On Argument and Agreement
By Tyler
Theoretical Inevitability of agreement
In How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler argues that “One is hopeless about the fruitfulness of discussion if he does not recognize that all rational men can agree”1. This makes a lot of sense. When disagreements arise, what is fundamentally occurring is a dispute over what is true. Anyone who believes in truth, (and anyone arguing anything must belive in some truth) cannot believe that truth can be divided against itself (i.e you can’t have contradictions). Disagreements then, are the product of either misunderstanding between the parties or an asymmetry in available knowledge (wherein one individual is mistaken or less knowledgeable of the facts). Anyone who is honestly seeking truth, must be able to be brought into agreement with other truth seekers.
C.S Lewis, In Mere Christianity, makes a similar point. In the opening chapter Lewis writes, that when two people disagree on things:
… it looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are;2
What I find interesting is that both argue for a sense of humility. When we are seeking knowledge we must be open to the idea that we might be wrong. If not we are not honestly seeking truth. Likewise When we enter a disagreement, we must be willing to entertain the idea that we might have been wrong.
Is Agreement Inevitable?
I’ll be honest, when I first read this, I found myself in a bit of disagreement with Adler. Looking at the current state of discourse on almost any topic and you get plenty of empirical evidence of, apparently rational, individuals who cannot come to an agreement.
Still, I couldn’t escape the point that, If there is truth (which I do believe), and that our reason is a means to understand truth (again, something I believe), then two people who are both seeking truth, should be able to be brought into agreement.
I first came to rest on the idea that Adler’s point needed a slight amendment. Any two rational individuals who shared the same values or beliefs, can be brought into agreement.
My reasoning was that because the way we reason about things is built upon some core axioms of what we value and believe to be true, that is beyond reason. Of course two individuals who start with different values would come to different conclusions in rational ways.
But that’s where Lewis gets me. Certainly when people go to war or fight “like animals”, they are past the point of rational convincing. But at the moment of argument and quarrel, they must share some common ground. That value being that truth is real, it is knowable and it is worth knowing.
A possible Resolution?
So why then do we see people unable to come to agreement? Well I think it stems from the fact that we are not purely rational creatures. (As an aside, I think that that is a good thing). I also think that it stems from the fact that not everything is rationally discoverable. With those two stipulations, I think we can explain the gap between Adler and what we see in reality.
First, we are not entirely rational. We dig in our heels when we are wrong. We wander (or err) from Truth and set ourselves up as truth. Certainly this doesn’t prove that two rational people couldn’t come to a rational agreement, but it does pose the tough task of finding them first.
Allowing for our own imperfections, lets say that we found two genuine truth seekers (a much easier task). We still have to deal with the fact not everything is rationally knowable. Not everything that is True and worth knowing is knowable through a system of reason and logic. (Ironically this has, to some extent, been proven with logic). What then do our two truth seekers do when they disagree? How can they come to rational agreement about something that is outside the realm of reason? Do we just resign such questions to the realm of opinion and dispense with them?
A Solution to the Gap
I’d like to propose an alternate amendment to Adler, one that I think better describes how we can bridge gaps that seem unbridgeable. First is to recognize the importance of reason. We are not going to throw it out. Two honest truth seekers should be able to agree through reason. With that said sometimes reason is not enough. We need other means of convincing.
Because we are more than just rational machines, we can have alternate routes of bringing people to truth. These alternate routes should be based in other eternal values, like goodness and beauty. It is well known that rhetoric is powerful for convincing people, But why is it so convincing? Because it can link Truth with Beauty. Similarly, how often has an argument been dissipated by a kind word?
Conclusion
I admire Adler’s writing a lot. His book fundamentally changed how I read and learn, and I hope that my discussion does not come out as a criticism of his. Rather it was his writing that has inspired me to understand how we can better leverage all our values (Truth, Beauty and Goodness) to come into one mind with those around us. So if you find yourself in a seemingly impossible disagreement, think about how you can approach it with another tool.