3. What is the best way to decrease inequality?
This formulation assumes that inequality, at least excessive inequality, is harm-

ful, and this assumption is quite common. It is an important question since it implies
that the government, and thus also each of us, should do something about it.
Note however that it makes sense to distinguish between two questions:
4. What is the best way to decrease inequality in a given country?
5. What is the best way to decrease inequality between nations?
Both questions are important.
The list of answers to question (4) includes:
The government should levy more taxes from the rich people and transfer money
to the poor.
The government should administer cheap, high-quality services such as educa-
tion and health.
Note that one of the possible answer is: decrease the standard of living of the
entire population and increase corruption of the government. This is an easy practi-
cal way that results in more harm than benefit. We do not mean this. Hence, we want
to increase equality without reducing the standard of living. This we do not say as
we take it as self-understood. It is one party to a dispute taking a point as self-
understood and the other not that assures frustration.
A similar list of answers refers to question (5) and obviously there are many
more possible answers.
The debate about these answers leads to additional questions in sociology, eco-
nomics, psychology and ethics. Here are some obvious examples.
If the government raises the taxes on the rich, will many of them move to another
country? If so, can we prevent this by legislating global taxation?
Does supply of free services lead to laziness? If so, should the government avoid
supplying free services to the able-bodied?
Which situation is morally better, small inequality coupled with relatively low
standard of living, or high inequality coupled with a high average standard of
living?
National Rights
The second example refers to the debates about national rights. Many people in
world demand a state for their nation, while other object these demands. The
Catalans and the Basks in Spain, the Kurds in Iraq and the Palestinians in Israel are
some famous examples. The disputes about these demands are furious. We suggest
the following guidelines how to handle such disputes rationally.
Woodrow Wilson, USA’s President during the First World War, promoted the
principle that nations should have the “unmolested opportunity of autonomous
development”. A nation should have an independent state if it can survive by its own
means, adopt a democratic regime, and keep the human rights of its minorities.
Global Politics 113
Does this principle imply that the Catalans the Basks the Kurds or the Palestinians
have independent states?
You might start with the question: Are they nations? And then you may go on
and ask, what is the definition of nation? Beware of this question. As we mentioned
in Chap. 3 disputes about definition are usually frustrating. There is no accepted
definition of nation. Allegedly, a group of people that share the same language and
culture are a nation. But the people of Switzerland are an obvious counter example
(they people of this nation do not share one language) and the people of Australia
and the USA are another counter example (two nations with the same language).
There are paradigm cases of nations, for example, no one disputes that the French
or German are nations. But there are many borderline cases as well: What is the
nation of Jews in the USA – the nations of the Jews in Israel or the American nations
(or both)? Are the Palestinians a nation? They claim they are, but their national
awareness is quite new.
Following the suggestions in Chap. 10 a better way to handle such disputes might
be to ask:
If the Kurds in Iraq get an independent state, (1) will it harm other people with
whom we sympathize? (2) Will it increase the welfare of the Kurds and their neigh-
bors increase? (3) Will the transition to an independent state cause social disorder?
These questions avoid the dispute about the definition of nation, and concentrate
on the target that leads us in ethic and politics.
Note also that when discussing this kind of questions, it makes sense to check not
just the standards options (the Kurds should / should not have an independent states)
but other options, such as dissolving the nation-state all over the world. This idea
was raised early in the twentieth century by Russell and Einstein. They recom-
mended the establishment of a world government, of one state for the entire globe.
The European Union is going in this direction, but obviously not in as extreme a
fashion as Russell had hoped. This option, like the other options, should be consid-
ered according to the above-mentioned three questions.
Global Politics
The abstract political discussions are always hampered by the fact that all divisions
of the world into tribes, societies, nations, or states, are fairly ad hoc. This does not
hamper practical problems, since these are given quite ad hoc to begin with. Some
people take this to be immoral. Thus, the leading early twentieth-century German-
Jewish journalist Walter Benjamin found the Zionism of Martin Buber immoral and
contrary to the socialism that they shared. Buber found this position of Benjamin
rather silly, since it is easy to evade the demanding immediate local problem by hid-
ing behind engagement with global problems that one can do very little about. If one
wants to be active, one has to start somewhere.
This changed after World War II. All of a sudden, humanity was found able to
destroy itself and perhaps even all life on earth. There are four possible ways for
this: the ability to wage global nuclear war by the Proliferation of nuclear weapons,
by Pollution, by increased Poverty, and by the possible Population explosion (the
four P’s). Clearly, these four factors reinforce each other, clearly, they are not given
to local solutions, and, clearly, they are already causing havoc in the migration pres-
sure that they generate.
What is to be done about these problems is a difficult question. As it becomes
increasingly pressing, it becomes increasingly difficult to postpone discussing them.
For more see Joseph Agassi, Technology: Philosophical and Social aspects, 1985.
Popular Political Principles and Styles
Other than personal matters, the topic of most debates is politics. The reason is pain-
fully obvious: politics includes everything that is of public concern. What is of
public concern is naturally of great political dispute. Some say, the citizen’s welfare
or education, is of public concern; others say it is not, except when Big Brother is in
control. Some say, even the widespread or scarcity of patriotism is of public con-
cern, and there are illiberal ways of imposing it and liberal ways of remedying the
situation so as to make patriotism more palatable. All this is fodder for much public
debate.
The most popular political attitude or style is conservatism; it has the backing of
the most forceful political principles: conservatism. The conservatives observe a
few very common and quite imposing principles. First, individuals learn their
mother-tongues and adopt their fathers’ professions (notice the dreadful sexism of
this expression), and this fixes most of their character. Second, when in Rome, do as
the Romans do—or else you do not count and you will scarcely survive. Third,
individuals cannot survive without society but society survives in every individual.
Fourth and last, tradition is the fund of the experience of the whole society.
It is thus not surprising that most societies are conservative and take their conser-
vative political attitudes for granted, hardly noticing them. This is obvious from the
vast literature on social anthropology (that deals mostly with preliterate societies,
leaving the modern, industrial society that is left for sociology to study, and the rest
to social history, the classics, and so on). The vast anthropological literature has
nothing to report about disagreements and less to report about disputes. This
explains the conservative conduct of these societies: they have no legislatures and
no idea of progress. They do have public bodies that make public decisions, though,
especially about war with neighbors. Nevertheless, changes in all societies do occur
now and then, even in the most conservative societies. These happen due to wars or
to demographic changes or even due to (usually unplanned) innovations—about
techniques of war, of irrigation, and more. The invention of the cannon, to mention
the paradigm case, has destroyed city walls and thus brought about far-reaching
social changes; living outside the city walls brought about myriads of unintended
consequences.
Popular Political Principles and Styles 115
The debate about conservative views and practices began with the invention of a
new political philosophy—in Greece and more so in early modern Western Europe.
The most serious criticism of conservatism is from the injustices that all social sys-
tems sanction except for utopia, and utopia does not exist. The case repeatedly
reported is the requirement to kill all people dangerous to social stability, including
all pretenders to a throne, regardless of their own views or values. This happens in
Greek tragedy: whatever the characters do, they are bound to be in the wrong. Yet
Greek tragedy deviates from conservatism: in the end of his Oresteia, Aeschylus
forces the Erinyes or the furies—the local deities of vengeance of Greek mythol-
ogy—to become the Eumenides, the kindly ones. The same holds for Romeo and
Juliet who are as innocent as can be yet must die. The novelty of Shakespeare’s play
is in its conclusion. After the heroes die, at the moment of catharsis, when by tradi-
tion the curtain should go down, Shakespeare stops the curtain, forces the elders of
the Capulets and the Montagues and makes them say, this cannot be; a change must
happen. The question all this raises for conservatives is how much may they sacri-
fice for the sake of socials stability and under what conditions?
Radicals find defects in conservative social life and wish to replace traditional
society with rationally planned one. Which naturally is a Utopia. The first and most
significant criticism of conservatism is the observation that differences between
societies are accidental, that my having been born to this or that society, and to this
or that religious community, is no sufficient reason for my staying there: I have a
choice and the choice should be rational. To this end we should ignore all the politi-
cal ideas that we find and design new, rational ones. This is radicalism. Radicals can
be more or less radical in their adoption of more accepted ides or less. This may be
a matter of accident: the rule by which an idea is endorsed or rejected is that of
rationality and is independent of conservative attitudes to it. The most important
traditional item that radicals cannot avoid adopting is the mother tongue. Efforts
were made to do away with it too, by the plan to devise a universal language.
(Leibniz called it characteristica universalis, but he did not invent it: some cabbal-
ists did.) The first effort to develop such a language were made by the leading logi-
cians Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert, Giuseppe Peano and Bertrand Russell. The
language in its standard full-fledged version is presented in Principia Mathematica
of Russell and Alfred North Whitehead. It is at the base of all computer languages.
One cannot possibly use it in ordinary conversation or even in scientific discourse,
let alone in live disputes. For this we need a new political principle. Ludwik
Zamenhof tries another method—he invented a new "natural" language, Esperanto.
It is a simplified Latin akin to the Latino sine flexion of the great mathematician
Giuseppe Peano (at times referred to as Peano’s Interlingua) but much more user
friendly, so that everyone would learn to speak it with little preparation. It did suc-
ceed that way, but it never came close to becoming truly widespread. The current
alternative is the United Nation’s Organization recognition of five languages as its
official languages, based on the number of people who use them: English, French,
Spanish, Russian and Chinese. (Strictly speaking, as Chinese is a written language,
not a spoken one, the language that the United Nation Organization recognizes is
Standard Chinese or simplified Chinese that is a modification of Pǔtōnghuà or the

