The New York Sophist

Part 1

The torrential rain and wind was, in an understatement, “unusual for this time of year,” an explanation offered to me by a graduate student while I sat waiting for my pants to dry from the torrential storm outside. Thankfully I had listened to my partner and packed my rain jacket even though I thought I wouldn’t need it. The conference was slow to start because of the weather and many people who were supposed to come couldn’t make it on time – or ever – from their flights or trains.

The morning train from The Hague was a welcome respite from the “sideways rain” – as I often called it in the past because it brings up an immediate context for the kind of weather it is; we’ve all experienced it. The announcements from the train conductor needed no translation for me as I saw the faces of my fellow travelers switch from concern to grim acceptance. As a veteran of the NYC transit system I knew exactly what was being said. Arriving at the Leiden train station I was drenched in people this time, slowly milling, eating bananas, cheese on baguette, sipping coffee, and staring with great hope at the red text on the screens.

I’m moved to make this storm and soaking a large metaphor for the conference, but I’m really not sure how to do it. I feel the conference didn’t live up to the storm I had in my mind – interrupting, drenching, and de-centering your own authority and abilities to ‘get around’ – all good things that I believe academic work should do to us when we are listening to the work of our colleagues.

Maybe I’m just over conferences, but I found the 2023 ISSA to be extremely conservative. That’s the word that kept coming up in my mind as I listened to various presentations. Most of the papers were not bad in any sense, just cautious – the kind of academic work that is made to sort of confirm the theories we have or perhaps to confirm that the theories work the way we think they do.

The two keynotes I saw (I skipped out on day three to go to the ICC and check it out) were great examples of this. The first day, Isabella Fairclough presented a keynote that attempted a case-study of what happens when we engage in argument and assume we need a common starting place to do so. Her example was the gender identity ‘debate’ which I put in scare quotes because of the fact, ignored in the keynote, that many think this isn’t an appropriate subject for debate or argument at all. Fairclough seems to think that Karl Popper’s idea of critical rationalism – the idea that we advance in what we know without solid, incontrovertible proof for our beliefs, is something we have to accept in philosophy of argument. This assumption comes with a number of really good ideas – thoughts that we should always engage one another even if we face deep disagreement, we should strive to alter and change the articulation of our position as people push back on it, and that we don’t need to share assumptions before we can start arguing.

From there, the talk became somewhat epidictic in the praise of those who accept the “reality” of sex based gender (organizations like Sex Matters in the UK), and blame of those “militants” who refuse to have discourse with those who take such a position. It then became a critique of the new leftist movement who write popular press books about reason, rationality, and conversation and dismiss common assumptions about gender and politics that a lot of people hold. In her view, these new leftists are not leftists at all because they dismiss the working class as idiots – unable or unwilling to travel internationally seems like one of the claims of these books – and argues that critical rationalism has more in line with traditional leftist thought than any of the new “creative class” thinkers (my term for it in my notes, not hers).

It was a really strange keynote not just for its conservativism, but also for it’s idea of a correct way to argue. The absence of the rhetorical in the talk was really troubling. There was no other position to take in order to engage in critical rationalism other than to accept the ‘reality’ of biological sex. I didn’t think this was controversial for most trans-rights and trans-advocacy groups. And I also wonder why that is the reality that must ground the critical discussion. Why not the reality of violence against non conformists, something that has a much longer historically documented reality than “sex equals gender?” Why must the discussion be focused on that reality rather than some other one?

There was also some rhetorical mistakes made in the presentation of trans advocacy as violent or militant in the words of Fairclough. The evidence for this were signs calling for the murder or harm to those who do not support trans rights (mainly TERFS, if you are familiar with that acronym). She dismisses this as refusal to engage in proper critical rational discourse. However, rhetoric would teach us that these signs are an expression in the context of a protest to get attention and notice – like many other protests – and do not reflect a position or complete attitude at all. It might be rhetorically saavy when those in power, such as governments and scientific organizations are calling for your non-existence to call for theirs in order to shock or surprise audiences into seeing what it means to claim sex and gender equivalency. One groups facts and reality might not be acceptable to those it, either directly or indirectly, claims should not exist.

