KETTLE Argumentation

A co-orientation condition is not sufficient to characterize a well-articulated convergent argumentation; co-oriented arguments must be consistent. This is the thrust of Freud’s point in The Interpretation of Dreams [1900], in where he uses the kettle argument as an analogy to interpret the content of his dream about “the injection given to Irma”.
Both his dream and the following argument that translates it are incoherent defenses, offering good but incompatible justifications:

I noticed, it is true, that these explanations of Irma’s pains (which agreed in exculpating me) were not entirely consistent with one another, and indeed that they were mutually exclusive. The whole plea — for the dream was nothing else — reminded one vividly of the defense put forward by the man who was charged by one of his neighbors with having given him back a borrowed kettle in a damaged condition. The defendant asserted first, that he had given it back undamaged; secondly, that the kettle had a hole in it when he borrowed it; and thirdly, that he had never borrowed a kettle from his neighbor at all. So much the better: if only a single one of these three lines of defense were to be accepted as valid, the man would have to be acquitted. (Freud [1900], p. 143-144)

The neighbor collects all the possible defenses, as laid out in the stasis theory.

(1) The accused denies the accusation: « I returned it undamaged”, which creates a question of fact (conjectural stasis): “Did the neighbor or did he not return the cauldron in good condition?« 

(2) The accused then claims that « the kettle had a hole in it when he borrowed it« .
This contradicts what he said in (1) and what he will say in (3). Thus, he produces a kind of counter-accusation, shifting the responsibility for the damage to his accuser or a third party, hence the question « Who pierced the kettel?« 

(3) The accused finally claims that “I never borrowed your kettle”. He thus denies what he had implicitly admitted in (1), which leads a second question of fact: “Did he borrow the kettel?”

The damage could also be recognized as such and reduced: It’s a tiny hole, nothing at all, easily repaired.

In fact, in the case of the kettel as presented by Freud, one could say that the unconscious is not defending itself, but preparing the conscious defense, as the accused does when hesitating between different defense strategies. A little linguistic editing allows these strategies to be adjusted:

It was not a formal loan of equipment (3) but a request for friendly and one-time assistance. Your kettle was in bad condition and almost leaking (2) when I borrowed it from you, it was leaking, and it was bound to end up leaking badly; in fact I returned it to you in the same condition (1). So, you are responsible for the bad condition of the pot, and in any case it wasn’t me but your friend Pierre who took care of making the soup in your pot that evening.

The unconscious does not argue worse than the conscious.

In practice, the main thing is that the various defenses are convergent (co-oriented). To eliminate their contradictions, it is enough to resort to polyphony, to have them made by different allied speakers, if possible at different times, or before different instances, or even as hypotheses.

The Chinese writer Lao She (1899-1966) “was one of the first victims of the Cultural Revolution.” After being tortured, “he was found dead on August 24, 1966. The official version is that he committed suicide by drowning” (Wikipedia, Lao She). This version of events is disputed by Simon Leys.
On this burning issue, the Western Maoists have adopted a rather original line of defense which is articulated in three points. (1) Lao She did not commit suicide; it is a Taiwanese invention; (2) by the way, his suicide is perfectly explicable, given his bourgeois mentality; (3) anyway, this affair is completely uninteresting and does not deserve further attention.
Simon Leys, Essays on China, 1998. [1]

The adverbs “by the way” and “anyway” present (2) and (3) as superfluous additions to the background, (1) which should be sufficient to settle the matter, see indicator.

As in the case of the cauldron, to eliminate the contradictions, it is enough to have them carried by different voices or allied speakers, if possible at different times, or before different instances, or even as floating hypotheses, which should be seriously investigated.

Coherence of convergent argumentation

We say kettel argument, but we should really be  talking about the argumentation of the kettle to denote a discourse that supports a conclusion from a series of convergent arguments that exonerate the speaker, but which are incompatible with each other, see Convergence; Coherence; Ad hominem; Contrasts.

The cauldron case shows that, for convergent argumentation to be well formed, the arguments must not only be co-oriented, but also coherent. In any case, the introduction of a simple but removes the incoherence: « I don’t need any clothes, but since there’s a sale, I’ll buy some. » But is a favorite of the subconscious.