We’ve got two divergent considerations here, direct truth-assertion and emotional stability. The first valuation is good for upholding the unambiguous leading of someone to possible truth. It cuts into the second when an irrelevant truth is needlessly harmful to someone’s emotional state and subverts its own purpose (i.e., sharing truth) by causing another to focus instead on himself. The second is good for preserving a soundness of mind that allows for truth to enter and be considered; but when over-valued, harsh but necessary or helpful truths can often go unsaid.
When push comes to shove, I say, the advantage goes to the truth-assertion, especially considering how ridiculously over-sensitive most folks in our PC, self-esteem-obsessed culture are. Sensitivity always gets the upper-hand, because our modern/po-mo philosophies made us lose all faith in ever getting the truth. Our culture operates on the basis that truth is either non-existent, purely subjective, or else unattainable, and so we apparently ought to just elevate the status of “sincerity” and “niceness.” We’ve generally grown soft.
Since direct truth-assertion is a more efficient way to lead people to the truth, it should take precedent over emotions, which are often useless by themselves, only a minimally necessary condition that’s best left mostly to the control of a stoic individual. Especially so for philosophy.
[And for clearer justification of my view, read on. Unless you’re easily offended…]
The obvious question that all these consideration must be made under is, What is the good of philosophical discussion?
The prior question should be: what’s the good of
discussion in general?
The end: Knowledge (of truth).
The means: Communicative and correspondly significant language.
Two or more persons employ man’s God-given capacity for symbolic, referential speech toward the immediate end of sharing the contents of their internal worlds, their ideas, their beliefs, etc, with the intention of producing similar ideas, beliefs, or knowledge in others.
Primitively, communication seems to have arisen among animals as an effective stimulus-response behavior that ultimately produced such survival benefits, for whichever ones had instinctual affinity to it, that the genetic and physiological bases for it were “selected for.” Primitive communication needed only be dyadic, eliciting an advantageous response regardless of whether it signified anything universal or was understood as an “intentional item.”
Language is uniquely intentional; it pertains and refers to concepts, relations, and judgments by way of conventional markers and signs. I would think that language first occurred when prototypical man (Adam) discovered mental reality, intentionality, and the fact that any thing can and does point beyond itself; so he invented practical and conventional ways to utilize the power. He realized that certain formations of color on a kind of berry made him sick and thus remembered what such a formation indicated; he was able to assign meaning to his markers by establishing their meanings socially; he developed an efficient code of symbols that maximized his brain’s memory; etc. (Some evo-biologists think our ability to pass down agricultural and ecological information caused modern man to beat out neanderthals in the competition for like resources.)
So the natural end of language is likely rooted in correspondence between signs and reality, individually and socially, which efficiently serves a higher natural good, like survival. Of course, man’s ultimate good is more than survival; it is spiritual, that is, eternal joy and worship in personal service of God and His Will. Therefore, language ought to maximize such an ultimate end by way of paving its Path, by establishing the best ways to follow it, i.e., typically, by elucidating truths. (Truth, unmixed with error, is our most reliable path to Him.)
In sum, communication and language allow for the sharing and creation of signs which lead us to truths about the world, ultimately to Truth Itself, or in other words, to knowledge. Knowledge of truth is the final end of communicative language.
Philosophical discussion allows for multiple minds, all potentially with their own unique perspectives and insights, to work together in service of determining philosophical truth, the right solution to a philosophical problem. Doing so clarifies God’s Truth when done so properly, without deceptively falling into half-truth. But in order for philosophy to best get underway, maximal clarity and precision is required. Rigorous logic, impartiality, creativity, intellectual honesty, open-mindedness, and above all, a passion for the truth above one’s self or another. Though always a matter of prudence, those who will muddy the waters by introducing pride or ego should usually refrain from these discussions. Not everyone is called to the Truth through philosophical insight – and I’m specifically referring to folks with such thin skin that they wouldn’t give the benefit of the doubt in favor of truth whenever it runs up against esteem or sensitivity. (These are female most often. Don’t blame me.) If philosophical discussion is to efficiently advance, egos must be left at the door so that all reasonable methods for sharing truth can be employed, even when somewhat uncertain or ambiguous.
We need to keep in mind that
ad hominem does have legitimacy. If prudence dictates that a harsh truth will so harm a fool’s ego that it will cause him to dedicate a lot of time toward getting things right, then perhaps calling him a simpleton is your obligation. (Actually, it would seem that the less a man cares for the truth, the more justified you are in insulting him, no?)
] way to analyze the problem this thread raises - can you see that?