12 RESPECT FOR STUDENTS BELIEF

An important condition for a real, good and honest argument is respect for the opponent’s beliefs and beliefs, if we see that they are sincere.

This condition is observed very rarely. Usually, people tend to think of a person who holds on to other beliefs almost the real enemy. This, of course, is a sign of either an uncultured and ignorant, or a narrow mind. Respecting another's conviction does not mean respecting its very content. It is difficult to even imagine how you can respect any thought in itself, apart from a person. It can only be recognized as true or false. To respect someone else's conviction, someone else's belief means to respect the sincere faith and conviction of a person in her and the right to have that same faith. That is what deserves respect and sympathy. “Shrine” for another person may seem to us a great delusion, but since this is for him a shrine, we must treat it as a human shrine.

In short, respect for someone else's faith and beliefs of others is one of the most important types of respect for the human person. Where there is little of the first, there is little of the last.

This, of course, does not mean that we should feel respect for lies and deceptions, which are often attempted to take the form of beliefs. But sincere conviction and belief is not a deception and a lie: it can only be a delusion. There is no doubt that delusion, whatever it may be, we not only can refute, but usually must do so; must fight it with all their strength, even if it were the “shrine of the shrines” for another person. But you can not fight like drunken men, who at the same time try to curse the enemy as offensively as possible, or even make a fist. There is a famous knighthood struggle. You can refute in the most decisive way, but without insulting others' beliefs with ridicule, harsh words, mockery, especially without mocking them before a crowd that sympathizes with us. Respect for other people's beliefs is not only a sign of respect for someone else's personality, but also a sign of a wide and developed mind.

Unfortunately, it does not occur very often. More often there are disputes about which the poet Semyon Nadson wrote (2nd half of the 19th century):

We argued for a long time, to tears of tension ...

But strange - brothers of different aspirations

And companions in life on a common path -

We tried to find a friend in the enemy? ...

Actually, this does not seem strange, if, as he continues to be somewhat lower, they sound in a dispute:

Fake moans, flashy phrases,

Vanity ...

In such disputes there are no sincere, deeply truthful convictions, which means there can be no respect for them. Both deeply true beliefs and understanding of their values ​​and respect for them are most often developed by work, suffering, life experience.

By the way, here you can bring some considerations that help others to deal with the tendency to consider our opinion to be the truth, and the rest - nonsense, the result of lack of thought or dishonesty. First , only the truths of our ordinary experience are simple and undoubted (for ordinary purposes); for example, I have no doubt that I slept that night and that I drank tea with lemon in the morning. But the harder and more abstract the truth, the less it is, accordingly, the less simple and the harder it is to achieve the right confidence in it. Meanwhile, a great many people absolutely do not understand this. It takes a lot of mental hard work and experience to come to the consciousness that Newton came to at the end of his life - that he collected only stones on the shore of the boundless ocean of truth. Only the one who tried to investigate it knows its immeasurability. And such a person is always humble.

The second thing that should not be forgotten is that a false thought is in most cases only partly false. Since ancient times, this is indicated, but without much benefit. “ I think there is no dispute, ” says the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solovyov, “ that any delusion that is worth talking about contains in itself an undoubted truth and is only a more or less deep distortion of this truth; it holds it, is attractive by it, is dangerous by it, and through it only it can be properly understood, evaluated and finally refuted . ” It must be remembered. But we should not forget that most of the "truths" that go beyond the simple ordinary experience are also not "pure truths", that they also have an admixture of delusions of greater or lesser, which we now can not evaluate. Maybe it will be appreciated by others, smarter than ourselves. And the thought of this should constantly soften the self-confidence and narrowness of our thinking and help to treat all views, even the completely opposite ones, with full attention and without neglect.

