William Trufant Foster: Debate

William Trufant Foster was American economist. Explore interesting quotes on debate.
William Trufant Foster: 26   quotes 0   likes

“The great superiority of debating, as the schools should look upon it, lies in the fact that it adds to many of the elements of the present absorbing interest in athletics those educational values which contribute directly to the highest type of citizenship.”

William Trufant Foster

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. viii

Education , School

“Let us not be surprised, however, if the study of the principles of argumentation — or even Burke's much mis-taught Speech — seems dry without the prospect of actual debate. We should hardly expect a half-back to feel much enthusiasm over reading the rules of the game and tackling a dummy if he could not look forward to tackling a man. When elocution and argumentative writing have failed to stimulate interest, formal debate may succeed, for it is a kind of game. In the time limit, the order of speakers, the alternation of rides, the actual struggle of opposing forces, the give and take of rebuttal, the fixed rules and the ethics of conduct, the qualifications for success, and the final awarding of victory, debate has much in common with tennis and football.”

William Trufant Foster

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. viii

Feeling , Game , Study , Time

“The " general" definition may give you no hint as to the way in which a particular assertion is meant to be interpreted. When, therefore, as in formal debate, a proposition is advanced by persons other than those who discuss it, clearness in defining is not sufficient. In such cases a definition must have two qualities: it must be clear, and it must be satisfactory to the persons addressed. They must know what the speaker means, and they must be convinced that his meaning is the correct one, — correct for that particular proposition at the time and place and under the conditions of that particular debate. Otherwise, they may object in the end that he has proved, not the given proposition, but another which he has substituted for it by means of arbitrary definitions.”

William Trufant Foster

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 27; partly cited in: Branham (2013, p. 39)

Way , Time , Personality

“Formal debate is a kind of game. In the time limit, the order of speakers, the alternation of sides, the give and take of rebuttal, the fixed rules of conduct, the ethics of the contest, the qualifications for success, and the final awarding of victory, debate has much in common with tennis.”

William Trufant Foster

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 281

Game , Time , Success , Victory

“It is not easy to phrase the proposition so that it shall mean precisely what we wish to argue; so that it shall include the whole matter at issue, nothing more and nothing less; so that there shall be no possible ambiguity. Yet, unless the proposition is so phrased, a debate may degenerate into a lifeless quibble concerning the meaning of the terms, under which the living heart of the question is buried.”

William Trufant Foster

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 2; as cited in: Robert James Branham (2013). Debate and Critical Analysis: The Harmony of Conflict. p. 31

Question , Heart

“One of the early presidents of Harvard College wrote a dissertation on the question, "Whether angels speak any language; if so, whether it is Hebrew." Much futile discussion on such questions has at various times brought debating into ill repute. A question should offer something more than an ingenious exercise; it should offer the chance of arriving at some conclusion regarded by the particular audience or disputants as of some practical importance. It should be discarded if, like the proposition, "The pen is mightier than the sword/' it offers no possibility of arriving at reasonably sound conclusions through the process of argument.”

William Trufant Foster

Source: Argumentation and debating, 1908, p. 4-5; as cited in: Branham (2013, p. 32-33)

Angels , Exercises , Question , Chance