Debating and creativity support

Abstract

Debate, or intersubjective deliberation, is one of the oldest and most basic human activities. It is much older and often essentially different than brainstorming, because the aim of debate is to critically select ideas that are useful. In China, it is often said "the more truth is debated, the clearer it becomes" the objective of debate is to argue the matter out. The debate has long history in both West and East, especially in China; however, Western culture has concentrated more on the logical and rational aspects of thought, and less on its intuitive, preverbal, image-related aspects. In Occidental culture, debate is even taught as an important course in highschool education, because debate is considered to be one of the fundamental aspects of democracy (such as a parliamentary debate). It also has an extensive literature, starting with Plato and extending to contemporary eristic debate. Eristic and democratic debate concentrates, however, on the political aspects of convincing the audience that the adversary is not right. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.