In general, anyone who neglects the beliefs or beliefs of others proves by this that he knows the truth. But it cannot be denied that the more ignorant a person is, the less developed his reason is, the more inclined he is to such confidence, and that is precisely the confidence in those questions about which he has a more vague concept. In a word, “the degree of conviction is not proportional to the amount of mental work expended on it, and perhaps the general rule is this: that the less certainty is based on reasoning, the stronger it is held for it” (Barbara Minto, “Logic”).

Remembering all these considerations and applying to himself, and not just to others, a person will significantly reduce the self-confidence of his own thoughts, and with it respect for the right of other people to think and solve questions in their own way increases, which plays a very significant role in a correct dispute. It is necessary to clearly realize that human knowledge is being created and is going forward through an unusually complex process of the struggle of opinions, beliefs and convictions. What we personally believe is only part of the struggling forces, from the interaction of which grows the magnificent building of human culture. All of them are necessary, and their struggle, an honest argument between them is necessary, and if one of them rules, suppressing the others and settling disputes and struggles, then the greatest enemy of moving forward comes: peace of stagnation. This is the death of mental life.

SOME GENERAL REMARKS ABOUT THE DISPUTE

In order to consciously conduct the right concentrated dispute, you need to have one rather rare skill: you need to be able to “cover the dispute”, that is, keep in mind the general picture of the given dispute, knowing what position it is in, what has already been done, what and what are we doing at the moment. Here, as during a real battle, it is important to constantly have in its head a general unfolding pattern. And not for one minute should we miss the main goal of the dispute - the thesis. Who knows how to cover the dispute, he has a huge advantage. He can quite consciously own the argument, draw up a plan of attack and defense, counting moves, set traps for the cunning sophist (as Socrates did in the dialogues of Plato sometimes). Contrary to this scope of the dispute, the usual property of most debaters is to keep in mind only that part of the dispute in which it is at that moment, to argue from the argument to the argument, without at all making up an idea of ​​the “whole” of the dispute and often forgetting even the thesis. Naturally, such a dispute itself tends to go into the shapeless and turn into a series of separate, mechanically interconnected bouts.

The ability to cover the dispute, in addition to the necessary capacity for this, requires conscious exercise. Especially this coverage is difficult in the oral dispute. In a written dispute, you can usually reread the dispute from its very beginning and thus resume its general pattern in memory. In an oral dispute, it is necessary to rely only on memory and, moreover, to expend force on the scope of the dispute so that it does not interfere with the deliberation of answers to the arguments of the enemy. It is much more difficult and requires quite a certain skill.

In many disputes, the disagreement between us and the opponent in the thesis and in the arguments is such that it depends on the disagreement on other, more general and profound issues, often in principles. And in no way can it be eliminated without first eliminating differences in these basic issues. This fact is well known. These basic ideas, the disagreement in which is the root of the disagreement in many other matters, are called the " roots of the dispute ." Since the argument concerns some abstract truths, assessments, and similar judgments that are not established by the same experience, you should always try to be aware of whether it has more or less deep roots. He who can do this will save himself from many useless words, and if he still needs to argue without falling to the roots of a dispute, he will be able to do it consciously, demanding from such a dispute only what he can give.

Often it is necessary to find out the roots of a dispute together with an opponent. If these roots are shallow and the dispute over them promises to be clearly worthless, the struggle for them becomes decisive for the whole dispute. But often the roots of a dispute lie very deeply or, for example, certain principles appear. Then we have to either enter into a “dispute over principles”, always difficult and long, in which one can sometimes hope to win, but very rarely to convince; or it is necessary to leave the dispute completely (“to argue no longer useful - there is a fundamental disagreement between us”). If both debaters do not see that the essence of their differences is in the roots of the dispute, and do not look for these roots, the dispute often turns into a series of meaningless and purposeless fights.

The argument for the principles of "to win" is an empty argument. About him nothing to talk about. The argument “for persuasion,” as already mentioned, rarely leads to a goal if the opponent has solid principles in this regard. You can enter into such a dispute only out of necessity. “Dispute for verifying the truth” is one of the best means in ordinary life for clarifying, substantiating and testing its principles. The real area for discussing principles is in science, sometimes at its very tops. Here disputes are often conducted for centuries, even millennia, with one or the other winning for a time. But many of these “roots” of our knowledge lie so deep that it has not been possible to reach their full depth and end the dispute even now.

