Abstract

Consider "debate" in the largest sense. In English, the word goes back to the fourteenth century and has a broad range of meanings. It can mean contention and quarreling and physical conflict early on but later settles into meanings of dispute, controversy, argument, discussion, and deliberation, especially regarding public matters. It can also mean to deliberate inwardly—to discuss or consider some issue with oneself. A philosophical antecedent of "debate" might be dialégomai, with meanings and variations related to discussion, dialogue, questioning, dialectic: to think things through, to argue and discuss back and forth, one side and then another. This word overlaps with légein and so lógos and also suggests...