“Pre-standards” Arguments
NEW YORK, N.Y. — “Topic for Debate” — once a category for politics-related discussions — will now feature pertinent discussions of current debate practice and theory.
At the Woodward National Championships this weekend, I was party to a discussion about pre-standards arguments with Sheryl Kaczmarek, Aaron Timmons, and Becca Traber. Actually, I wasn’t party to it, I was observing, mostly because I’m still sorting out my thoughts on these types of arguments. It turns out that Timmons is as well, and he’s posed a few questions on the subject. Read them over and join in the discussion!
From Timmons:
I asked a few folks on my team and they had a few thoughts regarding the issue that they wanted fleshed out if possible.
1. What are pre-standard arguments and how do they function?
2. What are the components of a legitmate pre-standard argument?
3. How do you (or is it possible to) “weigh” pre-standard arguments? More specifically, how do you weigh between multiple (pre) standards?
4. Are there fairness considerations to the introduction of pre-standard arguments, ESPECIALLY when advanced with other arguments that link back to a standard?
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Posted from: 169.204.230.202
April 9th, 2008 10:48
pre-standards arguments are cheating. they essentially provide an independent (and purportedly superior) ballot story as an alternative to voting on case through a standard/burden.
components would be: claim, warrant, impact, and for those overachievers, actual reason why it has a built in ballot story. usually this is a specious/unmentioned link to the value of justice or some nonsense.
you logically weigh between them like any other argument, e.g. a fundamental logical contradiction would supercede something based on the contradiction, and a pre-standards claim to justice would supercede one to freedom if justice is the value. it’s not rocket science.
pre-standards arguments are unfair for lots o reasons. reciprocity, positional risk, debatability, etc.
Posted from: 169.204.230.202
April 9th, 2008 10:49
i was under the impression these were kind of a well covered issue under the whole a priori fiasco of Jan/Feb 2007. i guess i was wrong.
Posted from: 204.8.196.66
April 9th, 2008 10:55
i think that prestandard arguments can be run legitimately, but at the same time, i think theoretical objections to their usage are valid as well.
i think that way to many debaters nowadays simply advocate a ballot story of “the resolution is tautologically true,” without regards to how prestandard arguments actually function.
a priori arguments essentially reduce to another form of weighing, but i think their primary function nowadays as a method of avoiding more substantive argumentation is pretty lame.
Posted from: 66.27.90.134
April 9th, 2008 11:12
what do you mean by tautologically true?
Posted from: 169.229.32.136
April 9th, 2008 11:24
Unfortunately, A apriori arguments more often than not are shields for a debater’s inability to weigh.
The thinking is: “Since I can’t answer all the arguments, extend mine, and then explain why my arguments outweigh, I’ll just extend mine and claim they are apriori”.
So, insofar as apriori’s are a crutch for many debaters, even if a theoretical justification for aprioris exists, that’s still not going to make me like them.
Also, on theory, I’m not sure that the problem is inherently with apriori arguments…I think the problem is with no-loss arguments. For example, if a debater gives a discursive voter and then explains why real world implications of discourse outweigh fiat/debate games, I’m not sure there’s any theoretical reason why that’s bad because the opponent still has turn ground (I.E they can generate offense by explaining why their discourse was better in some way).
On the other hand, if the apriori is not turnable, i.e. “justice doesn’t exist”, I think there are numerous problems. Equal division of ground seems to imply that the a world where the aff has to defend any turns made to aff arguments, while the neg has no such burden, is unfair.
I guess the point is that the solution is to have aff’s make the “comparative frameworks good” argument, and for judges to seriously evaluate the framework/theory debate that occurs there. If these debates occur regularly, and judges actually evaluate the debate (rather than just getting frustrated at having to judge another theory debate), there’s a good chance consensus will follow.
Posted from: 67.155.35.66
April 9th, 2008 12:55
Alan: I’d be interested in hearing ways in which pre-standards arguments can be run legitimately?
What I’m confused by is people using the phrase “theory debate” to describe the defense of pre-standards arguments. In my mind for a theory debate to occur, there has to be a defense of both sides. For example in policy, there are lots of reasons why PICs good/PICs bad. I guess I’ve just never heard the defense of prestandards arguments. It seems to me that a debate only occurs when each side starts with a defensible position.
Posted from: 69.115.223.185
April 9th, 2008 13:16
i dont think that ONE pre-standard issue is abusive really, although in some debate rounds the substance of that issue could prove to be abusive. However, i think that theory debate about pre-standards issues should only occur once multiple pre-standards issues are run.
On another level, i guess myself and a lot of judges too are skeptical of these arguments because they are shadily run. I think if debaters want to run these arguments they should at least develop the issue so that judges dont feel so guilty voting for a usually no-risk, blippy or undeveloped argument
Posted from: 134.84.155.174
April 9th, 2008 13:22
Not one person has yet given a response to the “a prioris are 100% reciprocal” argument that is more than just incoherent babbling. Any strategy is unfair if only one side has access to it. If both sides have similar access, then it’s fair more or less by definition (provided it works within the established rules of the game, e.g. time limits, no physical violence, etc.). If you refuse to make use of preclusionary arguments, that’s not the other person’s fault, just as running an AC without any warrants doesn’t make the use of warranting in the NC unfair (even though it does make it very hard for the aff to win the round).
Posted from: 65.88.9.138
April 9th, 2008 13:27
Topicality might be “prestandard” it seems. In my mind that is more of a procedural arg. Perhaps they are the same.
My lack of understanding of prestandard arguments is that many (I have seen at least) can function as arguments without elevating them to some reified status of being “prestandard”.
Sam makes an interesting point in post #6, what is the “offense” to prestandard arguments being legitimate/justified?
Looking forward to a good discussion.
Posted from: 68.209.198.15
April 9th, 2008 13:32
Christian:
1. What happens if the AC has no a prioris and the NC has 9?
2. If the aff runs a prioris (as you seem to imply it should, since it’s not the neg’s fault if they don’t), what happens if the neg just runs a far greater number of them?
3. How do we weigh between a prioris? If the aff wins the resolution is tautologically true and the neg wins the resolution is nonsensical, how do we evaluate this debate?
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
April 9th, 2008 13:42
someone needs to draw a distinction between “a priori arguments are unfair” and “a priori arguments are awful for debate”, because while the first is up for discussion, the second is absolutely, 100% not
Posted from: 72.68.76.55
April 9th, 2008 13:58
i personally believe prestandard arguments are fine.
first, correct me if i’m wrong, but the only rules in debate are one that aff has to prove the resolution true and neg has to disprove those claims and two the time limits on speeches.
therefore, i can’t understand any claim that a priori arguments are “cheating” or unfair, because they follow the rules.
next, both sides have access to a prioris. aff can definitionally prove the resolution a tautology and neg a contradiction. both sides can run philosophical arguments that prove that an element of the resolution is categorically true/false. also, each side could potentially turn an opposing linked arg into an a priori for them using some creative thinking. finally, either side can turn opposing a prioris if they chose not to present their own. Jay says that “justice doesn’t exist” can’t be turned, but it can, just not impact-turned. it’s entirely possible to link-turn whatever definitional or philosophical internal link is used for the a priori.
also, ‘prestandards’ arguments aren’t actually prestandard, they impact to meta-standards like ‘tautologyness’ or ‘truth.’ once these are identified, they can be taken out, turned, prerequisited, etc, just like any other standard. if the ac has no a prioris or a priori spikes, i don’t think it has any right to run 1ar a priori theory.
finally, running theory against a prioris is almost always more illegitimate than the a prioris themselves. when i hear the 1ar whining about how it can’t possibly answer 6 a prioris in 4 minutes or whatever, i get a little confused, because that’s exactly the strategy behind a priori storms. the purpose of debate is to win, and a prioris win without breaking the rules. they’re not unfair, they’re strategic.
that’s my opinion on the matter, at least.
Posted from: 65.88.9.138
April 9th, 2008 13:59
Christian (from post # 8) do you mean that the response/justification/offense to pre-standard arguments as a strategy is to run a priori arguments/other pre-standards as a response to (or in anticipation of) such arguments or choosing to engage in “preclusionary” arguments?
Your response seems like a “you can do it to” form of justification for pre-standard arguments. Both sides could fabricate cards in rounds but does that make it right? To preempt an indefensible position the answer is NO on the evidence question.
I am still waiting for the “O” on why pre-standard arguments are a good/fair form of argument as currently practiced.