Mandarin dialect).
The new political principle that allows for debates is democracy. Now some lim-
ited debates occurred even in tyrannies, and historically these led to even increasing
democratization. Spinoza has observed that since no stable regime can rely on sheer
power, there is some consent in every stable regime, and so democracy is a matter
of degree. He advocated as extreme a democracy as possible, and as liberal as pos-
sible. How much is possible is a matter of constant debate. The important idea is to
introduce liberalism into the debate. Many identify it with toleration. Now, admit-
tedly, the desired or permissible degree of toleration is also a matter of debate, and
clearly, liberalism is tolerant. Yet, liberalism is not the same as toleration. Historically
there were always regimes that were more tolerant or less, long before the idea of
liberalism was invented. Its inventor, Niccolò Machiavelli, presented it as the pro-
posal to avoid making laws that are difficult to abide by and to prefer making laws
that would bring citizens to be law-abiding out of self-interest.
Liberalism is now practiced in almost all advanced contemporary societies, so
that there is great incentive to view it as profitable. It was not like that when it was
first proposed: it was a vision. The question is often raised and avidly discussed as
to how liberal can a society be and what kind of liberalism it forbids. More so the
cost of liberalism is discussed, especially by anti-liberals who claim that the cost of
liberalism is the encouragement of egotism and thus its growth, to the detriment of
higher value and with the result of the waning of the community and the subse-
quence growth of alienation. This too is a favorite topic of debates. It can be great
fun and it can be frustrating. To keep it going well one needs to add arguments to
both advocates of liberalism and to their opponents. On the whole, this holds for
most prolonged debates.
Thus far we covered briefly traditional countries and contemporary countries.
This is a gross simplification, since most of the world is neither. The most Important
half-way countries, mainly in eastern Asia, such as Singapore and China, present a
method that is conservative and authoritative, but still leave big part of economy to
the free market, and promotes meritocracy when hiring the civil service employees.
(For more detail see Joseph Agassi and Ian C. Jarvie, “A Study in Westernization”,
in I. C. Jarvie, editor, Hong Kong: A Society in Transition, 1969 and in their
Rationality: The Critical View, 1987).
To complicate matters, there is a third party, the reactionaries. Unlike traditional-
ism the reaction appears only as a reaction to radicalism, and radicalism, to repeat,
is characteristically Western. Reactionaries do not wish to preserve current society
but hanker after the old regime, the one that has preceded radicalism. To make
things more complex, in societies whose traditions are radical, predominantly the
United States of America, has its traditionalism to some extent individualist and
radical. Thus one finds there the usual radical left side by side with the radical right.
As radicalism is logically impossible, every version of it is tampered, and the same
holds with a vengeance for the radical right. Thus the radical right in the United
States is a mix of radicalism, especially in economics, and of conservatism,
especially in matter of internal security. All this opens much room for debates that
can be very exciting and fertile.
Chapter 11
Disputes About Aesthetics
Abstract In aesthetical debates, consider how much each view rests on shared psy-
chology. Thus, an artefact is considered beautiful when it is seen as unexpected or
surprising (non-trivial) yet as conforming to the rules of its own production, what-
ever these are. (These rules may serve as an item for an interesting preliminary
discussion in the field of art appreciation).
This final chapter refers to aesthetic disputes. People argue about which sculptures
to display in museums, which pictures to hang on walls of their home, what kind of
(public) building to build and what dress fits what person best on this or that occa-
sion. How can such disputes be resolved?
Let us repeat for the last time. Skeptical considerations lead to the conclusion
that there is no way to measure the plausibility of aesthetic judgments. (Skepticism
is presented in the Appendix below.) No aesthetic judgment is certain or plausible,
skeptics say: there is no aesthetic knowledge, and no valid method exists for resolv-
ing aesthetic disputes. Some skeptics go further and say, there is no aesthetic objec-
tivity. What they should say is, of course, possibly there is no aesthetic objectivity.
But then they may say also, there is aesthetic objectivity. And so it is, as usual, the
skeptic position that encourages disputes and debates. Some say, skepticism makes
all disputes senseless, since they can never be settled with finality. This is unwise.
First, an endless dispute may be enjoyable and profitable. (Skeptics who deny this
are scarcely skeptics.) Second, skepticism permits settling disputes, even though not
with finality, and this too may be enjoyable and profitable, since settling a dispute
usually opens newer disputes, and these may be more challenging ones. If debates—
on aesthetic questions or on any other questions—are progressive, then we can
always look forward to newer and more challenging debates.
The idea that doubt hampers disputes leads to sad conclusions. Thus, in the field
of aesthetics it leads too many people to say that beauty does not exist; hence, they
consider an entire illusion the fact that we consider some things beautiful, or at least
more beautiful that other things. The popular expression of their view is, beauty is
in the eye of the beholder.
Not so. In particular, if aesthetic judgment were entirely arbitrary, it would be
very strange that in so many cases, so many people agree about aesthetic issues of
all sorts. Without such agreements there would be no museums and no concert halls
and even no libraries and no top ten records. Aesthetic agreement, we suggest, is in

