Books: Practical Argumentation

G >> George K. Pattee >> Practical Argumentation

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A jury having been empaneled to try him, he pleaded guilty, his
counsel urging, as a reason for clemency, that the violation of this
statute was a habit of the New York banks in the Wall Street district,
and that if the wrecked bank had not followed this law-breaking custom
of its competitors the stock brokers would have withdrawn their
account. The plea was successful, and the officer escaped with a small
fine. Imagine a burglar or a pickpocket urging a plea for clemency
based on the general business habits and customs of his criminal
confrères! [Footnote: The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 94, p. 173.]

Mr. E. A. Freeman, the historian, once made the statement that English
literature cannot be taught. His course of reasoning was to the effect
that it is impossible to teach a subject in which one cannot be
examined; and he maintained that it is impossible to hold satisfactory
examinations in English literature, since this is a subject which is
studied for the purpose of cultivating the taste, educating the
sympathies, and enlarging the mind. If this reasoning proves anything,
it has been pointed out, it proves too much. What Mr. Freeman says of
English literature may equally well be said of Latin, Greek, and every
other kind of literature. But as Latin and Greek literature have been
successfully taught for hundreds of years, Mr. Freeman's argument is
absurd.

College students are continually urging as a defense of
professionalism in their own athletic teams the argument that since
other colleges employ professional players it is necessary for them to
do likewise. By carrying this argument a step farther, one could show,
with equal reason, that since drinking, stealing and cheating are
prevalent in other colleges, these same practices should also be
indulged in at the college in question. In the same way one may refute
by _reductio ad absurdum_ all such arguments as, "Custom has
rendered the spoils system desirable"; "The prevalency of the high
license law shows its superiority to prohibition"; and "Since in the
past all college students were required to study Latin and Greek,
these subjects should be required at the present time."

II. THE DILEMMA.

Another device an arguer will often find useful in refuting an
opponent's statement is the _dilemma_. In the dilemma the arguer
shows that the statement he wishes to disprove can be true only
through the truth of at least one of several possibilities. He then
proves that these possibilities are untenable, and therefore the
original statement is false. To represent the dilemma with letters:
The truth of A rests upon the truth of either x or y; but as x and y
are both false, A is false. Once when it was believed in certain
quarters that Japan was about to undertake a war against the United
States, many people maintained that if Japan desired to go to war she
was amply able to finance such an undertaking. In reply to this
contention, a certain newspaper, making use of the dilemma, said that
since Japan had no money in the treasury she could meet the expenses
of war in only three ways: either by contracting a large debt, or by
increasing taxation, or by indemnifying herself at the expense of the
enemy. The paper then went on to prove that Japan was not in a
position to float a large loan, that taxes in Japan were already as
heavy as the people could bear, and that she could not hope, at least
for a long time, to secure any indemnity from the enemy. Therefore
Japan was not in a financial position to enter upon a war with the
United States.

In attempting to show that municipalities do not have the moral right
to own and operate public utilities, T. Carpenter Smith uses the
dilemma. He says:--

"Any commercial business is carried on either at a profit, or at a
loss, or in such a way that the expenses equal the income. If the city
business of gas or electric lighting is to be carried on at a profit,
then those citizens who use gas or electric light will be charged a
high price for that light, in order to pay the profit, not only to
themselves, but also to those who do not use it. If the works are to
be carried on at a loss, then the citizens who do not use the gas or
electric light will pay taxes to furnish a convenience or economy to
those citizens who do use it. If the works are to be operated exactly
at cost, then the city will carry on a business from which it will get
nothing, but in which it will have to take the labor and risk incident
to such a business in order to benefit only some of its citizens,
furnishing a commodity not desired by all."

In conversation and debate, the dilemma is frequently introduced by
means of a question. The debater, wishing to trap his opponent, asks
him a pertinent question which previous investigation has shown can
possibly be answered in only two or three ways, and which the opponent
cannot afford to answer at all. A good illustration of this device
occurs in the New Testament.

