Socrates, Nixon, and Presidential Debates

Why is this relevant?

Who doesn’t love a good debate?

As I am sure the American readers would know, tonight is the second presidential debate of the 2024 Presidential Election, though the democrats have now provided a new candidate for debate in Vice President Kamala Harris.

The 2024 presidential election has already shown just how important debates can be, at least in the case of the effect they have on the press and political insiders. It was not until the June presidential debate that the movement to remove Biden as the democrat’s nominee for president really got going. And that was more of an avalanche than a gentle dusting when it came to shaking up the race. So it got me thinking about previous political debates, the history of debates, and whether any debates deserve further attention in our history.

Debates in Antiquity: The Indian Tradition

I first wanted to detail a bit of the history of debating and consider great debates in antiquity, but I found that there was a website that already did what appears to be a very strong job with this historical background, and that is the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. If you click the link here, it will take you to a well-detailed and sourced history of debates, starting with the Greeks, and then touching on the Indian and Chinese traditions in antiquity. I was already familiar with the Greek tradition, but I will be the first to admit that I am rather lacking when it comes to my knowledge of what are traditionally referred to as Eastern traditions. So I am going to be relying heavily on the source I already noted. You might notice that I am also not discussing the Chinese tradition, and that is because it seemed to be more of a distinct style of debate than the Indian and Greek traditions I am more familiar with.

While the Encyclopedia discusses the Greek tradition first, it appears that the Indian tradition of debate is older and possibly even more widespread than the more famous Greek masters. Some sources note that monarchs and other rulers in India promoted debates as early as 1700 B.C. But the subject of those debates likely differed rather extensively from our political debates today. It appears that traditional Indian debate was more focused on ideas such as epistemology and religion than theories of governance. Take this quote from the article I mentioned above:

 On the whole, while the Greeks were primarily interested in moral and political issues, Indian thinkers mainly focused on ontological, epistemological, medical, and religious questions such as the distinction of the soul from the body, the purpose of life, the different sources of knowledge, and the existence of the after-life (Matilal 1998; though these discussions also had moral implications).

Epistemology (the examination of the origin and limits of knowledge) and religion are two of the most prominent areas of study in modern philosophy, but it is true that I don’t think it is likely that Harris or Trump will be debating the limits of knowledge on the stage tonight. (Though I do expect religion to be an oft-referenced topic). I won’t go into the Indian tradition much further at this time, but if you are interested, definitely check out the article I cited above. Moving forward, you may be wondering when in history we get to more modern forms of political debates that we are familiar with today. Well, that brings us to our second area of focus, the Greeks.

Socrates and the Greek Tradition

Thanks to the Renaissance, which revitalized ancient Roman and Greek authors, historians, politicians, and philosophers, you might recognize the name of the Greek master that we so often associate debates and debating with. Socrates. You might have been saying Plato, but it is important to note that Plato was Socrates’ student and recorded (and potentially changed) Socrates’ speeches and works, so it was Socrates who was the master.

For those who are not familiar, Socrates lived during the height of the Athenian Democracy and died just as that democracy began to stumble following the Peloponnesian War. For those of you who do not know, Socrates is an extremely polarizing figure in philosophy as he did not create any writings of his own or preserve his works of beliefs personally; instead, we have accounts from (i) his student Plato, (ii) a soldier and historian who admired him named Xenophon, and (iii) playwrights who ridiculed him like Aristophanes. Each account displays Socrates in a different light, and many of the accounts are disputed in whether or not they use his words. Ah, history, we really do need to make that time machine to solve these disputes. But then we wouldn’t have these fun debates.

Moving past the controversy for a moment, the dominant mode of thought and discussion at that time was Sophism, which Socrates spent most of his dialogues arguiung against. Socrates was born to a rather affluent Athenian family, distinguished himself with military service, and married and had children before he got bit by the old bug of philosophic thought. Despite his affluent background, Socrates is often described negatively by those around him. He was often ridiculed for his ugly and brutish appearance, he neglected personal hygiene as unimportant, he refused to wear shoes, and he purportedly owned only one set of clothing. He refused to associate with any dominant political force of the day and instead created his own path, educating Athenian youths using his own brand of philosophy, dialogues, or as attorneys will know them, the Socratic method.

