Change the World, & Naïve Scientist and the Cognitive Miser (Essay Sample)

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The Argumentation Test"; In-Depth Essay Prompts: argumentation and ethics, ability of argument to fundamentally “Change the World”, & “Naïve Scientist” and the “Cognitive Miser”
1 Argumentation and ethics
Argumentation refers to dialogic communication in which two or more persons seek to justify or to excuse a belief or a course of action (Freeman 17). This form of dialogic communication aims at questioning certain aspects such as beliefs and whether one ought to accept or reject or an action that one should take or not take or whether the circumstances under which a case presents enough reasons that warrant excusing a person for doing or believing in something that is contrary to the right. Therefore, argumentation occurs whenever there is a cognitive dissonance between two people or among a group of individuals in which each individual has inconsistent thoughts, believes or attitudes regarding behavioural decisions and changes in attitude. These changes in attitude are best explained by the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) of persuasion, which is a dual process theory that provides insights on the change of attitudes. Developed by Richard E. Petty and john Cacioppo in 1980, the model focuses on explaining the various ways of processing stimuli, the reason for their use and their outcomes on changes in attitude (Cacioppo, Stephanie, & Richard 156). By providing the insights on the processing of stimuli, the model helps in the understanding of how arguments develop or come about.
The study of argumentation has, for a long time, been divided into two main categories. One of these categories is dialect, which studies the rules of validity of arguments in a dialogue, both from a formal and an informal standpoint. The second class is rhetoric, which studies the conditions of persuasiveness of arguments. Even though these two levels of normativity have been sufficient in accounting for the different aspects of argumentative discourse, successive research pointed towards the need to consider a third dimension of argumentation, at a meta-level of investigation, which focusses neither on the norms of reasoning and discussion, nor on the norms of persuasiveness, but more exact on the arguer’s behaviour, relative to those norms. This field of interest was terms as the ethics of argumentation. Ethics, according to Plato, is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct. It is the sense of a concern to act rightly and to live a good life. Ethical concerns are found in dialogues in many types, from those that Socrates shows other people that they fail to understand the claims they make regarding courage, friendship or virtue, to those that he, or another philosopher provides long speeches on a number of topics. And in some cases, we find ethics treated on its own such as in political contexts and in some other cases, in a framework of metaphysical theorizing. Plato, together with Socrates, saw the endangerment of the moral foundation of society in their philosophical views and were among the first philosophers to challenge the sophists’ ideas of replacing rhetorical skills to genuine knowledge, moral relativism, epistemological sceptics, and their secularist concept of happiness. Ideas of the sophists have been compared to Machiavellianism and Hobbenism, which advocates for dehumanization of persons by believing that people will only focus on their own interest and thus will manipulate, deceive, and exploit others to achieve their goals (Freyberg-Inan 38). Rather, Plato and Socrates advocated for the principles of invitational rhetoric in human interactions that is based on three principles which include equality among people, immanent value that is intrinsic in every person, and self-determination in which every person has a right to decide the best way to live.
2 The ability of argument to fundamentally “Change the World”
Argument is an important aspect of critical thinking and is grounded in science where it has and still provides the basis for most research in progress aimed at a better understanding of the universe. Argument thrives on being able to convince a population to accept a claim by providing some form of evidence or reasoning to support your stand. An example of an argument would be, “Throwing a kitchen sink at someone’s arm is an effective treatment for elbow pain because the blunt force trauma it causes kick-starts the healing process of tissues in disrepair.” People believe what they were taught while growing up and so people have different perceptions of the world as determined by where they grew up. This is in line with the Sapir Whorf hypothesis theory which states that the way people think is significantly determined by their native languages. According to this hypothesis, there are certain thoughts of an individual in one language, which cannot be understood by those who live in another language. Thus the structure of a language can significantly influence or determine someone’s world view. A world view provides a consistent and integral sense of existence and offers a theoretical framework for generation, sustenance and application of knowledge. For example, the Inuit have the ability to think more intelligently about snow since their language contains more sophisticated and subtle words that distinguish its various forms. This statement is echoed by the phrase that “Ideas Have Consequences”, which is also the title for a philosophical work by Richard M. Weaver, published in 1948 by the University of Chicago press, which shares n epistemological orientation with some forms of existentialism in that it posits that the axioms that underlie all human belief systems are ultimately arbitrary and hence re product of the existence of ultimate choice rather than empirical evidence (Daniel 31). As such, Weaver based his attack against nominalism on historical analogy and the teleological effects or the consequences of such a world view.
The Sapir Whorf hypothesis presents a Hegelian Dialectic of the understanding of the universe (Maybee no pg). Every corner of the earth has its own perceptions of what the universe entails such as the theory of evolution and as per the Hegelian Dialectic, there have been instances where the assertible proposition of one (thesis) has been opposed by an equally assertive and contradictory proposition (antithesis) that has prompted an argument with an aim of reconciling the contradiction with a higher level of truth using a third proposition (synthesis). For example, the Seven Mountains of Culture, also referred to as the seven mountain prophesy is an anti-biblical movement that has gained a significance following in some of the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. Those who follow this doctrine believe that for Christ to return to earth, the church must take over and control all of the seven main spheres of influence in society. These seven sectors include education, religion, family, business, government/military, arts/entertainment, and media. This line of thought and argument has molded the way people think and behave, confirming the assertion that indeed argument can change the world. This line of thought is an antithesis of the biblical teaching, with the believers choosing to believe that Jesus must set the stage for his second coming by taking control over the world systems.
3 “Naïve Scientist” and the “Cognitive Miser” and how each of these would approach and/or use the concepts of Ethos/Pathos/Logos
The concept of cognitive miser vs naive scientist provides a perfect case of how argument helps in making sense of the world, comprehending it, and being able to predict what will happen, try to establish the cause and effect, and act like what Heider called Naïve scientists (Böhm, & Hans-Rüdiger 139). Naïve scientists are normally rational and logical in making their social inferences whereby they search for consistency and specific information and arrange it in a systematic manner, which makes it easier to locate, whenever needed to come to an external or internal attribution. On the other hand, some individuals, who do not partake in these processes and opt to take mental shortcuts when formulating social judgements as they perceive the entire process to be consuming a lot of time. Such a group of people are referred to as the cognitive misers, who are often reluctant to expend their cognitive resources (Crisp & Rhiannon, 45). Under normal circumstances, the human mind is regarded to be a cognitive miser because of the tendency of people to think and solve the challenges in simpler and less tasking ways instead of opting for a more sophisticated and more effortful ways. These individuals perceive the mental processing resources as being limited and hence highly valued and tend to find ways of freeing up as much space as possible to create room for the next problem. Therefore, to save this time and money, these people employ the Heuristics, which refer to mental shortcuts that are quick and easy. In this case, the two main heuristics are the representativeness and availability (Meng 267).
Under representative heuristics, people tend to allocated sets of attributes to someone in cases wh