118 11 Disputes About Aesthetics
part—but only in part—due to shared psychology. We propose to start with it as

psychology is easier to discuss than metaphysics, you remember. For example, we
appreciate beautiful things more if they are less frequent and so less commonplace.
This is not necessarily so, since we may appreciate sunsets even if we see them
every day. Nevertheless, even an exceptional sunset may be judged more beautiful
than the average sunset, namely, unexpected, namely, not trivial. Obviously, scarcity
is not a sufficient condition for beauty. Thus, babies look beautiful more often than
adults do, even when they are seen frequently; moreover, small noses and ears are
often perceived as more beautiful than big ones, perhaps because they resemble
noses and ears of babies. Also, having red hair is infrequent and as such it is unex-
pected, but it is not considered beauty per se. It has been attested empirically that in
a society with shaved men bearded ones look more handsome and vice versa. This,
of course, is amusing, but not too impressive, since we take serious aesthetic judg-
ments to be less ephemeral: we do not expect a museum guards reduce their esthetic
judgments of the masterpieces they see regularly just because they are tired of see-
ing them. And conductors who begin to lose the sense of beauty of the works they
regularly conduct know that this is a signal telling them to quit.
This may hold even for the new experience of any real work of art. No doubt, in
its novelty, experiencing it may strong and unrepeatable, yet as the experience hap-
pens, the surprising element of the artwork has to give way to its details, and these
have to fit each other to comprise a whole, and so, in a distinct sense, they should be
quite unsurprising. It is indeed a part of the artistic experience, especially at the first
time that the parts fit each other convincingly, whatever this may mean, so that the
experience is of a novelty that becomes right and so not quite novel: it must be both
fresh and not arbitrary. This is particularly obvious in detective novels, where the
convention of the genre prevents arbitrariness and requires surprise: the surprising
part or aspect of a good detective novel is enjoyable repeatedly, unlike the surprising
element of a cheap whodunit that is rightly called a spoiler. The surprise within a
good thriller that does not vanish is what makes it remarkable. In many classic
detective novels (Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, for a conspicuous example),
the author reveals the solution to the riddle right up in front and yet manages to keep
the tension and surprise readers. Thus, when arguing about a particular work of art,
to some extent we can try to explain its beauty by describing the way in which it
exhibits such qualities that we assume are responsible for its aesthetic value.
Consider then some most noticeable disputes about modern art, such as ones
concerning abstract paintings: do they qualify as art? In many cases of debates of
this kind, the concern with the artistic value of abstract painting, in general or in the
style of a specific artist or of a single canvas, the question of the presence or absence
of the artistic experience is only a part of the discussion, since this is a matter of fact.
Often people are incredulous: when bona fide art critics repeatedly report that a
certain canvas moves them, people who are not moved by that canvas tend to assume
that the art critics fool them—for fun or for gain—since they fail to experience any-
thing particular and even to empathize with the critics who report different feelings.
This inability to sympathize is already a better item for debate than the mere report
about the experience itself. Thus, the staple argument against the view that the
11 Disputes About Aesthetics 119
painting under dispute is a work of art is that any child could have drawn it. This
claim, if true, deprives the work of any claim for uniqueness and thus of any sur-
prise, let alone the surprise that a genuine artwork is supposed to create. This argu-
ment may come up in a debate about a specific work but it is quite general. It
appears in specific discussions of specific artworks, especially in the plastic arts, but
it applies to the whole genre, and to other arts in the avant-garde genres such as
dada, including plays. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett is a famous example:
for most of it two characters have a very lame conversation that express their frustra-
tion about Godot’s failure to come without giving the audience a clue as to who
Godot is and why the two wait for him; the audience have no clue as to this, except
for the name that may indicate that the expected personality is none other than the
Good Lord. There is no clue, however, to help the audience decide whether this is
the playwright intention or not. This frustrates many audiences and they deem it no
quite a play but a kind of spoof. Some eminent critics find it exciting and some of
them even complain that later in the play a third character appears on stage. This is
not to say that there is agreement about art critics. Perhaps the most controversial
movie is Last Year at Marienbad, directed by famous director Alain Resnais from a
screenplay by leading novelist Alain Robbe-Grillet. Some critics find it dreamlike
and exciting, others find it boring to tears. Although it is hard to imagine a child
directing a movie, it is not unthinkable that a child wrote the screenplay, which the
hostile critics may claim. This argument is not the only one that frustrated audiences
can launch against avant-garde art. To stay with examples from movies, take one
that seems more in tune with the convention of a style, such as the star-studded Last
Tango in Paris, directed by notorious Bernardo Bertolucci. The movie had a succes
de scandal and this raises a different controversial question: can a movie with por-
nographic scenes be a work of art? This apart, leading film critic Pauline Kael
declared it a great work of art and others, including some of her ardent fans, con-
sider it sheer trash.
The difference in aesthetic intuitions regarding artworks, abstract and figurative
alike, concerns the ability to perceive intricate patterns in it. Some do see patterns in
these works, while others see in them nothing but chaos or nothing but dull repeti-
tions of old clichés. Such differences may be addressed by discussing these patterns
or alternatively by exposing them as scant and unsatisfactory. The discussion may,
however, get more general, and center on the question, can an artwork comprising
clichés and nothing else claim the standing of a serious work of art? Many art critics
and historians of art declare this impossible and dismiss any work comprising cli-
chés no art, especially the ones that are meant to make their consumers feel plea-
sure; they call them chocolate-box art. Can chocolate-box art count as art proper?
Can operetta be art? Can people of good taste enjoy an evening at the operetta as an
artistic experience? This question is existential, and so, you remember, invites those
who assert existence to provide examples if they can. If they cannot, they may dis-
cuss a hypothetical artwork and even cause an artist to try it out, which comes to
show how fruitful aesthetic debates can be. There are many contenders here. Some
operettas of Offenbach or Johan Strauss. Some canvases of Toulouse Lautrec or
Modiglianior the films of Charlie Chaplin or the famous All about Eve may count.
120 11 Disputes About Aesthetics
And then opponents may dismiss these as not clichés or as poor art. This kind of
discussion will improve the ideas of participants in them concerning clichés and
concerning art. It will obviously diverge into other debates, concerning such matters
as the difference between clichés, Kitsch, and chocolate-box art, if there is any. We
leave the elaboration of all this to our readers who are interested in art.
Without discussing this matter, we can consider a dispute about whether or not a
certain painting is kitsch. The parties to the dispute can try to resolve it by consider-
ing whether the patterns in the object under consideration are only allegedly unex-
pected (and therefore hardly kitsch) or not. Moreover, some works of art combine
items that are obviously kitschy in some new and surprising ways that may actually
be aesthetically valuable. Indeed, famously, Picasso was eager to listen to aesthetic
debates as a source of inspiration.
Simpler cases of valuable aesthetic criticism are the criticism of opinions of peo-
ple who express inconsistent aesthetic judgments. A person may express enthusi-
asm regarding one piece of folksy music because it cites some genuine folk melodies
and regarding another piece of folksy music because its folk melodies are all origi-
nal. Drawing that person’s attention to that inconsistency may lead to reconsidera-
tion and then perhaps a change of some aesthetic judgment. People, who express
disdain for opera, explaining it as dislike for the artificiality of singing dialogues,
may reconsider this in light of their toleration of the same artificiality in musical
plays in light of the argument against naturalism in art. Of course, there is no objec-
tion to the appreciation of both abstract or avant-garde art and traditional or conven-
tional art, or both highbrow and lowbrow art. If one wishes to account for these with
an aesthetic theory, however, one has to avoid both the highbrow theory that rejects
lowbrow art (as many aesthetic theories do) as well as the theory that rejects the
avant-garde (such as socialist realism). It is very easy to be inconsistent. Thus,
Bertold Brecht supported the Marxist view that good art must be progressive yet he
(rightly) praised the famous 1939 adventure movie GungaDin that is decidedly
imperialist.
This, let us observe, is not unusual. Notably, many people regularly express aes-
thetic judgments and present theories, thereby inviting debates about their consis-
tency—or about other aspects of their pronouncements—or at least opening the
door to debates. The commonest inconsistency is to claim that beauty is in the eye
of the beholder and yet pronounce aesthetic judgments. Of course, one can say, I
greatly enjoy some poor art (operetta or detective thrillers or science fiction), and
perhaps offer some explanation; to say this is to deny that beauty is in the eye of the
beholder, since the idea that beauty is in the eye of the beholder identifies beauty
with the pleasurable experience of art. To appreciates some art without enjoying
it—say, because it brings sad associations or because one feels tired or moody—is
to distinguish between aesthetic value and the enjoyment of art. No doubt, art is for
pleasure, but not all great pleasure is of good art.
Admittedly, the distinction between the aesthetic pleasure and the pleasure that a
piece of art—any piece of art—may cause is psychological, but it is not only psy-
chological. This is why aesthetic views are open to debates. And because debate
about them is possible, they may cause changes of mind. This happens repeatedly
11 Disputes About Aesthetics 121
when the disapproval with which a new artistic style or a new art form is first met
with turns into approval. (Attitudes towards impressionism comprise a paradigm
case of such a change.) Admittedly, some disputes about aesthetics are frustrating;
but, remember, no kind of dispute and no topic of dispute is utterly free of frustra-
tion. Our aim in this handbook is to help you reduce the frustration of debates to a
reasonable level and we repeatedly claim that the reluctance to enter disputes in
order to avoid frustration causes a different kind of frustration— different but not a
smaller —since some situations comprise strong temptations to engage in disputes.
So we propose that rather than avoid arguing about aesthetics you may want to
engage in preliminary discussions of the question, what will reduce the frustration.
We have proposed here that the assertion that an artwork is unusual-yet-not-arbitrary
may help. Obviously, other means are available, and interlocutors may air their
views on this before engaging in the specific controversy that invites the debate and
also discuss the question, what argument if any will make them admit error. Finally,
as always, the best means for the reduction of frustration from debates is the benefit
from them. Debating art and losing is the best means for developing one’s taste and
thus the experience of the joy of art. Particularly individuals who have no art in their
educational backgrounds—those who have experienced hardly any art at home or in
school—do hold ideas about art; airing them is the best known means for opening
them up to the joy of artistic experience.
Chapter 12
Conclusion
Abstract Avoid frustrating debates. Avoid arguing with dogmatists and more so
avoid arguing with relativists. Learn to enjoy and benefit from debates by recording
your impressions from debates soon after they take place.
In contemporary society, finding argument painful is still popular. Thus, agreement

