The Art Of Debating With JAY DYER on No Fugazee Podcast with Cooley

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Art Of Debating With Jay Dyer"

Host: Jay Dyer (guest on No Fugazee Podcast)
Guest Host: Cooley
Air Date: March 16, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, Jay Dyer joins Cooley on the No Fugazee Podcast for an in-depth conversation about the art and philosophy of debating. The discussion traverses Jay’s journey into philosophy, the core principles guiding high-level debate, the use of presuppositional arguments (especially the Transcendental Argument for God), and practical tactics for winning debates—whether against academics or laymen. The tone is candid, often humorous, and deeply insightful, mixing philosophical rigor with real-life debate anecdotes.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Jay Dyer's Background & Introduction to Debating

• Jay did not start as a philosopher; his early interests were music, theater, comedy, and film. (06:31)
• Began exploring philosophy at age 18 in college, eventually joining the debate team. His first public debates were with professors and later, public figures, focusing on atheism vs. theism. (07:41)
• Jay explains how, over time, debate formats shifted from formal, academic settings to online platforms, and how his repertoire expanded to include debates with Muslims, Jews, and atheists. (08:44)

2. Principles of Effective Debating: Presuppositional (Pre-Sub) Approach

• Presuppositional debate is identified as “the shortcut to winning most debates”, exposing underlying assumptions that most opponents are not even aware of. (11:16)
• Formal debates are compared to a chess game, requiring adherence to the laws of logic—contrasted with informal arguing (e.g., with a spouse). (11:49)
• Most people lack understanding of basic argument structure and logical fallacies. Understanding epistemology (the theory of knowledge) is critical. (13:12)

Jay Dyer [11:43]: “The first thing people don’t know that’s necessary is to know there are laws to thought. They’re called the laws of logic... when you come to a debate, you’re actually coming to something like a chess game.”

3. Tailoring Arguments to Your Audience

• Jay emphasizes not trying to “convince the opponent” but focusing on persuading the audience with clear, practical applications:
  • For lay audiences, high-level technical philosophy is often lost.
  • Simplifying complex concepts and going straight for the “jugular” is a winning tactic. (18:04; 20:36)

Jay Dyer [18:04]: “The crucial skill is to tailor the argument to the audience... Most debates are not about convincing your opponent. It’s about the audience.”

• Example: In a debate, when an opponent claims sexuality is innate (“born that way”), Jay flips this logic by arguing one could also be “born a bigot,” illustrating the flaws in using conditioned preferences as moral justification. (19:48)

4. The Utility of Internal Critique

• Jay describes his method of letting opponents talk at length, allowing them to contradict themselves, then methodically dismantling their positions by highlighting those contradictions. (25:46)
• This approach is especially effective with academics who may be highly specialized but lack philosophical grounding.

Jay Dyer [25:13]: “Most people, even academics, are like... they don’t even know what the laws of logic are.”

5. Fundamental Structure of Worldviews

• Every worldview contains three core elements:
  • Epistemology: Theory of knowledge
  • Metaphysics: What exists/reality
  • Ethics: Morality and values
• In debate, the quickest victory often comes from exposing that an opponent has not grounded these presuppositions (28:16; 30:52).
• Preparation involves thoroughly absorbing an opponent’s arguments, akin to studying a sports playbook. For debates with high-level Muslims or philosophers, Jay reads primary sources and past debates. (28:45)

6. The Transcendental Argument for God (TAG)

• TAG argues that logic, morals, and science presuppose the existence of God.
• Its roots can be traced to Aristotle’s metaphysics, with later development by Kant, who systematized transcendental categories but did not use them to argue for God.
• Jay distinguishes TAG from Kant’s position, explaining that transcendental arguments show the impossibility of rationality without preconditions (i.e., God, logic, universals). (37:23–44:41)

Jay Dyer [33:07]: “You’re going straight to what’s underneath... If you take out that foundation, the whole system crumbles.”

