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On 10/25/2009 12:10 PM, <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk">L.Wood@surrey.ac.uk</a> wrote:
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<title>RE: [e2e] Protocols breaking the end-to-end argument</title>
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<p><font size="2">> So let's not study wars and battles. Let's
study architectural<br>
> principles and their application.<br>
<br>
So it is a principle after all, then?<br>
<br>
(It strikes me that if one is aspiring to be Darwin one shouldn't<br>
also have to be Dawkins.)<br>
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<font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">To be precise, the end-to-end
argument refers to a class of arguments, with a few free variables.
Jerry and I (and perhaps Dave) have long been students of a thing
called "rhetoric". In classical rhetoric (a la Aristotle), one
discusses</font> what kinds of arguments are valid. Logic is a part of
rhetoric, but rhetoric as a whole includes many other aspects of
argumentation.<br>
<font size="2"><br>
</font>Linking rhetoric to formal logic, the end-to-end argument would
be one of a set of "rules of inference" - acceptable combinators that
take other factors into account and provide new valid statements.<br>
<br>
Substituting for the free variables in the end-to-end argument provides
a large set of implied valid statements.<br>
<br>
Now rhetoric includes the mechanisms for argumentation where there is
not one "truth". In fact, in general, rhetoric handles cases where one
line of argumentation supports a particular decision, and another line
supports a different decision. Therefore, rhetoric has been part of
the general set of tools that lawyers use for argumentation - there is
no guarantee that all laws are consistent, nor are their set of valid
arguments complete in the sense of deciding every case.<br>
<br>
Architecture is like that: it is why good systems architects need to
understand rhetoric in all of its glory.<br>
<br>
Examples of rhetoric:<br>
<br>
The much misunderstood "ad hominem argument" - which is an argument
that makes claims based on who is making a particular claim. The term
has been redefined in popular culture to mean "insult", but in fact it
was never that.<br>
<br>
The argument "post hoc ergo propter hoc". That is the idea that
"correlation equals causation" - John Day's argument that because of
the date of publication, Jerry Dave and I must have invented the
argument as part of some contemporaneous battle about network adoption.<br>
<br>
etc.<br>
<br>
I commend study of rhetoric to all. It helps decode the rather
strange logics that pervade discourse today.<br>
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