Thank You for Arguing – Jay Heinrichs

Thank You for Arguing

Great book with fascinating insights into communication and logic – very easy read. I thought I would just outline the book for you – read it for awesome examples from Homer Simpson, Animal House, and other great speeches.  Try it on your significant other and see the awesome results!

First Priority! Set your goal – what is the desired outcome?

Three goals of persuasion

• Stimulate audience’s emotions
• Change its opinion
• Get it to act

Three core issues associated with persuasion:

• Blame (past tense)
• Values (present tense)
• Choice (future tense)

*Most productive arguments use choice as central issue but don’t let debate slide into values or guilt*

OFFENSE

Aristotle’s three powerful tools of persuasion

Argument by character – ETHOS

• Sympathy – registering concern and then change to fit own argument.
• Decorum – a leader’s tone, appearance, and manners; fitting in.
• Virtue – the audience believes you share their values. (must adapt to audience)
• Practical Wisdom – you appear to know the right thing to do on each occasion.
• Selflessness / Disinterest – the audience’s interest seems to be your only concern.

Argument by logic – LOGOS

• Concession – allowing opponent to score a point, agree, but still get one’s own desired outcome.
• Deduction – applies a general principle to a particular matter. Uses a commonplace to reach a conclusion, interpreting the circumstance through a lens of belief or value
• Enthymeme – premise therefore conclusion. You believe this, so you should do that. “We should [choice], because [commonplace].”
• Induction – starts with a specific then moves to the general. Use circumstance to form a belief. Use – facts, comparisons, and story when using induction.

Argument by emotion – PATHOS

DEFENSE

• 7 Logical Sins can be summed up as: Bad Proof, Bad Conclusion, Disconnect Between proof and conclusion:
  • False Comparison
    • I’ve never had an accident, so I can’t have one now
• Bad Example
  • Uses too few examples and interprets too broadly
• Ignorance as Proof
  • Lack of examples proves that it doesn’t exist or my theory has not been disproved so it must be true.
• Tautology
  • The proof and conclusion are the same – were here because were here
• False Choice
  • The number of choices are not the correct number – when did you stop beating your wife
• Red Herring
  • Distraction and straw man fallacy “Who drank my oj?” “Well, why aren’t the dishes done?”
• Wrong Ending
  • Proof fails to lead to conclusion – “Allow rock music and kids will start having drug parties.”