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Emanuel Ungaro FW15, Taylor Hill

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Helmut Newton

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For philosophers like ourselves, argument is usually considered a topic in epistemology, the study of knowledge, wherein good arguments are ones that make for knowledge and bad ones for ignorance. But, given the stakes of arguing, there is a need to think of arguments from an ethical perspective as well. Ibn Rushd, a 12th-century Islamic philosopher, maintained that arguers are responsible for the effects of their arguments on the beliefs of their audience. Though his point was a theological one about generating unbelief among followers of Islam, he offers a surprisingly apt parable of a person who sows unfounded doubts about medical experts among people who are not able to see through such sophistries, and who then all die as a result. To update this parable a bit, Ibn Rushd’s rule would also apply to the person who shares memes on social media suggesting that COVID-19 is a hoax or that you can cure it if you gargle with lemon juice. From this perspective, such a person is as morally culpable as one who openly lies. Arguing in favour of a falsehood can even be seen as immoral in cases where there is already general agreement, for prolonging someone’s mistaken belief is akin to converting them to a false one. As speakers in an argument, we risk doing damage to others; as an audience, we risk being hurt. The need to learn to argue better is unavoidable. This consists, in part, of recognising how beliefs come upon us: Ibn Rushd reminds us that people acquire beliefs involuntarily, and are in danger of falling into error without realising it. So arguers need to acknowledge their responsibility for how they influence others.

Scott Aikin & John Casey, How to have better arguments

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Russian Ark, 2002

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[DRENCHED IN BLOOD] we really should all do this again next week, yes

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AMY ADAMS as SUSAN MORROW NOCTURNAL ANIMALS (2016) dir. Tom Ford

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Why should a woman's white hair so often lead people to presume that she is ‘letting herself go' - if not because her hair instantly recalls the image of a witch dressed in rags? Analysing how a group of old women were described in a local press article, in Boston, in 1982, Cynthia Rich picked out that, according to the journalist, one of them had 'well-cared for grey hair'; would this detail have seemed necessary if the hair had been blond or brown? Sophie Fontanel describes how, when she stopped dyeing her hair, one of her friends was as horrified as if she ‘had stopped washing'. In her case, the assumption of neglect is all the more revelatory for being so far from the truth: we are talking, here, about an elegant and well-turned-out woman, with taste, someone who works in fashion . . . During the period of her transition between dyed hair and white, the short circuiting of this antediluvian assumption often plunged passers-by into confusion: “Disconcerted, eyes would rush to my roots. Then, just as suddenly, they would jump from my hair to my clothes, as if some indicator might be there, some overall "laxness” I might have adopted. Some explanation. But if they observed my attire, as it were, they saw well-pressed clothes and a fair dose of vanity. I had given up nothing more than the dye.” The immediate association of women's aging with death is still hanging on with remarkable tenacity, as shown by this unexpectedly aggressive rant that an Italian journalist addressed to Fontanel: “You do realise that, when we die, our hair and nails keep growing, and that makes things . . . It's terrifying. It's a real horror story. Three centimetres of white hair leap out at you if you should ever happen to open the coffin lid a few days after burial. Well, having said that, you'll say no one ever opens the coffin, or it's very rare, thank God. But you, you're planning to go walking around with the coffin lid open, in full view of all and sundry!” Similarly, a friend speculated that the reason she disliked seeing her mother with white hair could be because that prompted thoughts of her death. But who thinks about death when they see Richard Gere or Harrison Ford?

