Call for Abstracts – Arguing for Sport
Formal debate has been a staple of fostering competency in critical thinking since … well, Plato’s time at least. By now, there are dozens of styles, with varying degrees of adversariality, conditions for winning and topical constraints. To many students, debate was a life-changing experience that had a lasting impact on their approach to reasoning and argumentation generally.
In addition to a continuous interest in debate as a teaching method among practitioners at high schools and universities, we have also seen a recent uptick in interest in the practice from argumentation theorists working in vastly different traditions, examples of which are the work that the ADAB team at Ibn Haldon University have done on the Islamic Munazara tradition, and the recent 2nd International Conference on Debate and Dialogue in Qatar.
We therefore believe that it is time to update our discussion on the merits and disadvantages of using debate to teach critical thinking. We welcome submissions from all academic disciplines on topics concerning the role of all types of formally structured debate in critical thinking and argumentation education./more
Read more: So You Like to Argue? Here’s Your ChancePossible Topics Include: The merit of arguing according to explicit rules; adversarial vs. cooperative approaches; argument design and debate design; training devil’s advocacy through debate; debate practices in different cultures; debate as training for the job market; debate and legal reasoning; the history of debate as education; debate styles (e.g. Ethics Bowl, CX Debate, Munazara, Lincoln-Douglas etc.).
Details
THIS WORKSHOP IS ONLINE
Five papers will be accepted for presentation at the workshop based on peer-reviewed abstracts. Each paper will be assigned a student commentator. For this reason, papers need to be submitted at a minimum two weeks before the presentation date to allow commentators enough time to formulate their comments.
Presenters will have thirty minutes to present their papers. Commentators will have ten minutes to comment. While papers will only be presented in English, we encourage second language speakers to take advantage of this opportunity to try preparing and presenting in English with an understanding and compassionate audience.
Application
To apply, please send an abstract of 250-300 words to fuehrer@uleth.ca by August 1, 2025. Completed papers should be no more than 8000 words excluding notes and bibliography.
If you are a student interested in being a commentator, please send an email with a list of your credentials, including the program you are enrolled in, and outlining your affiliation with argumentation.
Important Dates
– August 1, 2025 – Abstracts due
– January 9, 2026 – Papers due
– January 23, 2026 – Workshop
Sincerely,
Nathan Fuehrer, Graduate Student, University of Lethbridge
Critical Thinking Now! 