I have wanted to write this article for a long time. In high school, I participated on the speech and debate team, and in college, I enjoyed challenging my classmates by playing the devil's advocate. My thesis focused on rhetoric and what distinguishes it from sophistry. None of this necessarily makes me an expert at debating. I've likely lost more debates than I've won, but I've always been okay with that. Most of the time, I debated for the sake of debating. If I had a therapist, they would say I have the perfect amount of unhealthy emotional detachment for that sort of loss not to bother me. I, as you might have realized, didn't really understand what debate was about.
When you read the word "debate" what do you think of? Maybe it's a YouTube video titled: "So and so destroys so and so," or "John Doe owns an unspecified group," or any other inflammatory title. Maybe it's the presidential debates where the candidates take turns ripping into each other's credentials, pasts, and future policies. A debate, formally defined, has a specific structure with careful moderation and a strict timeline. Most of the debates you will encounter will likely not be formal, so it is best to provide a different, casual definition: Debate is the act of presenting the strongest evidence for your belief and defending it against critiques. It is also the act of considering and critiquing your opponent's evidence and argument. The purpose of a debate is to convince the other side that your argument is true. Naturally, this implies that if the opposition's argument is true, you must reconcile the two sides or admit your fallacious position and accept their argument.
What is an Argument?
Different arguments will likely be used in a debate, so it's important to recognize them. The first is the deductive argument. A set of true premises are given in a deductive argument, which then necessitates a true conclusion. For example: Cleveland is in Ohio, Doug lives in Cleveland, and Doug lives in Ohio. Deductive arguments are seen as the strongest because to argue against them would be to argue against plain truths.
If a premise is false, then the conclusion cannot be trusted. For example: Cleveland is in France, Doug lives in Cleveland, and Doug lives in France. Obviously, the conclusion is false since Cleveland is not in France, but if this was more complex, it might be difficult to know if the premise was false without more investigation. Another example of an invalid deductive argument would be: Cleveland is in Ohio, Doug lives in Ohio, Doug lives in Cleveland. In this case, the two premises don't necessarily go together. Doug might live in Cleveland, sure, but he might also live anywhere else in Ohio as well. There are more invalid deductive arguments. For now, we will move on.
Inductive Arguments
Then there is the inductive argument. This argument centers on past occurrences or statistical frequencies of an event. A good example of an inductive argument would be: The dog, Fido, barks whenever he hears thunder; there's a thunderstorm coming tonight. Fido is going to bark tonight. It might be easy to confuse this with a deductive argument. However, just because Fido has barked every time he's heard thunder before, there is still a chance, however slim it might be, and for whatever reason, that he does not bark the next time.
Inductive reasoning is an essential part of the scientific method. It allows us to go from particulars to universal principles. However, it is essential to recognize that the foundations of our inductions are statistical likelihoods, meaning they can be wrong. A good example would be the model of our solar system. In the past, we operated under a geocentric model, which matches some people's perceptions of the night sky. This was eventually shown to be a false model, and we correctly moved to heliocentrism. To summarize, inductive arguments are strong—if the statistics behind them are significant, which means to analyze them properly, you must look at the underlying data.
There are also arguments from analogy, which can be persuasive but are fundamentally flawed due to the disconnect between the source and target. In other words, an analogy will never be perfect. It can also suffer from the same weaknesses as inductive or deductive arguments, depending on the source of the analogy.
What About Fallacies?
Finally, it is necessary to discuss some fallacies to recognize them when used against you and when you fall into them. The fallacy of authority is most recognizable and most relevant to a college campus. Here, instead of referring to data or statistics (as in an inductive argument), a reference is made to an authority figure. For example, Dr. Doe said that if I take an ibuprofen a day, I'll never get cancer. Though a silly example, I am certain you can think of dozens of real-world examples on your own.
Then there is the classic ad hominem fallacy. This would be when, instead of criticizing the content of one's argument, you criticize the person. For example, why would we ever trust Einstein's theories when he treated his first wife so poorly? Ad hominem fallacies often intertwine with emotional arguments. For this reason, they can be difficult to criticize without getting tied up in said emotional argument. When a debate descends into ad hominem fallacies, it is usually a good sign that any further debate will be fruitless.
The last fallacy I will discuss, though there are more, is the straw man fallacy. This fallacy occurs when a debater takes their opponent's argument and either over-simplifies it or misrepresents it. For example, Joe says he supports private education, which Frank then misconstrues as Joe not caring for children because he doesn't recognize the value of public education. Regardless of whether Joe, in the depths of his heart, truly doesn't care for children or recognizes the value of public education, Frank is ignoring the content of Joe's actual argument and tossing in an ad hominem fallacy for good measure.
While it is important to understand what constitutes a strong argument and recognize common fallacies, it is more important to debate honestly and without malice. It can be fun to play the devil's advocate and thrilling to feel vindicated in your position, but a good debater should care only about the truth, often forgotten or ignored. College is an opportunity to debate, test your beliefs and presuppositions, and hopefully come closer to the truth.
