In The Pursuit of Truth and/or Knowledge, Do We Take Into Account Feelings?
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It is quite confusing why people say 'you can't say that, it's offensive' nowadays especially in street debates between left and right wing supporters in many parts of the Western World. I am really interested in knowing why someone would think in such a way that we must care about human emotion is the result is the obtaining of knowledge or truth. Looking for someone willing to debate that we must take into account the feelings of others when in search of answer. I stand for the 'facts don't care about your feelings' side, the opponent will be against it.
Definition:Truth- The quality or state of being true that which is in accordance with fact or reality.Knowledge- Facts, information and skills acquired through experience and education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
The pursuit of truth and knowledge has long been the driving factor to the evolution of human existence throughout history. The need for improvement in the quality of human life serves as a our main goal for the search of truth and the gathering of knowledge to further our understanding of reality and the universe we live in.
The point is, truths and facts cannot be altered by feelings or mere belief. Just because one feels a certain way about a fact does not mean it will alter to fit the narrative of said person's assumptions. If someone feels that gravity does not work or is not realistic, does that make gravity useless? No. It does not. Even if everyone believed about a certain assumption based on their feelings, it will not change if they do not use logical and practical explanations to prove their point.
Such is human nature to be dependant on our own feelings, it is unavoidable. The very core principles of one's humanity in regards to health and well-being can be manipulated by one's feelings. One can even say so about truth and fact.
Humans are capable of blinding themselves to logic and truth if it against their own belief and feeling of which is right and wrong.
As such, I believe as humans we must discard our personal feelings and beliefs in order to pursue truth and knowledge. We as a society cannot be blinded by our own biased feelings to justify how something works or acts or takes place because it is unavoidable. It is inevitable. No matter how passionately we feel about a certain subject or matter, we cannot change its reality or alter the truth.
The point I am speaking is that since truth cannot be changed or altered by one's feelings or beliefs, I is unnecessary for us to use our personal emotions in the pursuit of knowledge and truth.
- Curiosity is or at least is informed by an emotion by definition.
- Curiosity is necessary for the pursuit of knowledge and truth.
- Therefore, one emotion is necessary for the pursuit of knowledge and truth.
- it is unecessary for us to use our personal emotions in the pursuit of knowledge and truth
- Therefore it is unecessary for us to use our personal emotions in the pursuit of knowledge and truth
The fact is, people have been blinded by their own emotions to realise or even admit their own wrongdoing. As mentioned above these are examples of what has happened letting our own emotions get in the way of our pursuit of truth.
Welcome to Marc.
Cons opens, with a fairly concise argument that emotion and can blur individuals reasoning when it comes to facts, and that people rely too much on emotion rather than facts.
Pros counter argument is orthogonal - that emotions, give us the drive and quest for knowledge, and inherently gives truth value and meaning - without which knowledge is effectively meaningless.
In the following round, con puts some meat on the bones, by showing some impact of emotions on our society, specifically with vaccine hesitancy, conspiracies, etc.
At this point, pro and con are both somewhat arguing across each other. Cons argument is valid that emotion when it comes to determining facts is detrimental: but pros case is that while this is true - emotion is what in itself gives facts and truth meaning.
Both sides appear to argue that the other side should be arguing their position - and thus is always tricky to judge.
Reading the resolution: I think pros interpretation is more fair an interpretation of the resolution as written (note to con - it’s often important be 100% explicit exactly what the resolution is).
Importantly even if I assume cons contention and resolution is correct, I think pros argument still fits in with that - that while emotion maybe detrimental to quality, facts do care about your feelings given that they’re given value by them as con points out. While this is in the ball park of a kritik, I feel it’s a valid one.
For this reason, I think pro edges this debate in both resolution. Thus arguments to pro.
@Marc1123: I'm pleased that you were gratified by your first debate. And that's the spirit: try harder. Every experience you have in your future debates will be a lesson which hopefully will make your arguments that much more sharp and refined. I've been arguing for years, and I'm still learning.
@Ramshutu: I believe @oromagi hit the nail on the head in the beginning: the proposition was wide open to attack. Despite my understanding the implication of the proposition, his conclusion was inconsistent with the premise. The structure of the propositional statement essentially can be only read as one which sought to resolve "meaning" not "content." Semantics played an important role. Had he structured the statement as such, "In the 'Analysis' or 'Examination' of Truth, Do We Take into Account Feelings?" he would've had a stronger case. By using "pursuit," we delve into purpose; it's the "why?" instead of the "what?"
Hi Marc: don’t be disheartened as this debate wasn’t by any means bad. I think part of it was that there was lots of scope in the resolution to go places you weren’t expecting (that’s actually often a good thing), and I think the hardest aspect of debate is how to try and maintain a debate when both sides disagree on the meaning of the resolution.
Well, it was a good first debate. Congratulations to the winner. I'll try harder next time.
Interesting
Yeah, kinda realise my mistake too little too late. My error in sentencing my phrases seems to have been misinterpreted. I do apologize dearly, but I still intent to continue the debate. Please give me some time while I source some information. And I apologize if I had caused any inconveniences.
That's the reason I accepted the challenge. You're correct in that it's wide open to attack. Hopefully, this will be an informative debate.
Welcome, Marc. I think your proposition is wide open to attack- didn't Dr. Spock teach us that emotions are part of truth? A much more interesting debate would be to take one of those statements that most people find offensive and defend it as objectively rational.
It's a weird one, because feelings override truth. We even have the term "alternate facts" to spare the feelings of someone who is objectively wrong. So well it should not be the case, if we don't consider feelings the search for truth gets set back by book burnings and the like.
With one exception, I agree.