In this paper I create a list of rules for sports radio talk success based on the inverse of many lessons I currently teach in my introduction to critical thinking class. Referring to various norms of critical engagement using Socratic dialogues, Theaetetus, Gorgias, and Republic, I show that the rules which govern sports radio talk are often gleaned from Socrates’s opponents, Sophists and those using eristic arguments, not dialectical ones. The rules are as follows: Rule #1: Reduce arguments to “perspectives.” Rule #2: Pursue Victory, not Truth. Rule #3: Fallacies are Fair Game. Rule #4: Equate Is with Ought. Rule #5: Pander to Prejudice. Rule #6: The God Card Trumps.
About the presenterSeth Vannatta
Seth Vannatta is a professor in the department of philosophy and religious studies at Morgan State University. His research areas include American pragmatism, philosophy of law, and popular culture and philosophy. He is the editor of two volumes in popular culture and philosophy, Chuck Klosterman and Philosophy: The Real and the Cereal (2012) and The Wire and Philosophy: This America, man (2013) and author of Conservatism and Pragmatism in Law, Politics, and Ethics (2014).