Learn and/or refine his thinking about things other than just X/Y
What you call “TEACH”, not B, but rather the audience—so that the audience ends up believing whichever of X/Y are true
Give the audience the opportunity to learn and/or refine their thinking about things other than just X/Y
Signal (to the audience) his own and/or B’s status, membership in some faction, adherence to some philosophy, possession of some personal characteristics, etc.
Well, Zack suggests that a debate is like a prediction market; you should only get into one if you think you have some knowledge or understanding that the people already there lack; you should therefore expect to diverge from others’ views, to try to prove them wrong, because that’s how you “win status and esteem”; to whatever extent debate converges on truth, it’s by incentivizing people to contribute new knowledge or understanding in order to win status and esteem.
In terms of the goals I mentioned above, this amounts to supposing that everyone is trying to WIN, hopefully with constraints of honesty, which they do partly by trying to CONVINCE and EXPOUND. We may hope that everyone will LEARN but in Zack’s presentation that doesn’t seem to be present as a motive at all.
I would characterize Zack’s account as describing my second (“TEACH” the audience) and third (“give the audience the opportunity to learn and/or refine their thinking other than just X/Y”) listed goals.
I do not think that “win status and esteem” is the same thing as “WIN, by making A look clever and wise and good, and making B look stupid or ignorant or crazy or evil”, especially given that Zack takes pains to emphasize that this process works well (in the sense of producing good outcomes, i.e. more truth for everyone) only if (and only because) status and esteem are awarded to those who are right (and not, for example, merely those who seem right!).
I agree that my list of goals isn’t exhaustive. (It wasn’t meant to be. It couldn’t be.)
I don’t think there is such a thing as a process that gives status and esteem to those who are right, as opposed to one that gives it to people who seem right, because status and esteem are necessarily conferred by people, and by definition a person X cannot distinguish “is right” from “seems right to X”.
Additional possible goals that A might have:
Learn and/or refine his thinking about things other than just X/Y
What you call “TEACH”, not B, but rather the audience—so that the audience ends up believing whichever of X/Y are true
Give the audience the opportunity to learn and/or refine their thinking about things other than just X/Y
Signal (to the audience) his own and/or B’s status, membership in some faction, adherence to some philosophy, possession of some personal characteristics, etc.
So, for example, OP writes:
I would characterize Zack’s account as describing my second (“TEACH” the audience) and third (“give the audience the opportunity to learn and/or refine their thinking other than just X/Y”) listed goals.
I do not think that “win status and esteem” is the same thing as “WIN, by making A look clever and wise and good, and making B look stupid or ignorant or crazy or evil”, especially given that Zack takes pains to emphasize that this process works well (in the sense of producing good outcomes, i.e. more truth for everyone) only if (and only because) status and esteem are awarded to those who are right (and not, for example, merely those who seem right!).
I agree that my list of goals isn’t exhaustive. (It wasn’t meant to be. It couldn’t be.)
I don’t think there is such a thing as a process that gives status and esteem to those who are right, as opposed to one that gives it to people who seem right, because status and esteem are necessarily conferred by people, and by definition a person X cannot distinguish “is right” from “seems right to X”.