The Art of Debate

By: Jarrod Atchison, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Jarrod Atchison

Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins

Publisher's summary

If you're like many people, you might associate debate with a high school or college club, or perhaps a TV political debate that features two or more candidates talking over each other. But if these are your only associations with debating, you're missing out on an exhilarating intellectual pursuit that can help you in all aspects of your daily life. The ability to debate - to present persuasive arguments, pierce the logic of others, and turn the tables against withering cross-examinations - is one of the truest tests of one's intellectual capacity.

The Art of Debate offers you the ultimate how-to guide for anyone interested in learning this powerful skill. Taught by acclaimed Professor Jarrod Atchison of Wake Forest University, these 24 stimulating lectures will help you develop your command of logic, construct clear and concise arguments, recognize the fallacies in others' reasoning, and sharpen your strategic thinking skills. Through a series of well-structured lectures that proceed logically through each formal element of a debate, Professor Atchison shows you how to build and defend an argument, sharpening your critical thinking skills so that you come away from the course well prepared for any kind of debate.

While Professor Atchison provides you an abundance of insight into the formal elements of debate, the focus of this course is on applied debating - developing skills that you can apply to the real world to help you think through complex issues and arrive at better decisions. Imagine you are a manager faced with a difficult dilemma: should you repair some of your manufacturing equipment, or invest in new equipment? What do you do?

Whether you are trying to make a tough business decision or lead a lively discussion at the dinner table, this course will elevate your strategic thinking, providing insight not only into how to win arguments, but how to present ideas more generally.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©2017 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)2017 The Great Courses

Lets Debate

Jarrod Atchison has shown that debate and argumentation is not just something to do on Facebook, but it can also help with decision making in the work place, and when coming up with different ideas. Everything from family decisions and work decisions and even larger policy choices can benefit from "The Art of Debate"

Important information

We live at a time when there are millions of Americans who believe the world is run by shape shifting lizards. Who believe the Earth is flat. Who do not believe man has landed on the moon.
The ability to know when that cable news personality is lying to you about vaccines and other things (a good percentage of the time, if you were wondering) is an invaluable skill that democracies should encourage.
This course helps people to think and make good decisions. Who wouldn’t want to learn those skills?

Helps to prepare for important debate

How to create arguments, structure the debate and fight opponent's fallacies to persuade an audience to adopt your point of view.
Kind of systematic approach that helps when the debating parties respect at least basic rules: a topic to debate and equal time to talk.
The biggest value is it helps to prepare a strategy and potential reactions to typical situations that happen in the debate.

Very useful skill set

This course should be part of everybody’s education and will improve business and private life alike.

Great Introduction

Great introduction to formal debate. I have no experience with debate other than what I've seen on TV and this book definitely gives a nice overview of how formal debate works and some of the logic and startgeies that are used.

Rigorous yet practical

What insight do you think you’ll apply from The Art of Debate?

Become a skilled debater is as difficult as becoming an elite athlete. Both require motivation, deliberate practice and good coaching, a great deal of time, and a broad repertoire of techniques. But finding a good howto on debate is difficult because most debate courses are written for academics and philosophers debating metaphysics, or for lawyers and politicians debating in highly structured environments. In contrast, this course is perfect for we rank and file managers and parents seeking to become more effective in everyday business and life. This course equipped me with both a pragmatic big picture framework and a robust set of techniques that have proved as valuable at work as around the dinner table.

Good Introduction

Good introduction to debate as a mechanism for making business decisions and a debate as a cerebral competition. The lectures are well organized and follow a steady progression. There were times when I started to get lost, but the author did a good job of reiterating the main points enough that I could catch up.

One of the best aspects is that the author uses fairly controversial topics as examples, arguing from both traditional conservative and traditional liberal stances. I really enjoyed hearing both sides of an argument and getting an appreciation for the process of constructing and judging a case, regardless of my previous personal stance. Based on some of the other reviews, it looks like some people struggled with this and got frustrated to hear the weaknesses in their views.

Full disclosure: I'm the author's younger brother, so I'm not unbiased. But as someone who has never formally debated, I learned a lot.

Listen to this nerd talk about debate

It is always nice to hear someone who is really enthusiastic about the topic they are lecturing and here is no exception. Learn to frustrate your family and friends with advanced argumentation which will guarantee they won't make that mistake again!

riveting

this was so entertaining and enlightening! I have to listen to it again. I took notes during some of it to start using at work. it has helped me view conversations from a new perspective. I am using this now and will only use it more as I practice. great course and time well spent!

Too PC and misses the main arguments

The speaker annoyingly uses PC language like she, he/she, strawperson ...

In addition, he argues that severe cold does not dispute global warming. However, global warming advocates point to extreme temperatures as proof of global warming. So the speaker accepts dogmatically that global warming or climate change is proven.

He fails to recognize or point out that the burden of proof lies with those proposing the new theory.

He also uses a lot of straw men or straw women or whatever the correct PC term is this week to argue on gender bathrooms, gun control, etc.

Though he may have good argument skills, he has much too weak of a grasp on the topics that he uses as examples.