philosophy, Yes, to a point. We all know from experience that to debate things controversial brings up new ideas and perspectives. I personally like to have good opponents to learn a bit instead of having consent all around as in the proverbial echo-chamber. This is an old principle of brain-storming.
But there are many levels of disagreements. Once an Indian philosopher congratulated the Indian philosophy because of its wideness of mind and openness to all sorts of religions and philosophies. But I had to remind him that the Indian philosophers never arrived at western forms of science. Why not? Because in Indian as in most Asian culture the fundamental approach to the world is integrative, while in the West it is instrumental. Thus the Indians and Chinese are very good at psychology and thinking, but not good at looking into the mechanisms of nature as Western traditions do. The Occidental Christian God is an architect and a mathematician, while the Asian God is an all-pervading force like the Brahma or the Tao.
These differences in approach are so fundamental that people just don’t realize it. Thus we are at the beginning of a “debate of the great traditions” now. This is what I call “debating on many levels”.
