Now the third common move in arguments to protect premises and, and avoid the
skeptical regress is discounting. Discounting is basically citing a
possible objection that you think other people might be thinking of in order to
head it off by providing a quick and dirty response to it right then and
there. For example, you might be talking to
someone and say, well, you know, I'm thinking of buying that ring, and it's
really beautiful. And your thinking, well they're going to
object that the ring is very expensive, too.
So you say, well, the ring is expensive, but it's beautiful.
So what you're doing is citing the objection.
It's kind of odd if you think about it. If you want to buy the ring why are you
saying that it's expensive. And the reason is that you have already
cited that objection which makes it less likely that a person on the other side
who doesn't want you to buy the ring is going to say it.
Because you've said I know that but it's more important to me that the ring is
beautiful. So I want to buy it.
So when you say the ring is expensive but it's beautiful you're saying that it's
expensive. That's the first thing.
You're saying that it's beautiful. That's the second thing.
You're saying, with the word but, that there's a contrast between the two.
And you're indicating that the fact that it's beautiful is more important than the
fact that it's expensive. You're saying all of that simply by
saying that the ring is expensive but it is beautiful.
So first, to say that the ring is expensive but is beautiful is to say two
things. It's like saying the ring is expensive
and it's beautiful. But in other ways it's very different
from and. Because if you say the ring is expensive
and it's beautiful you can switch them around.
It's beautiful and it's expensive. It's expensive and it's beautiful.
It's beautiful and it's expensive. You can say it either way.
If you say, it's expensive but it's beautiful that's very different from
saying it's beautiful but it's expensive. Think about it.
If you were trying to argue for buying the ring, which would you say?
Well, I would say, it's expensive but it's beautiful.
And if I'm trying to argue against buying the ring, I would say, it's beautiful but
it's expensive. Because the word but indicates that the
sentence after it is in some way more important than the other clause.
You're discounting the other objection and citing after the but clause the
reason for the belief or action that you favor.
Thus, and, and but are very different. The sentences on either side of and are
reversible. And the sentences on either side of but
are not reversible. And there are other words that are
discounting phrases like but that work the same way but fall in a different
place. Consider the word although.
You can say although the ring is expensive, it's beautiful.
And that sounds like the ring is expensive but it's beautiful.
So those are the sentences that someone would use if they're arguing for buying
the ring. Because they want to emphasize that the
ring is beautiful. The difference is that the word but
occurs right before the clause that's getting emphasized where as the word
although occurs before the clause that's de emphasized and it's the other clause
besides what the speaker takes to be more important.
So but and although are each discounting words but the but occurs before the
emphasized clause and although occurs before the de-emphasized clause.
What is common to these words like but and although is that they do three
things. They assert two claims.
They contrast those two claims, and they indicate that one of those claims is more
important than the other. And there are lots of words that perform
these functions. It's not just but and although.
You have even if, even though, whereas, nevertheless, nonetheless, still.
And, as with other words that we've been studying, like argument markers for
example. Some of these words get used in other
ways. So, the word still isn't always a
discounting term. You say he's sitting still.
You're not discounting an objection. It's when you use the word still at the
beginning of the sentence. Still,
the diamond is beautiful or something like that.
Then the word still getting used in discounting word.
And like with other words that we've studied if you want to know in a
particular case whether the word still is being used as a discounting word.
You ask whether you can substitute a different discounting word.
And the sentence will function in basically the same way and mean basically
the same thing. And if it does then is being used as a
discounting word and if it's not. Then, it's not being used as a
discounting word. So we can use the substitution method to
test for what the function of the word is.
So why do people use discounting words like these.
They use them in order to head off objections.
Because, if you state the objection first, then your opponent seems a little
silly to be saying it again. You just responded to that.
And so you can defend your premises, or protect your premises.
And avoid the skeptical regress by discounting the kinds of objections that
people would raise that might seem to call for further argument.
And that's a perfectly legitimate use. Sometimes you want to do that.
You don't want to let your opponent raise an objection.
Because that might be misleading and get you off on a tangent.
And it's a perfectly effective and useful legitimate move in an argument.
But you also have to watch out. Because there's some tricks associated
with discounting terms. In particular I want to talk about the
trick of discounting straw people. Well one effective move and argument if
you're just trying to persuade people is to make them not see the problems with
your position. And one way to do that is to say I've got
five objections I'm going to respond to you know.
You might say this but you might say that.
However you might say this whereas. You might say that still you might say
that although. Right and you discount all of those five
objections. And yet what you do is you get to pick
the objections, right?
So you can pick the easiest objections, not the hardest objections.
And then you've got the whole discussion focusing on the easiest objections and as
people are trying to keep all five of those in their mind straight, they forget
about the other objections which might not be even stronger.
So you discount these straw people. Straw meaning easy to knock over, easy to
destroy, and make people forget about the objections that are harder to destroy
that are going to cause more serious problems for your theory.
So if you don't really want to know whether your theory is right or wrong,
your just trying to persuade people, that can be an effective move.
And if you don't want to be persuaded by people who are trying to trick you like
that, then you have to watch out for other people discounting strawmen and not
facing the really more difficult objections to their views.
And, here's is an even trickier trick. You can combine this trick of discounting
straw people with other tricks that we saw for other words.
So, suppose somebody says, well you know the president is all in favor of some
kind of public health service. But a public health service is not going
to solve all the medical problems of our people so, I think the president is off
on the wrong track. Well, notice what has happened here is
you've discounted the objection that the public health service is going to solve
all of the medical problems from our people.
Who ever thought that a public health service would solve all of the medical
problems of the people? So you are discounting a straw man by
using an unguarded term all. You put the unguarded term in the mouth
of the objector, by not guarding it you make their view more susceptible to
refutation, and make it easier for you to respond to that objection.
Whereas the objector really would never have used the unguarded term but would've
used a guarding term like most, or many of the health problems of our people.
So by using discounting terms along with guarding terms, and also assuring terms.
You can make moves in argument that will point people towards issues that are
framed in the way you want them to be framed.
Instead of the way that they want them to be framed.
That's the trick that you have to learn to watch out for.
So here's a simple rule of thumb. When you think someone is trying to use
discounting terms to lead you to look at the easiest objections instead of the
most difficult objections then you can think about just forgetting the ones that
this person mentions. And ask what did they leave off the list.
And as a rule of thumb that's is usually a good idea but it's not always going to
work. You're going to have to use your
judgement. Still, try it.
Maybe it'll work in some of the cases where you want to stop other people from
tricking you. Now, you should have a pretty good grasp
on assuring, guarding and discounting, three common moves in argument, that are
aimed at stopping the skeptical regress, and building common assumptions with the
people you are talking to. Let's do a few exercises in order to
contrast these three and make sure you understand them.