is considered agreeable and disagreement disagreeable. This handbook advocates
the opposite view. We claim that disputes can be fruitful and therefore enjoyable.
We also claim that agreement is easier to achieve than disagreement, which is a
well-known fact, masked by being called conformism. The most important aspect
of disagreement is that to be fruitful it should be respectful. Contrary to received
opinion, we assert that disagreement can be respectful. Participants in properly con-
ducted disputes learn from it, and so we should naturally appreciate and respect
those with whom we share the process of learning—through debates. Finally, we
claim that the recognition of these facts may help change our misguided dislike for
disagreement. Nevertheless, we agree with the general view that disputes can be
frustrating; often, they are frustrating simply because most people engage in debates
with no prior training, which renders their debates useless and thus frustrating.
Throughout this handbook, we have listed practical recommendations for the
adoption of rules that help avoid frustrating debates and construct fruitful ones. In
this concluding chapter, we will repeat our main practical recommendations.
First, make sure that the debating parties agree as to what is the question under
dispute. The question should be worded as an interrogative sentence (one that begins
with a question word and ends with a question mark). Questions with vague word-
ing such as, “how about x, y or z?” are better not taken up. As every question rest on
some presuppositions, it is advisable to spend some time on checking whether all
parties to the dispute share the main presuppositions to the question under dispute.
In any case, the parties to the dispute can agree to agree for the sake of the debate to
assume these presuppositions. Alternatively, they should debate the questions that
the disputed presuppositions answer. This procedure takes time, but in our opinion
all of our proposals take time to implement but they save more time and reduce the
level of frustration to a reasonable minimum.
Once the question under dispute and the presuppositions behind it are reasonably
clearly stated and agreed upon, the debate can start. Notably, there is no need to
worry whether this precondition has been sufficiently met or not: if the background

124 12 Conclusion
information proves to not be adequately clear and the debate starts getting frustrat-
ing, then it is always possible to take a step back and discuss the background mate-
rial a bit more before proceeding. We recommend doing so without fuss. Of course,
it is advisable to avoid focusing so extensively on the background material that the
issue at hand is never reached. (Such situations have happened to the best of us; one
of the best known and most influential philosophy books ever, Essay Concerning
Human Understanding by John Locke, is the product of a preliminary discussion.)
To that end, list all the answers you can imagine to the question under dispute, rea-
sonable and unreasonable, and then agree to delete from the list the answers that all
parties to the dispute consider unreasonable. An answer is unreasonable if and only
if no reasonable party will advocate it, of course.
Our next recommendation is simple as it is a recommendation for some avoid-
ance of a pitfall. Do not debate definitions of concepts. Instead of trying to argue
about the “right” definition of a certain concept, clarify its meaning by presenting
examples, mainly paradigm cases. (If the concept is technical, its definition is not
under dispute.) Remember: different definitions may be applicable; the result is
synonymy, having one word with more than one meaning. This will not cause con-
fusion if the parties to a dispute can always ascertain the right meaning of any prob-
lematic appearance of any word.
Pay attention as to who bears the burden of proof. Those who claim that their
opponents are inconsistent should prove their claim (the opponents cannot prove
that they are consistent), and those who claim that a certain generalization is false
should point at cases that refute it (there is no way to prove that a factual generaliza-
tion is true). Finally, when one side presents an existential statement (X exists) this
side bears the burden of proof.
And here is another recommendation for some avoidance of a pitfall. Do not try
to resolve disputes by measuring objectively the plausibility of the opinions under
dispute. Strong skeptical considerations suggest that the plausibility of statements
cannot be measured, let alone objectively, much less before the debate proceeds in
earnest. (This is why debates are scarcely avoidable for those who seek intellectual
improvement.)
When debating factual questions, it makes sense to consider whether each answer
reduces the strangeness of the world, and perhaps also to what degree. Check which
theory is simpler; when two theories explain the same phenomenon, we tend to
endorse the simpler one. Check also whether the theory under dispute successfully
predicts surprising facts that were not previously known or rather just explains
known facts (the latter is easier than the former). Always prefer to debate the answer
that seems to you easier to debate: difficult discussions are better postponed as
much as reasonably possible. Following this advice will teach that it is reasonable
to postpone complex discussions much more than it initially seems.
Avoid debates with partners who repeatedly change the formulation of their
assertions whenever they encounter refutations by applying ad hoc corrections to
them, especially if they pretend that these additions comprise clarifications rather
than corrections. On the whole, prefer adversaries who admit to error frankly, pref-
erably if they do so with no fuss.
12 Conclusion 125
When the assertion under dispute is an explanation of some phenomenon, inves-