• Walkthroughs of the “seven on the chalkboard” argument and Kant’s insight into the necessity of the subject (“the I”) for knowledge clarify how abstract entities cannot be reduced to material ones. (45:35)

7. Debate Tactics and Anecdotes

• Jay describes how “letting people talk” is effective because “the more they hang themselves.”
• Practical demonstrations:
  • Expose the arbitrary basis of “self-evident” claims (e.g., “morals are subjective because I feel it”).
  • Illustrate how emotivist perspectives fail to explain objective morality. (35:28)
• Jay stresses the power and resilience of TAG, and how most attempted refutations fail because they don’t address the method's foundational critique. (47:55)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jay Dyer [11:43]: “Formal debating is very different from arguing with your girlfriend or your wife—it's way different. It has a structure. It has laws.”
• Jay Dyer [18:04]: “Most debates are not about convincing your opponent... It’s about the audience.”
• Jay Dyer [20:54]: “I usually just go for the jugular pretty quick. As I’ve gotten older, I just, boom, let’s go right to the jugular.”
• Jay Dyer [33:07]: “You’re going straight to what’s underneath that and ripping that out. All this other stuff crumbles.”
• Jay Dyer [45:35]: “If I erase number seven on a chalkboard, is there still a number seven? That was the first day of philosophy class.”
• Cooley [46:10]: “It helps you understand it as well, too.”
• Jay Dyer [25:46]: “Let people talk, let them hang themselves... then you’re able to pull out these contradictions, just do an internal critique, and there you go.”

---

Key Timestamps

• 01:46 — Jay's background and trajectory into debating
• 11:16 — Importance of presuppositional (pre-sub) technique
• 18:04 — Tailoring argumentation to audience, not opponent
• 25:13 / 25:46 — Exposing contradictions and letting opponents talk
• 28:16 / 30:52 — Three elements of worldview; prep for high-level debates
• 33:07 — Destroying arguments by attacking underlying presuppositions
• 37:23 — Origins and development of transcendental arguments and Kant’s contributions
• 45:35 — “Number seven on the chalkboard” explanation of abstract vs. material reality
• 47:55 — On the indefeasibility of TAG and common failed critiques

---

Conclusion & Takeaways

This episode offers a masterclass on debate from Jay Dyer, moving fluidly between technical philosophical concepts and practical strategies for engaging—and defeating—opponents in debate. From presuppositional argumentation and logical fallacies to the practicalities of preparing for specific opponents, listeners walk away with both theoretical understanding and actionable advice. Throughout, the conversation balances humor, real-world examples, and intellectual rigor in true Jay Dyer fashion.

Transcript

[Commercial Narrator]

Security program on spreadsheets. New regulations piling up and audit dread. It's time for Vanta. Vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence into one place, and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clearer visibility, faster deals, zero chaos. Call it compliance or call it compliance. Get it? Join the 15,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Go to vanta.com calm as America's most

[Mayflower Mover Representative]

trusted movers, Mayflower has seen it all. From big dreams and new beginnings.

[Jay Dyer]

All right, here we are.

[Mayflower Mover Representative]

Oh, it's perfect. To first steps and fixer uppers from starter homes. So guess what? We're having another.

[Commercial Narrator]

Another. We definitely need more space.

[Mayflower Mover Representative]

To more practical homes.

[Spreaker Advertiser]

Yes.

[Mayflower Mover Representative]

Mayflower has been there for it all and will always have your back. Every moment, every move, every step of the schedule. Your move now by going to mayflower.com gazy podcast.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

I'm your host, Cooley. We have a special guest tonight. Let's go. And y' all see the suit too, man. Listen. New studio, new podcast by the Spirit. Not by the letter, bro. We can go verse for verse all day long doing new things are okay with understanding the reality that we are in competition with one another. But you ladies think that you're special. You are in comfort. Men are men of their word. So here's my word. I'll fly you out here. We can do it in person. And after that, we could box. I'm about my business. So remember I said, when I ask you these questions, I will dismantle your entire argument. That's the end of the debate. My dog.

