That idea is an online space for a form of public discourse that would be collaborative rather than adversarial – and which could help reduce, rather than contribute to, dogmatism, groupthink, polarization and tribalism.
Just as Wikipedia is a collaborative site for presenting knowledge, Chains of Reason would be a collaborative site for presenting arguments – moral, political, scientific, philosophical, historical, etc.
Each argument would be presented as a series of logical steps that are as small as possible – unless it consists of a single logical step that's as small as possible. Each step would consist of two premises followed by a conclusion, with the conclusion of each step prior to the last also being the first premise of the next step.
The logical steps would be presented in a column, as in the following example of an argument consisting of two logical steps:
The death penalty is a legal penalty that involves deliberately killing someone.
+
Deliberately killing someone is an inherently immoral act.
⬇️
The death penalty is a legal penalty that involves an inherently immoral act.
+
A legal penalty that involves an inherently immoral act should be abolished.
⬇️
The death penalty should be abolished.
The above doesn't include logical steps that might support claims 1, 2 and 4, but it would be possible to present such logical steps as separate arguments and then link to those arguments from these claims. It would likewise be possible to link to alternative arguments for the sub-conclusion – claim 3 – and the main conclusion – claim 5.
The above argument could instead be presented via merely a single sentence:
The death penalty should be abolished because deliberately killing someone is an inherently immoral act.
This version of the argument involves a single premise – deliberately killing someone is an inherently immoral act – and a single logical step that's larger than either of the two steps in the five-sentence version.
Although this version can initially seem to be a coherent argument – whether or not it seems convincing – it actually involves two leaps of logic. That is, whereas its conclusion refers to the concepts of the death penalty and abolishment, its single premise doesn't refer to either. That single premise instead refers to the concepts of an inherently immoral act and deliberately killing someone, whereas the conclusion doesn't.
These leaps of logic mean that this version of the argument must be dependent on hidden premises which bridge the logical gaps between the single premise and the conclusion. But in the five-sentence version of the argument neither of the two logical steps is dependent on hidden premises, and so there are no leaps of logic.
The argument can also be expressed in one logical step without any hidden premises as follows:
The death penalty is a legal penalty that involves deliberately killing someone.
+
Deliberately killing someone is an inherently immoral act.
+
A legal penalty that involves an inherently immoral act should be abolished.
⬇️
The death penalty should be abolished.
But this logical step, involving three premises, is larger than either of the two steps in the five-sentence version of the argument, and therefore not as easy to follow.
The other key features of the presentation format would be:
It would be possible to add notes, including references, to any part of an argument, with the notes being viewable in expandable sections.
It would be possible to add objections to parts of an argument, whether concerning the truth of a claim or the logic of a step. The former type of objection would consist of a contrary claim linking to an argument for it, and the latter type of objection would consist of identifying a logical fallacy that the step supposedly commits.
In addition to the ability to add specific objections, it would be possible for users to simply indicate:
Such responses would be:
non-anonymous and viewable in expandable sections next to the relevant parts of the argument, like a social media post’s ‘likes’ section
combined to determine overall levels of confidence among respondents in the premises and logic of each step, and in each step as a whole, and in the argument as a whole, with these levels of confidence displayed along with the number of responses they were based on.
Each step in an argument would be stored individually by the site, so that it would be possible to:
easily copy a step in one argument into another
view a list of arguments using the same step
choose to apply a change to a step in one argument to any other uses of it in other arguments.
As with Wikipedia, Chains of Reason would be an open-source wiki web app, and users would be able to access the edit history of all site content.
Public discourse is normally adversarial, as we try to demonstrate that our beliefs are correct and our opponents' beliefs are wrong. But Chains of Reason would be a platform for public discourse that would instead be collaborative.
That is, just as contributors to Wikipedia with contrary beliefs collaborate on articles related to those beliefs, contributors to Chains of Reason with contrary beliefs would collaborate on the presentation of arguments for and against those beliefs.
Therefore, just as Wikipedia isn't a forum for debating issues, neither would Chains of Reason be. The only debate on Wikipedia is about how best to present particular knowledge, and the only debate on Chains of Reason would be about how best to present each argument.
It would be possible to add objections to any part of an argument, but even this would be done as part of the collaborative process of presenting arguments, given that an objection to an argument is itself an argument – a counterargument.
And although it would also be possible for users to indicate their individual assessments of the premises and logic of each step in an argument, such assessments would be limited to the options listed above, and there'd be no way for users to respond to the assessments of other users.
The collaborative form of public discourse on Chains of Reason would have three significant advantages over the normal adversarial form of public discourse:
Thinking about how best to present arguments for beliefs that are contrary to our own, and doing so in collaboration with people who hold such contrary beliefs, is likely to lead to us gaining a better understanding of such arguments, including becoming aware of how such arguments can be misrepresented.
The confrontational nature of adversarial public discourse, and the strong negative emotions that are inevitably aroused by that confrontation, in both participants and observers, can put-off people from participating in, or even just following, such discourse. But the collaborative public discourse on Chains of Reason would be inherently non-confrontational.