And it came to pass, on one of the days, as he was teaching the people
in the temple, and preaching the gospel, there came upon him the chief
priests and the scribes with the elders; and they spake, saying unto
him, Tell us: By what authority doest thou these things? or who is he
that gave thee this authority? And he answered and said unto them, I
also will ask you a question; and tell me: The baptism of John, was it
from heaven, or from men? And they reasoned with themselves, saying,
If we shall say, From heaven; he will say, Why did ye not believe him?
But if we shall say, From men; all the people will stone us: for they
be persuaded that John was a prophet. And they answered, that they
knew not whence _it was_. And Jesus said unto them, Neither tell
I you by what authority I do these things. [Footnote: Luke xx, 1-8.]

During the Lincoln-Douglas debates in 1858, when both men were seeking
the United States senatorship from Illinois, Lincoln, wishing either
to kill Douglas's senatorial prospects or to head him off from the
presidency two years later, asked him a question which put him in a
dilemma. Ida M. Tarbell describes the question as follows:--

"Can the people of a United States territory in any lawful way,
against the wish of any citizen of the United States, exclude slavery
from its limits prior to the formation of a State Constitution?"
Lincoln had seen the irreconcilableness of Douglas's own measure of
popular sovereignty, which declared that the people of a territory
should be left to regulate their domestic concerns in their own way
subject only to the Constitution, and the decision of the Supreme
Court in the Dred Scott case that slaves, being property, could not
under the Constitution be excluded from a territory. He knew that if
Douglas said _no_ to this question, his Illinois constituents
would never return him to the Senate. He believed that if he said
_yes,_ the people of the South would never vote for him for
President of the United States.

In the last example, Lincoln, by forcing Douglas to answer this
question, sought to destroy, and, as history shows, did destroy, the
popular conception of Douglas's fitness for public office.

Before one can safely use the dilemma he must carefully investigate
every phase of the statement that he wishes to refute. If he is to use
the dilemma directly, he must consider every possibility--commonly
called the horns of the dilemma--upon which the truth of the statement
may rest. If there is a single possibility which he is not ready to
meet and overthrow, his whole effort is fruitless. For instance, a
debater, in attempting to rebut the statement that college
fraternities are harmful, said that his opponent must show that
fraternities are either morally, socially, financially or
intellectually detrimental to their members; he then proved as best he
could that in these respects fraternities are beneficial rather than
harmful, and sat down thinking that he had gone a long way toward
winning the debate. His opponent then arose and admitting nearly
everything that had been said, based his argument on the idea that
fraternities were harmful _to the college as a whole_. The first
speaker had not considered every alternative. If an arguer is to
approach a dilemma through the medium of a question, he must be sure
that he knows every reasonable answer that his opponent can make. When
one has satisfied these conditions, he can use the dilemma with great
effect.

By way of summary it may be said that the successful arguer must both
build up his own proof and destroy his opponent's. To accomplish the
latter one has to know what to refute and what to leave alone; he must
distinguish between the important and the unessential, and he must
take care not to "refute himself." Since proof consists of evidence
and reasoning, the first step for him to take in refuting an argument
is to apply the tests for each, and if possible show where his
opponent has erred. In the next place, he should see whether he can
discover and point out any of the more important fallacies; the ones
mentioned here are _begging the question_, _ambiguous terms_,
_false cause_, _composition and division_, and _ignoring the question_.
Should the arguer find any of these fundamental weaknesses, it is
ordinarily sufficient merely to call attention to them; for the sake
of emphasis, however, one may make use of two especially effective
methods of refutation, _reductio ad absurdum_ and the _dilemma_.

EXERCISES.

A. Criticize the following arguments and point out the fallacies they
contain:--

1. Four thousand men have taken examinations at Princeton under the
honor system, and only six of these were found guilty of "cribbing."
This record shows conclusively that the honor system restrains
dishonest work in examinations.

2. Athletics do not injure a man's scholarship; one of the best
players on last year's football team attained such a high grade that
he was awarded a fellowship.

3. During the decade from 1870 to 1880, illiteracy among the negroes
decreased ten per cent., but the race grew more criminal by twenty-
five per cent.; from 1880 to 1890, illiteracy decreased eighteen per
cent., but criminality increased thirty-three and one-third per cent.
Who can now say that education does not injure the negro?

