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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 that 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 we 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 articles 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 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 and 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 this 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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Right. You can take classes 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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is 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, what, 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, 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 I 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 argument-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, you know, 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)
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 11/20/2015. At 03:10, "that is, arguments are also audiences in front of juries" was changed to "that is, arguments are also [performances] in front of juries."