MODERN DEBATE: ITS LOGIC AND STRATEGY
Arthur N. Kruger
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND SPEECH
WILKES COLLEGE
McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, INC.
New York Toronto London 1960
THE MEANING OF ARGUMENT
The term "argument" has at least two common meanings. One, a heated exchange between two
disputants, usually involving bickering, squabbling, and oftentimes vigorous emotional reactions.
This is the sense of argument that we encountered in our Dale Carnegie reading. This is the more
common meaning. To the logician an argument is the basic unit of thought, or a discourse
containing a conclusion (or inference) and evidence from which the conclusion is drawn. Thus,
"I failed the course because I loafed all semester" would be an argument to a logician. We have a
conclusion ("I failed the course") and a reason for the conclusion ("I loafed all semester"). No
disagreement or conflict between individuals is necessarily involved.
In our class I will refer to the difference between argument as process and argument as product.
Dale Carnegie’s warning is against argument-as-process. In actual practice, an academic debate
is both a process (of having an argument in a structured fashion) and a product (a debate case
presents a large/general argument which is made of many smaller/particular arguments).
Debate is a contest between two parties, the purpose of which is to convince a third party (a
judge or audience) that the more logically tenable attitude toward the debate proposition is that
of the one side rather than the other. There are many ways of convincing someone-ranging from
the one extreme of giving sound reasons to the other of clubbing someone over the head with a
baseball bat. Unfortunately, much "persuasive" discourse falls more into the latter category than
into the former, being characterized by what is euphemistically called "nonlogical,"
"extralogical," or "psychological" factors: constant repetition, suggestion of all kinds, the
confident or confidential manner, and subtle or crude appeals to the gullibility of the audience.
Here Kruger reveals his commitment to a strictly logical conception of debate. Recall the
distinction I drew between, Logical, Dialectical, and Rhetorical approaches to debate. Ethical
debate is certainly concerned with and centered upon giving good reasons, which means we must
be primarily concerned with Kruger describes as logic. Why doesn’t our course center
exclusively the logical perspective? If you can’t answer this question, make sure you find out
before the test over this content.
In academic debate we are interested in legitimate arguments, in being reasonable or logical. We
try to convince by giving reasons for our conclusions, by giving proof or evidence, by staring
facts from which we draw inferences. Thus, when we speak here of strategy in attack and
defense, we are not thinking of stratagems or tricks, or of spurious devices to befuddle the
opponents or mislead the judge.
In this class, I will serve as the judge of your debates. While a certainly don’t wish for you to
attempt to trick or deceive me, I do expect that you will attempt to sell me on your side of the
argument. That is, I do not just expect for you to offer the best-reasoned argument, but to do a
good and effective job of presenting it. You should use the ethical tactics which are required of
effective speakers.
The General Structure of an Argument – Here Kruger is speaking argument as a product or thing.
Every argument consists of two parts: a conclusion (or inference) and supporting evidence.
Today’s scholars would put this slightly differently by contending that an “argument,” at
minimum, requires a premise and a claim. The premise supports the claim – either by supplying
“evidence” to which the hearer applies an implied inference rule – or by supplying reasoning to
which the hearer applies implied evidence. It is important to note that evidence is not reasoning
and reasoning is not evidence. Evidence is, basically, “an indication of what has occurred, is
occurring, or will occur,” where reasoning consists of rules that tell us how to make judgments
about evidence. There is no fixed order in which the parts must be presented. In some instances
the evidence will follow the conclusion; in others, the reverse will be true. And, occasionally, the
conclusion will be sandwiched in between parts of the evidence. Also, frequently either the
conclusion or some of the evidence may be implied rather than stated. To evaluate the argument
properly, a debater must fill in what he thinks are the missing parts. On the other hand, if a
debater is not explicit in presenting his argument, he runs the risk of having the opposition
misinterpret it.