Just trying to understand all of this to avoid “incoherent” babbling :)
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 14:11
christian:
1) reciprocity is a silly standard. the rules of debate are not reciprocal (i.e. speech order, etc) they are *equitable*. in other words, both sides shouldnt get identical strategies, they should get balanced strategies. a prioris arent balanced because:
a) skeptical negative strategies allow the neg to engage issues clearly outside the realm of the res (does causality exist? is language meaningful?). i’ve written at length before about why thats bad. aside from being unpredictable, it means the range of possible negative ‘a priori’ args is always larger than the range of possible affirmative ‘a priori’ args.
b) time skew lol! no seriously it CLEARLY favors the neg to get 7 minutes to indict every aff assumption. good luck 1ARs. these strategies also moot the 1AC if the aff is not running ‘a prioris.’
2. your interp of what it means to be fair is shallow and uninformative. all strategies that both sides can do are fair?
a) youd be happy to see multiple conditional affs vs multiple conditional cps? maybe thats fair but it is bad debate. paradigms of debate should encourage not just fair practices but academically sound practices. this does not mean i hold the narrow view of education that some traditional coaches do. it does mean that i think it is probably important to create an event that isnt drivel. ‘a priori’ arguments are often tools of avoidance, not debate. i’ll even phrase it like an “a priori”: fairness is necessary but not sufficient!
b) fairness is not simply an issue of your ability to deploy args, its your ability to predict and answer them. see above for predictability and all my other writings on this topic for why answering ‘a priori’ args puts debaters in an unfair position. key concept: you cant generate offense against ‘the res cannot be evaluated.’
3. this is nothing like leaving out warrants. if you have no warrants you havent made an argument. there is NO reason that ‘a priori’ claims should be a required part of an aff case. in fact, a priori’s are bad because they make debates impossible to evaluate (wade alludes to this, ive discussed it before).
re: AT’s point about topicality:
i draw the distinction between procedural args and so called ‘a priori’ args based on the scope of their claim - procedural args speak to a strategy the aff/neg has used, ‘a priori’ args speak to the resolution. ive pointed out in the past that you chose your strategies but you do not choose the res, so there seems to be a relevant distinction that can quash silly pre-standards args w/o killing off theory debate.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 14:16
oh, the other arg ive made before re: procedural args is that things like fairness, education etc. can be impact turned so there isnt the ‘cant generate O’ problem
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
April 9th, 2008 15:02
a prioris generally have very weak analysis/ warrants/ etc. while i don’t frown on a priori / prestandard arguments, i think that they structurally can be made into good arguments.
so what if it doesn’t link to a value criterion? a priori arguments, when written well, have internal standards that they link to; subsequently, well-written pre-standard arguments would include some turn ground for the opponent, which generally means that pre standard arguments need not be redressed with theory unless you’re totally lost in relation to what the argument entails.
who cares about multiple pre-standard arguments. when this occurs in-round, most judges and/or coaches throw up the white flag and your speaks go down significantly. there is a way to redress this. there is a lot of speculation (via this thread) concerning ‘how do you deal with multiple pre-standards. well, if they internal standards as noted above, it would then probably be able to determine which pre-standards come as pre-requisites to the others. if that can be done on the standards/burdens level, why not at the prestandards level? however, this is not the burden of the judge, it’s the burden of the students in-round. so kids, you should have standards in your a prioris so that it can be easier to evaluate them as the round progresses.
but that’s just what i think
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
April 9th, 2008 15:02
they have**
it –>standards
Posted from: 67.155.35.66
April 9th, 2008 15:21
Quinn, help me out here. Your argument is that your pre-standards arguments should link to standards. Right? So the argument that comes before the standard (pre-standards) links to a standard that isn’t the criterion? If there is turn ground and a standard how is it different than a normal case? In which case why would you have 2 cases and then be like by the way Case 1 that I read for the first 2 minutes doesn’t really matter.
Evidence we need more online resources about LD Debate can be found below
“when i hear the 1ar whining about how it can’t possibly answer 6 a prioris in 4 minutes or whatever, i get a little confused, because that’s exactly the strategy behind a priori storms. the purpose of debate is to win, and a prioris win without breaking the rules. they’re not unfair, they’re strategic.”
Someone somewhere along the way has failed you buddy.
Posted from: 74.73.42.3
April 9th, 2008 15:32
“when i hear the 1ar whining about how it can’t possibly answer 6 a prioris in 4 minutes or whatever, i get a little confused, because that’s exactly the strategy behind a priori storms. the purpose of debate is to win, and a prioris win without breaking the rules. they’re not unfair, they’re strategic.
that’s my opinion on the matter, at least.”
For both our sakes please strike me at TOC.
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
April 9th, 2008 15:49
sam, i guess if you want to call pre-standards arguments ‘case 1′ and ‘case 2′ then so be it. i think the difference functions in terms of tradition. for example, normal cases may fall along the lines of ‘i value justice, the value criterion is maintaining global security for 5 reasons.” that’s fine, but there could be an ‘a priori’ above the generic framework that has a standard concerning language, that is short and succinct, that claims the resolution to be true prior to the value criterion because language is a necessary pre-requisite to the criteria debate, specifically because the criteria debate is executed via language.
in that sense, yeah, case 2 has the potential of not mattering in the round, but i think that expanding your ground (especially as the aff) is probably more smart than not. there are ambigous limitations on how much ground you should give yourself (THIS is when theory should matter in terms of [an] a priori[s]), but i’m about to get to that.
in terms of ‘a priori storms’, they are annoying, but 2 competing pre-standards arguments probably aren’t that bad in terms of debatability or fairness. they could, in fact, make for an interesting round. sometimes that stuff is more intriguing than your bad self-defense case vs. your opponent’s bad violence=unjust case. i guess, if i’m judging you, don’t have more than 2 per debater, and that is only if one of them is default ___ (otherwise, keep it to 1 per kid).
Posted from: 70.56.6.41
April 9th, 2008 15:53
“first, correct me if i’m wrong, but the only rules in debate are one that aff has to prove the resolution true and neg has to disprove those claims and two the time limits on speeches.
therefore, i can’t understand any claim that a priori arguments are “cheating” or unfair, because they follow the rules.”
1. The purpose of theory is to set rules for the debate. While the only uncontestable rules may be the time constraints, theory functions to establish additional rules based on notions of fairness or education. Debaters running theory shells establish why issues of fairness or education are prerequisites to evaluating the truth of the resolution. Theory is this a necessary prerequisite to meeting the first rule you mention.
2. Your argument would seem to allow debaters to tear up each other’s flows, and punch each other in the face. This may seem silly, but these aren’t explicitly banned in the two ‘rules,’ are they? It is necessary to allow debaters to establish what ought or not be allowed to punish individuals who employ illegitimate (although strategic) strategies.
Posted from: 65.2.77.187
April 9th, 2008 16:08
Regarding weighing pre-standards… won’t weighing happen during theory (fairness, education, etc.)? Or is this weighing OUTSIDE of a theory debate?
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
April 9th, 2008 16:11
quinn–your example about language is the problem; the fact that your argument justifies reading an argument that has -zero- to do with the topic and has the possibility to exclude -every- argument that has to do with the topic is terrible for debate. strategies that make the topic and the entirety of your opponent’s topic-specific strategies irrelevant are intellectually bankrupt and come as close to threatening the continued viability and relevance of the activity as anything out there. i would belabor the point more but i think michael does an excellent job so i won’t.
Posted from: 74.63.75.227
April 9th, 2008 16:22
while we may disagree on a prioris i think there is one thing we can all agree on - strike quinn olivarez at toc.
Posted from: 128.54.52.173
April 9th, 2008 16:30
I don’t think that running one a priori is a bad thing. I mean, the assumptions that the affirmative makes are something that most reasonable people would dismiss as being normal, but that’s the point of criticizing it. A prioris do get out of order if there are multiple of them run. I mean, there are ways to weigh between them, but that can only be done by comparing truth values or how good of a truth function your arg is compared to the other or just on the order of arguments to be true.
Still, running multiple a prioris dcef skews 1ARs, although most of the args are fairly predictable. The point is that having access to an A priori argument is a good thing when certain ACs are so stacked and spiked out. It’s just competitive negative strat, but it can go out of hand (much like spiking out an AC is alright, but it can get to the point of becoming utopian fiat, which would be bad) and I think that happens when a neg runs more than one a priori (note, i dont mean procedurals here).
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
April 9th, 2008 16:34
Quinn,
I think the reason why most people think a prioris are unfair is because they challenge assumptions of the resolution that are necessary to accept to affirm without giving the aff ANY turn ground against them.