[Jay Dyer]

I'm 39, but I don't look your typical 39 belly.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, you look 39. It's okay, though. That man isn't intimidated by a woman like you. He's annoyed by a woman like you. Because a man doesn't want to date another man. He wants to date a woman foreign. Welcome back to no Fugazi Podcast. Ladies and gents, tonight we have a special guest, Jay Dyer, in the building. I'll be bringing him up. You've seen him on many debates. He's an expert in philosophy and debating and many different arguments. Some would say he's a master in apologetics and a master at many other things. But let's go ahead and welcome him to no Fugazi Podcast. All right, that was new, man. I had some little chairs there for you, man. What's going on? Jay Dyer.

[Jay Dyer]

What's up, dude? Really glad to be here with you. I've been watching some of your clips and that intro There, that reminded me of. Reminded me of my eight hours on whatever podcast. Repeat of that whole eight hours of madness, of drama. But, yeah, I'm here, glad to talk to you about real debates. None of those were real debates. Those were dumb debates. But, yeah, we've been having some real ones lately.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, man, I've. I've been seeing you. You were just. You just had a debate that Digital Social Hour hosted, I believe. When was that? Just the other day, right?

[Jay Dyer]

It was a couple days ago. It kind of went up early on that dude's channel because he wanted to live stream it early. Okay, Sean Kelly hasn't.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, Sean Kelly has it.

[Jay Dyer]

It'll be up soon. But yeah, it was a fun one. I mean, it was just super low tier, but it's about like the women debates. I even told him in the middle of the debate. I was like, man, this is like debating all them women on whatever podcast. He thought that was pretty funny.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

So, yeah, I didn't get to watch a little bit of it. Well, I didn't get to watch hardly any of it. I just watched a little bit of Jim Bob reacting to it.

[Jay Dyer]

Oh, yeah.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

And I'm like, okay, all right, I see. But, you know, who was that guy? What is his name?

[Jay Dyer]

That's Brian Shapiro. And I wasn't really familiar with him either until he debated Andrew. And I think they may have had a couple debates. But, yeah, yeah, he's a guy who's not leftist, but continually says basically all the left positions and just really is just an anti Trump guy. That's like, you know, our topics were set as like, immigration and God and this kind of stuff. And the whole debate ended up. He wanted to do it about Trump, so really he's just anti Trump, but I can't really distinguish any of the other positions from just kind of mainline leftist type stuff. But, yeah, that's all he. And I think he does a radio show, but I'm not a boomer, so I don't listen to radio, so I don't know.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, I don't listen to radio, so I wanted to, you know, tell the audience kind of how I got introduced to you. So if everyone knows, I've been just debating for only about a year and a half now, maybe two years, I started getting into debating. I started off during, I would say the. I like to call it the Great Awakening during the pandemic when everybody was locked in. I was debating mask mandates on an app called Clubhouse, where there's no video, it's just audio. And then I Started the dating and relationship podcast, debating, you know, these 304s and stuff like that. But then I started to, you know, debate other topics other than dating and relationships. And it started to, like, open up my world view more. And I had to find some type of grounding for the things that I believe in. And I came across. I think it was J. Dyer archives. I'm not even sure if you own that channel.

[Jay Dyer]

That's a clip channel, the Dire. There's a bunch of cliff channels, but that one's not mine. But they do really good stuff over there.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, yeah. So I came across that as I was, you know, just expanding my worldview and trying to buckle down on the truth. And one of the things that really gravitated towards, you know, gravitated myself towards you was the tag argument, which at the time I didn't even understand. I was like, what is this guy talking about? All right, let me just move on to another video. So that was me. That was my introduction to you. Just regular scrolling and stuff like that. I happen to come across to it. But question for you. I like to get into the background of the people that I kind of interview. I like to get to know them and the audience to get to know them as well. Have you always been like a philosopher or debater? Like, is that something that you wanted to do when you were young or is this something that you gradually got into over time?