Although there would be debate about how best to present each argument, such disagreement would be between collaborators rather than adversaries, and would tend to arouse negative emotions to a much lesser degree than higher-stake disagreement over the arguments themselves and the beliefs which they supposedly support or contradict.
And the more we participate in, or at least follow, public discourse, the more knowledgeable we'll be of the arguments for and against both our beliefs and contrary beliefs.
Viewing all fellow participants in a public discourse as our collaborators, rather than viewing some of them as our adversaries who we therefore must either defeat or be defeated by, would likely make us – at least during that discourse, but perhaps also beyond – both less defensive of our own beliefs and more open-minded towards contrary beliefs.
And the less defensive we are of our own beliefs, and the more open-minded we are towards contrary beliefs, the more likely we are to notice the weaknesses in arguments for our beliefs or against contrary beliefs, and notice the strengths in arguments against our beliefs and for contrary beliefs.
So this collaborative form of public discourse could help reduce, rather than contribute to, dogmatism and groupthink, and thus also polarisation and tribalism. In short, Chains of Reason could be a sort of anti echo chamber.
There would be three other positive aspects of Chains of Reason:
First, the presentation format would be an inherently clear and concise way to present arguments:
clear because each argument would consist of the smallest possible logical steps – and therefore wouldn't involve leaps of logic due to hidden premises – and also because the logical steps would be separated-out into a column
concise because only the bare bones of the argument would be presented – although, it would be possible to add notes to any part of an argument.
This clarity and conciseness would:
minimise the amount of time needed to understand, and assess, arguments
make it easier to notice any problems with an argument, or the absence of problems
maximise the accessibility of arguments and thereby help widen participation in the discourse.
The second other positive aspect of Chains of Reason is that it would enable people to contribute original arguments, including original objections to other arguments, to any area of inquiry in a way that would be:
quick and easy
not dependent on the approval of individuals with particular qualifications, positions, or status, and who may not be sufficiently open-minded to take counterintuitive original arguments seriously
not dependent on the qualifications, position, or status of the contributor.
Of course, this also applies to presenting original arguments in most online forums.
The third other positive aspect of Chains of Reason is that if it became an established platform for presenting arguments on any topic, that would in itself promote the importance of:
justifying claims with arguments
In normal speech and writing we often make unsupported assertions, whether because it simply doesn't occur to us to provide a justification, or we think that the assertion is so obvious that it doesn't require a justification, or we want to protect our reasoning from scrutiny and challenge.
presenting arguments using logical steps that are as small as possible, and thereby both avoiding leaps of logic and helping to maximise clarity
addressing the arguments which supposedly support a claim that we disbelieve
When responding to a claim that we disbelieve we often fail to address – whether deliberately or not – any arguments that have been presented to support the claim. We often instead focus on presenting the arguments that we think support the contrary claim that we believe – including ad hominem arguments against the claim we disbelieve, which are by nature fallacious.
It would be possible for logged-in users to, Reddit-style, anonymously upvote or downvote any kind of contribution by another user, in order to indicate whether they think that it's a positive or negative contribution. And the vote tally for each contribution would be publicly displayed in both the relevant page's contribution history and the user's contribution history.
Also, these votes would be used to create a rating of the value of a user's collective contributions, which would be publicly displayed on their profile.
If contributors were able to earn money from valuable contributions then that would both encourage and support such good work. The platform would enable this in three ways:
Regular payments to contributors, funded by donations to Chains of Reason, based on both:
votes received by their contributions since the previous payment, regardless of the dates of the contributions
an algorithmic determination of the impact of their contributions since the previous payment, regardless of the dates of the contributions.
One-off or recurring donations made directly to contributors by people who value their contributions.
Revenue from optional ads on user profile pages – all other pages on the site would always be ad-free. This option would only be available to those with user ratings above a particular level, in order to avoid some users using bad behaviour to increase views of their profile page and therefore of ads on it.
These ways of earning could even enable top contributors to earn a living from their contributions, just as top content creators on other online platforms do. And that could include independent researchers, who normally have much more difficulty funding their work than academics do.
The site would be joyful to use, by being beautiful, intuitive and innovative.
Chains of Reason's user interface would be designed to be so intuitive that people, including children, would be able to start contributing without needing to read any instructions. However, the site would provide courses, collectively called Chains of Reason Academy, on how to optimally contribute, including how best to construct and assess arguments.
The courses would be created via the same collaborative process as the rest of the site content, and a subset would be aimed at children.
Chains of Reason would be committed to freedom of opinion and expression. There would be no censorship of lawful contributions.
Freedom of opinion and expression is a fundamental, and universal, human right. As Article 19 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
This proposal was developed by me, Derrick Farnell.
I'm hoping that this proposal will lead to the formation of a community of people who want to work together to turn this idea into reality.
Chains of Reason would be, like Wikipedia, run on a nonprofit basis and funded by donations, with full financial transparency. It would be owned and run by a nonprofit organisation, just as Wikipedia is owned and run by the Wikimedia Foundation.
If you want to get involved:
join the discussion at the Chains of Reason subreddit
help spread the word by sharing this proposal: chainsofreason.org.
To receive email updates about Chains of Reason submit your address via Substack – you don't need a Substack account.
You can email me at derrick@chainsofreason.org.