Editing Talk:1432: The Sake of Argument

In my experience when someone begins a hypothetical with "for the sake of argument" The hypothetical being explored is almost always a direct exploration of the argument being put forward by the person they are speaking to,  so to my mind the perfect response to the second panel would have been: "You admit you were wrong then, Excellent!" ;-)  [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.211|108.162.250.211]] 07:05, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

:In contrast, it is often used alongs the lines of "OK, I see that you don't agree with my viewpoint, so for the sake of argument, pretend that you do agree with my viewpoint". I suppose this is an effort to try and get the other person to explore your views by stepping into them. For example: "Ok I know that you think that drink driving is fine, but for the sake of argument imagine that your dog had just been run over by a drunk driver" --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 08:53, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

IMHO could be vaguely related to the [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y Monty Python's Argument Clinic] [[User:Jkotek|Jkotek]]
:IMHO "related" to, no matter how vaguely, would be a strong choice of word. At best, I could imagine "inspired by" - after all, Cueball has barely presented a connected series of statements, much less apparently one intended to establish a proposition, definite or otherwise - it's clearly the automatic gainsaying of anything Ponytail says... [[User:Brettpeirce|Brettpeirce]] ([[User talk:Brettpeirce|talk]]) 10:10, 10 October 2014 (UTC)
::No it isn't! ;-) [[User:MGitsfullofsheep|MGitsfullofsheep]] ([[User talk:MGitsfullofsheep|talk]]) 12:19, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

"Rather than getting frustrated at being derailed, Ponytail instead seizes on this and decides they should get a boat, and that the Devil can come too." - I'm reading the title text a bit differently: it's not Ponytail being not angry and chiming in, but actually having no words (indicated by '...') and then it's Cueball again taunting her even more with inviting the devil. [[User:Zefiro|Zefiro]] ([[User talk:Zefiro|talk]]) 09:03, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

:I just wanted to say that I agree with Zefiro here.--[[Special:Contributions/173.245.56.173|173.245.56.173]] 09:20, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

::On reading again, I agree. I missed that the ellipsis was a seperate section, rather than the beginning of 'For arguments sake we should get a boat' --[[User:Pudder|Pudder]] ([[User talk:Pudder|talk]]) 11:27, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Could he possibly be making a pun? "For the sake of the 'ARGH' you meant," perhaps? [[User:Joehammer79|Joehammer79]] ([[User talk:Joehammer79|talk]]) 13:24, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I think Cueball is taking the "for the sake of argument" too literally, as "in order to create more to argue on". Also "advocate". Also, "device" in the title text (literal physical transportation device vs rhetorical device). The explanation as of now doesn't seem to realize this. [[User:Matega|Matega]] ([[User talk:Matega|talk]]) 15:46, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Regarding Devils advocate and copied from Wikipedia: "During the canonization process employed by the Roman Catholic Church, the Promoter of the Faith (Latin: promotor fidei), popularly known as the Devil's advocate (Latin: advocatus diaboli), was a canon lawyer appointed by Church authorities to argue against the canonization of a candidate.[2] It was this person’s job to take a skeptical view of the candidate's character, to look for holes in the evidence, to argue that any miracles attributed to the candidate were fraudulent, and so on. The Devil's advocate opposed God's advocate (Latin: advocatus Dei; also known as the Promoter of the Cause), whose task was to make the argument in favor of canonization. This task is now performed by the Promoter of Justice (promotor iustitiae), who is in charge of examining how accurate is the inquiry on the saintliness of the candidate." {{unsigned|Cobble}}

Are we sure this isn't just Beret Guy going casual? {{unsigned ip|173.245.56.164}}

The "oh, like a boat" is a reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. [[Special:Contributions/108.162.240.36|108.162.240.36]] 11:18, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
:No it isn't. -Pennpenn [[Special:Contributions/108.162.250.162|108.162.250.162]] 05:17, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

There are two unspoken premises when arguing. The first is that both you and your interlocutor are reasonable (you wouldn't try to reason with someone that is unreasonable, would you?), and the second is that you both agree on some premise (you can't come to a conclusion from a premise you don't have). The usefulness of arguing from a premise that you don't have is that if your premise ever changes (like if you gain new information), then you already have your new conclusion at the ready. It's important because perfectly rational people should agree on the same "if X, then Y", but "reality is X" and "I think reality is X" are two different statements. With that in mind, Devil's Advocate as rhetorical device has an obvious purpose in that it allows you to address your own fallability and to look at the world outside yourself. Claiming to be infallible may not be unreasonable, but it's factually wrong. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.123.199|162.158.123.199]] 14:10, 11 October 2019 (UTC)


The Devil doesn't need an advocate. He advocates his positions quite well on his own. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.38.151|172.70.38.151]] 13:30, 13 June 2023 (UTC)