Daily Insight:

St Thomas' Guide to Good Debate

St Thomas Aquinas—famed theologian and pillar of the Scholastic movement—perfectly frames good debate in his work, and it's still relevant eight hundred years later.

With his résumé, you'd bloody think so. . .

This wisdom lies in his five-stage argumentation style famously used in the Summa Theologica, a hefty compendium of Catholic dogma.

To fully appreciate it, we first ought to diagnose the problem—what's wrong with modern debate?

Everything, really.

Algorithms choose outrage over substance; we see rapid-fire debate formats masquerade as thoughtful—and maybe some are—but all it takes are a few emotional morons to get the viral clips going.

Discourse itself has become short-form, reduced to buzzwords and talking points that seem to follow the same trend cycle as a pair of jeans.

Beneath our modern troubles, human nature gets in the way: our innate aggression wants us to win, to intellectually dominate, and this prevents us from conceding even if it serves the truth.

Granted, we don't always have to talk like debate club nerds with a broom up our ass. There's a time and place for shithousery, but lets not pretend it's constructive.

So what are the common threads of bad debate?

One is the dreaded strawman, and upstream of this, a lack of respect for your opponent.

The strawman is when you prop up a false argument—one which they never made—and dismantle it to claim a 'win,' when in fact you were punching at clouds while being too stupid or malicious to face the real argument.

i.e. putting words in people's mouth.

One reason this happens is that we frame our opponent as misguided, stupid, or even wicked—they are wrong, we are right, and this conversation is a chance to 'teach' them.

How selfless . . .

Whether subconscious or overt, it's destructive and leaves no room for humility or growth.

To approach debate with good faith, we must accept that our opponent has unique knowledge, experience, and self-interest which they draw conclusions from, exactly like us.

To respect this, we use the steelman.

Instead of desecrating their argument or fabricating one out of thin air, we instead fortify it; we listen carefully, give them full credit, and even add to it to make it as strong as possible.

If a strawman is like gossip behind someone's back, then a steelman is facing them in the ring—it's the honourable thing to do.

Thereon, you are free to criticise.

St Thomas systematised the steelman in his Summa, and these are the five steps which formed the basis of each section (with some very dumbed-down examples):

To steelman an argument is to show good faith, and to top it off, Aquinas outwardly shows respect for those he cites, even if he doesn't necessarily agree with their philosophy.

We see this in the reverent titles he grants to his sources:

Aristotle is 'The Philosopher.'

Averroes, an Islamic scholar, is 'The Commentator.'

Maimonides, a Sephardic philosopher, is 'Rabbi Moses.'

Marcus Tullius Cicero got the pet-name treatment—Tully.

In our debates, whether they are over a pint in the pub or within a formal essay, we ought to serve truth over ego, fact over 'victory,' and respect above animosity.

This is the essence of good debate, and today, we need it more than ever.

Yours,

Odysseas

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Cognify

With the inevitable march of AI, I like to put a spotlight on programs which promote thought instead of replace it—Cognify is one of these budding gems.

The problem with most AI learning apps is how they trade substance for convenience; rather than encourage you to read actively and truly understand an answer, they do the thinking for you and offer a
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀skimmable

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀easy

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀summary

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀which you scan for five seconds and move on . . .

Cognify helps you slow down and integrate ideas into your mind.

It lets you annotate replies, organize your learning projects, and best of all, it can test your knowledge with assessments—this means better recall, and a reason to actually pay attention to answers instead of tuning out.

Cognify is young but promising, and to give it a try for yourself (for free), head to https://cognify-ai.app/ and sign up with 'cognifyodysseas'

There's also a Slack you can join for bug reports, feature feedback, and general discussion with fellow users on all things learning and productivity.

(sponsored segment)

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Links

Article - Are women more Left-wing? (Mary Harrington, UnHerd)

Britain—like much of the West—has de-industrialised, embraced birth-control and abortion, and heralded the information economy, the so called 'white-collar' roles.

This articles explores how those trends affected men and women's prospects, and most interestingly, how the identity of the British centre-left has changed as women entered the workforce.

For such a short article, it's rich in sociology and history. Good stuff.

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Podcast - Eating and Drinking to the Glory of God (Prof. Michael Foley, The Thomistic Institute)

Since Thomas Aquinas has already colonised this email, I'll throw this in too: whether you are religious or not, this is a thoughtful look at the culture of food and drink.

How do we make it serve families and individuals?

How do we reconcile our desire for food and the death of animals?

How do we drink in a way to honour life and not detract from it?

It's surprisingly theological, and not something we give enough attention.

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Video - Why everyone stopped reading. (Jared Henderson)

You (and the whole email list tbf) already know how great Jared's video essays are, but I'm putting this here just in case.

This is a snapshot of how and why America gave up on books, and I like how it goes deeper than "phone bad," looking at educational reforms and even how we learn to read as children.

Lots of notes were taken—that says enough.