How is it fair, for instance, for the aff to have prove that 1) that debates about morality are resolvable and 2) that on top of that, the resolution is true? The neg only needs to disprove one of those to win, but the aff needs to prove both. This essentially makes it twice as easy for the neg to win than the aff. Moreover, there would be nothing wrong with this if the aff actually had turn ground (i.e. the potential to generate offense) against “a prioris” but most of the time they don’t. “Morality does not exist” is not turnable, period. They therefore have to invest (and win) 100% defense against these arguments just to survive a loss whereas the neg can just a) kick the issue entirely or b) collapse to it in the NR and undoubtedly win.
The issue of multiple a priors (or in some cases, even just one a priori) is perfect evidence for the need for theory in debate. Other than praying that your judge will intervene against such a blatantly unfair strategy (which almost all judges won’t), there is no other viable check.
By the way, can anyone explain to me why the popular (mis)conception that theory = intervention exists? From my understanding of debate, every voting issue is meant to be a reason to pick you up and drop your opponent, so why is theory any different? Asking your judge to drop your opponent is literally what you do each time you extend an argument.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
April 9th, 2008 16:53
we have another tool to question misplaced affirmative assumptions–it’s called a K. it’s one thing to say that the deployment of particular modes of language or thought is politically counterproductive or ethically bankrupt and that this turns the 1ac. it’s another thing to say that language doesn’t exist or that we can’t make moral claims and say that this means that the resolution can’t be evaluated and that it’s pointless to have a debate at all. if you can’t tell why the first is probably OK and the second is not, well…
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 17:00
hassin says “first, correct me if i’m wrong, but the only rules in debate are one that aff has to prove the resolution true and neg has to disprove those claims and two the time limits on speeches.”
you are wrong. proving the resolution true is a convention based on a particular paradigm. alternate paradigms exist (consider the ‘competing worlds’ approach supported by me, mumper, adam nelson, and too many others to name here). it is that notion of ‘prove the res true’ that allows bad a priori’s to proliferate.
the argument between sam and quinn is indicative of something deeper - the idea of a ‘prestandards’ argument relies on our understanding of the standard. last i checked, the standard is just an impact framework - a way to determine which impacts are most important. (for whatever reason, ld conventionally forces aff debaters to pick their impact calculus prior to the NC. thats pretty dumb, but i wont get into it now). since standards are just lenses for viewing impact comparison, there is a distinction between arguments that are “pre-standards” in the sense that they talk about the truth/falsity of the res itself (consider the arg i made about distinguishing them from theory args) and arguments that are ‘pre-standards’ in the sense that they indict the specific logic of the AC (e.g. kritiks). there are unfair strategies that can be deployed with either form of ‘pre-standards’ argument, but i generally think the latter is better than the former because it includes arguments specific to what the affirmative has said/done. this handles kamil’s argument as well.
quinn says: “that’s fine, but there could be an ‘a priori’ above the generic framework that has a standard concerning language, that is short and succinct, that claims the resolution to be true prior to the value criterion because language is a necessary pre-requisite to the criteria debate, specifically because the criteria debate is executed via language.”
can quinn/someone explain to me what it means to execute a criterion debate via language? i spend a lot of time studying languages (from the perspective of formal linguistics, philology and philosophy of language) and i cant really figure out how “language” in the abstract is a criterion for anything.
quinns last argument is that these debates are sometimes interesting. true enough. that doesnt make them fair or academically sound. the ‘2 a priori limit’ is arbitrary and doesnt seem like a sound foundation for a theory of debate/paradigm.
“theory” says that theory argues that you cant determine the truth/falsity of the resolution if the rounds not fair. that is probably true. however, that argument is not fundamental to theory and we can easily abandon the true/false view of the resolution and still have theory debates. at a more fundamental level, theory debate argues that the judge should punish unfair practices because the debater cannot overcome an illegit strategy in the round.
jose medina says we can weigh using theory standards. that doesnt make sense because theory standards evaluate if the argument is an acceptable strategy, not if the argument is valid or invalid.
re: ken’s question about why people claim theory = intervention - that’s because people have a really strange view about what it means to intervene. as far as im concerned, non-intervention means ‘did you evaluate the arguments made in the debate.’ theory is an argument made in the debate. we give judge discretion to adjudicate between different impacts about the res, why not let them also adjudicate between different impacts about the round, especially given the foundation for theory i laid above?
Posted from: 64.12.116.76
April 9th, 2008 17:01
Although I agree that they are usually awfully run, but I agree with Quinn that there is nothing inherently flawed about a prestandards argument. I’ll try to address most of the questions, but if I miss any of them just let me know and I’ll a nswer to the best of my ability. Pre Standards most literally just means that this argument would affirm or negate the resolution independant of my opponents standard. if the resolution is that It is just to torture x. If I can prove to you that torture is by definition unjust I don’t know why that wouldn’t function pre whatever standard the aff was running. I think that all good prestandards arguments have implicit standards such as the text of the resolution, logic or truth, but these can be attacked the same way normal standards are. I don’t know why you can’t argue that logic or the text of the resolution are bad standards. Although, they are often very difficult to turn.. I wouldn’t say they are impossible to turn or that one should have to provide arguments that are turnable. Can competing prestandards issues be weighed? Yes. I think the implicit standards can be weighed against each other as to which is a better evaluative mechanism for debate. I’ve also seen them weighed based on how clean the extension of the prestandards argument was (so probably minimizing intervention). Which warrants were stronger is another way and with all of our creative debate minds i’m sure we can find additional ways. And I don’t think its any more unfair to go for a prestandards argument and an argument that links back to your standard then it is to go for an link to your standard and a turn to your opponents standard. As always sry for the awful spelling and grammar, but I am too lazy to edit.
Posted from: 66.108.131.237
April 9th, 2008 17:07
i agree completely with what jesse has said. I dont think we ought condemn prestandards arguments altogether just because they are often misused/overused, because they can often be legitimate and the concept itself, as jesse explained, is not nonsensical.
Posted from: 74.68.137.118
April 9th, 2008 17:12
The distinction that Michael draws between procedural arguments and a priori arguments at the bottom posts 14 and 15 is excellent. (I think Jay is also right about the motivation behind most a prioris.)
I’m a bit confused as to where the bright line would be for “too many” a prioris; some here, and elsewhere, seem to indicate that one a priori is fine, but “multiple” a prioris become abusive. How many? Three? More? Why the distinction?
Posted from: 70.111.141.247
April 9th, 2008 17:35
I think multiple a priori arguments aren’t as bad as they sound.
If the neg is making them up on the spot, then making 6 different a priori arguments isn’t necessarily the best strategy, because those arguments will likely be poorly constructed, not warranted, not explained to be a prior, or otherwise weak. After all, an a priori actually takes some time to make, and if the neg is trying an a priori dump along with a spread, then they’re going to have to skimp on the a priori.
I could understand it more if the neg had 6 a priori arguments prewritten, but then spikes in the AC should be able to take care of most of them.
Granted, I recognize that running multiple a priori arguments has a serious negative downside, but they’re far from unbeatable strategies (or even strategies that have a high chance of winning).
Posted from: 64.91.202.39
April 9th, 2008 17:44
i guess i have to redress what other people said in order for what i said to have any validity.
first, in response to smitty.
“has 0 to do with the topic. . exclude every argument.”
1. how so? why are pre-standards arguments relegated to meaninglessness in relation to the topic? why do they have to be meaningless? if anything, i’d argue that a priori arguments have the potential to be good or bad, and subsequently relevant. obviously, you ignored my first post. there is a difference between a good and bad a priori argument.
2. in regards to my example specifically, how does language not have relevance to EVERY topic. i wasn’t defending language-oriented a prioris; however, they probably have the ability to be legitimate.
3. how are exclusionary arguments not something already part of debate? this is totally non-unique. dropped turns generally exclude other pieces of offense one would go for, weighing excludes other forms of arguments, standards exclude arguments, etc, but we don’t go around striking those down! debate is about exclusionary modes of argumentation, otherwise, the activity would be retarded because we would not be able to make decisions in round.
4. exclusion could be used as a tool to stop repetitive arguments, dumb arguments, generic arguments, etc. why is that so bad?
“intellectually bankrupt . . . strategies that make. . .evidence irrelevant”
1. there is no legitimate reasoning behind what you said concerning the importance of topic-related literature.
2. see #1 above
3. why is it bad to exclude crappy evidence / things that one just does not want to deal with in round? why should debaters be forced to deal with arguments they don’t want to when they can simply find alternative means of addressing them (ie an a priori argument)?
4. why can’t a priori arguments contain evidence, which would subsequently minimize the problem you have with disregarding evidence.
now to address mangus
“a prioris aren’t balanced A”
1. i haven’t read what you’ve written prior to this discussion. what you do bring up here is predictability. i guess it’s right to assume a prioris are bad because they aren’t predictable, but without getting into a theory discussion i’d feel comfortable ignoring predictability for the sake of things like education, strategy, etc.
