Truth Testing

Overview

Truth testing is a role of the ballot, where the winner of the round is determined whoever best proves the truth or falsity of the resolution. The aff burden is to prove the resolution semantically true and the neg burden is to deny that premise. Truth testing can be a powerful tool against theoretical and critical arguments, as it excludes all offense that doesn't fit under the resolution. Furthermore, it opens the door to a whole host of tricks due to proving the truth of the resolution being the only objective in the round; silly arguments can now be viable as long as they work under truth testing.

Common Arguments

Jurisdictional justifications for truth testing describe the way in which the judge determines the winner of the round. The judge only has the power to vote for the better debater because the ballot is specifically asking if the resolution is true or false in the given round which means the ballot is inherently asking for the truth or falsity of the resolution.

Inclusivity justifications usually talk about how truth testing is the most inclusive model because any offense can function under it. This inclusion argument is a hypothetical because only offense that is true can function under the model in reality.

Rule breaking justifications discuss the competitive aspects of debate as an activity in saying that other role of the ballots are self-serving because they break the rules of the game to "make it more interesting" whereas truth testing is a "rule" that puts debaters on a level field. Even if there are different ways to play a game, the winner is not determined off of those factors.

Definitional justifications provide some dictionary definitions for affirm and negate to show that they are related to the concept of truth.

Resolvability justifications portray truth and falsity as a binary system of evaluating arguments in the round which makes it the most resolvable. Other role of the ballots would fail in truth testing's stead because it leaves it up to the judge (and perhaps their personal biases) to resolve the round.

Implications

Some common implications for truth testing are "take-outs"

For example, a common implication is that truth testing takes out theory because it doesn't prove the truth or falsity of the resolution. This implication can also be applied to kritiks and counterplans (though it is more debatable for counterplans) because they don't necessarily prove the truth or falsity of the resolution.

Objections

The most effective way of responding to truth testing is treating it like any other role of the ballot. This means that reading a counter role of the ballot and line-by-lining truth testing is the best way to respond.

Responses to common arguments:

On Jurisdiction: Tab doesn't actually ask for the truth or falsity, but asks the judge whether they vote aff or neg which means it's not actually about the truth of the resolution.

On Inclusivity: Truth testing is not the most inclusive because it excludes arguments that don't prove the truth or falsity of the resolution.

On Rule breaking: The person reading truth testing usually does it in a self-serving manner because they read it first and may also read a bunch of a prioris. That means that it still collapses to the idea that people only read role of the ballots to "make the game more interesting."

On Definitions: There are infinite definitions to pull from and several from each dictionary website which means there's no warrant in providing a definition.

On Resolvability: There may still be different conceptions of what is true and false. It may also be harder to resolve the round because you can't way between a claim of truth and a claim of falsity because they just clash.

An interesting potential way of responding to truth testing is by using a pragmatic truth model. Many debaters do not know that their truth testing warrants are justifications for logical truth which means that it's possible to say, "I'll concede truth testing, but we will use a pragmatic model and here's why..." Pragmatic truth relies on context. A statement like "I am lying" is incoherent and contradictory under logical truth, but pragmatic truth can solve because it uses context to gut check contradictions. Pragmatic truth testing takes out frivolous a prioris like the resolved a priori because it relies on logical/semantic truth, but in reality this type of a priori makes no sense. Pragmatic truth testing allows us to achieve truth better because it's not just eliminating contradictions and truly a more inclusive model(which should give you more access to offense like kritiks or counterplans assuming you are winning a pragmatic model of truth).