The Socratic Method and the Euthyphro

If there is one thing you need to understand about Socrates to understand the Socratic method, it is that Socrates himself will say that he does not have the answers, he does not surely know absolute truths, and that he, like all men, is in fact very ignorant. This may sound strange, but here is why that is relevant. The Socratic method scene in his dialogues is a form of refutation. Here is a very simplified version of the structure of the Socratic method:

• Socrates finds a purported expert in a subject.
• Socrates asks the expert to define some aspect of the subject they are purported an expert in.
• Socrates undermines the given definition through questions until the expert admits to a contradiction in their definition.
  • If the expert waivers in their argument for their original definition, Socrates attempts to undermine the new definition with additional questions.
  • If the expert refuses to waiver in the argument for their original definition, Socrates questions whether the expert knows the subject at all if they cannot explain the contradiction.
• Having exposed contradictions, Socrates accuses the expert of not knowing the subject they are an expert in at all, and the subject creates a new definition if they want to continue the debate.
• Socrates undermines the new definition in the same manner as above until the expert relents.

Now that we can see the structure, let’s look at an example of it in Plato’s work, Euthyphro:

First Definition

• Socrates meets Euthyphro, a religious prophet who is going to court to prosecute his own father for binding a slave in chains and leaving him to die. Socrates himself is going to court to defend a man against charges of impiety. So Socrates asks Euthyphro to define impiety as Euthyphro claims to be an expert.
• Socrates has Euthyphro define impiety, which Euthyphro describes as his current actions, saying that prosecuting a man for killing another man is pious.
• Socrates suggests that Euthyphro has not defined impiety, he only provided an example of it. So, Euthyphro tries again.

Second Definition

• Euthyphro defines piety as what is pleasing to the gods.
• Socrates claims that in all the stories, the gods disagree amongst themselves, and therefore would find different things pleasing or unpleasing.
• Euthyphro tries to push back and says that even the gods cannot disagree that killing a man without justification is impious.
• Socrates suggests that justification is a sliding scale, and therefore we would need to determine how much justification is necessary to change the killing from unjustified to justified. So we must define and understand the full scope of the justification of an act to claim to know what is pleasing to the gods.

Third Definition

•  Euthyphro attempts to change his definition to piety being what things all the gods love, and impious things are things that all the gods hate.
• Socrates asks whether pious things are loved by the gods because it is pious, or whether it things are pious because they are loved by the gods.
• Euthyphro is confused, not understanding the distinction. Socrates analogizes his argument to a “carried thing.” When we say that a thing is “carried”, we are not saying that it has a trait of a carried thing. We are sating that it is being carried by something else. Therefore, it is a carried thing because it is being carried.
• Euthyphro, hearing this argument agrees with the statement that something is pious because it is loved by the gods.
• Socrates points out the contradiction of this statement and Euthyphro’s earlier claims, as Socrates points at that Euthyphro implies that piety is an innate quality of something. This creates a circular argument and shows the problem with Euthyphro’s definition; divine approval does not actually help anyone identify piety.

[This continues for two additional definitions, which I am not including here because I think you can get the point. If you are confused by Socrates third argument, just know that you are joining a long list of scholars who disliked the passive and active distinctions that Socrates analogized about when saying that Euthyphro was making a circular argument.]

To summarize, Socrates is using questions and rhetorical devices to show that many experts, when pressed, actually do not know their expertise as well as they might think. In doing so, Socrates is demonstrating that men of his day are often putting more effort into claiming to be experts rather than actually getting to the truth of things. With enough questioning, Socrates believes that we can demonstrate that no person really knows anything. It is only the man who claims that he does not know anything who is being truthful.

If Socrates’s style bothers you, please know that this state of lacking knowledge is the impetus to achieve further knowledge. It is more of a push by Socrates for men of account to avoid complacency rather than to accept our current inadequacy.

So you might ask, what is the purpose of the Socratic method? And my answer can be seen in why we still use the Socratic method in law schools today. The Socratic method, when employed correctly, is intimidating, frustrating, and anxiety inducing. Having recently been in law school, I have seen first-hand its great effects. But the Socratic method really forces you to learn something deeply, and to prepare for counter arguments.

