Week 6-Post 3: The Principle of Rational Discussion

In the Epstein text of Chapter 4 there is a section which is called "The Principle of Rational Discussion" that was interesting to read. According to Epstein, "The Principle of Rational Discussion" have three important principles that we assume that people must know to make good discussion/arguments. Epstein states, the three main principles are "knows about the subject under discussion, Is able and willing to reason well, and Is not lying" (60). Epstein goes on to talk about if your going to discuss something or argue it should be something that you have knowledge about which is part of his firs principle. For example I am not good with cars or don't know anything about mechanics so i cannot discuss about this subject, but I do watch a lot of moves so I have a lot of knowledge on different where I can open a good discussion if it comes up. The second part that Epstein talks about is that people must be able to reason well, but most people do not do so because they always want to be right and will not accept other peoples arguments so there is no point in reasoning with people who have those ideas. The final principle to reasoning with people is that the other person is not lying because if a person continuously lies there is no way you can reason with a person that lies.