“a prioris aren’t balanced B”
1. i personally don’t think the time skew matters, but i’ll go into greater detail in regard to these theory stuff in a second.
ok i guess it’s time to go into generalities. michael / smitty both argue that a prioris are bad. that’s fine. but that has nothing to do with what they are / what is a good / bad one. while it might be argued that there is no such thing as a legitimate a priori, i think i have already specified what i consider to be guidelines for such. michael / smitty both are redressing crappy a prioris. i agree, crappy a prioris are bad, but i don’t think that grouping all a prioris together is legitimate either.
all 3 (michael, smitty, wade) seem to make an appeal to the inability to weigh between a prioris, but as i said, if they are clearly written and executed well, i think they can avoid the pitfalls that wade illustrates via his 3 questions to christian.
in regard to wade’s last question, why are nonsense statements intrinsically false? why is a tautology a truth statement? these are great examples of bad a prioris insofar as they make a HUGE logical leap between nonsense and falsehood, tautology and truth, etc.
Posted from: 64.91.202.39
April 9th, 2008 17:51
mangus, i was using an example. the example, i don’t think, de-legitimized my argument. i was simply explaining that there can be alternative standards that have priority over a traditional value criterion because of what they substantively concern in relation to a debate round.
can a prior debate be fair and/ or academically sound. i think, given my standards for a prioris, yes. is my paradigm fairly arbitrary. possibly, but i think establishing a bright-line for how much a priori debate is too much is at least fairly legitimate given the possibility of theory being ran in response to multiple a prioris. i don’t think that’s any different from the ‘illustrate clear abuse’ paradigm most have in regard to theory insofar as that is a somewhat arbitrary line that people view differently.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 17:58
quinn:
what you feel comfortable with does not equate to a rigorous theory of debate. this is the same point i made about your “2 are ok but thats it!” standard. you need reasons to back up what you believe. predictability is part of education (need to know what we’re debating to have in-depth debates) as well as fairness. “strategy” is not a theory standard. theory evaluates the legitimacy of certain strategies, so that would beg the question.
i made pretty important distinctions between various kinds of pre-standards arguments, when i think theyre ok, etc. youre the one who’s behind on that aspect of the argument.
writing the arguments very well doesnt address the weighing claim bc it still doesnt give the judge an answer to the question “if the aff proves that the res is tautologically true and the neg proves that it relies on a faulty assumption, who do i vote for?” this also doesnt address predictability, time skew, strategy skew, mooting the ac, education, etc.
regarding quinns questions to wade: those two examples are utter nonsense. the nature of tautologies are that they are true. the nature of nonsense (i.e. invalid) arguments is that they are not true. i defy you to coherently explain another answer to either of those questions. any argument you could make would be a meta-issue at best.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 17:58
i should note that i dont mean ‘invalid’ in a logical sense - an invalid argument can still have a factually true conclusion. i mean it in the sense of ‘having no grounding in fact.’
Posted from: 70.56.6.41
April 9th, 2008 18:01
Quinn, you say:
“but without getting into a theory discussion i’d feel comfortable ignoring predictability for the sake of things like education, strategy, etc.”
How is it possible to have an educational round where strategy is employed without being able to predict which assumption the neg will question?
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 18:03
didnt see quinn’s second post. ‘prove clear abuse’ is not arbitrary - it follows from the view that punishment should only happen if a rule has been obviously violated and otherwise we should give the benefit of the doubt.
Posted from: 24.7.64.100
April 9th, 2008 18:12
A.
1-2) my entire point was that strategies that apply to every topic and are not specific to the topic area in question (ie “relevant”) are bad. they defeat the point of having rotating topics, which are designed to balance both the breadth and depth of issues that debaters are forced to research and understand. this is not just about education; this is about making debate meaningful, interesting, fun, and intellectually challenging.
3-4) if this argument is true, there is no unique reason that a prioris are good, because debaters can use substantive arguments to exclude or short-circuit other substantive arguments. my point is that there is a difference between, say, “my conceded nuclear terrorism arg indicates that deterrence doesnt work because the relevant actors are irrational and ideologically motivated” and “my conceded a priori means that his conceded argument about deterrence is irrelevant because we can’t posit any moral judgments”.
your point about excluding bad arguments is both nonunique (for the same reason) and doesn’t make sense in a world where these arguments are a) almost universally terrible–worse than any “bad argument” you would have them exclude and b) pedagogically bankrupt when these arguments serve as a crutch that allow debaters to avoid thinking critically and actually answering the substance of their opponents’ arguments.
B.
1. warrantless claim. this is the point of rotating topics–i’ve made this argument twice now.
3. the fact that one or both debaters want to do something is a terrible standard–it would justify not having a topic, in-round physical violence, and countless other things. also, it’s infinitely regressive; what if your opponent doesn’t -want- you to run a priori arguments. last, this does not grapple with any of the O about why a priori debates are bad, not in the least.
4. first, i didn’t discuss evidence, you ghost-wrote that into my post. more importantly, this goes back to the topic-specific distinction i’ve made a million times now. it does not matter if you have a card, it matters whether you engage the substantive discussion specifically presented by the topic.
finally, i do not think that the distinction between good and bad a priori arguments is meangingful, because:
a) every argument here is based on the structural nature of a priori arguments, which are universal and not separable into good v. bad a prioris.
b) i have never seen one of these magical “good” a priori arguments. anyone want to tell a story about a great a priori they’ve seen recently? didn’t think so.
Posted from: 64.91.202.39
April 9th, 2008 18:35
i’m going to work backwards:
” ‘prove clear abuse’ is not arbitrary - it follows from the view that punishment should only happen if a rule has been obviously violated and otherwise we should give the benefit of the doubt.”
the ‘obviousness’ of the violation generally is left up for grabs, there are different measures of ‘obviousness’, etc. there is no inherency to this. subsequently, the standard is arbitrary insofar as different arbiters have different interpretations of this standard.
“How is it possible to have an educational round where strategy is employed without being able to predict which assumption the neg will question?”
first of all, these things can be predictable. either it’s a bad a priori without warrants that takes 5 seconds to read (i have already addressed this), or it’s a decent -> good a priori, and it still can be fairly predictable because these arguments a. have been used [somewhat] abundantly for at least a couple years now.
second of all, it can be predictable if you prep for them. while this seems like a ‘tough luck’ argument, i think it’s reasonable to think that debaters can prepare for common strategy.
to clarify, my being comfortable with doing x is not my paradigm, it’s something situational; someone who makes an appeal to a theory standard as a reason to ignore ‘a prioris bad’ theory will probably (but not inherently) persuade me to listen to their arguments as long as said a priori follows the guidelines illustrated for what makes a good a priori.
to clarify my paradigm for a prioris: 2 is probably a max out number in terms of the issue at hand because exceeding said number [more often than not] has only happened in rounds where the bad a priori strategy/execution was being utilized. as an amendment to my paradigm, 1^100k a prioris can be legitimate as long as they are executed well. in my experience judging, this has not happened when a priori arguments totaled more than 2 per kid. reason to back up what i believe, i guess.
i personally believe predictability is a dumb theory standard. but that’s just me. i hate hearing it. personally, i feel that predictability leads to uninteresting approaches to debate, and is generally used as a theory standard to undermine alternative approaches to the resolution that kids dedicate at least some of their time to.
the weighing claim problem you [mangus] bring up, i believe, is addressed in one of my earlier posts about a prioris having standards, subsequent turn ground, etc. in terms of how debatable they can be, i think good a prioris (given what i lay down as good a priori debate) maintain debatability.
in terms of this faulty assumption business. why is it bad to address these issues? why is it wrong to make arguments about the faulty assumptions of justice when a topic concerns justice. smitty makes an appeal to the rotating topic, etc, but what if someone participates in debate to explore different meanings of justice? it has been a long while since a topic hasn’t concerned either justice or moral standards, and i think what you said is a subsequent warrant for pre-standard legitimacy. all of your reasons for rotating topics justify prestandards debate insofar as discussions concerning justice can [potentially] be interested, meaningful, intellectually challenging, fun, etc.
fine, there is no unique reason that a prioris are good, but there is no unique reason (in terms of your arguments) that makes them bad. in the post you’re redressing, i wasn’t making an attempt at labeling a prioris as good. you call them [prestandards] crutches, i call them potentially interesting / well developed.
a prioris have potential to be ran well. have they been? probably not / maybe close. does this mean they should never be utilized, or does this mean that debaters ought find ways of making these arguments better.
if you don’t want someone to run a prioris, a case does have the potential to pre-empt that mode of argumentation. in terms of this predictability that everyone is making an appeal to, is it not fairly predictable that some debaters will/won’t run a priori arguments? subsequently, is it sufficient or not to have interchangeable pre-empts in a case to deal with certain debaters?