4. Since the honor system failed at Franklin and Marshall, it will
fail at ---- College.

5. Frequent athletic games benefit a college because they tend to take
the students' attention away from their studies.

6. The fixed curriculum of studies is effective in making a
specialist, because the specialist takes up only one kind of work.

7. Southerners are justified in keeping the franchise from the negro,
because the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution ought never to
have been passed.

8. Since the negro's devotion to the church is as great as that of
most white people, he is of as high moral standing as the average
unintelligent white.

9. Ireland is idle and therefore she starves; she starves and
therefore she rebels.

10. Every one desires virtue, because every one desires happiness.

11. The present term of four years is so short a time that the
President does not have opportunity to become acquainted with his
duties, for just as he is becoming acquainted with them he has to step
out of office.

12. This doctrine cannot be proved from the Gospels, nor from the Acts
of the Apostles, nor from the Epistles, nor from the Revelation of St.
John; therefore it cannot be proved from the New Testament.

13. Crime is a violation of the laws of our country; piracy is a
crime; this man belongs to a band of lawless men, and this band has
been taken in the very deed of piracy. Therefore he has violated the
laws of our country.

14. Since all presuming men are contemptible, and since this man
presumes to believe his opinions are correct, he is not worthy of our
consideration.

15. To prove to you that our standing army should be permanently
enlarged, I will show that every nation of any prominence whatsoever
keeps a standing army.

16. The elective system of studies is preferable to the prescribed
system, because

A. The student can elect those studies which will do him the most
good, for

1. He can elect what he pleases.

17. Strikes benefit the working man, because

A. They benefit him financially, for

1. If they did not, he would not strike.

18. When thirteen sit at table together, one of them always dies
within the year.

19. To decide whether or not strikes are justifiable it is necessary
to see if they have for the most part been successful in the past.

20. All the trees in the park make a thick shade; this is one of them,
therefore this tree makes a thick shade.

21. Italy is a Catholic country and abounds in beggars; France is also
a Catholic country, and therefore abounds in beggars.

22. Pitt was not a great and useful minister; for though he would have
been so had he carried out Adam Smith's doctrines of free trade, he
did not carry out those doctrines.

23. All criminal actions ought to be punished by law. Prosecutions for
theft are criminal actions, and therefore ought to be punished by law.

24. Books are a source both of instruction and of amusement; a table
of logarithms is a book; therefore it is a source both of instruction
and of amusement.

B. On each of the following arguments from authority write a paragraph
that will weaken its effect:--

1. "The Senate for more than a century has demonstrated the wisdom of
the mode of its constitution." Senator G. F. Hoar.

2. "Mine disasters are largely due to the intoxication of miners, or
to carelessness caused by the after effects of a 'spree,'" says Dr.
Jesse K. Johnson, superintendent of one of the largest mines in the
Pittsburg district.

3. Both Mark Hanna and Grover Cleveland have stated that a six year
Presidential term would be of great benefit to the United States.

4. Senator La Follet, who has made a thorough study of many of the
principal monopolies in the country, states that the Standard Oil
trust charges exorbitant rates.

5. Mr. Francis Walker, in the Political Science Quarterly, Volume
twenty, page fourteen, says that legislation against trusts has
improved conditions, and would therefore improve conditions in the
United States.

6. President Hadley, of Yale University, has said that the subsidizing
of ships on a large scale has been detrimental to France.

7. "The Indian who is not obliged to labor for his maintenance becomes
a lazy vagabond." Lyman Abbott.

C. Put the following article into the form of a brief and show exactly
what methods of refutation are used:--

THE OLD FRIGATE "CONSTITUTION."

The pretexts for removal of "Old Ironsides" from the waters in which
that historic ship had her birth are now reduced to two.

One of these is that the old boat takes up room at the Navy Yard which
is needed for the work of that establishment.

The other is that since the money expended in the restoration of the
frigate--less than $200,000--came out of the Federal Treasury, the
people of distant States ought to have the pleasure of seeing what
their money paid for without coming to Boston in order to enjoy it.

