Plato’s Gorgias explores the question of whether rhetoric is a “true art,” that when practiced properly leads to true opinions, or whether it is a mere “knack” for persuading people to assent to any arbitrary proposition. Socrates advances the claim that there exists or ought to exist some true art of persuasion that is specifically about teaching people true things, and doesn’t work on arbitrary claims.

(Interestingly, the phrase I found appealing to use in the title of this post, "truth-friendly," is pretty similar to the literal meaning of the Greek word philosophy, "friendliness towards wisdom.)

Six principles of the knack of rhetoric

Robert Cialdini’s Influence is about the science of the “knack” of rhetoric - empirically validated methods of persuading people to agree to arbitrary things, independent of whether or not they are true beliefs or genuinely advantageous actions. He outlines six principles of persuasion:

1. Reciprocity - People tend to want to return favors. An example of this with respect to actions is the practice of Hari Krishna giving people “gifts” like a book or a flower, and then asking for a donation. A special case of this is “reciprocal concessions” - if I make a request and you turn it down, and then I make a smaller request, you’re likely to feel some desire to meet me halfway and agree to the small request.
2. Commitment and consistency - People use past behavior and commitments as a guide to present behavior. If you persuade someone that they’re already seen as having some attribute, they’re more likely to want to “live up to” it. If you get people to argue for a point, even without any commitment to believing their argument, they’re more likely to say they believe it in the future. If you get someone to agree in principle to do a thing, they’re more likely to agree to specific requests to do the thing.
3. Social proof - People use others’ behavior as a proxy for what’s reasonable. Advertisements exploit this by showing people using a product.
4. Authority - People tend to accept the judgment of people who seem respectable and high-status whether or not they are an expert in the field in question.
5. Liking - people are more likely to buy things from people they like.
6. Scarcity - People are more eager to buy things that appear scarce. “Limited time offers” exploit this.

Six principles of the art of rhetoric

Making it easier for people to avoid these traps seems like a desirable attribute of a discourse, if we want to move more efficiently towards truth. Therefore, a rational rhetoric will have the following six principles, each one countering one of Cialdini's principles of the knack of influence: Continue reading →

Secure attachment and the limbic system

A couple of friends recently asked me for my take on this article by Nora Samaran on secure attachment and autonomy. The article focuses on the sense of security that comes from someone consistently responding positively to requests for comfort. The key point is that it's not just a quantitative thing, where you accumulate enough units of comfort and feel good. It's about really believing on a gut level that someone is willing to be there for you, and wants to do so: Continue reading →