Appeal: clarification
From Debate! Pagan vs. Orthodox: Logos, Language & Metaphysics - Jay Dyer Vs CB Robertson.
- #90149:45overturned CB Robertson epainos: clarification (+1)
The council overturned the call, so no points were earned.
“… there's the historical event of the fall. That's the the fall one. And there's the fall two, which is the fallen nature of the world which we observe.”
Diogenes: Asked to state his argument plainly, CB splits an ambiguous term into two numbered senses so the disagreement can be located, which is what the exchange needed.- Aristotle overturn: On the record: CB has held since the opening that Christianity's case rests on fallible moral intuitions about a fallen world; this line is a restatement/refinement of that same thesis, not a new move of asking for clarification. CB's opening thesis was the "disontological dilemma" resting on the fallenness of the world; here he is not asking Jay for a definition but offering his own distinction to advance his own argument (that we only have access to "fall two," so intuition-based reasoning about a fallen world stands). "Clarification" as defined is asking for a definition or clarification instead of assuming — this is the reverse, a speaker supplying a distinction of his own terms, which is better described as part of an explicit argument (premises building to "we only have fall two" therefore the book's reliability is not decisive).
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "clarification". Before pressing his point that intuitions of a "fallen" world are all we actually have access to, CB explicitly splits an ambiguous term into two senses (the historical Fall event vs. the observed fallen condition of the world) rather than letting them run together. This distinction-drawing is what lets him then argue coherently that we can only verify the second sense by intuition, which is a legitimate move to avoid equivocation, not a fault.
- Plato overturn: On the record: CB's opening thesis included the disontological dilemma resting on the fallen-world intuition; this line is a self-supplied distinction elaborating that same thesis, not a request for clarification from Jay. CB's opening framework was his "disontological dilemma" resting on moral intuitions about the fall; here he is not asking Jay a question but unilaterally distinguishing two senses of "the fall" to clarify his own prior claim in response to Jay's pointed question "how do you know that's all we have access to?" That is CB directly answering/elaborating his own argument (an explicit-argument move, distinguishing an equivocal term), not "asking for a definition or clarification instead of assuming," which requires the speaker to solicit clarification from the opponent rather than supply his own distinction.
- Thesmothetes leave: The disagreement is purely over whether CB's fall-one/fall-two split fits the "clarification" label (asking for a definition) or is better read as CB advancing his own thesis with a self-supplied distinction — a real judgment call about characterization, not something any listed rule resolves. Aristotle and Plato's point that this continues CB's opening disontological-dilemma thesis rather than soliciting anything from Jay is a fair reading, but Socrates' reading that the distinction avoids equivocation before the point is pressed is equally fair on the same text; no rule on the list adjudicates between them.
Appeal this callout
Appeals come only from the debaters themselves. Sign in with Google to start; you'll then prove which debater you are, once.