For they determine respecting almost all controversies, public and private; and if any crime has been perpetrated, if murder has been committed, if there be any dispute about an inheritance, if any about boundaries, these same persons decide it; they decree rewards and punishments if any one, either in a private or public capacity, has not submitted to their decision, they interdict him from the sacrifices.

These had a dispute with each other for precedence, and in the struggle between the magistrates they had contended with their utmost efforts, the one for Convictolitanis, the other for Cotus.

Hence we make it a rule to attack a counter-argument, even though to all appearances it is true and forcible, in the belief that its truth is only superficial, and that in the course of the dispute another argument will occur to us by which we may upset it, or succeed in confirming the truth of our statement.

It is just the same in a dispute: if I allow that my opponent is right as soon as he seems to be so, it is scarcely probable that he will do the same when the position is reversed; and as he acts wrongly, I am compelled to act wrongly too.

Therefore, when Aristotle speaks of Dialectic, we must include in it Sophistic, Eristic, and Peirastic, and define it as "the art of getting the best of it in a dispute," in which, unquestionably, the safest plan is to be in the right to begin with; but this in itself is not enough in the existing disposition of mankind, and, on the other hand, with the weakness of the human intellect, it is not altogether necessary.

Two men often engage in a warm dispute, and then return to their homes each of the other's opinion, which he has exchanged for his own.

It is easy to say that in every dispute we should have no other aim than the advancement of truth; but before dispute no one knows where it is, and through his opponent's arguments and his own a man is misled.

It is easy to say that in every dispute we should have no other aim than the advancement of truth; but before dispute no one knows where it is, and through his opponent's arguments and his own a man is misled.

To form a clear idea of the province of Dialectic, we must pay no attention to objective truth, which is an affair of Logic; we must regard it simply as the art of getting the best of it in a dispute, which, as we have seen, is all the easier if we are actually in the right.

Dialectic, then, need have nothing to do with truth, as little as the fencing master considers who is in the right when a dispute leads to a duel.

The true conception of Dialectic is, then, that which we have formed: it is the art of intellectual fencing used for the purpose of getting the best of it in a dispute; and, although the name Eristic would be more suitable, it is more correct to call it controversial Dialectic, Dialectica eristica.

Dialectic in this sense of the word has no other aim but to reduce to a regular system and collect and exhibit the arts which most men employ when they observe, in a dispute, that truth is not on their side, and still attempt to gain the day.

First of all, we must consider the essential nature of every dispute: what it is that really takes place in it.

He has, that is to say, either taken up some position once for all as a prejudice, or hastily admitted it in the course of the dispute; and on this I ground my proof.

If you observe that your opponent has taken up a line of argument which will end in your defeat, you must not allow him to carry it to its conclusion, but interrupt the course of the dispute in time, or break it off altogether, or lead him away from the subject, and bring him to others.

If your opponent requires you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it is a petitio principii For he and the audience will regard a proposition which is near akin to the point in dispute as identical with it, and in this way you deprive him of his best argument.

If your opponent requires you to admit something from which the point in dispute will immediately follow, you must refuse to do so, declaring that it is a petitio principii For he and the audience will regard a proposition which is near akin to the point in dispute as identical with it, and in this way you deprive him of his best argument.

This is chiefly practicable in a dispute between scholars in the presence of the unlearned.

If you find that you are being worsted, you can make a diversionthat is, you can suddenly begin to talk of something else, as though it had a bearing on the matter in dispute, and afforded an argument against your opponent.

The diversion is mere impudence if it completely abandons the point in dispute, and raises, for instance, some such objection as "Yes, and you also said just now," and so on.

Nevertheless, in a dispute with ordinary people, we may employ universal opinion as an authority.

Before a tribunal the dispute is one between authorities alone,such authoritative statements, I mean, as are laid down by legal experts; and here the exercise of judgment consists in discovering what law or authority applies to the case in question.

It consists in passing from the subject of dispute, as from a lost game, to the disputant himself, and in some way attacking his person.

A cool demeanour may, however, help you here, if, as soon as your opponent becomes personal, you quietly reply, "That has no bearing on the point in dispute," and immediately bring the conversation back to it, and continue to show him that he is wrong, without taking any notice of his insults.

Some are of opinion, that it is in vain to dispute with such atheistical spirits in the meantime, 'tis not the best way to reclaim them.