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
April 9th, 2008 18:42
That a prioris are procedurally highly suspect (I think ultimately untenable) has, I think, been pretty well established here. Just a quick comment, though, on the notion that we shouldn’t lump all a prioris together; we should distinguish between “good” and “bad” a a prioris. This doesn’t take care of the procedural objections, but even still…
I’m hard pressed to recall a time when I’ve seen an a priori argument that most would consider “good”. They are plagued by several problems:
1. Several have pointed out that a prioris do in fact appeal to a standard. This is problematic on more than procedural grounds. That standard is almost never explicitly justified, which is exceedingly unrigorous. Some have said that a “good” a priori has impact calculus analysis, but that takes away any incentive for calling it an “a priori” to begin with. The strategic advantage of doing that is to eschew the need to do impact calculus debate. If you are going to include standards analysis then it becomes akin to a traditional case position or a kritik which explicitly ackowledges the role of standards and does intellectual work to justify them.
2. As Michael and others have alluded to (and related to the first point), a prioris tend to yield decontextualized standards/impacts. Adam Nelson in this month’s Rostrum has argued convincingly why that’s problematic (and Michael in his article last year). While I’m not convinced we can totally get out of this problem (see the debate on that topic in the thread from last week), the a priori as a strategic choice has us going the wrong direction on it.
3. MANY a prioris are intellectually unrigorous because they rely on semantics. Where there is some innate ambiguity in any linguistic construction this is severely problematic for two reasons. First, if we have to choose it seems to make little sense to me to pick an interpretation which makes the resolution non-sensical or tautological. Sentences aren’t usually intended to be written that way because they don’t convey the intended meaning, and besides it takes advantage of an inescapable ambiguity of language to render the resolution basically non-debatable on a substantive level. We should acknowledge that its an interpretive question and argue for what interpretation is preferable. Second, affirming or negating because the resolution is tautological or non-sensical is innately fallacious if it is in fact the case that there are multiple legitimate interpretations of given words or phrases in the resolution. Essentially such a strategy involves picking a particular interpretation and claiming that it is the “objectively” true meaning of the word or phrase, and that on that reading the resolution is flawed or definitionally true. No such objective meaning exists, however, and so such arguments eschew the notion that there is any legitimate interpretation question in the first place.
Of course all that means that arguing against a prioris serves as a “check”, but the other procedural objections pretty much deal with why such a check is procedurally inadequate. I only add these thoughts to say that not only is it procedurally problematic but tends to be intellectually unrigorous such that, in my view, debaters and coaches should in almost all cases choose not to run them. We should reject the intentional use of bad arguments for the sole purpose of gaining a strategic advantage.
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
April 9th, 2008 18:49
Ken,
I think you are straight up wrong here. The aff is required to stand resolved about the resolution. This means that if the neg can prove that either procedurally, or through the course of a normal debate round that the resolution is not true, they have fulfilled their burden. Aff doesn’t get turn ground on A Priori’s run by the neg, but that doesn’t make it wrong. If Morality does not exist, or Morality debates are unresolvable, and the resolution asks a question of morality, then the resolution isn’t true.
A good 1AC should still be able to stand against an a priori argument. If the resolution posits a moral question, your offense should be specific enough to preempt them. If I have to defend a moral statement, my authors should be showing the resolution of a moral dilemma. This would preempt both of those as a) it shows that morality does exist, and b) they can be resolved.
Also, it’s not true that this hurts the aff tremendously. It’s called Policy Debate. The Neg can literally go for 1 argument in the 2NR and if the aff can’t beat it back, it’s usually game over. Aff cases need to be just as well thought ought and strategically planned as a neg strat. They should have a strategy for the 1AR. They should be specific enough that NC’s have to be more specific to link. All of your concerns over the existence of a prioris might exist, but it’s not the fault of the arguments, but rather the fault of the Aff for not being strategic enough to beat back those arguments with sufficient time to win enough offense.
Posted from: 70.56.6.41
April 9th, 2008 19:11
Pwneil,
You say that ACs should be able to preempt all aprioris, so its actually the affs fault when they lose to the apriori storm.
First, there are an infinite number of aprioris the neg could run. From arguing that justice doesnt exist, to indicting the very notion of logic itself, the number of ways the resolution can be proven nonsensical is unfathomable. Requiring ACs to preempt all of these arguments is problematic because 1) smart negs will just run the aprioris that weren’t preempted in the AC and 2) the aff is now screwed on the substantive debate because upwards of half the AC is preempting arguments that might not even be made in the first place.
Second, the reason 1ars can’t answer 7 minutes of aprioris is because they require the aff to start the debate completely over. Offense from the AC no longer matters if the resolution is nonsensical. This answers the ‘moral dilemna’ argument you try to make because if morality can’t even be conceived of, it is impossible to prove that ‘x action is moral’ The aff, thus, has to devote incredible amounts of time to each game over issue, winning 100% defense on each and every argument.
Third, your analogy to policy debate isn’t true. If neg is winning a disad that outweighs the AC, then sure, the neg can go for only one argument and win the round. Aprioris are different because they come before every single argument in the AC. Substantive turns interact with AC argumentation; aprioris avoid clash by precluding all arguments.
aprioris are theoretically illegitimate.
Posted from: 69.117.8.11
April 9th, 2008 19:13
I think Jesse does a good job of answering a lot of the questions being posed here, especially on weighing issues (Post 29).
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
April 9th, 2008 19:13
1) I do not disagree that “morality does not exist” disproves the resolution; the question is whether or not it’s a legitimate (i.e. fair) means of disproving it.
2) Explain to me about how AC offense can be specific enough to pre-empt a prioris. How can you possibly affirm without first accepting the assumption that morality is debatable? Should the AC have to devote time to offering a substantial proof of morality’s existence (ignoring the fact that one does not exist) so that the neg can’t run these a prioris?
3) It is impossible to predict or pre-empt every possible assumption. The three big ones that come to mind are 1) morality doesn’t exist, 2) language has no inherent meaning, and 3) there is no such thing as “truth”. Trust me, there are many many more. There is no way to predict which assumption the neg will indict and the AC just does not have time to pre-empt them.
My point here is that there is no AC strategy that can avoid a shit-dump of a prioris. The best thing the aff has is spikes, but I don’t know why the aff should have to devote any time to defending assumptions that are necessary to accept in order to debate.
Also, don’t claim that the aff’s strategy isn’t skewed if you’re not going to answer all the stuff I said before about how any aff gets screwed by multiple a prioris.
Posted from: 68.192.31.214
April 9th, 2008 19:23
One can make very kickass a priori good/bad blocks from this page =P
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 19:31
quinn youre just on the wrong side here.
the fact that a judgement is qualitative and subjective does not mean it is arbitrary. not sure what quinn means when he says theres no inherency. seems like the problem is “how can you defend a ‘prove clear abuse’ paradigm for theory while also decrying a ‘2 a priori’s only’ paradigm.” my answer is that one of those is principled (we should presume innocence, basically) and the other is not (its just quinns inclination). quinn hasnt been responsive to that point yet. you either need to defend that inclinations are sound foundations for paradigms (seems pretty shady) or that your view is somehow derived from a broader principle than just your opinion.
next is the predictability issue. quinn says that bad a prioris with no warrants take 5 seconds to read. k, doesnt make them predictable. then he says good a priori’s can be fairly predictable bc the args have been used a lot. but that just speaks to the fact that people have used a class of arguments, it doesnt prove that the arguments run have been exhaustive of that class. there are always different “a prioris” to be run. moreover, even if i were to grant this argument, it wouldnt prove that the arguments are predictable in any meaningful sense for the aff in that particular debate (in other words, it wouldnt be an obvious part of what you expect the nc to run based on what your ac says)
then he says it can be predictable if you prep. this is a serious wtf moment for me. predictability is what allows you to prepare. if they arent predictable, you dont know what to prep for. your tough luck solution imposes an unfair research burden and suffers the problems of not engaging the actual topic (smitty’s doing well on this debate, no reason for me to rehash).
quinn talks about his paradigm a little bit. when i mean paradigm, i dont necessarily mean how you judge debates, i mean the broader foundation - the theory of debate as a whole - that your particular theory argument is based on. im not sure what quinn says really doesnt clear anything up for me.