I think the talk would have been better if it hadn’t been after the truth, something that in argumentation I feel we should be moving away from. Instead, argumentation studies should be looking at how to help others engage in argumentation. This keynote almost did that, but like many academics, there’s little interest in teaching people how to be better, do better, or offer alternatives on how to strive toward some different practices. Instead, we call upon a big theory to show that one side is “doing it wrong.” I wonder if it could be more instructive to take the UK government debate over this, or the Sex Matters discourse and use it to show the value of a critical rationalist approach. But that would mean we have choices in how to speak that we can move between – adaptation – something that philosophy is still hard-pressed to accept.

This talk was not only politically conservative (lots of talk about the problems with the woke university were there beneath the surface) but academically as well. Popper has this idea – here’s how it works – here’s a contemporary situation – here’s how Popper’s theory applies. There really wasn’t anything new here, or anything that really sparked or inspired the audience to rethink their position on argumentation in the world.

By the afternoon the storm had cleared and things were quite nice in Leiden. The keynote was something everyone wanted to chat about here and there, wondering what it was about. Was it a defense of TERFS? What was going on there? I think the rhetorical framing of the talk was missing – it was an investigation into how to argue “the right way” according to critical rationalism. It would have been a lot more insightful with more than one example – not just gender politics – but something else to help show the influence and perhaps resonance of Popper today. But that’s me as a rhetorician thinking and talking. Perhaps this kind of talk is normal and appropriate for philosophy where the rules of how to make valid arguments – even after all this time – are still front and center no matter the context, situation, or stakes of those involved in the argumentation.

In the next post I’ll talk about the other keynote and some of the other papers I heard.

Amsterdam Argumentation Conference, again

Summer is off to a great start as this over-served, beach tiki bar patron can tell you. This is supposedly a piña colada, but in actuality it is 6 shots of rum with some banana-flavored ice. We stan an innovative bartender.

It’s once again my birthday week and for the first time in a while (2018) I’m going to attend what we colloquially call the Dutch Argumentation Conference. The official name is ISSA – International Society for the Study of Argumentation.

I’m presenting a paper there co-authored with a friend and colleague (although I should really just be the adjacent author; he did most of the heavy lifting) and I hope to see some inspiring and educational papers. But I’m afraid it won’t be the return of the impressed, it might be the return of the depressed, or perhaps just repressed, as it seems at this point in my career we are looping back around to the same concerns that were at the first one of these conferences I attended years ago.

I hope this is not the case. I think that this conference errs on the side of argumentation study that is looking to perfect the idea of good argumentation by perfecting the description of argumentation as it occurs. What I mean by this is most of the research is aimed at a kind of criticism of argument that reveals the superiority of the ideal model of argument. Although this produces some thoughtful and very nuanced writing about arguments that don’t appear too intricate at first glance, it doesn’t address how to argue, or how to survive if you find yourself in a discourse that refuses any label except argument.

This approach we might say was initialized by Perelman and Olbrects-Tyteca however they were also very interested in improvement of practices (rule of justice and dissociation are obvious moments here). But I can see how criticism of argument can be seen as the practice of good argumentation overall.

What I like to think about is how to teach people to argue given the surroundings, not idealize argument and try to reach it. Something much more attentive to resources of the moment rather than hope for better tools or supplies. I hope to hear some papers like this while at the conference.

If the GoPro works (big if) I’ll post some links here as I make videos.

The ambiguous nature of debate and argumentation was on full display at the Doha ICDD. People used the terms debate and argument as if they were synonyms. The connection is unclear but also crystal clear for most of us. You’d think scholars would be more careful.

The primary reason they are not careful is the sloppiness of American rhetoricians in slurring “argumentation&debate” as if it were one word (spacing intentional). We’ve had every opportunity to distinguish the terms with thoughtful writing. We just haven’t. We are happy to leave debate to the basement of the communication building on Tuesday nights, some sort of game for intelligent undergraduates to play.