When someone’s opinion or belief is really pressed, something good can come from it. By forcing people to ask whether or not they truly understand their own purported areas of expertise, we push people to ask more questions, to have more answers at the ready, and to be more careful in the definitions that they provide. This should be celebrated. When people like attorneys are making arguments against charges that can lead to an individual serving a life in prison, we want the attorney to ask as many questions as possible, to accept that their preconceived ideas and beliefs may be wrong, and to be open to different interpretations and arguments.

And this is exactly what a good debate should do. Like with the Socratic method, we should approach a debate with an open mind, recognizing that we are not as much of an expert on the issues as we might think. When we open our minds to the possibility that there is more to know and more to learn, we can attempt to reach a truer understanding of our world.

The September 1960 Presidential Debate

The September 1960 Presidential debate was the first televised debate between the two primary parties’ presidential candidates in the United States. The candidates were then Senator John F. Kennedy and then Vice President Richard Nixon. The debate is considered seminal in our understanding of presidential debates today.

I think it was a strong debate. And that is because the candidates knew their rhetoric, and used a version of the socratic method we just considered above. Take a look at the refutation employed by Nixon against Kennedy’s opening statement arguing that the country was not making progress under the current republican administration I have detailed below and see what you think.

Kennedy gave the first opening statement, and in it he starts by attempting to define progress:

“Therefore, I think the question before the American people is: Are we doing as much as we can do? Are we as strong as we should be? Are we as strong as we must be if we’re going to maintain our independence, and if we’re going to maintain and hold out the hand of friendship to those who look to us for assistance, to those who look to us for survival?”

– JFK, First Presidential Debate of 1960

Kennedy continues to define progress by stating that we need economic progress:

“I’m not satisfied when the United States had last year the lowest rate of economic growth of any major industrialized society in the world. Because economic growth means strength and vitality; it means we’re able to sustain our defenses; it means we’re able to meet our commitments abroad. I’m not satisfied when we have over nine billion dollars worth of food – some of it rotting – even though there is a hungry world, and even though four million Americans wait every month for a food package from the government, which averages five cents a day per individual.”

– JFK, First Presidential Debate of 1960

Kennedy finishes his argument by providing examples of where the current administration is failing to make progress:

 “I should make it very clear that I do not think we’re doing enough, that I am not satisfied as an American with the progress that we’re making. I saw cases in West Virginia, here in the United States, where children took home part of their school lunch in order to feed their families because I don’t think we’re meeting our obligations toward these Americans. I’m not satisfied when the Soviet Union is turning out twice as many scientists and engineers as we are. I’m not satisfied when many of our teachers are inadequately paid, or when our children go to school part-time shifts. I think we should have an educational system second to none.”

– JFK, First Presidential Debate of 1960

So, given what we discussed above, Nixon should first attempt to undermine Kennedy’s definition and redefine it through his own line of questions:

“Well, we have a comparison that we can make. We have the record of the Truman Administration of seven and a half years and the seven and a half years of the Eisenhower Administration. When we compare these two records in the areas that Senator Kennedy has – has discussed tonight, I think we find that America has been moving ahead.”

– Richard Nixon, First Presidential Debate of 1960

And he does. Nixon has now changed progress from Kennedy’s progress in comparison to other nations, to progress compared to the former democratic administration. Nixon then attempts to refute the examples provided by Kennedy to support his own definition of progress:

“Let’s take schools. We have built more schools in these last seven and a half years than we built in the previous seven and a half, for that matter in the previous twenty years. Let’s take hydroelectric power. We have developed more hydroelectric power in these seven and a half years than was developed in any previous administration in history. Let us take hospitals. We find that more have been built in this Administration than in the previous Administration. The same is true of highways.”

– Richard Nixon, First Presidential Debate of 1960

And Nixon finishes by highlighting his own examples of where economic progress has been made by the republican administration he is a part of:

“We often hear gross national product discussed and in that respect may I say that when we compare the growth in this Administration with that of the previous Administration that then there was a total growth of eleven percent over seven years; in this Administration there has been a total growth of nineteen per cent over seven years. That shows that there’s been more growth in this Administration than in its predecessor.”

