Truth is always somewhere nearby. All that remains is to master the art of finding it. There are no ready-made algorithms for perfect communication. But in order to defend your positions, convince others and convince yourself, and keep face in difficult situations, you need to know about some elementary principles of dispute.
- Not every situation in which contradictions or misunderstandings between people are ready to get out of the peaceful channel should be brought to a dispute. If there is an opportunity to come to an agreement without him, it is better to use it. At times you can meet people who are ready to argue about every opportunity, and sometimes they are even proud of it. The value of a dispute lies not in the dispute itself, but in its ability to help achieve certain goals. Dispute gains special significance in scientific research, and avoiding dispute in such situations is dangerous. Since science has always been based and developed on a critical attitude towards new ideas.
- Any competent dispute should have its own subject and topic. It is better to designate them at the very first stages of the discussion, so as not to lose the semantic thread of the dispute in the future.
- Throughout the dispute, the topic should not be changed in any way or replaced by another. At the beginning of the dispute, the topic is not absolutely clear, therefore, the disputants need to clarify and concretize their positions. But at the same time, the main line of the dispute must be constantly recognized. Many disputes end in the fact that their participants are even more convinced that they are right. Nevertheless, it is still worth arguing: the main thing is to clarify the situation.
- It makes sense to argue when the opinions of the disputing parties are fundamentally different. If such a difference is not revealed, then there is simply nothing to argue about: the participants in the discussion talk, though about different, but complementary aspects of the same problem.
- The positions of the disputing parties must have a certain commonality, a common basis for them. In order to better understand each other, the disputing parties must base their statements on the basis of common premises, established axioms, uncontested ideas, otherwise nothing can be seriously agreed upon.
- For a productive dispute, you need to know about the elementary laws of logic, which means that arguing people should be able to correctly draw conclusions from their own and others' statements, find contradictions, be logical and consistent in an argument. But jokes, deviations from the topic can also be appropriate in discussion, polemics.
- The parties to the dispute must be clearly aware of what they are saying and be aware of the boundaries of their own competence. In order to confidently and boldly make some statements, you must have a decent baggage of knowledge behind them. But at the same time, be critical of your knowledge, do not sin with your self-confidence.
- In a dispute, you must always strive to achieve the truth - this is one of the most significant requirements for a dispute. If we consider the dispute as an honest discussion of a problematic issue, then inevitably the correct guidelines are established in the dispute - to fix the truth or to clarify, to a certain step, the meanings of ideas and facts.
- During a dispute, it is necessary to be flexible in thinking. The attractiveness of the dispute is that the situation in it is constantly changing: new arguments arise, previously unknown facts are discovered, the positions of the participants are corrected. And all this must be responded to in time and correctly.
- For a confident discussion of the question posed, it is necessary to avoid mistakes and gross blunders in the strategy and tactics of the dispute. It is difficult to achieve the desired result without having developed an optimal strategy and not having thought out the tactics of conducting a dispute. Failures in such a situation can negate all efforts of the disputing party and obscure an already unclear problem.
- You should not be afraid to admit your mistakes during the whole dispute. It is difficult to always and in everything to remain right. Dispute is no exception. Convinced of his erroneous views and ideas, a person should boldly and openly admit this and correct his attitudes or completely abandon them. After all, the main value of the dispute lies precisely in making some contribution to the development of the problem under discussion.
