What qualifies one to be able to engage in debate on a topic? Or what provides a basis for being able to debate.
Debate and life
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I have heard of highly intelligent people who have refused to take part in a debate on the grounds of the topic of the debate.
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Rarely.
About as often as I have seen badminton matches where one or both of the players didn´t display any real determination to win the match.
It´s just not the purpose. A debate is, by definition, competitive. A discussion is not - in the best case it is cooperative. That´s why I don´t participate in debates, btw.
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Do you mean having something (like a project) to make an argument for, a concrete matter that is important to the debater, rather than just debating for the sake of displaying ones debating prowess.
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Then we don't anything to debate, do we?I agree with you there
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I understood the competitive aspect. What I was asking was could one debate competitively without using dirty tricks, have an honest debate? Debates should proceed by reasoned well made arguments , not tricks. But I agree they often do employ a lot of rhetorical ploys.
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Then we don't anything to debate, do we?
True, but please feel free to stay with the discussion, your input is valued
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It´s like expecting boxers to avoid hurting each other.
If you just want to consider the validity of certain arguments you don´t need to declare and have a debate. You simply sit down and have a conversation.
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I understand. Or like tennis players always hitting the ball back to each other. But there are rules, parameters in boxing (you have to punch above the belt) and in tennis.
Debates are more about persuading others than changing one's opponent thinking, or beliefs.
Yes.
In asking the question at the start of the thread though I was thinking its easy to become bog down in just debating - one need to have time away from debating in order to debate or discuss effectively it seems to me - to have experiences outside of debates, to not spend ones life merely arguing for something. I don't think one should just live for debate.
I don't take part in debates much, I admit though I do argue a bit at times.
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Obviously some familiarity with the subject matter is helpful, but sometimes not even that is necessary. What is needed to win a debate is to demonstrate that the opponent's argument is unsound, or at least invalid.
An invalid argument is one in which the conclusion does not necessarily proceed from the premises. For example, recently on CF someone argued that the Christian belief in the Trinity evolved from pagan beliefs (conclusion), because numerous pagan sects before and after Christ believed in triads (premise). While the premise may be true, the conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premise. One doesn't need to know anything about the history of Christianity or paganism to demonstrate this.
An unsound argument is an argument which is invalid and/or in which its premises are true. Recently, again on CF, for example, someone argued that the Christian belief in the Trinity was politically motivated (conclusion), because it was imposed on the bishops attending a certain Council in 425 AD by the Emperor Constantine (premise). The argument might be valid, but the premise is false, since there is no record of such a Council having been held by Constantine in 425 (actually, the arguer made a simple mistake - he meant 325 AD, not 425 AD, but I left it to him to make the correction rather than wasting energy examining the rest of the argument).
There is a really good book on all this - out of the UK, in fact - called The Logic of Real Arguments. He demonstrates how one can disprove several very complicated arguments with no knowledge whatsoever of the underlying subject matter.
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