i agree w/ quinn that predictability should not be used as a crutch, but thats just a tiny aspect of the indicts people are making of ‘a priori’ strategies. its also offense compared to the D that most a priori lovers are putting up right now. same goes for weighing.
next arg is faulty assumptions good/bad. my view: faulty assumptions of the aff debater are one thing. faulty assumptions of the topic are another. in a world where we dont have plans, i think its only fair to make the aff defend the particular assumptions of their advocacy and not broader issues that dont actually relate to the topic. you can explore plenty of different meanings of debate within the confines of the competing worlds approach. the net benefit? it also limits out a ton of bad a prioris. the fact that topics mention these things proves that the debates youre talking about can happen under my interpretation. ill let smitty clean up the rotating topics business if he wants to. i dont think the claims made are responsive.
quinn says no unique reason a priori’s are bad. i have a whole list of these above in response to christian and elsewhere. other people are making them too. im trying my best to redress your post but you dont seem to be too happy w/ my remedies. if you arent saying a priori’s are good, im not sure why youre making all the args above about their virtues.
next quinn says preempts solve. why should affs be forced to pre-empt unfair strategies? do i also have to pre-empt multiple conditional cps, counter-perms, etc? seems like those debates shouldnt have to start out so early. this is of course another reason predictability matters (so you know what to preempt). you are right on one thing: i hereby guarantee with 100% accuracy that “some debaters will/won’t run a priori arguments.” seriously though, good debaters are not quite that predictable if you ask me. the indictment above of how you cant prepare for the specific args just bc you know the class of args exists also applies.
“pwneill” returns to truth/falsity as a basis to say that impact turn ground doesnt matter. that begs the question in a world where truth/falsity isnt a given. what might be “true” under some subjective semantic standard (see adam torson) is not necessarily what makes for fair, educational debates.
the argument (made by ‘pwneill’ and others) that a good aff can beat a prioris does not make them fair. i bet if you set me in the ring w/ a novice and let the kid read every abusive strat ever devised, id have a pretty good shot at pulling out a W. we should assume evenly matched debates when devising paradigms/theories of debate. in evenly matched debates, a prioris arent fair. “theory” (43) handles this arg more substantively.
lastly ‘pwneill’ says “its called Policy Debate.” i am not sure what policy debates you have seen…but no, its not. not even close really.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 19:42
(ps: i dont mean to say that pwneill is wrong that 2NRs usually go for 1 arg and affs have to beat it in policy. i mean to say that this argument is not really analogous to policy debate at all because neg strategies are typically constrained to the aff plan)
Posted from: 66.41.255.202
April 9th, 2008 19:44
“alternate paradigms exist (consider the ‘competing worlds’ approach supported by me, mumper, adam nelson, and too many others to name here).”
does that mean you compare aff world v squo or would it be aff world v neg world? or what?
just wondering cuz i couldnt find your paradigm online and was curious
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 19:48
http://debate.michael-mangus.com/forum/index.php?topic=7.0
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 19:48
er, that was a link for daryl, sorry.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 19:50
also for daryl: http://victorybriefsdaily.com/2008/04/02/towards-a-comprehensive-theory-of-lincoln-douglas-debate/
Posted from: 66.41.255.202
April 9th, 2008 19:53
so if an affirmative reads a plan does that mean you would listen to a negative conditionality or argument or just in general lean affirmative in those debates?
Posted from: 66.41.255.202
April 9th, 2008 19:54
poor phrasing:
if an affirmative reads a plan does that mean you would listen to a negative conditionality argument and pull the trigger on something like that or would fairly easily cast it aside?
Posted from: 66.41.255.202
April 9th, 2008 19:55
*would you
alksdjfklasdjfladsjf cant type.
Posted from: 66.41.255.202
April 9th, 2008 19:57
also, does your paradigm assume fiat? if so, why?
Posted from: 70.111.141.247
April 9th, 2008 19:59
“My point here is that there is no AC strategy that can avoid a shit-dump of a prioris. The best thing the aff has is spikes, but I don’t know why the aff should have to devote any time to defending assumptions that are necessary to accept in order to debate.”
The thing is, if there is a shit dump of a prioris, they come at a cost. Either they’re not well warranted as arguments, or have no pre-standards warrants, or the time it takes to save them makes it impossible for the neg to really cover the AC, or something else makes a prioris easily beatable. If the a priori dump doesn’t fall prey to those problems, then there are spikes that can preempt arguments.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
April 9th, 2008 20:12
Zhao, that is just not true. Although I’m critical of the fairness of running a prioris, I don’t know why there’s this assumption that a prioris are always poorly constructed/bad. I think that there are effective ways to use them. Even if they inhibit your ability to answer the AC, that’s still very subjective and generally not true. I sometimes run really short NC’s and a prioris in under 2 minutes and still have plenty of time to answer the AC. Moreover, if we accept that multiple a prioris are OK, it would be unstrategic for the neg to answer the AC. Why not just shit-dump a bunch of non-turnable a prioris and have 15 independent outs?
I also think it’s really stupid to say that the aff shouldn’t run theory against a prioris because the a prioris are usually not well warranted or whatever. A prioris are a quick win strategy - that’s the only reason to use them. If your opponent tries to beat you on one, it’s almost always unfair and you’re fully entitled to run theory.
I don’t know why so many debaters have this self-restraint when it comes to debate theory. They say things like “theory is stupid” or “I’ll just answer the arguments”, but most of the time that just means that they lose. On multiple occasions this year I’ve hit a prioris and won on theory, and I have no clue why any other debater or judge would consider that illegitimate or refuse to do it/accept it and call it “whining”. After all, should I really have to try to prove that truth exists every round?
Posted from: 75.72.79.154
April 9th, 2008 20:29
Look at what I said Ken. I was very clear. I told you that if I have to defend a moral claim, my authors should present a moral question, then show how to answer it. That takes care of the whole issue. As for language has no meaning, that’s usually taken out of context and power tagged. Derrida does not argue that language has no meaning, but rather, that language has some central meaning, and thus the burden is to relate to the central meaning. Your third one is a paradox that really does nothing. If there is no truth, than the argument itself isn’t true, and therefore there is a truth (and a never ending cycle). The way to preempt a prioris isn’t via spikes, but by using specific evidence and strategies and forcing the 1NC to provide a specific link to the case. Cards should have both offensive and defensive values.
&Theory. How is that unique? I mean there are THOUSANDS OF ARGUMENTS that could be made on any topic that basically become a priori if the aff has no knowledge of it. Second, the use of evidence that uses the words of the resolution is key, in that you can show that their a prioris aren’t true Third, assuming a truth seeking paradigm (I’ll address this concern later), isn’t every negative argument no risk? And for that matter, isn’t every argument essentially no risk? There’s nothing in the rules that says that I have to go for my 1AC in rebuttals. I could go for theory, NC turns, or discourse K. Under your logic, it’s theoretically illegitimate to kick any argument. Any decent debater will have reasons why their impacts come first. This essentially means all arguments can function as a priori.
The way to handle 7 Mins a priori is Standards extension, offense extension, theory, then group and respond, and tell the judge to evaluate all args without a explicit warrant for it being A priori to be treated as a normal argument. Also, there probably won’t be 7 mins of unique a prioris. Or at least, the justification will be the same.
As for mangus:
1. How can an a priori function outside of a truth seeking paradigm? An a priori states the resolution is true/false “on face”. If we are to adapt to a competing worlds paradigm, that presupposes that everything reverts back to some impact calculus that can be used to weigh between world.
2. Yes, it does make it fair mangus. At Stanford, someone was suggesting that Christian Tarsney has an substantial neg bias as a judge. This person said that the reason he has this bias is he’ll except anything as true, and this allows for “abusive” neg strats. As much as that is true, the converse is also true in that it allows for “abusive” aff strats. The same is true for a prioris. Both debaters have the opertunity to offer A prioris in their constructive.
A good 1AC will be able to use their evidence to show that the resolutional assumptions are true. Evidence that parallels the resolution closely checks back any abuse from Neg a prioris. In the 1AC, spend 30 secs to 1 min on framework to set up the resolution in favorable terms. This not only preempts a prioris, but also gives the neg very little wiggle room.
3. In policy debate, the Aff has to beat back any and all arguments thrown out there by the Neg. In a lot of rounds, 1AC evidence ends up playing very little importance in the rebuttals. The neg has 13 minutes in high school to set up why everything they said comes first. A good neg block makes things extremely hard for the 1AR, as they have to beat back a lot of things before they can come out even. It happens. Affs win.