tigate first the assertion that the phenomenon in question is due to a mere accident.
And always consider whether it merits debate.
Avoid debates about causality (unless you are a philosopher). Usually, the inter-
esting question under dispute involves the degree to which the appearance of one
variable helps predict the appearance of another.
If the difference between two samples is statistically significant, you may still
inquire whether this difference is interesting. Within large samples, even a small
difference might be statistically significant yet not necessarily interesting or rele-
vant to the concern that has prompted it.
When debating metaphysical questions, in many cases each of the views under
dispute entails strange consequences. In such cases, arguing that a certain view can-
not be true since it bears strange implications is not a valid argument, although it
may convince advocates of the metaphysical idea at hand to reconsider their views.
Some views, mainly metaphysical, refer to claims about future events (for exam-
ple: one day, it will be possible to construct conscious machines). In debates on such
predictions, the contending parties are supposed to show that such events in prin-
ciple cannot happen or alternately that they should happen as no principle prevents
their occurrence. The parties to the dispute should agree on this; otherwise we pro-
pose to postpone the debate as it might be very frustrating.
Avoid arguments about whether some entity exists, unless you can agree in
advance regarding manageable criteria for admitting or denying its existence.
Indeed, such criteria may be subject to preliminary debates.
When debating whether a certain historical narrative is true, it makes sense to
look for predictions implied by the hypothesis that it is (or is not) and then to
research historical records in order to test these predictions. It might also be advis-
able to check whether the event under discussion could be expected under common
general assumptions regarding human behavior. A similar recommendation holds
regarding long-range predictions.
In debates about subjunctive conditional statements (answers to questions of the
form “what would have happened if …?”), we recommend the investigation into the
degree to which one event usually serves as means for predicting the other. Such
investigation parallels that of the arguments about causality mentioned above.
When debating moral questions, it makes sense to consider the extent to which
each view rests on sympathizing with the suffering of others versus the extent to
which its adoption rests on the hope that acting on it will increase human welfare.
Such understanding can help clarify some rather abstract notions that might other-
wise disrupt such debates.
When debating aesthetical questions, consider how much each view rests on
shared psychology. For example, in order for an artefact to be considered beautiful,
it should be seen as unexpected or surprising (not trivial), yet as conforming to the
rules of its own production, whatever these are (which may indeed serve as a good
item for an interesting preliminary discussion that belongs to the field of art
appreciation).
126 12 Conclusion
In general, pay attention to the difference between theories (that comprise gen-
eral statements) and evidence (in the form of existential statements). In many dis-
putes, mainly about technological, ethical, and political problems, the disputing
parties may agree about the list of advantages and drawbacks of each of the possible
options that the competing answers offer, but they may disagree about the benefits
of these advantages and the cost of the disadvantages. In such cases, the disputes are
not about theories, and it makes sense to concentrate on evaluating the costs and the
benefits involved. Focus on what matters—what the parties to the dispute agree
matters most; settle this important point before delving into the debate, if it is at all
necessary: preliminaries to debates may and often do render them superfluous.
Avoid frustrating debates. Avoid arguing with dogmatists and more so avoid
arguing with relativists. Such endeavors are assured to frustrate as they merely
waste time and lead nowhere. Notably, relativists have one advantage over dogma-
tists: they announce themselves as relativists, whereas dogmatists usually deny that
they are dogmatists. If a debate starts turning around in circles, you may suspect that
one party is dogmatic. (It may be you! Just consider this as an option for a while
before dismissing it.) It is worthwhile for all parties to a dispute to ask, “What will
make you change your mind?” Astronomers would change their minds if one fixed
star started moving freely on the sky-map, and biologists would change their minds
if they had dug up layers of bones in the wrong evolutionary order. The belief in a
miracle would fade out when someone reproduces the act in question at will. Of
course, such examples are not good enough, as no one expects such things to happen
(even if we can note some rare examples of such precious occurrences), but this is a
good start, since such a discourse is anything but frustrating, and it shakes up the
dogmatist in most of us. Remember, our main recommendation is that you learn that
it is your right to enjoy a debate and that you insist on receiving the pleasure more-
or-less at once. You will find that not only you yourself but also your partners to the
debate will benefit from such insistence. Few involvements lead to good fun like
productive, enlightening debates.
A word on public debates. In public debates the rules are different from the rules
discussed here. The participants in them do not intend to learn and they address not
their interlocutors but the public. This is incentive for rhetoric and even demagogu-
ery. When you have to participate in a public debate find out the rules of the debate
and learn something about the moderator, if you can. See that the rules are fair. If
not, you must decide whether you want to participate. When your opponents use
rhetoric, repeat what they say in plain words before you offer an alternative or criti-
cism to it. The main thing to remember is that unlike private debates public debates
need not be fun and they tend to frustrate. The frustration can be reduced by learn-
ing that it is unavoidable and by remembering why you undertook to partake in
them in the first place.
Appendix: Skepticism
Throughout this book, we have referred to skepticism. This Appendix is a brief

presentation of it. We find it necessary because regularly it appears in the literature
as the pitfall to avoid as it is contrary to both science and commonsense; we present
it throughout this handbook as the soul of both science and the commonsense of
contemporary society.
From the beginning of philosophy, one of the main questions on its traditional
agenda was (and to a large extent still is), how is it possible to prevent (or at least
minimize) error while discovering interesting features of our world? Philosophers
have been trying to present methods that ascertain that we endorse only information
we know to be true, but all their suggested methods are refuted. Skepticism is the
view that no such method exists, and even in principle. Most philosophers consider
this a council of despair and we argue that on the contrary, it is the only philosophy
that allows for hope and for some explanation of the facts of scientific progress.
Skeptics have raised two kinds of argument against the claim that certitude is
attainable. One kind is specific arguments in various fields, such as skepticism in
regard to perception, and the other kind is general. A statement is certain or justified
if it is proved, but proof is impossible since theory about proof or any criterion for
the validity of a proof requires a different proof for it. A justification procedure
invites a justification for itself, and so on ad infinitum. Hence, final proof or justifi-
cation is impossible. For example, character witnesses are possibly unreliable, and
then for their testimony to be acceptable they need character witnesses to testify that
they are reliable. But character witnesses need character witnesses to be credible.
And so on, until we exhaust the population. (Indeed, when a mafia boss needs a
character testimony, the entire population of the town are likely volunteers.)
This is not to say that there can be no true character witness. These do exist, and
they are usually more reliable than the character witnesses for the mafia boss.
Moreover, since proper testimonies are cross-examined, a good lawyer can make
judge and jury ignore character testimonies for mafia bosses. The skeptic argues
merely that such testimony is never certain. We usually agree that the skeptical
argument is valid, but we tend to ignore it until and unless the skeptic brings some
concrete evidence. For example, to say that the character witnesses who make the