American rhetorical scholars could powerfully contribute to global research on this issue by disambiguating “argument” from “debate.” The reason why is that the U.S. has had an incredibly long history in the formalization of debate as an educational practice at all levels. The practice of debating in schools with the rhetorical tradition of criticism, theory, and the like is fertile ground for praxis. But instead, we get an equivocal fallacy.

Here are some of the scholarly understandings of argumentation that come to mind offhand. Let me know if you can think of others in the comments:

• Argumentation is quasi-logical, that is, it takes a form similar to logical proof without the strictness of validity. (Perelman & Olbrects-Tyteca).

• Argumentation is field dependent, meaning good arguments are not simply good arguments but are only good in the contexts of the audience they are deployed. (Toulmin)

• Argumentation has three forms: Process, product, and procedure, not exclusive of one another but possibilities of argument’s appearance in the world. (Wenzel)

• Most importantly, arguments can be interpersonal, public, or conducted over long periods of time, longer than many human lives (Arguments about Hamlet, for example).

How would debate differ? Some of the things here might be the idea that debate is time-bound, where it happens at a fixed point in space time and has an ending (usually when the last person speaks, or the judge gives a critique of the debate). The topic is fixed and cannot move, and the speakers are often representing positions that are not theirs. A “good argument” in debate is one that is difficult to respond to, not one that is “true” as we would find in argumentation. Also, there is no place or opportunity for people to change positions or “agree” with the other side upon hearing a good argument.

Here are some of the understandings of debate in the extant scholarship. Keep in mind that when I say “scholarship” what I really mean are “textbooks” in the United States (and elsewhere) because debate is primarily seen as a school activity. Nevertheless, here’s what I came up with. What am I missing:

• Debate is a tool for problem solving (Ehninger & Brockriede)

• Debate is a political pedagogy (Branham)

• An essential educational part of a democratically oriented political system (Lemay, Minow, Kraus, et. Al. – the presidential debate writers)

• The pre-eminent skill to learn to become a critical thinker, leader, and successful person (choose a debate program website, I picked the NYC UDL).

Aside from these there are these confusing understandings of debate that we can glean from popular usage and the media:

• An argument that has become much more formalized and intense

• A conversation or disagreement that has gone “off the rails”

• A site where people are unmovable in their opinions and just yell at one another

• A long running disagreement that exists and will continue to exist, one must choose a side

• Intensive personal disagreements that have no clear resolution

• Arguments are “trivial” Debates are “important”

I think that list could go on forever.

Theorizing what debate is – apart from argumentation, apart from rhetorical studies, apart from dialogue – is what I want to focus on for a bit in these posts. There isn’t a lot out there on this so I will be trying to work through some unmapped terrain. I think that if I can get a little space opened up it would be fantastic. Most American rhetoric profs say “argumentation and debate” so quickly as if it were one word. These two things deserve different approaches and different understandings. Argumentation does not always inform or improve debate; and debate might not inform argumentation theory.

Debate on its own as a scholarly site of inquiry would bring together people who equivocate the teaching of debate with the teaching of critical thinking/political awareness and those who study political debates such as party-leader debates (the U.S. Commission on Presidential Debates model). This would be an incredibly fruitful and valuable direction for scholarship.

Not sure where to start but you are in the right place, stay tuned.

I just returned about two days ago from delivering a paper at the First Annual International Conference on Debate and Dialogue hosted by Qatar Debate. It was an amazing conference with a lot to think about. Mostly I think this is because the conference forced everyone to complete papers before attending, something that would improve any communication conference I have ever attended.

Here’s the full video of my talk as a part of the conference. This panel was a full house, dealing with educational perspectives and debating. Most of the audience were Arabic teachers, many different subjects, but were very positive in their response to my talk.

