Reddit reviews EPZ How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic

First, you will have to convince me to release my secrets.

Okay I am kidding. But a while back I wanted to get really good at winning arguments. I bought books and learned the logical fallacies. When I tried to go into debates and the person I was debating would say "I believe god because no one has proved he doesn't exist" nobody was impressed when I would respond by saying "Oh that's the negative proof fallacy" Nobody cared if it was fallacy or not, the argument satisfied their need to believe in god. Study and application of formal fallacies work better in academic situations.

This taught me one important thing. People will not give up a position until they are emotionally ready to. No amount of logic in the world can overcome an emotionally committed believer. Ask anyone who converted from theism to atheism and I bet you the first traces of their atheism came with some sort of emotional realization or question ("Why does god allow suffering to exist?"). This means if you want to convince someone, you need to have what I might call "emotional foreplay" which does not need to be strictly logical, but opens the other persons mind to your position.

Once you have the person warmed up, you can start to present logic arguments. People love to be "logically correct", it makes them feel smart. Emotional readiness makes them feel righteous, logical correctness makes them feel intelligent. But remember that during your logical presentation you should still have an eye on their emotional readiness to accept your argument. Sometimes people go back to being emotionally not ready.

Also you have to know when to give up. Sometimes there are true believers who you could never convince in any worthwhile amount of time. It is useless to try and convince in private, but public debate can be good if you have an audience. With true believers, the goal is not to convince them (you wont, and if you try you will just be frustrated) it is to publicly shame them, and by extension shame what they represent. Don't make it too blatant, or the observer will see what you are doing and chose the other person out of pity. Pretend to come off as someone willing to compromise, someone reasonable. If you can walk the fine line between "too far" and "not enough" you will get to a point where the crowd sees you making perfect arguments, but your opponent will be unconvinced and become extremely frustrated, making them lash out. At that point, you win. Be careful when you do public shaming because it makes bitter enemies.

Also be aware of context. If you use shaming privately, you are doing it wrong. The right type of debate tactic for the right situation is needed.

EDIT: If you still want to learn about logical fallacies, I recommend this book for everyday arguments.

Sounds like a Fallacy of Composition: when one "infers that something is true of the whole from the fact that it is true of some part of the whole."

Alternatively, it can be a Hasty Generalization, if only after drawing a few marbles from a container, one were to conclude that all marbles must be like the drawn ones.

Recommended fallacy book: How to win every argument. The examples used are often quite amusing.

I think this book is one of the better catalogs of fallacies. It is just a big catalog. It is extensive and it is written to be accessible. Students like it.

Of course, there is no shortage of resources out there. I do think this is a valuable one.

For future reference.

The book that immediately comes to mind is How to Win Every Argument by Madsen Pirie. It's quite witty and really covers all of the fallacies well. The title is a bit cliche but that's how you sell books I guess. It's solid content

My other books are unfortunately in storage right now so I can't go to the shelf, but if I get a chance I will update this post with the titles, I need to review some of them anyway..

Intuitively, practice is the key.

I don't know shit but here are some resources you might be interested in:
Online Berkeley Rhetoric 10 course:
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/course_details.php?seriesid=1906978535

Book:
http://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Every-Argument-Abuse/dp/0826498949

See, the thing is, repeating what I say doesn't do anything. Learning to argue will make you a much more interesting person. I strongly suggest Thank You for Arguing and This gem of a book.

The latter requires a good deal of reading comprehension to truly gain anything from it, so good luck.

Have you read any of the more recent books on rhetoric and debate? I am referring to books such as Thank You for Arguing and How to Win Every Argument. What do you think of such books? Do you have any texts which you would recommend?

>Not that reddit needs to be anymore hostile and argumentative. But hey, you know that saying "Some men just want to watch the world burn."?
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>I did some magic with the google and came up with these results:
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>- Google Books
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>- Amazon
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>- Free domain PDF - Thanks /u/mybalzich and /u/8bitsince86
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>- Super Special Google Search
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>- Review
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>Edit: Fixed links
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http://www.amazon.com/EPZ-How-Win-Every-Argument/dp/0826498949
That's all you need baby.