Different Premises

If the starting point—the premises or assumptions—of the two parties in an argument are different, shifting them can be difficult. Socrates’ technique was to change the other person’s mind by showing that their premise led inexorably to an absurd or undesired conclusion. This is an application of what is now known as the law of non-contradiction: a statement cannot be true if it, or an inference arising from it, contradicts another statement that is known to be true. The weakness is that, if the premise is held firmly enough, the method may not work: the person “knows” that the premise is true, so even if an argument leads from that to an absurd conclusion, it must be the argument that is wrong, not the premise (Denial).^D34

Disagreements between premises tend to be stable. If you are in a meeting, and you disagree with the conclusions, you may still be able to make helpful contributions to the discussion. If you disagree with the premises, you have to go in with a complex and lengthy explanation which no one wants to hear: you threaten the ability of the meeting to achieve anything at all. The probability is that, next meeting, you won’t be there. Recommended response: get some allies. If there is just one person at the meeting who agrees with you, things may begin to go better. And yet, institutions are defined by their assumptions, the premises from which everything else follows. Revision remains unlikely. A shock might do it (Kaikaku), but by then it may be too late.

Related entries:

Calibration, Division Fallacy, False Premise, Internal Evidence, Shifting Ground.