As for crowding the Navy Yard, that is an absurdity. His Excellency
Curtis Guild, Jr., in his letter to the Navy Department protesting
against the removal, quoted the officers in command at the Navy Yard
as declaring that "the ship in no way interferes with the work of the
yard, taking up no space that is needed for other purposes." The
Governor would not make such a statement in an official communication
without the clearest authority. "Indeed," he adds as his own opinion,
"the strip of wharf occupied is but a trivial portion of the long
water front controlled by the government."

There is the other pretext, namely, that because the "Constitution"
has been repaired at national cost, therefore any special claim that
Massachusetts may have upon this relic of Massachusetts patriotism is
removed. This idea has found crude and unmannerly expression in the
words of one of the committee of Congress looking over our navy yards.
"The agitation to keep the ship in Boston seems selfish," he is quoted
as saying. "It was the money of the whole people of the United States
that paid for its repair, and the people in other sections are as
justly entitled to see the ship as in Boston."

Coming from a representative of the State of Kansas, this is almost
amusing. His proposition to tow the ship around from place to place,
as it may be wanted for a show, suggests the practicability of a
canal, say, to Topeka, or to Fort Hayes.

The alternative proposition, namely, that Massachusetts shall repay to
the general government the cost of the repairs of the "Constitution,"
would have some standing were it a commercial affair. Massachusetts
has expended many times the cost of the repairs of "Old Ironsides" in
preserving for the nation the revolutionary sites and monuments upon
our soil. Payment for the repair and restoration of "Old Ironsides"
would be a bagatelle if the people of the United States were to demand
that this monument also shall be purchased by the people of
Massachusetts under threat of its removal.

But it is not a question of money; that is a contemptible suggestion.
Nor is it a question of bureaucracy. It is a simple, reasonable,
entirely practical demand of the historic sentiment of patriotism
which still warms the hearts and inspires the souls of Massachusetts
men.

CHAPTER IX

DEBATE--SOME PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS

Debate has been defined as the oral presentation of argument under
conditions that allow both sides to be heard. In both class room and
intercollegiate debating each side usually makes two speeches, a main
speech and a rebuttal speech. The main speech ordinarily extends over
a period of from seven to twelve minutes, according to the rules
governing the contest, and is largely constructive in nature. The
rebuttal speech, commonly called _the rebuttal_, is usually a
little less than half the length of the main speech, and is for the
most part destructive. It is almost superfluous to add that both sides
are allowed exactly the same amount of time in which to present their
arguments; that the affirmative side speaks first, the order being,
when there are several debaters, affirmative, negative, affirmative,
negative, and so on; and that all the main speeches are given before
either side makes a rebuttal speech. If there be only one debater on
each side, it is undoubtedly best for the affirmative to offer the
first rebuttal; if there be several debaters, the order is usually
reversed. The debaters on either side may or may not speak in rebuttal
in the same order as in the main argument.

HOW TO PREPARE FOR DEBATE.

In several ways the work of the debater differs from the work of one
who is preparing a written argument or who is to speak without being
confronted by an opponent. As far as the completion of the brief, the
work in all cases is the same, but at this point the debater has to
decide what special preparation he shall make for handling and
presenting to the audience the material that he has collected. He is
puzzled to know whether it will be worth while to expand his brief;
and if he does expand it, he is in doubt as to just what he should do
with the expanded argument.

A debater has his choice of several possible methods of procedure. The
simplest, though not the most effective method, is to write out the
argument in full, and to memorize it word for word. The weakness of
such a course lies in the immobility of its attack and defense. The
first speaker for the affirmative may decide beforehand exactly what
he will say and the order in which he will say it, but all those who
are to follow should adapt their arguments, to some extent at least,
to the exigencies of the debate. They will find it desirable to make a
change in one place in order to join their arguments harmoniously to
those of their colleagues; they will wish to make changes in another
place for the sake of assailing an obviously weak spot or in order to
ward off an unexpected attack. This versatility is practically
impossible if one is delivering an argument that he has memorized word
for word. Again, a memorized argument cannot carry with it the force
and the conviction that may be found in an effort of a more
spontaneous character. Furthermore, if a debater should be so
unfortunate as to forget even a few words of a memorized selection, he
would probably be forced to sit down with his speech only partially
completed.