J. Agassi, A. Meidan, Beg to Differ, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33307-6
128 Appendix: Skepticism
person in question look good may be pressured to testify is insufficient: we want

evidence that they have indeed been pressured into doing so. Suppose a disaster
happens and believers in the conspiracy theory say, some people benefit from this
disaster and they have brought it about. This may always be true: we cannot rule out
the possibility that some people somewhere are responsible for the disaster in ques-
tion. To be taken seriously, however, this claim needs more details to support it. The
best such detail is called a ‘smoking gun’: Tom has a gun directed towards Dick, the
gun smokes and Dick falls dead with a bullet in his heart. We surmise that Tom has
killed Dick. The terrific short story “The Man who Shot Liberty Valance” by
Dorothy M. shows convincingly that this need not be so, but without further evi-
dence we take it for granted that it is so, although only as the default option. We do
take it for granted that some innocent people were executed after due process, that
due process is no foolproof guarantee. This is why there is so much opposition to
capital punishment. This shows that we are skeptics and deem skepticism
commonsense.
What makes this commonsense across the board is that in modern society all
people are in principle allowed to try to overturn any default options. We take it for
granted that the specific details that make us take the odd option seriously comprise
arguments against the default option: they are counter-examples against it; they
refute presentations of allegedly reliable sources of knowledge. Thus, the skeptic
arguments against each of the methods suggested for achieving knowledge sepa-
rately and against all of them together does not overrule the default options together:
it allows for overruling each of them separately.
In its strongest wording (to which we adhere), skepticism is the position that no
statement is certain, plausible, justified, etc., in the sense that considering it errone-
ous is impossible under any condition. This is certitude in the epistemological sense
of the word. The opponents to skepticism argued that this position is absurd since it
leads to utter inaction, and indeed to total paralysis. For, the argument goes, the
skeptics cannot choose what to believe. Not so, the skeptics answer. Psychological
processes determine our beliefs.
Similar arguments are presented in regard to skepticism in ethics and aesthetics.
It was claimed that skepticism in ethics leads to nihilism, but skeptics reject this
argument by pointing to facts: most people hold some moral views yet are ready to
discuss them. This can be fruitful. Similarly, skepticism in regard to aesthetical
judgments does not lead to aesthetical nihilism, and people largely share aesthetical
judgments. This is particularly intriguing in modern society that displays a great
variety of art, since the proliferation of artworks requires the achievement of the
existing consensus; this is often due to debates that are at times prolonged and even
take generations to settle.
Finally, one way to dismiss skepticism is to endorse views and modes of action
quite dogmatically. Some dogmatists admit frankly that they adopt a dogma so as to
avoid skepticism. This choice is known as fideism. Although skeptics need not
choose fideism, skepticism as such is not opposed to fideism: the arguments against
it—and they are strong—do not arise from the skeptical arsenal.
Appendix: Skepticism 129
In this handbook, we presented tentative theories regarding the psychological

processes that help determine choices of opinions and of actions. Some of these
processes are beneficial, we hope, and others may unfortunately be harmful. But all
in all, it behooves us to admit that we do not know, since the admission of ignorance
is the first step towards the search for any improvement. Of course, we may have no
improvement, but thus far the search was fun, it seems, and it may be even more fun
if you develop your ability to argue fruitfully and avoid frustration. And if your abil-
ity will develop far enough, you will be able to criticize and improve upon this
handbook.
A Brief History of Skepticism
Socrates already presented himself as a skeptic. By raising questions, he under-

