Dear Viveka and Carlos,



Now I feel compelled to join in—defend myself in fact. Perhaps I’m just misreading, but I don’t think so. This is a long post as befits intellectual reputation saving. My apologies for the length.

(Almost all <snips> are from Carlos. When they are not, I’ll so note.)



Why I feel the need to join in:

<snip>

Your comment (as some of Susan's reactions) suffer from the same issues your machine learning software suffers: categorization errors. This is because you are picking up on a word ("rhetoric", or "emotion", or "logic", or "trousers", or whatever) instead of grasping the whole meaning of the whole argument. That is why my first reply to Susan complained about "shallow" interpretations.

<snip>



Allow me to let my “shallow” interpretive self revisit the thread. Looking at the history of categorization errors: respectfully my reply started because I read such an error—conflating rhetoric with marketing. Even if you think that this error took place within a larger argument, and therefore should be ignored, the problem was still a significant error within the context of a conversation on how to teach argument to design students.



Here is the error:

<snip>

1. The ability to master rhetoric

2. The ability to master and communicate rational thought



The text I quoted from you displays the concern of mastering rhetoric. In this particular case, to put it quite bluntly, the tools to market yourself.

<snip>



I wasn’t picking up on a word. Rhetoric is not trousers. It is the field of study on my diploma. And it deserves better than to be conflated with “trousers." Your post contained a categorization error. The study of rhetoric and the study of marketing are housed in two different disciplines.



You felt I had done a shallow reading. and later stated:



<snip>

Anyway, I wasn't even bashing rhetoric per se, which I have nothing against. What I was calling BS was the common use marketeers make of rhetoric,

<snip>



My mistake. But in my own defense, I saw categories 1 and 2.

Category 1 was “mastering rhetoric” as in a "particular case" being “to market yourself.” So the marketers make the categorization error?



Okay.



And then I thought we’d reached some common ground.

<snip>

though rhetoric is useful and important to master, it will be useless without the prior exercise of rational thinking (over the subject in question). Attempts at rhetoric over a subject the rhetor doesn't know in sufficient depth will fail, most of the time miserably, because without the proper logos your ethos and pathos will be laid bare.

<snip>



Unfortunately, our intellectual disagreement continued because I read a claim that is unqualified. Unqualified claims are something that I’ve been trained to question.

<snip>

Most importantly, rhetoric is a tool for communication/persuasion. It is never a tool for reasoning.

<snip>



I took issue with the unqualified claim. But I would argue that in my next post I kept clear categorical separation:

<snip from Susan>

 I need to state that rhetoric and rational thought are different, while claiming that rhetoric can be used as a tool for reasoning.

<snip>



While I am now clear that you believe rational thought does make room for emotion, in fairness to both Viveka and me, that is not what you imply in the statement, "without the proper logos your ethos and pathos will be laid bare.” But even that knowledge does not resolve the question I continue to consider. I explored whether or not rhetoric can be used as a tool for reasoning—not is reasoning but can be used as a tool for reasoning. Those two are not the same, and perhaps I did not make that clear. Allow me to do so now. I posit that rhetoric can be used as a tool for reasoning.



Within that positing, there is a related concern that I did not include in my last post. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to do so now.



I brought up the Lincoln/Douglas debates in part because they are studied as rhetoric, but also because this was a situation where (sadly) the facts were in dispute and in order to make a decision, one had to “know in sufficient depth.” However, it is impossible for the ordinary person to know everything in sufficient depth. Therefore, in order to reason, we need tools. Those tools I would argue could come in the form of those who do have sufficient depth, and my guess is that those who have sufficient depth have often taken a position because of it. While it is true that we could ask our experts to lay out the options as if they were equal choices, is that possible? And if not, once the choices are not equal, the speaker enters into persuasive territory. The facts are in dispute, but the content expert has arrived at the conclusion that one of the disputed facts is preferable. Ethos—meet logos (and probably pathos).



Of course, the thought experiment could be that all disputed facts are equal, which might be somewhat dispassionate. Some folks have tried that. For example, some brochures for the general public have come out of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon that make that attempt. I don’t know if those brochures helped the public to reason about a situation or just to maintain their present position. Because here’s the thing. New ideas and reasoning about them come with the problem of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance, as I’m sure you know, occurs as Harmon-Jones (1999) notes because humans are action oriented. We like to keep moving in the same direction. We have a hard time changing our cognitive direction. Her research on that topic suggests just how difficult it is for a new idea to be accepted. Tools for reasoning might include those that add weight to the new idea and account for that dissonance. (Or am I making a categorization error?)



