ABSTRACT
The rationality of the debating hall is confrontational. It is a winner-takes-all rationality. In the purest form of debate, victory consists in adducing such a reason as proves the truth of one’s thesis and so the falseness of one’s opponent’s. To be sure, in the debating model, the end of reason is the resolution of a conflict. But there are limits on the extent to which that end is in practice achieved. The ancient philosophical controversies – is there permanence or only change? is the soul immortal? is the world finite or infinite? – seem to persist through all argument. They represent a deeper, more embedded level of commitment, intractable to the up-front reasoning of debate and argument. If the end of reason is harmony, then a new model of rationality is required.