mined assertions that his peers considered obvious truths. He concluded that wis-
dom rests upon the awareness of ignorance. His most illustrious disciple was Plato,
who founded the Academy and taught that knowledge can be founded on mathemat-
ics. After his death, the Academy returned to the Socratic tradition and was renowned
for its skepticism. The philosophers who taught there practiced the method that
Plato excelled in, the method of arguing for and against different answers to given
questions, in suspense of all final judgments as to which answer is right.
The idea that the suspension of judgment is a virtue became the central teaching
of Pyrrho and his followers, the Pyrrhonists. No written evidence attests to Pyrrho’s
position, but the prevalent view regarding it follows Sextus Empiricus who presents
Pyrrhonism as follows. Those who wish to dwell in a peaceful temperament
(ataraxia) should try to argue against every position that they tend to prefer: their
view of any question should be as balanced as possible. As a result, they will refrain
from assuming any position, and the outcome will be a permanent state of peace of
mind. All this is nowadays almost entirely ignored.
Sixteenth-century European scholars, especially astronomers (Nicolaus
Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei) discovered that disagreement is con-
ducive to freedom of thought. Others discovered the writings of Sextus and found
their arguments congenial. Conspicuous among them was Michel Montaigne. He
used extant disagreements among scholars as evidence that science is as much a
cultural construct as is religion, and proposed approaching it with much doubt.
Erasmus of Rotterdam, who used skeptical arguments to attack Martin Luther’s
doctrine, claimed that we should conform to existing traditions, since there is no
utterly reliable criterion of truth to apply in efforts to overthrow them, much less to
replace them by better ones, except after long deliberations and experimentations
that allow tradition to absorb the innovations.
Modern philosophy emerges in the beginning of the seventeenth century with the
ideas of Francis Bacon and René Descartes, who advocated the dismissal of all past
opinions without distinction so as to be able to start afresh and thereby achieve true
knowledge. These two great fathers of modernity were concerned with science, and
130 Appendix: Skepticism
they intended to teach people to avoid error. They saw human beings as the source
of all error and considered the source of all truth to be God or Nature; the choice
between these options, they claimed, depends on one’s view of the world. We may
err when we speculate, they observed. So we should avoid speculation, they
demanded.
David Hume is the philosopher who is mostly associated with skepticism in the
eighteenth century, although he considered this a great injustice to himself, even an
insult, since, as he noted, nothing is easier than the throwing of doubt in all direc-
tions indiscriminately. His moderate skepticism involved the recognition of the
futility of Pyrrho’s version of skepticism. He referred to two types of skeptical
views: Pyrrhonism (which he rejected) and moderate skepticism (which he
embraced), according to which, in spite of skeptical arguments, our psychology
saves us from suspending all belief. Very much the way Descartes went about,
Hume too first proved utter doubt and then offered a tool for escape there from it.
But whereas Descartes’ tool involved mathematics, Hume’s involved psychology.
He established doubt by arguing forcefully that all beliefs are doubtful except
beliefs in immediate experiences. For, he argued, there is no rational principle that
leads from the certainty of experience to any other certainty (or even probability) of
belief in any idea about the world. Among the many skeptical arguments that Hume
presented, the most famous one refers to induction: The fact that for eons the sun
unfailingly rose every morning is no guarantee that it will rise tomorrow. Therefore,
the statement asserting that it will remains in doubt.
Hume failed to convince his readers that his skepticism was moderate. Many of
them saw him as a skeptic proper, as a Pyrrhonist; this remains and the dominant
view of him, despite his touching protest, since he did boost the traditional Pyrrhonist
arguments. This is regrettable, as he was of the opinion that certain data are certain,
and so he obviously was not quite as much of a Pyrrhonist as his critics said he was.
In the nineteenth century irrationalism flourished, especially on German soil, and
its adherents offered some bizarre metaphysical systems as expressions of their irra-
tionalism and as means to undermine science proper. Rationalists could not bring
themselves to admit that the irrationalist critique of rationalism had some value. So
the rise of irrationalism regrettably pushed the excessive defenders of rationalism to
the enhancement of the traditional hostility to metaphysics, and this hostility got a
new name: positivism, to mean faith in reason and in science (to the exclusion of
faith in any metaphysics). This was an excessive stress on the radicalism of tradi-
tional philosophy of science. It transformed rationalism into a kind of a political
party, one that allied itself regularly with the radical political parties proper; loyalty
to it made discussions of skepticism improper, since skepticism undermines sci-
ence. This is an error: skepticism and positivism often coincide. Indeed, the name
David Hume always invokes both together, perhaps because his hostility to meta-
physics was brave and systematic. (His positivist ideas about religion appeared in
print only posthumously even though they were politically correct.)
The great breakthrough arrived around the middle of the nineteenth century, in
the same period as that in which positivism flourished: this was William Whewell’s
theory of scientific method as the method of empirical verification. He claimed that
Appendix: Skepticism 131
there is a way to defy the disposition to interpret observations as if they agree with
our ideas: researchers develop a new idea, conclude from it that a special arrange-
ment should give rise to certain new observations, and test this conclusion empiri-
cally. Since the source of new ideas is human imagination, they are not likely to be
true. So test normally refutes them. So they try again and again. When a test comes
up positive, it verifies the tested theory. This is how science progresses, he
concluded.
This terrific theory did not appeal to philosophers because it makes the success
of scientific research depend upon luck. Researchers, however, liked it very much,
and for the very same reason. So philosophers forgot Wheel and the idea of verifica-
tion. Researchers did remember it, but they forgot its originator. When Wheel’s
ideas were rediscovered, philosophers were less averse to the notion that research
needs luck, and so the popularity of positivism increased. But the idea came too late:
in the meanwhile, Albert Einstein caused a quiet revolution in philosophy. It was
rightly in the shadow of his greater revolution in physics, but here it concerns us
more: Einstein devastated the equation of error with sin that the scientific tradition
unwittingly shared with Western religious traditions.
Under Einstein’s influence, Karl Popper advocated fallibilism, the idea that any
scientific theory may turn out to be false no matter how well it fits our experience to
date. He joined Einstein in claiming that experience may either undermine theories
or allow for them, but can never support them. Popper went further and claimed that
to be scientific, even experience must be tentative. We take his argument even fur-
ther, offering a form of skepticism that is slightly more radical. We follow him in
advocating the idea that every informative statement is doubtful, never certain, plau-
sible, corroborated, or justified—in the philosophical sense of these terms—and we
include here even logic, especially since logic is the theory of rational criticism and
this can hopefully improve (and thus render this handbook obsolete).
Bibliography
Agassi, Joseph. 1991. The siblinghood of humanity: Introduction to philosophy. Delmar: Caravan.
Agassi, Joseph. 1993. Conditions for interpersonal communication. Methodology and Science 26:
8–17.
Agassi, Joseph, and Abraham Meidan. 2008. Philosophy from a skeptical perspective. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Campbell, Tom. 2011. Rights: A critical introduction. London: Routledge.
Fitzpatrick, Mark. High school debate rules & techniques. http://www.ehow.com/info_8736679_
debate-rules-techniques.html
Hume, David. 2000. A treatise of human nature (Edited by David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton).
Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Patterson, Dennis. 1993. Psuedo-debate over default rules of contract law The symposium on
default rules and contractual consent. Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, 3.
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ournals#247
Plato. Dialogues, especially Gorgias, Ion. Protagoras and Sophist.
Popkin, Richard H. 2003. The history of skepticism: From Savonarola to Bayle, Revised edition.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Popper, Karl. 2002a. The poverty of historicism, 2nd ed. New York: Harper & Row.
Popper, Karl. 2002b. Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge, 2nd ed.
New York: Routledge.
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about_5283163_rules-debate.html
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Rosenburg, Amanda. Does format matter? An analysis of the 2008 Presidential debates. http://
udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/5503
Russell, Bertrand. 2004. Skeptical essays, 2nd edn. New York: W.W. Norton.
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Walton, Douglas. 2003. Methods of argumentation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
(2013).

Index
A Causality, 61, 87
Abortion, 105 Chaplin, Charlie, 119
Ad hoc theory, 47 Characteristica Universalis, 115
Aerodynamics, 97 Charity, 103
Aesthetics, 117 Child abuse, 106
Age of Reason, 8 China, 12
Amnesty International, 111 Chinese room argument, 74
Animal rights, 103 Clitorectomy, 108
Aristotle, 22, 55, 70, 83 Communism, 11
Associationism, 74 Competence vs. performance, 24, 31
Auschwitz, 80 Consciousness, 73
Authenticity, 107 Conservatism, 110, 114
Avant-garde art, 119 Conspiracy theories, 53
Controlled experiment, 62
Court procedures, 14, 40
B
Bacon, Francis, 20
Beckett, Samuel, 119 D
Berkley, George, 73 Darwin, Charles, 50, 55
Bernoulli’s law, 54, 65 Darwin, Erasmus, 55
Bertolucci, Bernardo, 119 Darwinism, 29, 80
Bible code, 53 Definition, 38
Big Bang, 89 Democracy, 11
Blish, James, 7 Descartes, Rene, 72, 73
Bohr, Niels, 78 Determinism, 75
Boyle, Robert, 80 Dialectics, 23
Brainwashing, 25 Dictatorship, 11
Brecht, Bertold, 120 Diminishing marginal
Broad, Charlie, 73 utility, 109
Buber, Martin, 81 Dirac, Paul, 50
Dogmatism, 19, 50
Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 118
C Drugs, 85
Cabbalists, 115 abuse, 33
Carnap, Rudolf, 17 Dual aspects theory, 73

