Beneath the fold, I have stolen some text that lists 12 principles that make intellectual argument possible. In turn, this list was taken from Attacking Faulty Reasoning: A Practical Guide to Fallacy-Free Arguments by Edward T. Damer, which was recommended in comments by G. Felis.
I have added in italics my own comments interspersing the more sensible and measured text of my sources. I am doing this because of a major confusion that I have recently and over the years encountered, thinking that argument is about winning. It is not. It is about reaching the best conclusion one can from the premises one has access to. In simpler terms, it’s about approaching truth.
In The Sophist, Plato rightly attacks those who treat oratory and argument as a game in which the prize is to sway, by any means possible, one’s audience. This is something that can be achieved almost without any logic or reason at all, as politicians (and one 20th century politician in particular, but we shan’t Godwinise the post before we begin) so often demonstrate. A critical and honest population is the only guard against this evil. And for that, you need to know the rules of debate. This list is better than Plato’s dialogues.
