PoV … right. Now, moving along:
I suspect that a rigorous dialectical analysis (dialogics?) would evidence that a number of perspectives are valid, credible, and plausible. To revert to the vernacular: there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
And so decisions are then derived, quite properly, according to the human values at play: here we would see the play of various principles.
The point to the exercise is always that a) most people cannot put forward arguments in support of their opinions and b) most of those few supporting arguements are simply wrong.
What comes to mind is that rationality needs to get its foot in the door of public argumentation and that it does so. But it does so again and again and again with only slight progress: each victory gains little and every defeat is costly. What the “Participatory Deliberation” system produces using the POV method is a set of substantial foundation blocks.
Is this of value? Is anything except material wealth?
Does this matter? Does anything except brute power?
May 26th, 2005 on 16:36
POV response
a. why do people need to put forward arguments in support of their opinions? Each person is allowed to have whatever opinion they want to have. The world is nothing but opinions, and each persons opinion is unique to their experiences. Everyone is allowed to have their own opinon. As soon as you try to support your opinion over anothers, then it’s about competiveness. A kind of mental gymnastics trying to prove self-worth or something, but using ideas.
b. Who is to judge which arguments are wrong or right since each person has their own unique perspective? What would make yours right over someone else’s for instance? What criteria do you use? And why would someone else choose your criteria over their own?
A Point of View is just that, a point of view and changes with each person every moment.
POV2
May 26th, 2005 on 16:58
Re: POV response
NB: since you replied anonymously you will not receive EMail notification of my reply. LJ is 1) credible and well known, and 2) free … but you didn’t bother joining. (Or you’re hiding your identity.) I don’t know that this scenario says much for your maitrise.
“why do people need to put forward arguments in support of their opinions?“
They don’t. Next?
“ Each person is allowed to have whatever opinion they want to have.“
That’s true. Next?
“As soon as you try to support your opinion over anothers, then it’s about competiveness. A kind of mental gymnastics trying to prove self-worth or something, but using ideas.“
This sort of defeatism always makes me wonder if such people as this aren’t fundamentally pessimistic about human nature.
“Who is to judge which arguments are wrong or right since each person has their own unique perspective?“
Nobody. The competitiveness you see is yours, projected. Right now you’re being competitive, trying to “defeat” my post.
“Who is to judge which arguments are wrong or right since each person has their own unique perspective? What would make yours right over someone else’s for instance? What criteria do you use? And why would someone else choose your criteria over their own?“
If your PoV directs you to cancel our trip to the zoo cuz it’s raining, a verification process might get you to shift out of your self-indulgent solipsism … check the freakin’ weather through TV, or radio, or *gadzoooks!* a meteorological satellite image of your city on the internet.
Such a dismal view of human capabilities. “Knowledge is bad! If we try to share we’ll only fight! Everybody into each their own lifeboat! For those of you in the water, “”Thank you for flying Luftansa!”” [in-joke … old]
“A Point of View is just that, a point of view and changes with each person every moment.“
So what you wrote here isn’t true for anyone else … and, according to you, isn’t even true for you anymore.
bullshit / babble
May 26th, 2005 on 17:15
Re: POV response
I’m sure you don’t feel compelled or coerced, but you’ve shared your PoV … so from your own experience you /could/ talk about why we share our opinions. Instead you wonder why folk would “need to put forward arguments”. This makes me wonder: why do people make up problems against which to argue rather than respond to what’s at hand? But that’s speculative. The fact is that people are moved to engage in argument, or debate, or discussion … and maybe even into discourse (though that seems but a glimmering hope).
It’s generally accepted that we can a) clarify our own opinions and b) improve or even correct them. It’s also accepted that exchange is a way of doing this. (Note: there’s a problematic; unbridled exchange can easily act to increase polarization. see the literature on jury processes)
“The world is nothing but opinions” If you were so unfortunate as to be knocked down by a speeding driver then you would be quickly acquainted with facts, facts that others would share with you. Your statement is just plain silly. Worse: there’s a degraded version of PoMo thinking sweeping through our yuppified culture.
“As soon as you try to support your opinion over anothers, then it’s about competiveness.” So why are you competing against me? This project is about laying foundations using building-blocks of opinions concerning facts and actualities. This moves you to contradiction and contention?!
The question of just why people are happy to reinvent the wheel again and again certainly deserves the attention it has received in such as social-psych’s “discourse analysis”. But the fact is that not everyone is happy to spin their wheels.
BTW: as I quoted on the page to which I supplied the link: “Who knows only their own opinion knows only half the matter.” [A failed attempt; the quote is actually, “He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that.”) — John Stuart Mill.