I do appreciate what you have to say here:

<snip>

Comments suffering from categorization errors can only be valuable in a creative way. If we are trying to find new ways of looking at some subject, jumping from one category to another is one way of creating new ideas and discovering new connections. However, if we are having a "convergent" discussion on one particular subject, comments with categorization errors just generate noise.

<snip>



Does this list ever truly have a convergent discussion? Maybe; other research for another time. If it should have been convergent, did the categorization error "mastering rhetoric" with its link “to market yourself” generate noise or did it lead to an interesting exploration as Viveka suggests? I think it was the later. I had the opportunity to engage with some very interesting thinkers—yes that includes you. Despite your claim to my penchant for partial categorization errors and shallow reading (still, ouch), I find your thoughts challenging and interesting. (Take that.)



And as proof of your claim, without the creative "categorization error" that Dick Buchanan, David Kaufer and others explored between design and rhetoric... well who knows what I’d be doing.



I’ll also stop here for good and all for now, and join back on another day. (The dryer is still broken.)



I hope that everyone has a good weekend.



Susan





On May 16, 2015, at 1:06 PM, Carlos Pires <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:



Dear Viveka,



I had decided to not continue to delve into this subject on-list, but your remarks made me feel like I should clarify the following.



For starters, rhetoric has no place in logic.

Rhetoric makes use of logic, as of emotion.

That doesn't mean that there is a "place of rhetoric in logic".

Actually, it is the other way around.

Believing it is otherwise is a categorization error.

Rhetoric is the use of emotion and logic in an argument with the purpose of persuasion.

Take the persuasion away, and you're left with something that is NOT rhetoric.



Talking about a "place of rhetoric in logic" is tantamount to talking about a "place of carpenters in the forest": carpenters use wood, but that doesn't mean that the forest has anything to do with carpenters. If all the carpenters in the world would die in this exact moment, no single tree in the forest would miss any of them. Similarly, if rhetoric is completely banned and never used again, logic and emotion will still exist. The opposite does not hold: if logic and/or emotion were to disappear, rhetoric would be impossible. Hence, there is no "place in logic" for rhetoric, but there the other way around.

There is an old portuguese saying that goes:

"O que é que o cú tem a ver com as calças?"

It translates to:

"What has the ass to do with the trousers?"

It is like the "comparing apples and oranges" adage.

It means that, despite the fact that you wear your trousers to conceal those body parts, your body is categorically unrelated with any specific garment. You could live a perfectly happy life without trousers.

This is something that is so transparent to me, that I find it amazing that some people still struggle with this kind of problem.



Your comment (as some of Susan's reactions) suffer from the same issues your machine learning software suffers: categorization errors. This is because you are picking up on a word ("rhetoric", or "emotion", or "logic", or "trousers", or whatever) instead of grasping the whole meaning of the whole argument. That is why my first reply to Susan complained about "shallow" interpretations.

Free association exercises are all fine and dandy for the chaise longue or for a lazy afternoon outdoors while having a marguerita with your friends, but I do not find that free association is helpful in a thread in a research discussion list. That is why I kept babbling about "focus" and "objectivity" on previous replies.



Comments suffering from categorization errors can only be valuable in a creative way. If we are trying to find new ways of looking at some subject, jumping from one category to another is one way of creating new ideas and discovering new connections. However, if we are having a "convergent" discussion on one particular subject, comments with categorization errors just generate noise.



As for emotion in decision making, that is old news.

I deeply appreciate my fellow countryman Damasio's contribution (and in an emotional and non-logic way am proud that he is my countryman), and I enjoy very much his work, but my "hero" in this matter is Oliver Sacks (who unfortunately passed away recently).



I should probably stress that I never made any claim that "decisions can be made entirely logically". Unfortunately, misrepresentation of one's words is something common everywhere. Still, I always find it annoying, and I find it particularly disappointing in a research discussion list, where people are supposed to have a bit more focus and objectivity.



I will add that I share both your occupations, as I am a designer and a software developer.

However, I find situated cognition a better starting point than machine learning.

The limitations you refer to are not due to the roots of machine learning in logic, but to the fact that machine learning techniques are fundamentally flawed (as compared to actual human learning), as you will probably concur, in the light of the precepts of situated cognition.





Best regards,



==================================

Carlos Pires



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-------------------------------------------------------------

Design & New Media MFA // Communication Design PhD Student @ FBA-UL



Check the project blog:

http://thegolemproject.com





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