I know I’ve been calling my opponent a “daemon”, but really we’re only talking about a daemonized version of rationality. In the field of political debating, there’s a tradition of invoking “strength of argument” and “weaknesses of argument” as a matter of course. One writes as if epistemic and instrumental rationality are different magnitudes, a la Warder vs. Ady, or a pitcher throws a knuckleball. Stronger arguments win, and weak arguments lose.

But let’s assume this is merely a matter of terminology. Let’s also suppose that Bayes’s Theorem is at work here, in some form.

Suppose I have a novel idea for a political system, which I believe to be simple and which anyone can see is simple. I present this system to you, and ask you if it is simple. If you say yes, I ask if this is a good system. If you say no, I ask if there is any system that is simpler. We try several versions of this question, and settle on a version that is simple in the sense of being easy to explain and remember. We throw it out and move on to the next question.

Perhaps someone says, “The system you just suggested can’t possibly be simple. It takes a long time to explain, and anyone who understands economics will know it’s wrong. Your opponent will pick it up and use it to argue that you’re not serious, and you’ll spend the rest of your life telling people that you’re a dupe.”

Or perhaps someone says, “I’ll pick up a dupe and use it to argue with you. I’ll explain it to you and you’ll never be able to use it again, because you’ll realize that it was wrong the moment you started using it.”

Now our art comes into play; we have to choose an enemy to fight. Perhaps our opponent is an unFriendly person, or a person who fears the truth too much and lashes out at those who speak it. In this case we must devise a weapon, a counter-weapon, a weapon that only they understand. We must figure out how to beat their story, find some way of presenting our opponent’s counter-story that only they understand.

Perhaps we are fighting an army; an enemy which can only be defeated by something we understand and whose counter-strategy we know.

And perhaps we are fighting a person who is ignorant of rationality and does not understand the difference between using an idea to beat an idea, and using an idea to defeat an idea.

In this latter case, we must invent a proper answer to their argument, one that only we understand. We must create an art of rationality that only they understand. Even if it seems like a good idea at the time, like telling a friend about an idea you got at the library, we’ve lost a step. We’ve thrown away the piece of ourselves that enables us to create that art; we’ve separated that ability from the source of that ability.

I am not suggesting that you create an art that only they can understand. (Though it should be obvious that any art that everyone can understand is being used as an argument. If I claim to understand music, I can play the violin, or at least play very well. If I claim to understand natural selection, I can invoke an Ancestor of Pure Reason, so long as I’m still alive. If I tell my friend about the Ancestor, he can understand at least that much about the Ancestor. The point is that if you claim to be an expert in something, even if you’re just pandering to a prejudice, it should at least be obvious that you’re good at something.)

