The Art of Controversy (or The Art of Being Right) is a collection of debate formulas written in 1831 by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. In this book, the author presents methods of gaining an unfair advantage in a debate and thereby being right even if you are wrong. Schopenhauer is a champion in the dialectical argument; in his view, dialectics is wrongly neglected by philosophers in favor of logic. This work is a handbook of modern debaters like Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

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Collected here are six short essays-- The Basis of All Dialect; Stratagems; On the Comparative Place of Interest and Beauty in Works of Art; Psychological Observations; and On the Wisdom of Life: Aphorisms, and Genius and Virtue-- by the world renowned philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.

The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument (also Eristic Dialectic: The Art of Winning an Argument; German: Eristische Dialektik: Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten; 1831) is an acidulous and sarcastic treatise written by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in sardonic deadpan. In it, Schopenhauer examines a total of thirty-eight methods of showing up one's opponent in a debate. He introduces his essay with the idea that philosophers have concentrated in ample measure on the rules of logic, but have not (especially since the time of Immanuel Kant) engaged with the darker art of the dialectic, of controversy. Whereas the purpose of logic is classically said to be a method of arriving at the truth, dialectic, says Schopenhauer, "...on the other hand, would treat of the intercourse between two rational beings who, because they are rational, ought to think in common, but who, as soon as they cease to agree like two clocks keeping exactly the same time, create a disputation, or intellectual contest."

The volume now before the reader is a tardy addition to a series in which I have endeavoured to present Schopenhauer's minor writings in an adequate form.Its contents are drawn entirely from his posthumous papers. A selection of them was given to the world some three of four years after his death by his friend and literary executor, Julius Frauenstädt, who for this and other offices of piety, has received less recognition than he deserves. The papers then published have recently been issued afresh, with considerable additions and corrections, by Dr. Eduard Grisebach, who is also entitled to gratitude for the care with which he has followed the text of the manuscripts, now in the Royal Library at Berlin, and for having drawn attention—although in terms that are unnecessarily severe—to a number of faults and failings on the part of the previous editor.