How can I persuade honestly, and how can I tell when I am being persuaded?
Level 1
Learn it
5 ideas. Read the hook, pick an answer, see the picture.
The Seven Liberal Arts, Hands-On
The Seven Liberal Arts, Hands-On: Logic, Proof and the Quadrivium
Euler's polynomial, n squared plus n plus 41, gives a prime for every n from 0 to 39. At n = 40 it gives 1681, which is 41 squared. Testing refutes a rule quickly; it cannot prove it for every n.
Pick one
You want a new square with exactly twice the area of an old one. What should its side be?
Doubling the side quadruples the area; one and a half times the side gives 2.25 times. Cut the old square along its diagonal: the square on that diagonal holds four such halves, the old square two. Both wrong options are the slave boy's guesses in Plato's Meno (82e, 83e); Socrates leads him to the diagonal (85a-b).
English Expression Mastery: Words, Sentences, Paragraphs and Speech
One word can invent a cause. 'Although the service is running, users cannot log in' is fair to the facts. Swap in 'because' and the grammar is still fine, but the logic is invented.
Pick one
A large 2018 meta-analysis looked at adult bilingualism and executive function. Once publication bias was corrected, what happened to the apparent bilingual advantage?
Lehtonen et al. (2018) found the apparent cognitive advantages did not hold up once publication bias was corrected. That leaves 'a harder language makes you smarter' unsupported. The finding does not show that learning languages is worthless.
The 25-minute weekday session
1Recall5 minutes retrieving earlier words and moves.
2Study a model5 minutes with one author's prose.
3Write8 minutes on the week's evolving piece.
4Revise5 minutes; keep uncertainty in the text.
5Speak2 minutes explaining the point aloud.
Each weekday session loops through recalling, studying, writing, revising and speaking.
When a sentence will not come, the sentence is rarely the problem. Usually you cannot yet tell your observations from your inferences and assumptions.
Pick one
Nygard's decision records give context, decision, status and consequences. What does the page say most records leave out?
The page calls this the sentence most records omit: name the requirement that would reverse the choice. Context and consequences already cover the need and the results. Ask which option wins if the budget halves. That turns a verdict into a conditional, which is easier to revisit.
Five Steps to a Checkable Recommendation
1Define termsSay what 'slow' or 'down' actually measures.
2Separate claimsLabel observations, inferences and assumptions.
3Best opponentState the strongest competing explanation or design.
4Name evidenceSay what would change your conclusion.
5Rewrite to actLead with the recommendation, then reasons, then limits.
Separate what you saw from what you assumed, then write so others can act.
The Weekly Loop: Read, Reconstruct, Make, Defend, Log
On a test five minutes later, students who had reread a passage beat students who had practised recalling it. A week later the recallers won, though the rereaders felt more confident (Roediger and Karpicke 2006).
Pick one
An AI can do many jobs in this loop. Which one does the page rule out?
The table says do not let it lecture before your first honest reading. The other three jobs are on its 'Do' side. The reason is desirable difficulties: effortful processing tends to improve long-term learning even when it feels slower.
In 1877 Peirce had a kind word for the ostrich. One that buries its head as danger approaches, he wrote, 'very likely takes the happiest course.' The catch is other people.
Pick one
Peirce says inquiry has exactly one job. What is it?
Inquiry starts with the irritation of doubt and stops once belief is firm, true or not. That is why Peirce then asks which method settles belief best.
Four Ways to Settle Belief
Tenacity
Cling to a view, avoid challenges
Other people's views bring doubt back
Authority
An institution fixes doctrine
Other times and places believe differently
A priori
Adopt what seems agreeable to reason
Beliefs follow taste and fashion
Science
Belief caused by something external
Slower, but mistakes can be corrected
Only the method of science rests on something independent of our opinions, so it can correct itself.
8 questions from the Rhetoric curriculum, Round 1.
Question 1 of 8
Aristotle names three kinds of proof furnished by speech (Rhetoric I.2, 1356a): the speaker's character (ethos), the hearer's frame of mind (pathos) and the argument itself (logos). A speaker says: 'I have inspected this town's bridges for twenty years and have never once played down a fault. Trust me: the bridge is safe.' Which does the speaker lean on?
The speaker gives no fact about the bridge, only a record of honest inspection, so the claim rests on who is speaking. Quintilian's ideal orator is 'a good man, skilled in speaking', and Augustine says the speaker's life counts for more in securing the hearer's compliance than the majesty of the style. A record like this may be true, but it is not an observation of this bridge.
Question 2 of 8
The English Expression page sets one standard for clear expression. What is it?
The page says: 'The standard is the reader's understanding, not your impression. A rare word is good only when it is the most accurate one.' Shortness and the writer's satisfaction are not the test.
Question 3 of 8
Step 1 of the Academy's elenchus asks for the claim stated so it could be wrong. Which version of 'the new rota is working' does that?
Only the second names what would count against it: one uncovered shift in the next eight weeks would show it false. The others fit any outcome. The Academy's entry on truth gives the test: name the state of the world that would make the claim false, and if you cannot, you are not holding a claim about the world.
Question 4 of 8
A charity appeal opens: 'Tonight a child in this city will sleep in a doorway in the rain. Picture her.' No figure or reason has yet been given. Which appeal is this opening making?
It works on the hearer's frame of mind: you are asked to picture a cold child before you are given any number or reason. That can be honest, since the trivium page says persuasion can be honest, but a feeling is not evidence. Bloch's rule on the testimony page, that people readily believe what they need to believe, is a reason to look for the figures behind the picture.
Question 5 of 8
In the English Expression page's table of what mastery looks like, what is the evidence of improvement in speech?
The table gives 'a listener accurately repeats your main point' as the evidence for speech, and for style, one idea explained successfully to three different people. Both measure what reached the listener, not how the speaker felt.
Question 6 of 8
The Academy's elenchus asks for the strongest objection, not the weakest. Why?
The aim of the elenchus is to remove what cannot survive questioning, including your own claims. Technical Writing as Reasoning puts it plainly: if you cannot say what the best opponent would argue, you have not tested your view. A strong objection can still be answered; it is not correct just because it is strong.
Question 7 of 8
A council report says: 'The bridge's sensors recorded loads above its rated limit on 40 of the last 60 days. The council's own rule requires an inspection whenever the rated limit is exceeded. So the bridge must be inspected.' Which appeal does most of the work?
The report gives premises a reader can check, a sensor count and a written rule, and the conclusion follows from them. It would work just as well with the author's name removed, which is the Academy's test for a proof as opposed to rhetoric. It makes no appeal to the writer's character or to the reader's feelings.
Question 8 of 8
Augustine asks what use a golden key is if it cannot open what we want it to open, and what objection there is to a wooden one that can. What does the image say about words?
A key is for opening. A golden key that cannot open is useless and a wooden one that can is fine, so clarity governs teaching, delighting and moving alike (On Christian Doctrine IV.11.26). Fine words are not at fault when they also open.