Completing a dispute is not the same as ending a dispute. Every dispute ends, but not every dispute ends with it. The argument may end simply because they stop arguing. You can stop arguing for various reasons. For example, in an oral dispute, people sometimes get tired. Or no more time: late, it's time to sleep. Or they quarreled (which, alas, also happens, and not rarely) - the dispute turned into a quarrel. Or one of the opponents decided that it was enough to argue, “there will be no sense anyway,” and so on and so forth. The dispute ends when one of the parties abandons his point of view on the thesis, is convinced by the adversary. So a victory in a dispute is far from always completing an argument; she can only end this dispute. Therefore, the most serious disputes in science require many years and centuries for their completion, and some of them still cannot be considered completed, although they are over.

It can be said that the vast majority of our ordinary disputes only end, and do not end there. Opponents disperse, and each, apparently, remained at his. Such disputes are considered unsuccessful. But it depends on the objectives of the dispute and on the point of view of the dispute.

If the dispute is for the sake of direct conviction of someone, and this goal is not achieved, then, of course, the dispute can be considered unsuccessful. In all other cases, it may not be completed immediately, and at the same time very successful. He who argues for victory will be reconciled if he wins, that is, if, for example, the arguments of the opponent are broken and he does not find new ones and will shut up. The goal is achieved. If a dispute is being pursued to investigate truth, then this goal will be achieved in the same way with an unfinished dispute, as with a completed one. The various arguments for and against the thesis were expressed, compared, compared; different points of view emerged in the question being examined; the weak and strong points of our evidence became clear, perhaps new evidence was found, etc. The benefit can be enormous, even if the question has not been resolved. Socrates's controversies in the Platonic dialogues are rarely completed, and sometimes Socrates’s victory is doubtful — nevertheless, these disputes have had a tremendous impact on people of many thousands of generations. Similarly, in life, on a small scale. Finally, a controversy controversy may lead to a desirable goal, but not directly. Its results can affect not during it and not at the end of it, but after. The man argued hotly and stubbornly defended his thoughts, but secretly felt, perhaps, that there was some truth in the considerations of the enemy. Then, having thought it over, as follows, alone with himself, he, perhaps, with much of what his opponent said, will agree and change his thesis or (sometimes) even refuse him.

In turn, the completion of a dispute with its end is often imaginary. It seems that we have convinced the enemy. Sometimes he himself is sure of it. But then, having thought it over, he again dissuades. More often, it disregards without thinking at all. Our arguments simply acted during the dispute, and after the dispute they were forgotten, their impression smoothed out, and his previous convictions, views, moods, desires, etc., came to the forefront. And if our opponent remembers our argument, he can simply dismiss him

A person who is convinced against his will remains secretly at his previous opinion - all our most powerful arguments will be “pushed” by his psyche, as a cork is pushed out by water.

On the logical side, ending a dispute can lead to different results. Sometimes the dispute ends with a simple victory of the given thesis or antithesis, its recognition by both parties. Sometimes, under the influence of criticism, the thesis suffers large or small changes: reservations are made to it, inaccuracies are corrected, etc., and it is accepted by both parties in this modified and amended form. It also happens that during a dispute, it turns out that it is necessary to directly reject the thesis and a certain narrow antithesis put forward against it, and to accept some third, most often average opinion. For example, if the thesis is given: “this is an animal” and someone advanced against the antithesis: “this is a plant,” then, in the end, it may turn out that both were wrong: this is a special kind of living beings - neither an animal nor a plant, but any intermediate group. The true progress of knowledge is most often determined by the very conclusion of the disputes, in which it gives its due to the portion of truth that is contained in both contending opinions.