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, good question. I did not have any real interest in this when I was younger. In high school, I was really into music and party in and women theater. I was actually a theater kid, but I am heterosexual, I promise I'm married. So I was not a true theater kid who I guess they're not really hetero. But so I was really into movies and entertainment and I was really into comedy and that kind of stuff. And so it wasn't until about age 18 that when I went to college, I got interested in philosophy and philosophy of religion. And we had a debate team on campus back at that time. I don't think a lot of colleges even have that because they really kind of suppress people, you know, learning critical thinking and being able to engage. I think they just want everybody to basically be zombies. So there doesn't really have that anymore. But back in 2001, 2, 3, when I was in college, I got really into to the debate team and taking a lot of philosophy classes and did my undergrad philosophy my sophomore year. Ended up debating a professor, actually one of the professors of philosophy of science. And so we had a Pretty intense. A public campus debate. And I was getting into tag at the time. Been reading quite a bit on that.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

So you were doing this for a while then? As far as.

[Jay Dyer]

When I was 21, I really got into tag for the first time. Pretty heavy. I bought a lot of books on it, got heavy into philosophy, and that kind of kicked it off. And I just fell in love with. With doing it. I didn't do a lot of debates throughout the 2000s because Internet wasn't really big then. It was kind of growing. Facebook wasn't even around yet. But by the time Facebook came around, I would, you know, just debate people on the Internet, just kind of for fun. And then I think the first kind of real public, formal debates that we got going were maybe 2014. I think the first public debate I did was with an atheist libertarian guy named Adam Kokesh. He was a lot bigger at the time. He's not really that well known now, but we did about a two or three hour podcast debate on God and libertarianism and got quite a bit of views. And then I got another offer. Hey, you want to come to bait this other atheist dude, JF Gary epi, this French Canadian dude. And that got a whole lot of views, about half a million views back then on that, across a bunch of, you know, platforms. And so that kind of just kind of got the ball rolling, which, yeah, I had always just focused mainly on the atheism theism debate.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Okay.

[Jay Dyer]

And then I got. I made friends with a guy who was really into Islamic studies in England, and he was pushing me, hey, you know, Islam's coming to America. You need to really get up on debating Muslims. So the last eight years, we actually focused pretty heavy on that. I do debate, you know, Zionists, and we've debated a couple Jews here and there. But most of the time, last eight years has been. It's been a lot of the top Muslim dudes.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, yeah. And that's what I've been seeing a lot of the, you know, you debating the top Muslim guys. And from my worldview, you know, in my point of view, it'd be totally destroying them. One of the other things that kind of got me, you know, that gravitated myself towards you and your perspective and your debating style was I always had a few principles about myself. Some like, little key things I learned. One of them was manipulation tends to happen when you focus on the effects instead of getting to the root, the cause of things. And when I started hearing your content, that's what you would get to. You're like a master at the priests, the pre sub debating and I was like, man, okay, that's how I could kill him. This is how I can fully defeat the argument.

[Mayflower Mover Representative]

The sun's shining, birds are singing, and all feels right in the world until

[Commercial Narrator]

the season changes and suddenly you lose your motivation to get out of bed. In fact, one in five people experience some form of depression no matter the season or time of year.

[Mayflower Mover Representative]

At the American Psychiatric association foundation, our vision is to build a mentally healthy nation for all. Because we want you to live your best life and be your best you all year round.

[Commercial Narrator]

Please visit mentallyhealthynation.org to learn more.

[Spreaker Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere. People listen. Apple podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show [e-mail] spreaker because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Can you speak about the importance of pre sub debating?