Ok, time for a little Pwneill Rant:
To everyone who claims a prioris are illegitimate:
This is just a rediculous argument to begin with. Your argument basically translates to “the Neg did a good job putting the 1AR is a very difficult position, that’s not fair.” If the 1AR is swamped by neg a prioris and arguments, that means the 1NC did a good job, not that it’s bad. Negs should make the 1AR as hard as possible. They have the longest speech, followed by a 4 minute response to it. If the neg does a good job in the 1NC, the round should be over barring a superior 1AR. You’re also saying that it’s the Negs fault that the Aff can’t defend the entirety of the resolution. Too bad that’s their burden to uphold the entire resolution. IF the Neg finds a way to make sure the Aff can’t uphold the resolution, more power to them.
I’m sorry, I really just think it’s whining to call A prioris theoretically illegit
Posted from: 74.63.75.227
April 9th, 2008 20:31
i cant believe anyone still thinks multiple a prioris are legitimate. this was supposed to be resolved last year.
re: “1^100k a prioris can be legitimate as long as they are executed well”
1^100k still = 1, idiot.
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
April 9th, 2008 20:33
in regard to my ‘inclination’ about a tenet of debate vs. a principle, i think i did a decent job of clarifying that in my last post. beyond that, i think it’s fair to drop a big non-unique here. michael insists on a difference between the two, but i think the only difference is consensus.
the arguments [prestandards] can be precluded with ‘a prioris bad’ theory in the 1AC. even better, ‘a priori’ bad theory can be ran after the a prioris, in the 1AR. that can be used to check back the ‘exhaustive’ qualities of a priori arguments, which [i think] minimizes the importance of predictability because the theory can be used in response to any a priori.
while it may be ‘unfair’ or whatever to be in a position to answer these arguments back with theory, i think it’s ultimately non-unique insofar as the same argument can be made in relation to any argument within a debate round. but i also don’t like fairness as a theory standard or voter, personally.
second, the wtf moment. i think that prep is what constructs predictability, not the other way around. this is true because it is preparation that determines when arguments are considerably ‘predictable’ or ‘unpredictable.’ outside of that, though, i think it’s fair to accept the fact that a prioris are part of debate now, and subsequently are predictable, especially given your opponent.
while the content of the a priori can be predictable or not, the theory can check that back. but even without theory, i think that well-developed a prioris, if anything, a prioris incentivize better education from debate. it encourages kids to read books about concepts behind resolutions so that they understand what their opponent is talking about, or, help kids understand how to run good/better a prioris.
michael is spot on about holding debaters accountable for their assumptions and not the resolution’s. as a result, i guess that should be an amendment to my a priori paradigm. saying ‘justice doesn’t exist’ is probably (definitely) a bad a priori. an a priori that concerns justice along the lines of giving each their due, however, is probably legitimate insofar as aff/neg debaters elect to use that interpretation.
moreover, i think, given the solutions i illustrate in terms of a prioris, they don’t have a negative effect on the rotation of topics, although i don’t think that mangus redresses the non-uniqueness of the benefits of this so called ‘topic specific’ mode of argumentation vs. one that concerns principles of the 1AC/1NC.
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
April 9th, 2008 20:37
excuse my shitty math. someone from chicago hates me.
Posted from: 70.56.14.98
April 9th, 2008 20:50
what would an a priori concerning justice being giving each their due look like? it seems like that type of argument would just be a reason as to why that particular intepretation of justice is bad, not an automatic reason to vote.
Posted from: 69.118.235.253
April 9th, 2008 20:51
Pwneil, you clearly don’t understand what it means for an argument to be “no-risk”. An NC saying that the aff causes nuke war is not no-risk because it can easily be turned. An a priori saying that morality doesn’t exist cannot be turned.
Your responses are very specific and are not dealing with the general idea. I understand the problems associated with saying “nothing is true” and maybe people do misread Derrida. That has nothing to do with whether or not a prioris are fair. Just because you can make responses to them doesn’t mean that they are fair. I can run a conditional cp that you can make a ton of answers to, the lack of fairness stems from the fact that turns don’t stick to it (same with no-risk a prioris).
Also, you can’t just make any argument a priori. Some arguments simply do come before others. How could you possibly say an argument linking to justice can come before an argument proving that justice does not exist?
as for your rant, it’s good that you think debate should be about strategy (I think this too). The thing that you and a lot of other people don’t realize is that theory is simply a necessary piece of that strategy. I’m sorry but if you’re aff and the neg runs 40 non-turnable a prioris (as has been done) there is NO WAY you can win. It wouldn’t matter if you were the best debater of all time. Without a theory argument to either a) exclude the a prioris or b) have your opponent lose b/c of them, you lose. Period. There is no way around that.
Theory is strategic. I don’t know why you think it’s OK for debaters to do everything except run theory. If debate is about strategy, let theory be a part of that strategy. Winning on theory is just as legitimate as winning on a prioris, so don’t reject it b/c of unjustified prejudice.
Posted from: 12.216.111.70
April 9th, 2008 20:55
“I was very clear. I told you that if I have to defend a moral claim, my authors should present a moral question, then show how to answer it.”
Can you send me the cites for the article that warrants a conception of justice, resolves the meta-ethical issues that could possibly be associated with it, then says military force is just? Thanks.
“As for language has no meaning, that’s usually taken out of context and power tagged. Derrida does not argue that language has no meaning, but rather, that language has some central meaning, and thus the burden is to relate to the central meaning. Your third one is a paradox that really does nothing. If there is no truth, than the argument itself isn’t true, and therefore there is a truth (and a never ending cycle).”
So your defense for these arguments is ‘Derrida is powertagged’ and the liar’s paradox? I’m not sure the fact that a one-point block exists to these arguments answers the question of whether they are theoretically illegitimate.
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
April 9th, 2008 21:04
maeshal,
just to make sure we’re clear, i’m talking about an a priori that indicts that interp.
in light of that, an a priori that remains critical of that interp could serve to de-legitimize offense that is contingent on that interp. it’s not a voting issue, i don’t see why a prioris have to remain as voting issues.
Posted from: 69.148.133.216
April 9th, 2008 21:08
So 63 posts in and still yet to see a coherent defense of prestandards arguments….
Anyone learning anything??
Posted from: 70.56.14.98
April 9th, 2008 21:15
the main issue that a priori advocates need to grapple with(jamer and co. have brought up this problem on multiple occasions) is the question of WHY these arguments can’t function underneath standards that are already established in the round.
like, sure, grant all the benefits that a priori arguments provide educationally. kids crack open books. great. they understand the concepts behind resolutions (although i’m not really sure what that entails). wonderful. why is it that it has to be an a priori in order to garner these advantages? why can’t “justice doesn’t exist” have impacts about ruses of justice causing millions to suffer or something?
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 21:23
daryl: my point really has nothing to do with whole-res vs plans. check out the section called “plans” (III-a-2) and the one called “judging and coaching” (IV-a). re: fiat. it exists in the sense that i assume implementation of the resolution.
alex zhao’s post is just more defense. the fact that it takes time to read a priori args doesnt deny that the aff must take a disproportionate amount of time to answer it (given the inability to generate offense and the difficulty of answering skepticism thoroughly). i also think this suffers from the problem of not assuming evenly matched rounds/good debaters. his other arg is spikes solve, that debate is above (47).
pwneill’s interpretation of derrida is pretty bizarre, but i do agree that derrida’s point is decidedly not ‘language is meaningless.’ a lot of people dont seem to get that.
the existance of a lot of topical args is not the same issue. those args are constrained by topic literature. recall the research burden arg above - adding a priori’s into the mix is only worse.
all neg args are not “no-risk” bc there many of them give the aff ground to turn them and generate offense. if anything youve proven that truth-seeking is very bad. i distinguished theory and k’s from bad ‘a prioris’ above. your strategy for how to answer these arguments doesnt really have any relevance.
pwneills specific responses to me:
1) already made this distinction above (28).
2) this proves arguments i made above in response to christian - if you let both sides be abusive, the neg often wins. beatable doesnt mean fair. it makes sense to base paradigms around the assumption that the debaters are equally matched. otherwise we would say its fair to make new 2AR args because a good enough NR would just pre-empt everything. does christian also accept new 2AR args? i sure hope not. if that ever catches on, im pretending i have never heard of LD.
