Today is the day of the Global Climate Strike, in which young students all over the world will present strong arguments that the global Powers That Be had better pay attention to climate change and do something about it – something far more drastic than the piddling measures taken by most governments so far. We owe these youth our best efforts to support and follow up on their demands. To do that, or even to live responsibly in the Anthropocene, we need to appreciate what a genuine argument is.
Don’t argue with me!
That’s how the boss asserts his authority. What he really means is:
Follow my orders! Don’t argue against me!
Can you argue with people without arguing against them?
Not if an argument is just a verbal dispute, a “fight.” But when we talk about “having an argument”, that’s what we mean, isn’t it?
The Oxford English Dictionary says that an “argument” is ‘A statement or fact advanced for the purpose of influencing the mind; a reason urged in support of a proposition’; or, ‘A connected series of statements or reasons intended to establish a position (and, hence, to refute the opposite); a process of reasoning; argumentation.’ As Peirce puts it, ‘An “Argument” is any process of thought reasonably tending to produce a definite belief. An “Argumentation” is an Argument proceeding upon definitely formulated premisses’ (EP2:435). A single statement may be called an “argument” if and only if it forms part of a process of reasoning, but not all parts of the process need to be explicitly stated or ‘definitely formulated.’ The element of conflict may enter into the process if one argues for or against a ‘position’ or proposition, while facing opposition. But as we all know, when two people “have an argument,” the element of conflict often overwhelms the element of reasoning – especially when the feeling of being right matters more (to one or both people) than the truth of the matter being argued about.
In Turning Signs – with a few exceptions, such as Humpty Dumpty’s “nice knock-down argument” in Chapter 2 – the word ‘argument’ refers to a sign which embodies a process of reasoning. In a nutshell, it says that ‘if you believe A, you ought to believe C, because C logically follows from A.’ A here, which may consist of more than one statement, is called the antecedent (“going before”), while C is called the consequent (“following with,” according to the Latin roots). The “following” relation itself should be called the consequence, according to Peirce.
But also according to Peirce, the reasoning process goes much deeper than anything humans do “on purpose,” as we say. We know that our actions have unintended consequences (as well as intended ones) because nature itself has tendencies leading some things or events to follow from others, just as the consequent follows from the antecedent in an argument. Indeed Peirce claimed that the Universe itself is a vast argument (EP2:193-4), of which all human argumentations, and even our greatest works of art, are nothing but dim reflections.
No matter how strongly the youth of the Global Climate Strike fight for their cause, the inhabitants of Earth will all be the losers if we humans fail to see the truth of their argument, and act accordingly.