Lessons from a Know-It-All

I assume conversations are supposed to be constructive, enjoyable, practical or at least roughly beneficial. After an unsuccessful conversation about a topic with which I was familiar, I wondered what went wrong. Although I was speaking to a know-it-all, I certainly did not expect the know-it-all (KIA) routine to kick in on a semi-technical comment about cosmology, but the KIA did. While this failure to communicate was not altogether unexpected, my total unpreparedness and general carelessness was. How quickly I forget the way of Philosophy Master Socrates!

Being a graduate student in Philosophy I struggle with my new skills and insights in a variety of ways. Mostly, I am aware of my deep inadequacies while beginning to realize how deep the rabbit hole goes. Ah, but the temptation to pretend (even if only privately) that I now am “all that” creeps up either as a self-medicating response or as a matter of bad habit. When my foolish heart is filled with vice of this sort, then I play directly into the hands of the know-it-all. The KIA will rarely acknowledge ignorance, but may do so occasionally to avoid appearing as a KIA (sometimes to justify his or her intra-personal denial). So, when the rejection of my comment came, rather than seeking an argument for the KIA’s denial of my claim, I just added more assertions to the mix with appeals to authority (primary sources and the ambiguous collection of experts “the majority of Dr. X agree that…”). I found myself in different kind of regress argument – I regressed to freshman antics for the undisciplined! However, rather than move from regression to depression, I will attempt to learn from my mistakes and go back to the basics!

1) Make clear my claims and support them with proper argumentation. Even casual discussions benefit from at least minimal support of one's points. If I don’t have support, then I should simply be open about making a claim as an inclination, impression or intuition. Also, in light of a tentative thesis, I need to remain humble and teachable – even KIA’s know things sometimes.

2) Avoid fallacies. When has name calling ever contributed anything? Why drive a discussion with mere rhetoric, unless my goal is to be mean or simply vain? Logic check! Make sure the premises support the conclusions.

3) Proceed with clarity by asking questions. This is the key lesson from Socrates for me in this situation. Had I not reacted to the denial of my claim with shock and assertions and instead sought grounds for the KIA’s denial, I am sure a misunderstanding would have surfaced or the lack of grounds would have allowed my claim to succeed. This could have been done with a simple Socratic search for definition and/or other productive questions.

4) Respect the person. What was most surprising to me is how I would not have had a discussion of this sort with another Philosophically trained person because I would have taken the initial comment more seriously. By respecting the other person, even a KIA, the probability of a successful conversation increases. Further, if a conversation fails, one saves the embarrassment of have reduced oneself to the level of a KIA.

Related Resources
Talking to difficult people.
General information on the nature, topics, and controversies of logic at a glace plus some starter references.
Logic Quiz
Good list of fallacies.
Another list of fallacies.

Books
Classic Logic Text

Basic Logic Text with Christian examples