People Mainly Argue Just to Win, Not for Truth

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/arts/people-argue-just-to-win-scholars-assert.html?_r=1

I agree with the basic theory. It would confirm much of what I have noticed from others in life.

When I argue, it definitely isn't for truth.

Count me among the skeptics.. Don't get me wrong, it's an intriguing theory that may well turn out to have some validity to it. However, like most theories developed within evolutionary psychology, (until it can somehow be empirically proven) it should be regarded as little more than an example of Darwinian story telling—in other words, finding a human behavioral trait and attempting to create an explanation for why it exists via the narrow lens of natural selection.

I agree with Prof. Darcia Narvaez's contention that "reasoning is something that develops from experience, it's a subset of what we really know . . . The way we use our minds to navigate the social and general worlds involves a lot of things that are implicit, not explainable."

*I moved this thread to the science section, since it pertains to psychology.

I'm no psychologist but, isn't this theory just a form of 'surival of the fitest'? That if we only argue to win, then it reduces debate into little more than competiton? For example the fastest runner wins, the highest jumper wins, the person who debates longest - wins. Not necessarilly by having the correct answers or theories but just having more stamina, or pig-headedness, then anyone else.

So in a debate all you need to do is stick your fingers in your ears and hum a while untill everyone else has given up and gone home, win by default. Surely that is what politicians do anyway.

Celtiberian wrote:Count me among the skeptics.. Don't get me wrong, it's an intriguing theory that may well turn out to have some validity to it. However, like most theories developed within evolutionary psychology, (until it can somehow be empirically proven) it should be regarded as little more than an example of Darwinian story telling—in other words, finding a human behavioral trait and attempting to create an explanation for why it exists via the narrow lens of natural selection.

I agree with Prof. Darcia Narvaez's contention that "reasoning is something that develops from experience, it's a subset of what we really know . . . The way we use our minds to navigate the social and general worlds involves a lot of things that are implicit, not explainable."

*I moved this thread to the science section, since it pertains to psychology.

This does, even if true, in no way preclude the possibility that humans argue mainly to win. I presume that personality would be an obvious contributor to the degree of irrationality.

In my personal opinion, I view explanations stemming from the field of evolutionary psychology as more plausible, despite their interpretation "via the narrow lends of natural selection," than those originating from the bulk of contemporary philosophy, which boils down to little more than playing logical parlor games.

Sterile subjects such as the hard sciences, analytical philosophy, and mathematics, are obviously insulated from much of this, but even so, a primary focus upon "winning" (ego stroking in academia) does not prevent reasoned outcomes if the competitive realm is "reason." However, in subjects where value judgments cannot help but come into play, such as politics, economics, sociology, ethics, and so on, I cannot see how such cannot be the case. Our own socialist views depend ultimately upon subjective value judgments; this indicates that they are fundamentally irrational. This also means that the best we can do is to "fight" for the ascendance of our value judgments above those of others in the sociopolitical arena. This means that for us, reason is a weapon.

If reason truly were the primary factor people concerned themselves with as far as epistemology, politics, and ethics are concerned, then there would be absolutely no need for propaganda, mysticism, and dogma—or rather, these would carry little weight.

Nevertheless, I agree that empirical support, as with all scientific theories, is crucial.

Revolutionary Wolf wrote:In my personal opinion, I view explanations stemming from the field of evolutionary psychology as more plausible, despite their interpretation "via the narrow lends of natural selection," than those originating from the bulk of contemporary philosophy, which boils down to little more than playing logical parlor games.

I was somewhat of an evolutionary psychology enthusiast up until the last year or so—when I started reading some of the foremost critics of the discipline (e.g., Rose, McKinnon, Kitcher, Sahlins, Fodor, Richardson, Buller, etc.). Evolutionary psychologists posit that our brains consist of thousands of specific "modules," which evolved (by way of natural selection) to fulfill requirements for survival early in our development as a species. This, they claim, endowed humanity with an immutable paleolithic human nature. But therein lies the problem with the theory. For the claims of evolutionary psychology to be correct, our ancestral environment would have had to remain relatively static for millennia—which we have no reason to believe was the case. Recent developments in cognitive science have shown our brains are surprisingly flexible due to what's know as "neuroplasticity." This cognitive plasticity would have equipped our ancestors with the means by which to adapt to changes in their environment (and, thus, aid in survival) with much greater ease than the modularity hypothesis espoused by sociobiologists.

So while I don't necessarily believe every theory of behavior developed in the discipline of evolutionary psychology is wrong, I remain skeptical until they can be empirically verified.

Celtiberian wrote:I was somewhat of an evolutionary psychology enthusiast up until the last year or so—when I started reading some of the foremost critics of the discipline (e.g., Rose, McKinnon, Kitcher, Sahlins, Fodor, Richardson, Buller, etc.). Evolutionary psychologists posit that our brains consist of thousands of specific "modules," which evolved (by way of natural selection) to fulfill requirements for survival early in our development as a species. This, they claim, endowed humanity with an immutable paleolithic human nature. But therein lies the problem with the theory. For the claims of evolutionary psychology to be correct, our ancestral environment would have had to remain relatively static for millennia—which we have no reason to believe was the case. Recent developments in cognitive science have shown our brains are surprisingly flexible due to what's know as "neuroplasticity." This cognitive plasticity would have equipped our ancestors with the means by which to adapt to changes in their environment (and, thus, aid in survival) with much greater ease than the modularity hypothesis espoused by sociobiologists.

So while I don't necessarily believe every theory of behavior developed in the discipline of evolutionary psychology is wrong, I remain skeptical until they can be empirically verified.

I am far from asserting that evolutionary psychology is without its limitations. It is a relatively new science as far as its relation to sociobiology is concerned, and criticism is to be expected due to its strong hereditarian stance when it comes to the nature versus nurture debate. The field is not without its share of credibility, however.

The neuroplasticity argument was advanced to explain the origin of the human brain, and it bases itself in the empirically verifiable indicators of continuous climate vacillations in the past. The brain would have evolved as an instrument that provided flexibility, which is something I find plausible.