Real learning and dialogue won’t come about until people here put their philosophical cards on the table

I’m forced to flair this as a “debate” because my last post which was flavored as “discussion” was removed for violating rules — despite the fact that I’m looking for dialogos and not empty debate rhetoric. So, if you’re interested in addressing the post or others’ here, I’d ask that you actually engage in conversation rather than engage in useless rhetoric that tries to ‘win’ over actual understanding.

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Here is my claim: people here need to put their philosophical cards on the table.

Day in and day out, I see argument after argument, discussions of the same issues, and conversations that go nowhere.

Why?

Because people are not being upfront about their worldviews and philosophical presuppositions.

Don’t just assume your flair will clue people into your beliefs. If you actually want to have a real conversation, you need to be more upfront about your worldview, values, priorities, etc.

For example, do you believe in an objective morality or not? Do you believe in sex and/or gender essentialism or not? Are you epistemologically an empiricist, rationalist, or something else? Do you believe in a transcendent order and set of values or not? Do you believe ontologically in materialism, dualism, or some other metaphysic? Do you subscribe to a certain religion, and if so what is it? What are your views on political theory and why?

If y’all want to continue getting off to trolling, cracking jokes, tearing others down, and lurking, that’s up to you. If you’re only here for your own amusement or ‘winning’ verbal fights, don’t change a thing.

But if you are actually interested in interrogating your own views and others’, learning, coming to the truth, and having real dialogues, people need to start laying their philosophical cards on the table and provide arguments for their views (as well as exercise the ability to civilly engage with others and remain at least somewhat open-minded).

If that doesn’t happen, conversations will never get to the root of disagreements and one will never have a complete understanding of their opponent’s position and why they hold it. Failing to express one’s philosophical positions and presumptions will only cause conversations to remain surface level and never get to the heart of the matter.

This sub is called “PurplePillDebate,” but its description says this is a place for “discussion.” There is inherent tension between debate (I.e. winning a linguistic conflict) and discussion (I.e. conversation between two or morepeople oriented towards the uncovering and elucidation of ideas).

So long as people here have differing goals (e.g. debate, dialogue, amusement, mere expression, etc.) and aren’t up front about their philosophical positions, conflict is inevitable. This will not really be a discussion sub at all, but rather a useless pissing competition in which little is learned / gained — and probably a consumerist, narcissistic circlejerk.

Thus, I recommend every poster be up front about (1) their philosophical positions and presumptions and (2) what they are trying to accomplish with their comments and posts. Failing to express these things will lead inevitably to conflict.

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