Vain disputes

Is there any reason to argue with other people, trying to persuade them into accepting one's point of view despite of their own attitudes? Those who can be thus persuaded do not worth the effort, and those whose thought is as strong as their opponent's do not need to be opposed in that.

Quite often, people struggle not with the other's views, but rather with their vulgarization, their distorted reflection in the curved face of the public mirror. Many such vulgarizations become so popular that nobody tries to check the original works, being satisfied with usual quotations and second-hand interpretations. Thus, F.Schlegel with his conception of the "spiritually interesting" fought against I.Kant's thesis that the statement of taste assumes no interest, forgetting that this was Kant who first treated the "intellectual interest" related to aesthetic judgement. In the same way, Kant has been often declared to be the father of philosophical "apriorism" and "agnosticism" - while the works of Kant are replete with the statements of the objectivity of mental forms, their origin from the natural laws and the firm belief in the human ability to comprehend anything at all. Yes, Kant did not know where the schemes of reasoning came from - and he honestly refused to treat that, just indicating that such abstractions cannot be derived from experience. Criticizing that kind of "apriorism" would mean opposing what Kant did not do, rather than what he did. In the same way one would blame Sir Isaac Newton for never trying to build a mathematical theory of love!

Any argument is only possible when there is a lack of mutual understanding. In this case, it would be much better for the people to just learn from each other.