Schopenhauer’s 38 Stratagems, or 38 Ways to Win an Argument | Hacker News Reader

Schopenhauer’s 38 Stratagems, or 38 Ways to Win an Argument

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46 pointsthm18 comments

With the 36 Chinese stratagems, this makes a total of 74 stratagems you can rely upon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty-Six_Stratagems

These are interesting, but they're more for war rather than debate. I could imagine taking them metaphorically and using them in a debate, but it would be a lot trickier.

Paripi koumei!

This book should be read by everyone at least a bit interested into how a debate works.

The analytical prowess of Schopenhauer is brilliant and highlights very clearly many of the tactics everyone uses willingly or unwillingly when in need to convince or to prove a point.

A short and good read.

If anything, this drives home the point that debates are never about finding the truth. But what is the alternative? I don't know.

Socratic dialogue, where everyone is intent on building up a shared truth. Socrates talks about these two different ways of engaging in dialogue in Plato's works.

Ironically, Plato's Socrates rarely ever actually arrives at what he considers truth, most dialogues just end at an impasse. This is arguably why they're still so readable. They're more about teaching you how to think and question what you know than proselytizing some particular doctrine.

The greatest users of these tactics: politicians. They're great at not necessarily "winning an argument", but making it seem like they won to the weaker minded.

Some of these advance toward truth, but many do not. Did Schopenhauer's original make that distinction?

#6 sounds an awful lot like #2 + #3

It's a subtle difference, #2 is arguing against a different meaning of the words than you are intended (what do you mean 2+3=6? Everyone knows 2+3 = 5), #6 is actually changing the words you are saying (what do you mean #2 is #3 + #6?! that doesn't make sense!)

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