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My name is Dan Cohen, and I am academic, as he said.

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And what that means is that I argue.

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It's an important part of my life, and I like to argue.

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And I'm not just an academic, I'm a philosopher,

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so I like to think that I'm actually pretty good at arguing.

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But I also like to think a lot about arguing.

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And thinking about arguing, I've come across some puzzles,

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and one of the puzzles is that

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as I've been thinking about arguing over the years,

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and it's been decades now, I've gotten better at arguing,

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but the more that I argue and the better I get at arguing,

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the more that I lose. And that's a puzzle.

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And the other puzzle is that I'm actually okay with that.

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Why is it that I'm okay with losing

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and why is it that I think that good arguers

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are actually better at losing?

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Well, there's some other puzzles.

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One is, why do we argue? Who benefits from arguments?

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And when I think about arguments now, I'm talking about,

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let's call them academic arguments or cognitive arguments,

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where something cognitive is at stake.

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Is this proposition true? Is this theory a good theory?

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Is this a viable interpretation of the data or the text?

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And so on. I'm not interested really in arguments about

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whose turn it is to to do the dishes or who has to take out the garbage.

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Yeah, we have those arguments too.

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I tend to win those arguments, because I know the tricks.

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But those aren't the important arguments.

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I'm interested in academic arguments today,

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and here are the things that puzzle me.

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First, what do good arguers win when they win an argument?

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What do I win if I convince you that

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utilitarianism isn't really the right framework for thinking about ethical theories?

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So what do we win when we win an argument?

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Even before that, what does it matter to me

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whether you have this idea that Kant's theory works

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or Mill's the right ethicist to follow?

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It's no skin off my back whether you think

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functionalism is a viable theory of mind.

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So why do we even try to argue?

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Why do we convince other people

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to believe things that they don't want to believe?

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And is that even a nice thing to do? Is that a nice way

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to treat another human being, try and make them

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think something they don't want to think?

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Well, my answer is going to make reference to

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three models for arguments.

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The first model, let's call this the dialectical model,

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is that we think of arguments as war, and you know what that's like.

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There's a lot of screaming and shouting

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and winning and losing,

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and that's not really a very helpful model for arguing

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but it's a pretty common and entrenched model for arguing.

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But there's a second model for arguing: arguments as proofs.

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Think of a mathematician's argument.

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Here's my argument. Does it work? Is it any good?

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Are the premises warranted? Are the inferences valid?

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Does the conclusion follow from the premises?

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No opposition, no adversariality,

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not necessarily any arguing in the adversarial sense.

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But there's a third model to keep in mind

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that I think is going to be very helpful,

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and that is arguments as performances,

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arguments as being in front of an audience.

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We can think of a politician trying to present a position,

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trying to a convince the audience of something.

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But there's another twist on this model that I really think is important,

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namely that when we argue before an audience,

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sometimes the audience has a more participatory role in the argument,

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that is, arguments are also audiences in front of juries

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who make a judgment and decide the case.

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Let's call this the rhetorical model,

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where you have to tailor your argument to the audience at hand.

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You know, presenting a sound, well-argued,

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tight argument in English before a francophone audience

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just isn't going to work.

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So we have these models -- argument as war,

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argument as proof, and argument as performance.

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Of those three, the argument as war is the dominant one.

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It dominates how we talk about arguments,

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it dominates how we think about arguments,

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and because of that, it shapes how we argue,

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our actual conduct in arguments.

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Now, when we talk about arguments,

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yeah, we talk in a very militaristic language.

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We want strong arguments, arguments that have a lot of punch,

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arguments that are right on target.

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We want to have our defenses up and our strategies all in order.

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We want killer arguments.

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That's the kind of argument we want.

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It is the dominant way of thinking about arguments.

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When I'm talking about arguments, that's probably

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what you thought of, the adversarial model.

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But the war metaphor, the war paradigm

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or model for thinking about arguments,

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has, I think, deforming effects on how we argue.

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First it elevates tactics over substance.

