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Showing posts from May, 2022

Schopenhauer's 38 Stratagems, or 38 ways to win an argument

Schopenhauer's 38 ways to win an argument are: Carry your opponent's proposition beyond its natural limits; exaggerate it. The more general your opponent's statement becomes, the more objections you can find against it. The more restricted and narrow his or her propositions remain, the easier they are to defend by him or her. Use different meanings of your opponent's words to refute his or her argument. Ignore your opponent's proposition, which was intended to refer to a particular thing. Rather, understand it in some quite different sense, and then refute it. Attack something different than that which was asserted. Hide your conclusion from your opponent till the end. Mingle your premises here and there in your talk. Get your opponent to agree to them in no definite order. By this circuitous route you conceal your game until you have obtained all the admissions that are necessary to reach your goal. Use your opponent's beliefs against him. If the opponent refus...