– Richard Nixon, First Presidential Debate of 1960

It does not perfectly fit the form of the Socratic method, but it uses the same techniques generally that Socrates would have used over twenty-five hundred years ago. Kennedy attempted to define progress as different from the current administration of republicans, as his campaign was arguing that the nation needed a new, young voice leading them. Nixon attempted to refute that definition of progress, instead proposing his own, progress compared to the prior administration of democrats. You can get down to whether the nuts and bolts of their statements are true, but the rhetoric is there.

And Kennedy recognized that Nixon made a good point that he had to refute. He was forced, in an unrelated question later in the debate, to respond to Nixon’s argument:

“Mr. Nixon, that you used in your previous speech, when you talked about the Truman Administration. You – Mr. Truman came to office in nineteen uh – forty-four and at the end of the war, and uh – difficulties that were facing the United States during that period of transition – 1946 when price controls were lifted – so it’s rather difficult to use an overall figure taking those seven and a half years and comparing them to the last eight years. I prefer to take the overall percentage record of the last twenty years of the Democrats and the eight years of the Republicans to show an overall period of growth.”

– JFK, First Presidential Debate of 1960

Now, if you are not familiar with the first presidential debate of 1960, you might get the impression that Nixon won the debate based on the few points I just highlighted above. But that is not necessarily true. In fact, the debate is not remembered for the strength of the arguments made, or the complexity of the rhetoric. No, its remembered for Kennedy’s youthful vigor and Nixon’s sickly appearance.

What Matters in a Debate?

Now, it is important to note one aspect of this debate, it was televised. And since it was televised, there was a second aspect to this debate, something that has only become more prevalent today. Instead of focusing on the issues and the policies being discussed, many Americans instead focused on the physical appearance and mannerisms of the candidates when debating.

Take a look at all of these (albeit modern) articles that discuss the 1960 debate. Perdue University. Constitutional Center. History.com. Do they discuss the substance of the debate? They really don’t. Instead, what they discuss is how Nixon injured his knee and ended up in the hospital with an infection prior to the debate. The hospital stay left him looking pale and gaunt, as he lost twenty pounds. That meant that when he was on camera, he looked ill, sweaty, and unkept, refusing to shave his five o’clock shadow. Compare that with the younger Kennedy. Kennedy had his own plethora of health issues, but he wore makeup, smiled more, and looked healthy during the debate. Despite the fact that they started in Congress in the same year, Kennedy looked more vigorous and ready to take on the nation’s challenges.

Consider this purported quote about Nixon from Chicago’s mayor, Richard J. Daley, after the debate:

“My God, they’ve embalmed him before he even died.”

– Richard J. Daley, Mayor of Chicago in 1960

Appearance is what a lot of people seem to remember. This is captured in a common distinction often noted at the time of the debate. Those who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon did a better job, while those who watched the debate on Television thought Kennedy did a better job. Take this paragraph from the Constitutional Center that noted the comments from the two vice presidential candidates after the debate:

Nixon’s running mate, Henry Cabot Lodge, had a few choice words for the GOP presidential candidate. “That son-of-a-bitch just lost us the election,” Lodge reportedly said. Johnson, who was Kennedy’s running mate, thought his running mate had lost the debate. Lodge saw the debate on TV, while Johnson listened to the debate on the radio.

– quoted from History.com’s article titled “The Kennedy-Nixon Debates”

Even the candidates own running mates have trouble getting past the appearance of the candidates. Nixon realized its importance himself after that debate. In his 1962 Memoir Six Crises, he said:

“I should have remembered that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’”

– Richard Nixon, Six Crises

Why Does this Matter?

Looking at the first presidential debate, the takeaway often noted by academics is that appearance matters, maybe even more than substance. Nixon was a strong debater. He took on the points Kennedy made head-on and attempted to use facts to explain his reasoning. But that did not matter that much to the sixty million people who were watching a man claim he could run the nation when he looked thin, sweaty, and tired.

And I can’t help but think about the presidential debate in June 2024 between Trump and Biden. While I saw some limited criticism of the substance of Biden’s arguments in the debate, it was the fact that he looked and sounded old and confused that stuck with people the most. After the campaign had spent months trying to argue that President Biden was fit for four more years of service and not experiencing any unusual mental decline, his performance in the debate undermined those efforts in mere minutes.