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You can take a class in logic, argumentation.

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You learn all about the subterfuges that people use

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to try and win arguments, the false steps.

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It magnifies the us-versus-them aspect of it.

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It makes it adversarial. It's polarizing.

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And the only foreseeable outcomes

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are triumph, glorious triumph, or abject, ignominious defeat.

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I think those are deforming effects, and worst of all,

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it seems to prevent things like negotiation

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or deliberation or compromise

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or collaboration.

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Think about that one. Have you ever entered an argument

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thinking, "Let's see if we can hash something out

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rather than fight it out. What can we work out together?"

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And I think the argument-as-war metaphor

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inhibits those other kinds of resolutions to argumentation.

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And finally, this is really the worst thing,

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arguments don't seem to get us anywhere.

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They're dead ends. They are roundabouts

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or traffic jams or gridlock in conversation.

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We don't get anywhere.

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Oh, and one more thing, and as an educator,

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this is the one that really bothers me:

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If argument is war, then there's an implicit equation

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of learning with losing.

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And let me explain what I mean.

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Suppose you and I have an argument.

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You believe a proposition, P, and I don't.

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And I say, "Well why do you believe P?"

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And you give me your reasons.

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And I object and say, "Well, what about ...?"

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And you answer my objection.

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And I have a question: "Well, what do you mean?

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How does it apply over here?" And you answer my question.

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Now, suppose at the end of the day,

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I've objected, I've questioned,

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I've raised all sorts of counter-considerations,

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and in every case you've responded to my satisfaction.

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And so at the end of the day, I say,

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"You know what? I guess you're right. P."

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So I have a new belief. And it's not just any belief,

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but it's a well-articulated, examined,

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it's a battle-tested belief.

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Great cognitive game. Okay. Who won that argument?

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Well, the war metaphor seems to force us into saying

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you won, even though I'm the only one who made any cognitive gain.

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What did you gain cognitively from convincing me?

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Sure, you got some pleasure out of it, maybe your ego stroked,

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maybe you get some professional status in the field.

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This guy's a good arguer.

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But cognitively, now -- just from a cognitive point of view -- who was the winner?

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The war metaphor forces us into thinking

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that you're the winner and I lost,

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even though I gained.

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And there's something wrong with that picture.

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And that's the picture I really want to change if we can.

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So how can we find ways to make arguments

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yield something positive?

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What we need is new exit strategies for arguments.

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But we're not going to have new exit strategies for arguments

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until we have new entry approaches to arguments.

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We need to think of new kinds of arguments.

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In order to do that, well,

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I don't know how to do that.

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That's the bad news.

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The argument-as-war metaphor is just, it's a monster.

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It's just taken up habitation in our mind,

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and there's no magic bullet that's going to kill it.

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There's no magic wand that's going to make it disappear.

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I don't have an answer.

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But I have some suggestions,

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and here's my suggestion.

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If we want to think of new kinds of arguments,

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what we need to do is think of new kinds of arguers.

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So try this.

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Think of all the roles that people play in arguments.

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There's the proponent and the opponent

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in an adversarial, dialectical argument.

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There's the audience in rhetorical arguments.

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There's the reasoner in arguments as proofs.

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All these different roles. Now, can you imagine an argument

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in which you are the arguer, but you're also in the audience

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watching yourself argue?

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Can you imagine yourself watching yourself argue,

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losing the argument, and yet still, at the end of the argument,

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say, "Wow, that was a good argument."

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Can you do that? I think you can.

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And I think, if you can imagine that kind of argument

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where the loser says to the winner

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and the audience and the jury can say,

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"Yeah, that was a good argument,"

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then you have imagined a good argument.

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And more than that, I think you've imagined

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a good arguer, an arguer that's worthy

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of the kind of arguer you should try to be.

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Now, I lose a lot of arguments.

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It takes practice to become a good arguer

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in the sense of being able to benefit from losing,

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but fortunately, I've had many, many colleagues

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who have been willing to step up and provide that practice for me.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)