Thirty-Eight Ways to Win an Argument

These "Ways to Win an Argument" are apparently condensed and translated from Arthur Schopenhauer's philosophical tome on "The Art of Controversy." The original, of course, was originally written in German during the first half of the nineteenth century.

I find the propositions it advances amusing, but not particularly insightful. For instance, point twenty-one includes the phrase: "it is with victory that you are concerned, not with truth." This seems to me to hardly be a valid philosophical objective. Truth, to some degree of certainty, has always been the final aim of philosophy. To attempt only to prove your own conclusions acceptable has nothing to do with accepting and synthesizing new information, which is the goal of the truly learned.

But as a humorous bit of historical thought, I find this interesting; worth a quick read, but a set of ideas to which no deep investigation or lasting importance should be ascribed.