 At first blush, this self-refutation argument appears quite unpromising, as Epicurus’ opponent has an obvious reply: they can maintain that the actions of the people engaging in the debate, including their own, are necessitated, and nonetheless try to show that their own position is better-supported and thereby convince their opponent to change their mind. Epicurus, however, thinks that this reply fails. We have a concept of what it means for something to be necessitated, versus for something to depend on us. And the empirical basis for these concepts is observing ourselves in action—in particular, observing our actions of rebuking, opposing, and reforming one another. We see that we can dissuade other people from an action, e.g., I can talk to my friend and convince him not to give in to a bully’s demands and to stand up to him instead. We also see that sometimes we decide to do things we don’t feel like doing, e.g., I undergo painful dental work in order to avoid greater pain in the future. From these observations, we form the distinction between things that depend on us, versus ones that are necessitated, and we show our understanding of this distinction in our actions, as we try to dissuade one another from things that “depend on us”, while it would be pointless to do so for those that are necessitated. According to Epicurus, if his opponent claims that all of our actions are necessitated, and they do not challenge the empirical basis of our distinction, they are merely “changing a name”. To show that our actions are necessitated in a substantial way, the opponent would have to show how we are mistaken when we think that we can use our reason to persuade one another to act differently, that we can decide to undergo short-term pain for the sake of long-term gain, and the like. But the action of trying to persuade somebody to change their mind, by giving them reasons to think that their current conviction is mistaken, is precisely the sort of thing that forms the basis for the conceptions that Epicurus’ opponent is trying to challenge (see Castagnoli 2010: 145–159 for more on this argument).