Earlier today my friend Steph Tai at Wisconsin got me thinking about academic debates. She was writing about the live debates that are a staple of FedSoc and ACS events, but the thoughts may also apply to written debates. While the debate format has some virtues, the key shortcoming of debates is that people are cast in roles that require disagreement and that lead -- often ... perhaps inevitably, if we really want to win -- to distortion and misunderstanding. Debates are sometimes fun and often interesting, but if the goal is to advance understanding, they are too often unproductive or even counterproductive.

All of this reminded me of the "principle of charity." Although this has religious overtones, I am talking about the idea from philosophy, defined on the linked page as "a methodological presumption ... whereby we seek to understand [a point of] view in its strongest, most persuasive form before subjecting the view to evaluation." This is a useful principle, even for debaters, though my experience has been that it is often ignored.

Maybe the format of our events can make a difference here. Next week I am participating in the annual Law and Entrepreneurship Retreat, hosted this year by Usha at the University of Georgia. One of the features of this event that I really appreciate is the format because we present each other's work. For example, I have a work in progress this year, but it is being presented by Bobby Bartlett at Berkeley. I will get a little time to talk after he presents, but authors mostly just listen and respond to questions during the Q&A. It's not an attempt to reach consensus but an attempt to understand. I am quite certain that everyone at the Retreat will learn more about my topic in this way than they would from a debate.

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