Debate

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Background: I take tennis lessons once or twice a week and one day me and my coach started talking about intellectual honesty and debate. He argued that debate was a competitive effort where intellectual honesty was weakness citing lawyers and debate teams as evidence. I argued that debate is a cooperative effort where both sides citing civilized debates among friends. He then told me these are conversations and not debates.

My Position: I think that debate, at least in its idealized form, is a cooperative effort where different people with different positions propose different ideas which are critiqued by others until it is made evident which side has the best position. However, this entire position hinges that all sides remain intellectually honest and open minded in order to get accurate results. Correct me if I am wrong.

Questions: What is debate? Is it cooperative, competitive, both, or neither? Is intellectual honesty important to debate? Why?

[knot]

Looking at the dictionary definition, it seems like he's right

Code: Select all

noun
1.
a discussion, as of a public question in an assembly, involving opposing viewpoints:
a debate in the Senate on farm price supports.
2.
a formal contest in which the affirmative and negative sides of a proposition are advocated by opposing speakers.
3.
deliberation; consideration.
4.
Archaic. strife; contention.

Sadly, debates are most often about using fancy rhetoric to persuade idiots. A good example of this is Dinesh D'Souza, who uses terrible arguments in defense of religion, but still manages to convince many people just by using effective rhetorical tricks

[Cirion Spellbinder]

In that case, what word should I use to describe the activity I thought was debate?

[knot]

"Conversation" or "dialogue", I think

example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTd4-WXw2SM

[brimstoneSalad]

Dialogue and conversation are both great words. Sometimes discourse is preferred.

Debate is used in the context of the "sport" where there are two teams randomly assigned positions (often positions they disagree on), and there is a victory state, usually as determined by judges or a poll or something, but it's also used in the context of any formalized discussion with certain rules of behavior, but that doesn't necessarily have a "win" condition that is predefined (or a winner formally declared).

We often assume a person won a debate if that person was more persuasive to the audience, but that's not necessarily true. A debate can have two losers, or even two winners outside the sporting context based on the true motivations of the participants; e.g. a compromise may often be arrived at and be seen as a loss or victory to both, because the issue isn't always binary.

de·bate
dəˈbāt/
noun
1.
a formal discussion on a particular topic in a public meeting or legislative assembly, in which opposing arguments are put forward.
synonyms: discussion, discourse, parley, dialogue; More
verb
1.
argue about (a subject), especially in a formal manner.
"the board debated his proposal"
synonyms: discuss, talk over/through, talk about, thrash out, hash out, argue, dispute; More

Your coach is right and wrong, depending on the usage and context.

The sport usage is not necessarily associated with more formality or a stronger structure than the non-sport usage, although it is associated with a more clear means of identifying the winner (e.g. a vote).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debate#Other_forms_of_debate

The important point is that there are some rules involved. Not all arguments or discussions are debates. This is a debate forum because we don't allow rampant logical fallacies, and we require people to respond to arguments instead of lecturing. Rhetoric is frowned upon here, and that's a structural rule that usually won't be found in sport debates, where winning at any cost is the goal and method is not as strictly policed.

[Dizzy]

NO!

[Shadow Fox]

A debate is never cooperative. Your goal is one thing and one thing only, to prove your opponent is wrong at all costs.
Being Intellectually dishonest weakens your argument greatly, if your argument is based around an intellectual dishonest evidence or premise, than your argument is completely invalid, therefor you lose.

[Cirion Spellbinder]

Being Intellectually dishonest weakens your argument greatly, if your argument is based around an intellectual dishonest evidence or premise, than your argument is completely invalid, therefore you lose.

It seems that winning a debate means getting the audience to agree with you, not the other person. The audience is not a group of intellectuals looking for the most logical and consistent argument. The audience is a group of commoners looking for the most convenient and simple arguement. Achieving an appealing, but not necessarily logically sound arguement is how you win, and therefore, intellectually dishonesty is not a disadvantage and maybe an advantage depending on the group.