Nice article
 

on a Freshman seminar taught at Princeton by Robert George and Cornell West.

http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archiv...estgeorge.html

These two are ideological opposites, but apparantly manage to have a great relationship. One of the quotes I particularly enjoyed was by George when recalling his first reading of Gorgias.

“It was so important to my intellectual odyssey. It just turned me around,” he says. “It’s a wonderful book that raises the question of why we engage in the enterprise of argument: Do we do it for victory? Seeking to persuade? Or do we do it in pursuit of truth for its own sake, as something to be desired even if it yields results that you wish were otherwise? It’s Plato presenting the sophists at their best, not as straw men, but as people with a serious point of view.”

Duh...we engage in argument to prove we're smarter than everybody else. Is there any other reason?

I've convinced myself that I argue because I love the competitiveness. It has nothing to do with the fact that I usually lose. ;)