But I think we should ask if this is right. And if we have forgotten the purpose of debating in the first place. Socrates was by all accounts a smelly, unwashed, ugly man. But he was also an excellent debater. He could pick apart an argument with ease, and using his rhetoric he demonstrated contradictions in commonly held beliefs. But I have to ask, would he even stand a chance in a televised debate? Do we only remember his arguments because we don’t have to look at him when he makes them?

So we have a question we should ask ourselves before listening tonight. Do we want the winner of our debates to have the best arguments or the best presentation and appearance? I am not saying it is easy to do this. I am just saying we need to think about it.  Ideally, I think the winner of a debate should be the side that makes the strongest argument, with the least fallacies and the strongest examples in its favor.

To do so, I think the best way to get to this outcome would be a requirement that both candidates have to stand behind a curtain and have their answers read back by the same monotone machine so we can’t tell who is actually speaking. The candidate with the best argument and examples wins. But that is unrealistic, and honestly not what a lot of people are looking for when they watch a debate. I wouldn’t be surprised if no one tuned into this theoretical blind debate. People want to connect and see themselves or their ideas represented by the candidates. And generally, people value seeing attractive, healthy, well-spoken individuals sharing their ideals. Just look at this Economist article about height and presidents. Because tallness is equal to godliness of course.

So, I am left wondering how important the substance of debates really is. Our current debates appear to have the same effect as theoretical videos of candidates reading a bedtime story like Cillian Murphy’s in the Calm App. If they did televised bedtime stories in 1960 instead of debates, Nixon would still have looked sickly, sweaty, and ill, and Kennedy still would be wearing makeup and looking youthful and sounding vigorous. If they did bedtimes stories in June 2024, President Biden still would have looked and sounded old.

I guess the most important thing about a debate is the mistakes you make, not the arguments you make.

An Aside

In the name of substance, I thought it would be interesting to look at the questions that were asked of both Nixon and JFK. I think it shows a really interesting comparison of themes in 1960 to those that will arise with the September 10, 2024, Presidential debate between Harris and Trump. As in 1960, we have a Vice President squaring off against a challenger instead of the incumbent. Take a look at the summary of the questions asked of each of the candidates I made below from the debate transcript:

Questions for JFK	Questions for Nixon
What do you say when people call you naïve and immature?	Were you an observer or a participant in the policymaking of the prior administration?
Why do you support the government paying farmers to not overproduce certain crops that are in excess instead of letting them operate as private businesses?	Can you explain how when President Eisenhower was asked to provide one example of a policy proposal you proposed as Vice President, he said he could not remember and to give him a week. Now that the week has also passed without him giving an example, can you explain how the president doesn’t know any idea that you have proposed?
How do you propose to expand welfare programs for schools, salaries, and medical care while claiming that you will also reduce the national debt? To Nixon, how can you explain your purported support for increasing teacher salaries, when you refused to use the VP tiebreaker power to pass a bill that would have increased teacher salaries?	How can you explain your purported support for increasing teacher salaries, when you refused to use the Vice Presidential tiebreaker power to pass a bill in the Senate that would have increased teacher salaries?
How do you propose to pass bills on medical care, federal minimum wage, and federal aid to education as president when democrats are not able to get the votes together for the bills with a democratic majority in the Senate?	Do you believe that you could work better with democratic majorities in Congress than JFK could with republican majorities in Congress?
How serious of a threat is communism to the U.S.’s national security?	Why do you claim that the Eisenhower administration deserves credit for building schools when school construction is a matter of local financing, not federal financing?

See how most of Nixon’s questions were about his role in the prior administration, and what he did to affect policy as Vice President? I think we might see something similar tonight with the questions for Harris.

I also wanted to make one final note on Nixon’s debating performance that I highlighted above. I do think it was disingenuous for Nixon to compare the Truman administration with the Eisenhower administration when it comes to economic development. The Truman administration included the end of World War II, which required things like price controls, as Kennedy started to point out in his rebuttal. The Eisenhower administration had very different circumstances, as American goods were exported at high rates and deemed to be very desirable as American manufacturing had not been stymied by the second world war as it was in war-torn Europe. But it was Kennedy’s job as a debater to refute this point and make this argument, which I think he could have done a better job at in the early debate.

Oh well, just tricky Dick being tricky.