136 Index
E History, 84, 85
Edison, Thomas Alva, 21 Homosexuality, 107
Einstein, Albert, 50, 52, 60, 72, 113 Human rights, 110
Electrical cars, 98 Hume, David, 60, 61, 70, 103
Eliot, George, 37 Huxley, Thomas, 73
Encyclopedia Britannica, 71 Hydrodynamics, 97
Epiphenomenalism, 73
Esperanto, 115
Essence, 70 I
Ethics, 102 Idealism, 73
European Union, 113 Immortality, 73
Existence of God, 78 Impressionism, 121
Existentialism, 107 Indeterminism, 75
Existential proposition, 36 Inequality, 111
Extrapolation, 51, 90 Intelligent design, 82
Interactionism, 73
Interviews, 40
F
False negative/positive, 94
Fascism, 11 J
Fatalism, 76 Japan, 12
Female circumcision, 108 Jarvie, Ian, 116
Forecast, 89
Free choice, 75
Frege, Gottlob, 115 K
Freud, Sigmund, 5, 87, 88 Kael, Pauline, 119
Kahneman, Daniel, 48
Kant, Immanuel, 69
G Karamazov, Ivan, 80
Galileo, Galilei, 76 Kennedy assassination, 86
Gambler’s fallacy, 54 Kepler, Johannes, 29
Generalization, 36, 59 Kitsch, 120
Genetically modified foods, 98
Gestalt school, 74
Giffen, Robert, 49 L
Global famine, 92 La Mettrie, Julien, 73
Global warming, 57, 99 Lancaster, Kelvin, 44
God, 78 Laplace, Pierre-Simon, 17, 54, 76
Gödel, Kurt, 79 Lautrec, Toulouse, 119
Goffman, Erving, 87 Lavoisier, Antoine, 51
Greek Philosophy, 10 Leibniz Gottfried, 73, 115
Lenin, Vladimir, 90
Liberalism, 116
H Lifestyle, 101
Healthy diet, 67 Lipsey, Richard, 44
Hegel, Friedrich, 39 Lorenz, Conrad, 29
Heine, Heinrich, 80 Lyell, Charles, 55
Hempel, Carl, 60
Heredity vs. environment, 34
Herodotus, 2 M
Hilbert, David, 115 Machiavell, Niccolo, 116
Hiroshima, 80, 85, 89 Maimonides, Moses, 76, 81, 87
Historicism, 90 Male and female differences, 33
Index 137
Malthus, Thomas, 92 Presuppositions, 33

Marshal, Alfred, 49 Priestley, Joseph, 52
Marx, Karl, 39, 88, 90 Primitivism, 107
Maslow, Abraham, 28 Psychoanalysis, 88
Materialism, 73
McCarthy, Joseph, 31
Meaning, 38 Q
Medicine, 93 Quora.com, 34
Mendel, Gregor, 50
Mendeleev, Dmitri, 78
Meritocracy, 116 R
Metaphysics, 69 Racism, 29
Mind-body problem, 71 Radicalism, 115
Modern art, 118 Raegan, Ronald, 104
Modigliani, Amedeo, 119 Reductionism, 72
Monarchism, 110 Refutation, 45
Monogamy, 35 Relativism, 18, 19, 22
Moral relativism, 108 Resnais, Alain, 119
Moscow show trials, 87 Revenge, 106
Rhetoric, 21
Robbe-Grillet, Alain, 119
N Russell, Bertrand, 4, 20, 70–72, 79,
Nagasaki, 85 113, 115
National rights, 112
Neutral monism, 73
Newton, Isaac, 49, 75 S
Non-government organizations, 104 Second best theorem, 43
Sexual freedom, 105
Shaw, Bernard, 18, 35
O Simplicity, 50
Occam’s razor, 51 Skepticism, 102, 117
Oedipus complex, 87, 88 Socrates, 39, 85, 102
Offenbach, Jacques, 119 Sophism, 18
Offspring responsibility, 107 Sophists, 10
Opportunity cost, 28 Space-shuttles, 99
Spinoza, Benedict, 73, 76, 116
Stahl, Georg Ernst, 51
P Statistics, 34, 59
Paradigm cases, 38 Stone, Oliver, 87
Parallelism, 73 Strangeness of the world, 46
Pasteur, Louis, 46 Strauss, Johan, 119
Peano, Giuseppe, 115 Subjunctive conditionals, 84, 85, 88
Phlogiston, 51 Substance, 72
Physico-theological argument, 80 Sympathy, 103
Picasso, Pablo, 120
Plato, 2, 18, 22, 23, 79, 85
Plausibility, 16 T
Poincaré, Henri, 90 Talmud, 12
Politics, 102 Tax, 109
Popper, Karl, 51, 52, 60, 69, 79, 88, 90, 110 Technology, 93
Postmodernism, 18 Teicholz, Nina, 67
Prediction, 65, 67 Thales, 83
vs. explanations, 52 Tversky, Amos, 48
138 Index
U Wolfenden, John, 107

Utility, 97 World government, 113
Utopia, 115 Wright brothers, 7
Würzburg school, 74
W
Welfare, 97, 103 Z
Whitehead, Alfred, 115 Zamenhof, Ludwik, 115
Wilson, Woodrow, 112 Zuckmayer, Carl, 84
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 17–19, 69–71, 79

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Joseph Agassi

ISBN 978-3-319-33306-9 ISBN 978-3-319-33307-6 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016938794

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

Printed on acid-free paper

This Copernicus imprint is published by Springer Nature

Most people get involved in arguments on some occasions or other. Unfortunately,

Tel-Aviv, Israel Joseph Agassi

1 On the Frustration That Debates Cause ............................................... 1

9 Disputes About Technology, Including Medicine ................................. 93

Appendix: Skepticism ..................................................................................... 127

Bibliography .................................................................................................... 133

Index ................................................................................................................. 135

Tel-Aviv University Joseph Agassi

Abstract In contemporary society disputes are usually considered frustrating and

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 1

ing view can be reconciled is an example of an expression of dislike of disagree-

Avoiding Frustrating Debates

Disagreements, disputes, debates, arguments, and confrontations are quite common

Some traditional societies explicitly proscribe debate, although not necessarily

Abstract Do not try to resolve disputes by measuring objectively the plausibility

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 15

of dissatisfaction. It likewise often comes with a sense of strong bonding that is

Debates About Theories

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 27

alternative—which is quite legitimate, of course—or there is no dispute at all. These

indignation at people who read it as obviously false or as obviously true. We should

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 41

Generalizations and Existential Statements

Abstract Debates on answers to factual questions invite considering first what

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 45

science can be inaccessible to common people, and referring to their psychology is

Philosophers of science, or rather methodologist, namely, students of the rules of

Predictions vs. Explanations

Conspiracy theories so-called provide an example for the difference between

expectation is a mere coincidence. Therefore, any dispute on whether the existence

The Theory of Evolution or Evolutionism

Abstract Discussing differences between samples, remember that within large

Many disputes refer to statistical generalizations, such as:

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 59

conditions for an event; for, to repeat, we never know. In contemporary western

To repeat, one of the main risks involved in discussions of statistical generalization

Debates About Healthy Diets

Abstract Metaphysical opinions under dispute often entail strange conclusions.

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 69

undergo critical discussion in which it should be examined in some detail. It is not

The Mind-Body Problem

And Wikipedia presents a similar statement:

Reduction is a technical word. As long as “if-then” statements are enough for

The Problem of Free Choice

We now turn to another classical dispute—about the so-called problem of free

minist worldview, an understanding that Laplace strongly advocated, so that at

What Is Really the Case?

Does God Exist?

The preliminary discussion as we have developed it here in order to avoid frus-

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016 83

example becomes interesting if a predicted item of evidence to be found in records

any scientific theory or hypothesis: by appeal to repeatable observations that we can

Many disputes refer to technological questions regarding technology in general (or