Clever in arguing can a person be, and still be factually incorrect about a subject. We still live in a society where people think that proof of truth lies in clever argument.
A diversity of sources, I would argue, is not the problem. The problem is whether we are able to filter bad information out with critical thinking, whether we approach all information with closed minded bias, or whether we are so naively open minded as to treat all sources of information we look at as being true. The last approach will leave a person confused, and is what Seneca was concerned Lucilius would do. However, he mistakenly believed that the answer lay in limiting your information to a few true sources. This approach is the one of bias. Start with what you believe is true, or what your mentor says is true, and automatically consider false all that doesn’t fit within or contradicts this starting point. This is also not how you arrive at real truth but close yourself off to it. Only by considering the options, but filtering out that which cannot stand up to critical inquiry, do you eliminate what is false and arrive at what is true. Much like what Sherlock Holmes said in “The Sign of the Four”; when you eliminate the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Similarly, when you eliminate that information which is false whatever remains is most likely, though not guaranteed to be, true.
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Clever in arguing can a person be, and still be factually incorrect about a subject. We still live in a society where people think that proof of truth lies in clever argument.
Fantastic great voice
I have to disagree with Seneca, provided you are not reading/listening to people who are arguing in bad faith, a diversity of sources is good.
This is especially true if sources are unreliable.
Yurtex seneca didn't know about CNN
A diversity of sources, I would argue, is not the problem. The problem is whether we are able to filter bad information out with critical thinking, whether we approach all information with closed minded bias, or whether we are so naively open minded as to treat all sources of information we look at as being true.
The last approach will leave a person confused, and is what Seneca was concerned Lucilius would do. However, he mistakenly believed that the answer lay in limiting your information to a few true sources. This approach is the one of bias. Start with what you believe is true, or what your mentor says is true, and automatically consider false all that doesn’t fit within or contradicts this starting point. This is also not how you arrive at real truth but close yourself off to it.
Only by considering the options, but filtering out that which cannot stand up to critical inquiry, do you eliminate what is false and arrive at what is true. Much like what Sherlock Holmes said in “The Sign of the Four”; when you eliminate the impossible, that which remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Similarly, when you eliminate that information which is false whatever remains is most likely, though not guaranteed to be, true.