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, I think you nailed it. I mean, this really is the shortcut to winning most debates. You know, the only times I've really had any real struggles or issues with that as a technique or an approach is when I'm debating some high tier philosophy professor who knows that very well. Which that's like one in a million people. So most of the time, you know, if you have this approach, and I think if people watch that Brian Shapiro debate that we just did, you know, the average normie type of person is just going to cut right to the issue because most people just don't realize that whatever their positions or opinions, their assertions that they have and the things that they say, they don't realize they're based on other things. They assume things to make those arguments and to make those claims. And most people don't even know how to make an argument. They think that arguments are arguing right. Totally different things. You know, formal debating is very different from, you know, arguing with Your girlfriend or something like that, or your wife or whatever, it's way different. It has a structure. It has laws. And so the first thing that people don't know that's necessary is to know that there are laws to thought. They're called the laws of logic. And that's really what critical thinking is, is following those laws of critical thinking. So when you come to a debate, you're actually coming to something more like a chess game than it is arguing or yelling or whatever. And so if you understand that, you're right away, you know, 50 miles ahead of everybody else in the race. So one of the things I learned early on was most people don't know basic logical fallacies. And if you know just the basic informal ones, again, you're way ahead everybody else, because they don't even realize when they're making arguments on the basis of emotion or they're making arguments on the basis of their own personal anecdotal experience. None of those things constitute good arguments. They're bad reasons for the beliefs. So most people just don't even think about the fact that we all have beliefs. But do we have good reasons for our beliefs? And that gets into this crucial domain of what's called epistemology, which is just our doctrine or our theory of knowledge. How do we know what we know? What do we know? Is it possible to know things? And what are the good reasons for the beliefs or the knowledge that we have? So you know philosophy. And last thing I'll say on this is if you go back to the earliest days of Western philosophy with Socrates, what he did was, if you don't know philosophy, it's a really great essay to start with. Just read the Apology of Plato. It's not that long, and it's pretty easy to understand. Basically, Socrates just walks around Athens and he says, I'm going to ask everybody from a different type of lifestyle, what is the meaning of life? And what are we supposed to do, and what is wisdom? And it turns out, well, the guy who's in the theater, he thinks that acting in theater is the meaning of life. And the politician thinks that politics is the meaning of life, and the artisan thinks that his craft is the meaning of life. And so he realized that everybody just saw life through their own immediate personal experience. And he wondered, well, is there something more objective going on? Maybe none of these people know. And so he goes to the oracle at Athens, and the oracle, Delphi says, you're the wisest man. And Socrates says, how can I be the wisest Man, I don't know any. I don't know jack shit. And the Oracle says, only because you had the process of questioning, are you actually the wisest man? Because it's not that Socrates didn't know anything, but he was willing to go through challenging his presuppositions and everybody else's. So that's really. The birth of Western philosophy is actually questioning presuppositions. And I think if you know that, again, these, these basic points I've made, you're way ahead of everybody else, because nobody else knows this stuff. Education is dog shit in America. So nobody's taught this stuff. And that right there, boom, you can go cut right to the issue and immediately just kind of turn the arguments on everybody else. There's a lot of other things, too, that go with it, like internal critique and, you know, calling out the fallacies and that kind of stuff. But.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yep, yeah, man. And that was. That was one of the things that really, I was like, all right, I got. Because, you know, I was debating a lot of women on my show. Started off with doing a dating and relationship show and then transitioned into doing debates, like six or eight months after that. And, you know, since I'm a Christian and, you know, don't. I'm non denominational, man, I know you're going to hate that. Come on, bro. You're non denominational. You're basically not a Christian. I know you guys like to critique me on that, right? I'm still in discovering, you know, my lane. But I would say as far as the. The ortho bros, you, Andrew, and what they like to call y', all, right? You, Andre, Jim, Bob, and also a few others out there. I think his name is dph. Yep, him as well, and a few other people. You guys have good arguments for your worldview. I think you guys defend your worldview. Great. As far as I'm concerned, as far as, you know, my opinion wouldn't even be biased because I'm listening to other Christians defend their worldview and it's just like, well, like, they have the best arguments, they have the best logic behind it. It makes the most coherent sense. It's easy to understand and things of that sort. But a question on so what I found myself as. I've been debating more topics. I'm debating evolution now. I'm debating. I'm doing apologetics now. People are saying, cooley, why are you getting into this type of stuff? I'm like, well, I'm trying to seek tr.

