Mar 16

The Crux of Debate

A philosophical dialogue aims to deepen the reader's understanding of an issue by subjecting both sides of the debate to critique. To ensure you address those aspects, this homework asks you to read back through your research of the opposition's arguments.

Point of clarification: Some of you may be planning a dialogue between a moderate and a radical on the same side of an issue. In this case, you will need to adapt the following HW assignment to fit your situation. Your opponent is the group you will debate in the dialogue and NOT necessarily the other side of the political divide. For example, if you're arguing a "moderate gun control" position against a radical one, your old research of the opposition from Class 6.1 (G1|G2|G3) likely presents the anti-gun-control position and is no longer relevant for your dialogue. You'll need to identify which articles from Class 5.2 (G1|G2|G3) represent the radical gun-control position and use them as your new collection of opposition articles.

Assignment: Read back through your research of the opposition's arguments from Class 6.1 (G1|G2|G3). To make sure you haven't missed anything vital, Google up two additional articles to add to your collection. Then from among this collection of articles:

• What are the two strongest arguments made by the opposition? Ideally, try to identify two categorically different arguments: an appeal to emotion and a statistical appeal to reason, for example. Summarize each one in a separate ¶.
• Can you find any moments where the opposition references and counters arguments from your side? Summarize the point they're making, and the rhetorical appeal they're employ—pathos, logos, pathos, or something else? Give this one ¶.
• Statistics: give a ¶ to contrast how your side and the other side use statistics. In listening to several anti-gun-control arguments last week, I was struck that the NRA and its supporters make claims using statistics that would seem to run precisely counter to the claims made by gun-control advocates using statistics. How is this possible? I'd like to think that close analysis of the statistics and claims of both sides would reveal a deeper truth—and that would be an amazing move to make in a dialogue.

Upload all 4 ¶s as a pdf, choosing ONE of the four to paste in your comment—choose the one on which you'd like feedback.