3) i’ve given some 1ARs and 2NCs against some pretty tough teams (and some mediocre ones), and i have to say ive yet to see someone deploy a super-secret LD-style “a priori”. the distinction i drew above was about plan-focus vs. what amounts to whole-res hypotesting. the activities are not analogous. a good block dumps out a whole lot of arguments *that have something to do with the aff,* which is hard to do when *there are a lot of affs.* there are also caselists in policy, so predictability considerations are a whole different issue.
re: the “rant” - this section pretty much ignores all the substance of the thread, so i will simply say this: you have chosen the least popular formulation of ‘a prioris good’ - it alienates both traditional and progressive judges. im pretty sure that everyone agrees there are unfair ways to win. as far as i can tell, the national circuit has pretty much accepted that theory debate is good. your view means there could be no theory debate. even the ultra-traditional coaches who say theory debate is never acceptable still have standards for whats fair or unfair, they just apply them through intervention.
you call it whining, i call it winning.
quinn’s post is mostly old news. ive already explained why we shouldnt make affs have to pre-empt everything. uniqueness args are defense. i still have seen no offense for why a prioris are good. regarding predictability - see the answer i made about how knowing the set of arguments exists doesnt mean you know how to prepare for every member of that set. if theory is your only way to ‘check back’ thats basically a concession that a prioris are illegitimate.
here’s a tip for phelan about policy debate which also applies to quinn’s post: if your 2AR collapses to a uniqueness argument, you are probably gonna lose.
Posted from: 76.192.170.113
April 9th, 2008 21:25
In response to Sam. I’m learning that it’s a lot easier, and it makes more sense, to show why pre-standards are illegit.
But I have a question. Couldn’t most pre-standards actually link back to some standard, and yet they just get labelled as a pre-standard to “freak” people out?
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 21:27
ps maeshal is right about the pic so to speak.
Posted from: 24.6.177.101
April 9th, 2008 21:27
1) Please stop using the word “a priori” Say prestandards. Or “Independent voting issue”. Or, if you really want to use latin, say “prima facie”.
2) Pre-standards arguments are fine insofar as they merely argue that something comes prior to the evaluation of the standards debates.
3) Many so-called a-priori’s begin with “the affirmative must prove x” and then argue that “x is impossible”. I think the latter is a reason why the former is not a coherent burden.
4) Multiple no-risk arguments are unfair.
5) Multiple arguments that come prior to the standards, have an order of evaluation to them, and are reciprocal (in the sense that both debaters can win off the argument) seem perfectly fine.
Posted from: 71.236.67.195
April 9th, 2008 21:28
i also agree w/ navot that these arguments are probably mislabeled.
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
April 9th, 2008 21:36
haha, ok i guess i have to make some perimeter shots to answer this full court press of sorts.
education is a way to check back this predictability problem. read a book, kids. watch others debate to learn different strategic options in terms of the a priori debate. education is probably 1000x more important than questions of predictability (and subsequent debatability, which would lead to the use of theory) insofar as the activity is meant to be educational moreso than predictable. who cares if you can’t pre-empt or predict every a priori out there? that’s probably for the best insofar as there are at least a few out there in the activity who take the time to find unique approaches to resolutions. not being able to cover exhaustiveness is probably good as well.
thus, a prioris provide an outlet in which debaters can explore different modes of thought concerning the resolution directly, which would be a more logically strategic a priori word game , which is still legit because it demands that kids have an understanding of prioritization in relation to arguments, logic, function of certain implications in relation to others, etc. a prioris aren’t about pre-empting everything in the round and being blippy, they’re about prioritization/importance of standards that aren’t value-criterions in the traditional sense.
OR
a prioris can explore principles / interps / assumptions their opponents rely on in relation to the resolution, which can provide for a more in-depth education for those who want to learn something about justice, which [based on topic rotation] is obviously being stressed as a point of education when it is included in almost every resolution!
hence, good a prioris are good. i don’t think my non-unique defense needs to be reiterated.
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
April 9th, 2008 21:36
On the mini-issue about the virtue of strategic debate in Phelan and Ken’s posts:
Among the major fundamental assumptions that allows practices which undermine good debate is the notion that debate is fundamentally about strategy. That idea, I think, can only follow from the notion that debate is at its core about winning. It then is something like chess - a strategic contest in which the only object is to defeat the opponent.
That allows strategy to be employed in ways that defeats what I think is a more important purpose, the ability to learn and develop rigorous and critical thinking. (I believe that to be a more important purpose for many reasons which I won’t detail at the moment, though I suppose I’m willing to engage in a debate that questions the value of rigorous and critical thought in relation to the value of purely “strategic” thought). Strategy as a practice is neither inherently substantive or unsubstantive. But if strategy alone is the aim, then its not at all surprising to see debates like the a priori dump followed by the theory dump.
Theory is a necessary tool to combat unfair debate practices, and strategy can be an ally of substantive debate, of course. But my argument is that there is no reason why debaters should not constrain their choices on the basis of achieving a more important value than just winning, which means that they should choose to run substantive and intellectually rigorous arguments even if they are less strategic than potentially unrigorous arguments. It’s quite possible to be enormously successful while maintaining intellectual integrity and rejecting an “anything to win” mentality; in fact, if I were to make a list of the top 10 debaters I’ve ever seen I would say they all made such choices. I’m not saying either Phelan or Ken are unsubstantive, of course - that’s not at all the case. I’m just addressing the centrality-of-strategy assumption, because I think it is a) pervasive and b) responsible for a large portion of the bad debate that goes on.
So, while of course strategy is a major component of debate and debate skills, we can avoid a number of the problems raised by this and other types of theoretical debate problems if we start with the assumption that intellectual integrity should trump strategic advantage when debaters are making choices about what and how to debate.
That’s perhaps a long way of highlighting the significance of what Duby pointed out above. What does a “good” / intellectually rigorous a priori look like?
Posted from: 76.17.236.195
April 9th, 2008 21:47
Was typing during quinn’s last post:
A priori’s still tend to suffer from the defects in reasoning that I outlined above, but specifically as to the benefits named:
The formulation of a priori described here (that is allows access to schools of thought that directly relate to justice) still just employs a standard and argues for its logical priority. If that is true then the standard should have to be explicitly justified and functions like just about any other argument in debate. Logical prioritization in standards debate should be a part of any round with an impact calculus (which should be every round). The conception of a “good” pre-standards argument you offer is just a good argument, period. There is no special virtue to labeling it a priori, nor does it function as such.
If we change what a priori means so that its a well developed argument with a well developed standard that provides analysis about how that standard functions logically in relation to the other standards in the round, then I don’t think we’re talking about what most of the thread has understood to be “a priori” or “pre-standards” arguments.
Posted from: 24.6.237.64
April 9th, 2008 21:50
a couple quick things:
if you’ve talked with me about this issue at all, you know that I’m pretty strongly anti-prestandards arguments. While I’ll vote on them if i have to, expect your speaker points to suffer. kids going to the TOC…take note. please.
Phelan’s #1 (addressed to Michael) in post 59 is the precise reason I’m in favor of the competing worlds interpretation of LD. Prestandards arguments are intellectually troubling, often impossible to adjudicate, and almost definitely unfair. see michael and smitty’s posts above, as they pretty much capture my sentiments on this subject. heck, most of the posts above do. Truth-seeking notions of debate legitimize such arguments. This, to me, is a reason why truth-seeking conceptions of debate are BAD.
let me end by echoing sam’s most recent post: if you’ve got offensive reasons to believe that prestandards arguments add value to debate rounds, let’s hear them. I have no ideological objection to such arguments. I do, however, have objections to the headaches I seem to get from hearing them…
Posted from: 24.6.237.64
April 9th, 2008 21:55
just to reply very quickly to quinn, as his post speaks to mine (yay for writing at the same time):
predictability, as michael alluded to above, is key to clash. clash is key to education. your offense, therefore, is link-turned by the very notion it seeks to override. that ignores the whole “fairness outweighs education” vein of thought, which is pretty powerful, too…
i also have no idea what “debateability leads to theory” means, but *shrug*.
Posted from: 64.91.217.43
April 9th, 2008 22:00
adam,
good arguments do in fact link to some sort of weighing standard. the unique difference is that prima facie / prestandards / aprioris / logically prior arguments are just that: logically prior to the criterion. yes, they have a standard. they are weighable, turnable, etc. but they come prior to the traditional value criterion / burden / whatever.
i think i provided 2 proactive reasons [maybe more] for why prestandards arguments are good.
Posted from: 76.95.164.213
April 9th, 2008 22:01
i think dubys on the money, everyone should note its mostly judges and coaches on one side of the issue and debaters on the other.
A smart debater, rather than ignoring this, should probably tailor their NC strategy come TOC.
I think most of us are coming to the conclusion that most aprioris are bad. The distinctions so far have been aprioris based on truth/assumptions, theory, and kritiks, only the latter two considered by me (and some other foos) to be legit. But heres another question, distinction:
On some level critiques that only link to the resolution function as apriori. For example a deo