This fall: English 409A: Argumentation

This fall, join Dr. Randy Harris for the special topics course English 409A: Argumentation. Argumentation is the art of the rational, the use of evidence in a structure of reasons to advance belief, to build knowledge, to counsel action, and to judge claims. 

But look around you. It’s being bludgeoned to death by greed, division, and self-aggrandisement; that is, by the motive forces of propaganda and bullshit. This course provides the tools to understand the way in which the irrational and hateful can look appealing, and also to find better ways to believe and to act, both personally and publicly.   

There is a tension in arguing, an inevitable and productive one, but one which often leads to imbalance—of discourses, of people, of relationships, of entire cultures. This tension is between arguing to find productive agreement by thinking through issues collectively, on the one hand; and arguing to win, exert dominance, and score points, on the other. We will study these practices with the help of thinkers. Our main job is to find points of balance in arguments—not compromise, necessarily, because one side can certainly be right, or mostly right, while others will necessarily be wrong or mostly so—but points on which the argument pivots one way or the other, to probe its workings and explore its recalcitrant commitments. 

Fall 2024 gives us a rich opportunity to see especially consequential beliefs and actions in the wild, the US federal election, against a geopolitical backdrop of war and terror and the rise of the machines (AI). There will be lots of argumentation and its lack.

We will aim big: to better develop our ways of understanding and shaping ourselves, others, and our world. We will strive to be better arguers and better analysts, but, also and therefore, to be better friends, better citizens, better people, and to make a better world.