In an earlier essay, I wrote that argument cannot really prove the truth of something, especially when it is coupled with rhetorical tricks and other means for short circuiting honest debate. After I wrote that, I was struck by the question it raised. Why am I bothering to write at all, then? If argument and debate really can't establish the truth of a theory then why am I wasting so much time here trying to do just that?

My first thought was that perhaps I had been wrong, and argument really is more effective than I allowed. But, to be honest, I really can't fault my statement. It would make me feel better to buy into the lawyerly argument that competing falsehoods reveal the truth, but I just can't buy it. Too many mistakes have carried the day far too often for me to believe that argument alone establishes the truth of anything.

Then the answer came to me, oddly enough, from a question yt_knight had asked. He had asked, several times, why I bothered to pick apart the FairTax and what I would like to see in its place. And that was the answer. The realization that those two questions do not have to go together as yt_knight thought. I don't have to have a better alternative to find value in showing the flaws in the FairTax. Likewise, argument doesn't have to prove the truth, the value is in revealing falsehood.

That is truly where argument is effective, not in finding the truth, but in testing proposed truths and weeding out the false. It may not prove truth, but knocking down bad theories gets us one step closer. To return to my example, it is why I "attacked" the FairTax, I did so not to promote another theory, but to show the errors of this one so we need not be bothered by this particular bad theory again. It does not provide us with the truth, but it shows us which approaches are blind alleys, saves us time form repeating old errors when we set out to look for the truth again.

And by showing falsehood, argument serves another purpose. It helps us to persuade others.

Now, I will admit there are some people who will knowingly cling to a false theory, and there are some who will not be convinced immediately, even by overwhelming proof, but most people are not in either category. Almost all people want to be right and want to do good. Oh, they may end up doing evil, thanks to wrong beliefs, or rationalizations, but they do not want to think of themselves as someone who believes a falsehood or does evil deeds. So, by helping to show others that some of their beliefs are wrong, argument is a valuable tool in bringing others around to agree with our conclusions. It may take several tries, it may take a lot of argument, but it is the best tool available. As there are few who knowingly do wrong or knowingly embrace falsehood, the ability to show them the error of their ways is a potent tool.

So, while I agree with my original statement that argument cannot on its own establish the truth, I can say that it is not as useless as that conclusion first led me to think.

POSTSCRIPT

In some ways, my position on the FairTax reminds me of the protagonist of Stanislaw Lem's His Master's Voice. For those who have not read it, he is a mathematician more famous for tearing down the theories of others than for any contribution of his own. While he sees it as a flaw, I think of it as an important service. I may not be proposing the alternative to the FairTax or anything else, but by showing their flaws, I hope to at least keep us from blindly jumping into something without full knowledge. Even if we choose to adopt the FairTax, we should do so with full knowledge, not based solely on the excessively rosy statements found in "the book". (Or is that now "the books"?)

POSTSCRIPT II

I didn't want to drift too far off topic, and my main point was to emphasize the importance of argument as a means of eliminating error, but I think truth may be an unattainable goal. Outside of formal logic and closed mathematical systems, or similar artificial constructs, truth may be impossible to prove.

Well, truth may be possible to prove for very simple matters, or for areas so abstracted that they come to resemble logic or mathematics, but for fields based on empirical data, the best we may ever get is a theory which can withstand all of the challenges mounted against it to date.

I know, in essence, I have just rediscovered the scientific method, but you would be amazed how many people fail to see the implications of this method. They understand how the scientific method works, but do not grasp the point that the method never reaches what we would call truth, resulting at best in an approximation thereof. We are left not with something true, but something that our best efforts cannot prove false.

There is quite a difference between the two.

POSTSCRIPT III  

After several readings I realized my second postscript could be read wrong. It sounds, in some ways, like those who argue against an uncomfortable scientific theory by saying it is "just a theory".

I am well aware that a theory which fits empirical data, which can be reproduced experimentally, and which has withstood every challenge to date, is a lot different from the popular usage of "theory" to mean nothing more than a guess. My point is not to reduce the validity of such properly proved theories, but to point out that scientific theories are still not in the same category as mathematical certainties.

The laws of thermodynamics, for example, are not as certain as the transitive property. They match all known observations, but still lack the certainty of mathematics. A single instance of a closed system spontaneously moving to a more ordered system wqould cuase them to be declared invalid. Taht cannot happen to formal constructs, such as the laws of mathematics.

But they are much more certain than what most mean when they say "it is just a theory". So, though they are "theories", they are still quite valuable, as they are theories which have stood up to repeated examination and testing.