Mona Chollet, In Defence of Witches: Why Women Are Still On Trial

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'dress by john galliano' in unbridaled: the marriage of tradition + avant garde - todd stephen (2008)

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One path to having a firm grasp on your own view and your reasons for it is to take on the perspective of being a teacher. What’s the core idea? What makes it a worthwhile idea? A good arguer is like a good teacher. A good teacher explains clearly, motivates interest, and gets recalcitrant audiences to see the point. This takes patience and a willingness to speak to people where they are. And the key with teaching a big idea is to show how it fits with other things, how it helps to explain why things are as they are and makes life less puzzling. When you’ve got a handle on your own view, it’s important to try to understand those who have rejected it. A good arguer has to speak to and be heard by those with whom they disagree. This requires that they know the alternative views in the ways that those who hold those alternative views know them. […] It can help to expose yourself to how someone sees their own reasons. This could mean reading their websites, watching their news shows or TikToks, listening to their podcasts. It most certainly means listening patiently to someone as they describe their view before you engage them. You don’t have to like it, but exposure to alternative perspectives can educate you on how people who disagree with you reason with each other. After you’ve started to ‘learn their language’, there will likely be strange and occasional moments when you seem to better understand how they understand themselves. You can see one or more of the reasons for their view as a good reason – that is, you can see how a careful thinker might arrive at that conclusion – even if it hasn’t changed your view. Pay attention to those moments. Being able to say that good reason back to someone you are arguing with as something that you have heard and thought about critically is valuable when you are trying to present them with reasons of your own. To argue effectively for your viewpoint, you will have to give someone reasons that both of you see as reasons. Otherwise, you are not addressing your interlocutor’s reasons, only your own. And you won’t have any chance of resolving the disagreement.

Scott Aikin & John Casey, How to have better arguments

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Untitled, (Black with White), Mark Rothko, 1962.

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me when I talk to people who were born in 2005

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CHALLENGERS (2024) dir. Luca Guadagnino

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One way to interpret the scenario of the woman rejected in midlife is to understand that her partner can no longer bear to see in her, as if in a mirror, the signs of his own ageing. Or perhaps he leaves his middle-aged wife so that he is free to rejuvenate himself via a new partner: ‘Loving the next generation is a kind of vampirism’, according to Frédéric Beigbeder, for example, who takes pride in his 'Dracula side’. But we may also consider a different theory: he sees his wife's ageing, but not his own. 'Men have no bodies' - so says Virginie Despentes, who, in my opinion, we should be taking at her word. Men's dominant position in economics and politics, in love and family relationships, but also in the artistic and literary worlds allows them to be absolute subjects and to make women into absolute objects. Western culture decided early on that the body was repulsive - and also that it was female, and vice versa. Theologians and philosophers projected their horror of the body onto women, and were thereby able to disavow the claims of their own bodies. Saint Augustine explains that, in men, the body reflects the soul, but that this isn't the case for women.

Mona Chollet, In Defence of Witches: Why Women Are Still On Trial

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todays just a magda day

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Byron Newman - Lui Magazine (July 1989)

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The primary problem is tied to the very nature of the thing that argument is intended to affect: belief. It’s manifestly obvious that you think your beliefs are true, just as other people think their own beliefs are true. This is what makes them beliefs rather than hopes, desires or fears. This starting point can make it difficult to even contemplate the possibility that someone else’s opposing belief is correct. Another important feature of beliefs is that we lack direct, voluntary control over them. You cannot simply will yourself to change what you believe. No amount of money is going to make you genuinely believe that the Pope is Buddhist or that 2 + 2 = 5. What can change your beliefs is exposure to information and reasons. Yet people tend to gravitate to sources that support their existing beliefs and selectively attend to evidence that confirms those beliefs. Much of this we do without noticing. Incentives, financial or otherwise, can play a role in this. As Upton Sinclair, author of the novel The Jungle (1906), quipped: ‘It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.’ The existence of these belief-preserving tendencies underscores the importance of argument: to continue to work for the evil meatpacking company in Sinclair’s novel, one must carefully avoid exposure to evidence or arguments that might weigh upon one’s beliefs. Argument threatens to burst that bubble. The potential for belief change, then, is all in the arguments that people do or do not encounter. But it’s hard to see the evidence for something you consider false as evidence at all. Disagreement prompts argument, but it also makes argument very hard to put into motion.

Scott Aikin & John Casey, How to have better arguments