Arguments convince nobody (except mathematicians, some engineers, and some physicists)

Geniuses invent their predecessors, said Borges. And he himself, maybe invented an argument out of Emerson, and put it at the base of an important observation: arguments, syllogisms, enthymemes, epicheiremes, convince nobody. Now, this might be the Positivists nightmare (yes, including the Earl of Russell) for, didn't they dogmatize that everything, if it was to be scientifically accepted, had to be proven by logic (whatever version we might choose)? And in that iconoclastic impulse, they threw away Metaphysics and Theology.

Yet, years later, when nobody seriously considers Positivism a feasible Philosophy, and after Godel proved Hilbert and his (unwanted?) disciple Russell to be completely wrong insofar the role that they had envisioned for Logic, Borges posits that arguments convince nobody, but Poetry, Parables, and the like do.

An excerpt of the interview that the philosopher Denis Dutton made to Borges explains the idea:

Dutton: Do you think that it is possible then for a story to represent a philosophical position more effectively than a philosopher can argue for it?

Borges: I have never thought of that, but I suppose you’re right, Sir. I suppose you — yes, yes, I think you’re right. Because as — I don’t know who said that, was it Bernard Shaw? — he said, arguments convince nobody. No, Emerson. He said, arguments convince nobody. And I suppose he was right, even if you think of proofs for the existence of God, for example — no? In that case, if arguments convince nobody, a man may be convinced by parables or fables or what? Or fictions. Those are far more convincing than the syllogism — and they are, I suppose. Well, of course, when I think of something in terms of Jesus Christ. As far as I remember, he never used arguments; he used style, he used certain metaphors. It’s very strange — yes, and he always used very striking sentences. He would not say, I don’t come to bring peace but war — “I do not come to bring peace but a sword.” The Christ, he thought in parables. Well, according to — I think that it was Blake who said that a man should be — I mean, if he is a Christian — should be not only just but he should be intelligent ... he should also be an artist, since Christ had been teaching art through his own way of preaching, because every one of the sentences of Christ, if not every single utterance of Christ, has a literary value, and may be thought of as a metaphor or as a parable.

and in a Conference at Harvard Borges observed:

"Had the poet said so in so many words, he would have been far less effective. Because, as I understand it, anything suggested is far more effective than anything laid down. Perhaps the human mind has a tendency to deny a statement. Remember what Emerson said: arguments convince nobody. They convince nobody because they are presented as arguments"

Postscript:

I believe that right in this observation of Borges, there is the solution to the riddle of argumentation. No doubt that Quintilian said that a good orator should be ultimately be a good man. The good man will craft his arguments to persuade rightly.

Borges asserted in his Guayaquil the power of the person over dialectics

"the power lay in the man, not in the dialectic."

"if one prevailed, it was because he possessed the stronger will, not because of dialectical games. As you see, I have not forgotten my Schopenhauer."

"Words, words, words. Shakespeare, the unparalleled master of words, held them in contempt."

References.

Mualem, S. () Borges and Plato: A Game with Shifting Mirrors.
Borges (2000) This Craft of Verse. Harvard