Another method that some debaters follow is to memorize portions of
their argument and to extemporize the rest. This is open to two great
objections: first, it is difficult to join together gracefully the
memorized passages and the extemporized; and the second, the very
smoothness with which the memorized passages are delivered betrays the
crudeness and awkwardness of the extemporized parts.

A third method, and undoubtedly the best one for the student to adopt,
is not to expand the brief before he debates, but to memorize the
greater part of it _as a brief_. In this way a debater has his
ideas well in hand, and, without being tied down to any particular
manner of expression or obliged to follow any set order of procedure,
he can use his material as opportunity requires. His language should
be at least partially extemporaneous; he may have a fairly clear
conception of how he is to frame his sentences, but he should have
nothing learned word for word. Thus his speech may have an element of
spontaneity that will give it a tone of sincerity and earnestness
unattainable when one is repeating a memorized passage. Too much,
however, must not be left to the inspiration of the moment; no student
should ever try to debate without first attempting in his room to
expand his brief orally. He is sure to meet with considerable
difficulty the first time he tries to formulate his ideas in clear,
forceful, and elegant language; but several attempts will produce a
remarkable change. After a few endeavors he will discover ways of
expressing himself that he will remember, even though the words vary
greatly each time.

The superiority of this method is marked. It enables the debater to
become perfectly familiar with all his material, and it gives him a
fairly good idea of what language he shall use. He is not, however,
bound down to any set speech; he can alter his argument to suit the
occasion. Should he unexpectedly find that his opponent has admitted a
certain idea, he can merely call attention to this fact and not waste
valuable time in giving superfluous proof. If he sees that his
opponent has made such a strong argument that some refutation is
necessary at the outset in order to gain the confidence of his
audience, he can instantly change the order of his proof and begin
with a point that he had, perhaps, intended to use in another part of
his speech. In fact, this method enables one to _debate_ rather
than to _declaim_.

In most debating contests it is permissible for the contestants to
make use of a few notes written on small cards that can be carried in
a pocket or held unobtrusively in the hand. Such a practice, if not
abused, is commended by some teachers of argumentation. On these cards
the debater can put down the main headings of his brief, all
statistics that are difficult to remember, and all quotations. _He
had better not refer to these cards for the headings of his brief if
he can possibly avoid doing so_. It will be a great stimulus,
however, for him to know that he has this help to rely on in case of
necessity. Statistics and quotations he may read without hesitation.

One should speak his debate many times by himself, not only for the
purpose of gaining facility in expression, but also for the sake of
condensing his material to an argument that will approximately occupy
the exact time allowed him for debating. It is a deplorable fact that
many debaters try to say so much that when their allotment of time has
expired they find themselves in the very midst of their argument. Such
an ending leaves the audience confused and unimpressed. No debater
should ever omit his conclusion. If there is only one contestant on
each side, a conclusion is certainly necessary both for the sake of
clearness and emphasis, and because an unfinished argument is not a
unit. If there are several contestants on each side, the fact that the
opposing speakers intervene and distract the attention of the audience
makes it even more necessary that each debater end his argument with a
formal conclusion, and by means of it bind his work to that of his
colleagues.

REFUTATION.

As much time, if not more, should be spent in preparing the
destructive as in preparing the constructive portion of an argument.
One can determine beforehand almost exactly how he will establish his
side of the proposition, but just what material he will need to
overthrow his opponent's proof will depend upon how that proof is
constructed. Ordinarily one can predict what lines of reasoning an
opponent will take; in fact, no one should ever attempt to debate
until he has studied the proposition so thoroughly that he can
anticipate practically all the arguments that will be advanced. Yet
until he sees on what points the emphasis is placed, what arguments
are ignored, and what evidence is used, he cannot tell for sure what
facts and what inferences will be most valuable as refutation.
Therefore, a debater who wishes to offer good refutation must have a
wealth of material at his command and be able to select instantly the
ideas that will be of the greatest value.

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