I have a lot of thoughts about the conference that I tried to vlog, but my GoPro failed in the most spectacular way – it looked like everything was recording and it confirmed each video in the usual way. Then when I went to look at the SD card, it was empty. I’ve never seen such a failure from a camera of any kind before, and it really makes me think I should not rely on the GoPro for vlogging anymore. Of course it failed when I was in this brand new place on the other side of the world, meeting people that I wouldn’t typically be able to meet at a conference in the US or the EU.

More to come about the ICDD in some more reflective posts this week and next. I have a lot of responses, all positive!

We just had graduation here on our beautiful Queens campus. It’s been a while since I attended commencement, and I was immediately reminded of the joys of coming to these university-wide events. The most important joy, the thing I like the most, is meeting professors from the far-reaches of the University and hearing what they have to say.

The conversation among a number of them at first was about our contract negotiations, now looking like they will extend into a second year. But the person sitting next to me on the stage sparked the most interesting question for me. She kept talking about how various graduates, when they crossed the stage to get their diploma, were “good students.”

I wondered what she meant by calling someone a good student. It wasn’t clear (“you know, good students!”) and seemed to involve a number of traits such as being prepared, doing excellent work, and the like. The more I heard about it the more I drew the conclusion that a good student is someone who has already learned. There’s not much else for them to do or learn in the class. Therefore, there’s little for the teacher to do but to stamp this passing judgement on them: “They were a good student.”

It feels extremely dangerous to me to think of a good student this way, someone who doesn’t require anything more from the instructor other than the certification that they arrived in the class fully baked. This conflates being a student, on the whole, with being an autodidact. Someone who is quite good at teaching themselves probably shouldn’t be thought of as a student at all, much less the model for what all students should be.

As I said to my friend at the ceremony, “good student” seems like a goal we should strive to reach as instructors rather than some trait or status we wish were present in the classroom on day one. Instead, the teacher’s role might be to make someone into a better student. What does that look like?

Here’s a great quote about being a student from the Buddhist tradition:

I have this quote on my door and look at it every time I enter my office, which might be a good reminder. This reminder isn’t often enough though, as it is easy to feel that as a teacher we are no longer a student – they are out there, they are others. By making the flow of epistemology one-way, I feel comfortable in knowing what needs to be known and dare I say it, superior to them in the sense of “what matters.” If we take this quote seriously though and decide to see them as teachers, the impact is overwhelming in good and bad ways. A fresh look at a reading, idea, or approach is all it takes to be taught.

Taking this approach we learn what students learn. We are now shoulder-to-shoulder with our class in the start of what Staughton Lynd has suggested we should do. They teach us what the world looks like to them. From this point, we can then share what we think has helped us to become better students.

A good student is a student who works to improve their ability to be a student. Since that is all there is to be, one is always, intentionally or not, working on one’s capacity to learn from ‘teachers’ out there – events, people, moments, or encounters in the world. Taking on this perspective of “what does this teach me?” versus “What do I have to deal with now” is the only way to approach students as a student in order to increase everyone’s practice of being students.

Unfortunately, teaching, like a lot of other professions, attracts those who want to bask in their self-importance, who want to correct others through harshness and discipline, and inform those in front of them that they have no business being there, and are lucky to be in the presence of a teacher. The seductiveness of being in control, having power over others, and having captive attention for an hour a day is too attractive to the elements of society that probably should be doing something else with their time.

The definition of good student from those who probably shouldn’t be teaching will have more in common with what an autodidact does. From those who should be in the role of teacher, it will have nothing in common with it. Instead of the idea that a student who needs nothing from a teacher is a “good one,” the good student is a goal, a position or identity we aspire to be. We work to get there with our students as a shared experience, one that sees the classroom or the institution as a place to practice this and watch the practice happening – although practicing this will be with us for the rest of our lives.

The good student is one who is confused, asks, answers, discusses, and tries to practice these elements: confusion, inquiry, assistance, and discourse with others and tries to improve their practice of them. The good student is an aspiration not an inherent quality, and like many things if we don’t use it we lose it.