Perspectives in Controversy: Selected Essays from Contemporary Argumentation & Debate

327 Pages·2002·1.19 MB·English

by  Kenneth Broda-Bahm

PERSPECTIVES IN CONTROVERSY:
Selected Essays
from Contemporary
Argumentation and Debate
KENNETH BRODA-BAHM
International Debate Education Association
PERSPECTIVES IN
CONTROVERSY:
Selected Essays from
Contemporary
Argumentation
and Debate

PERSPECTIVES IN CONTROVERSY:
Selected Essays from
Contemporary Argumentation
and Debate
KENNETH BRODA-BAHM, EDITOR
International Debate Education Association
New York • Amsterdam • Brussels
Published in 2002 by
The International Debate Education Association
400 West 59th Street
New York, NY 10019
© Copyright 2002 by IDEA and Cross Examination Debate Association
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without
permission of the publisher.
ISBN 0-9702130-5-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Perspectives in Controversy: Selected Essays from
Contemporary Argumentation and Debate/ editor, Kenneth
Broda-Bahm,
P.cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-9702130-5-0
1. Debates and debating. I. Broda-Bahm, Kenneth, 1963-
II. Contemporary Argumentation and Debate
PN4181 .P433 2002
808.53--dc21
2002023339
Printed in the United States of America
4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction 7
Part One: Methods of Argumentative Support 10
Authority as Argument in Academic Debate
T. C. Winebrenner 11
Argument Borrowing and its Obligations
Carrie Crenshaw 31
Part Two: The Question of Critical Thinking 46
The Value of Competitive Debate as a Vehicle
for Promoting Development of Critical Thinking Ability
Bill Hill 47
Enhancing Critical Thinking Ability Through
Academic Debate
Kent Colbert 71
Part Three: Versions of Cause 101
The Application of Proximate Cause to CEDA Debate
Irwin Mallin 103
Dominant Form and Marginalized Voices:
Argumentation about Feminism(s)
Carrie Crenshaw 119
Debunking Mini-Max Reasoning: The Limits of Extended
Causal Chains in Contest Debating
David Berube 129
Counterfactual Possibilities: Constructing Counter-
to-Fact Causal Claims
Ken Broda-Bahm 153
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PERSPECTIVES IN CONTROVERSY
Part Four: Fiat: The Force of Assumed Action 171
Policy Debate as Fiction: In Defense of Utopian Fiat
Brian R. McGee and David Romanelli 173
A Counterfactual Theory of Fiat
Ken Broda-Bahm 189
Fiat and the Circumvention Argument
David Berube 215
The Decision-Maker
Michael Korcok 241
Part Five: Critiques: Expanding the
Argumentative Domain 265
Defense of Critique Arguments: Beyond the
Resolutional Question
Ken Broda-Bahm and Thomas Murphy 267
Contexts, Texts and Retexts: Textual Analysis
Re-Examined, Criticizing Kritiks
David Berube 285
Critique Arguments as Policy Analysis: Policy Debate
Beyond the Rationalist Perspective
Pat Gehrke 302
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INTRODUCTION
O
ne aspect of any community is that it develops and commu-
nicates knowledge. For a community of debaters, teachers,
coaches, and scholars, one way that knowledge is devel-
oped and communicated is through a body of literature: published
essays about the theory and practice of academic debate. In an
academic debate community, focusing as it does on direct instruc-
tion, preparation, and practice, the role of scholarship is not always
clear. There are several reasons, however, for developing a pub-
lished body of opinion, a dialogue on important questions relating
to the philosophy and pragmatics of educational debating.
First, published scholarship plays a role in developing instruc-
tional pedagogy. In order to address questions of policy, for exam-
ple, students need to address the concept of fiat, or the ability to
assume that a given action has taken place. As several of the
authors in the fourth section in this text note, practical ways of giv-
ing life to this assumption in the context of academic debate have
not always been simple or clear. By developing and offering sev-
eral models for conceiving and applying fiat, these essays seek to
provide practical tools for teachers and arguers.
Second, published scholarship serves as a vehicle for address-
ing community-wide concerns. As educational accountability has
increased in salience, debate educators have felt the need to inves-
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PERSPECTIVES IN CONTROVERSY
tigate and communicate a more thoroughly grounded defense of
the educational value of competitive debate. The second section of
this text includes two important essays which explore the question
of whether academic debate educators can claim that their activity
increases students’ critical thinking.
Third, published scholarship offers a means to comment upon
the development of theory by debaters. Since debate provides an
open framework for argument, students frequently create and test
novel arguments “in round,” that is during the debate itself. One
such emergent argument is the “Critique” (also known as the
“Kritik” to reflect its underpinnings in Continental philosophy).
The essays in the fifth section of this text reflect varying perspec-
tives on this argument strategy while providing an example of
scholars’ efforts to offer critical advise to debaters who are devel-
oping “in round” theory.
Finally, published scholarship can serve as a vehicle for bring-
ing the knowledge of other fields to bear on the practice of aca-
demic debate. While all of the essays to a greater or lesser extent
serve to frame and apply concepts generated in other academic
fields, the sections on argumentative support and causality are par-
ticularly illustrative of some of the opportunities, as well as chal-
lenges, of expanding debate theory through the exploration of
other fields of inquiry.
The essays included in this text have all appeared in
Contemporary Argumentation and Debate: The Journal of the Cross
Examination Debate Association. The precursor to this journal was
first published in 1980 as a collection of essays by instructors
involved in teaching and coaching within what was then a new
debate organization: the Cross Examination Debate Association, or
CEDA. Initial collections of essays appeared under the title
Perspectives on Non-Policy Argument in 1980 and as Contributions
on the Philosophy and Practice of CEDAin 1981. In 1982, the journal
became an annual publication, and its title was changed to CEDA
Yearbook. In 1994 the journal began appearing under its current
title. The essays included in this text were selected in order to
reflect the breadth of perspectives offered in the most recent decade
of the journal’s existence, a decade that has witnessed substantial
change within the CEDA debate community. Some of the essays
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INTRODUCTION
assume a CEDA that distinguished itself through the use of non-pol-
icy or value topics, while others assume the more current practice of
adopting policy topics. Some of the essays are broad in their per-
spective and generalizable to contexts outside of educational debate
while others are quite unique to America’s two-person, research ori-
ented debate format. Some of the essays are very practical in iden-
tifying current difficulties and proposing solutions while others are
more oriented toward defining and refining concepts. All of the
essays, however, continue to carry relevance for debate educators,
practitioners and others, and all provide a glimpse into the principle
questions which continue to drive the journal’s development and fuel
the conversations of an academic community.
A great deal of thanks is due to all of the authors of the includ-
ed essays and for the CEDA debate community itself which has
provided these authors with an inspiration, a testing ground, and
an audience. In addition, thanks is due to the Open Society
Institute not only for supporting this publishing project but also for
its many programs to reinvigorate debate in the United States and
throughout the world.
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