The Relationship between Evidence Premise and Conclusion
The two parts of an argument should be so related that the conclusion necessarily follows from
the evidence. Actually few debate arguments measure up to this criterion. Most arguments can be
classed on a "truth" continuum as almost certainly true, true beyond a reasonable doubt, probably
true, inconclusive, probably false, false beyond a reasonable doubt, almost certainly false, and
certainly false. As an argument, a debate case will never reasonably be able to meet a high
standard of truth. If the Affirmative debater had to establish that the resolution were true beyond
all significant doubt, the subject matter of the debate proposition would have to be open to such
proof. If this were the case, however, where the proposition could easily and certainly be
established to be true or false it would NOT be a good topic for debate. Debate propositions must
be CONTROVERSIAL. If you have a proposition that can be answered by a quick Google
search, you do NOT have a good proposition for a debate. A controversial proposition is one
that, by nature, admits of arguments on both sides and is not easily resolvable in favor of either
side. Consequently, the standard of proof for a debate case in a debate round should be
appropriate to the nature of the activity. Aristotle put it best when he taught that we should not
demand more precision than our subject matter admits in the Nicomachean Ethics:
We must be content, then, in speaking of such subjects and with such premises to indicate the
truth roughly and in outline, and in speaking about things which are only for the most part true
and with premises of the same kind to reach conclusions that are no better. In the same spirit,
therefore, should each type of statement be received; for it is the mark of an educated man to look
for precision in each class of things just so far as the nature of the subject admits; it is evidently
equally foolish to accept probable reasoning from a mathematician and to demand from a
rhetorician scientific proofs.
That stated, the particular arguments which make up a debate case, must meet varying degrees of
proof. If, for example, you wish to argue for stricter drunk driving laws, you should be able to
produce respectable, recent, and reasonably certain evidence with regard to how many people die
each year in drunk-driving collisions in the United States.
The Relationship of an Argument to the Rest of the Case
No argument in a debate stands alone; it is always related to some other argument or conclusion,
sometimes to two or more simultaneously, for purposes either of support, attack, defense for
resupport, or defense for counterattack.
Complex Arguments
Many arguments which appear to be simple arguments (those with only one conclusion) are
often really multiple or complex arguments (those with two or more conclusions) with only one
conclusion supported by evidence. This is particularly true of causal arguments, where either the
cause or the effect is unwarrantedly assumed. For example, the argument that United States
economic aid to Burma is causing considerable resentment against the United States among the
Burmese because they suspect us of imperialist motives assumes that there is considerable
Burmese resentment against the United States, a proposition which must first be proved before
the cause of such resentment is established. The reason (Burmese suspicion of imperialist
motives) ,if it could be adduced with documentation, might be a good one to explain why the
Burmese resent United States aid, but it must first be established that they actually do resent such
aid. Actually, the preceding argument contains three conclusions: (1) there is considerable
resentment against the United States in Burma, (2) this resentment is caused by United States
economic aid, and (3) United States economic aid is resented because the Burmese suspect the
United States of being imperialists. As we shall see, debaters are often guilty of ignoring certain
links in a chain of reasoning.
FUNCTIONS OF AN ARGUMENT
Although all arguments are supposed to contribute to proving or disproving the debate
resolution, they also perform more specific functions while contributing to this general end.
These may be described as follows:
To Construct
Basically, this means using an argument to prove or support another argument. The task of
constructing usually falls with the affirmative, although in a sense the issues initiated by the
negative ("impracticability" and "disadvantages") may be considered "constructive" arguments.
To Answer an Opposing Argument
Basically, this means using an argument to weaken, tear down, or disprove an opposing
argument. One may answer to weaken a constructive argument or to counter an attack on it, i.e.,
to attack or defend. Since these functions greatly overlap, there is little to be gained by calling
one refutation and the other rebuttal, as is customarily done. To avoid confusion, the term
"refutation" will be used here occasionally as being synonymous with "answer," and the term
"rebuttal" will be reserved to designate the second speech delivered by a debater under the
orthodox plan of debating.