[Spreaker Advertiser]

Truth.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

And one of my things is as I'm seeking truth. I didn't come from a background like you. I got a high school education, right? So I was playing sports. I'm a very, I would like to say, competitive individual. So for me it was like, I'm not going to turn down any debate. I'll go ahead and accept them all. So since I'm accepting all of these debates and also doing open panel debates and having weird people come in with their word world views and challenging myself, it's like, well, I'm more motivated now to learn and to become a better debater and actually get to the, the truth of things. Which is why I say, which is why what kind of made me gravitate towards, you know, you guys, the orc, the ortho bros, some would say. And like, okay, they just have the best arguments right now. And Jay Dyer, he's killing it. Jim Bob is killing it. Andrew Wilson, everyone knows that he's killing it. But I found myself the more I learned, the more it was harder to decipher which argument I'm gonna use to be able to defeat someone. Because now you're, I'm, I'm being. I have like a more vast level of knowledge and I have multitude of different arguments that I can use to defeat someone's position. How do you decipher which argument that you're going to use to defeat someone's position when you have so many tools in your toolbox to destroy them?

[Jay Dyer]

That's a good question. Because one thing that I think is really crucial to know as you get to be more of a mature debater, is it's a really crucial skill to be able to tailor the argumentation to the audience. And so if you're kind of aware of the audience and if you're able to communicate something, that's perhaps a pretty technical, difficult aspect of debate or philosophy or whatever to a mass audience. That's the crucial skill because everybody should know you're probably not going to convince your opponent. Most debates are not about convincing the opponents about the rhetorical persuasion and objectively good arguments that you have that convince hopefully the audience. So the audience is a key target. Not this dude over there on the other side of the screen or this chick or whatever. It's the audience. And if you can very precisely and in a practical way make these arguments accessible, that's a really important skill set. I think Andrew really excels at that. I think Andrew's been, you know, able to somehow figure out the best way to make really complex arguments practical. I know a lot of the tactical, technical stuff. But sometimes it's difficult if I'm. If I'm doing a technical critique of somebody's presuppositions, to try to convey that to an audience who doesn't care about philosophy. So one of the things that came up in the branch Piro debate the other day was actually really providentially just worked out excellent to where he made this bad argument where he said, look, you think that, you know, homosexuality or these kinds of things, you think that those are choices. They're not choices people make. They're all conditions from birth to have these proclivities.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

And I said, oh, he made the birth argument. Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

If that's the case, then it seems logical also that I would also have the conditioning to be religious. And you call me a bigot because I have morals and I can't judge anybody's moral lifestyle. Well, then I'm just conditioned to be a bigot, according to you. And there's nothing morally wrong with that because you can't get an off from just what is the case. So I think when that hit, that was a really crucial point in the debate for making a. Because I could have gone with the route of something like. And I did a little bit in that debate, I could have argued that, oh, you're making universal claims, and universal claims can't be made if you are a finite individual with just empirical sense data. You have no access to universal states of affairs. And I tried a little bit to convey that, but I think it was just too.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

He didn't understand.

[Jay Dyer]

It was too much for him and the audience. So I just brought it back to, okay, well, if everything's conditioned, then I'm conditioned to be a bigot. He was just like, what? So. So take those difficult issues and make them just super practical. That's the best way.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Simplify it.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, but if I'm debating a professor, I'm probably not gonna do that. I'm just say I'm gonna keep it high tier and I'm gonna choose the more difficult but most devastating argument. I usually just go for the jugular pretty quick. I don't like to yap early on. I would try to argue a lot, talk a lot. As I've gotten older, I just, boom, let's go right to the jugular.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah. As I seen when I started watching your content, I'm like, yeah, he destroys people from the root. He doesn't even give them a chance. And most of the time, the people that I've seen you debate, they don't even understand your questioning. And they don't understand the argument. They don't understand that maybe. Yeah, it's like two different conversations happen. I'm like, the debate is over. He just destroyed you. And they're still like, fighting with themselves. One of the other things that I would say in regards to what you just said, because I debated someone just the other day. He had a similar worldview. He asked me the question, well, you know, the Bible teaches that, you know, being gay is a, is a sin and that it's bad and it's evil and they're against gay people and all of this other type of stuff. Right? And then he's like, well, I'm like, well, do you think people are born gay? He's like, yeah. And I used a similar route. I just was like, well, if you think people are born gay, then that means that people are born with a, you know, with a proclivity to do a sin, like to be a murderer, to steal, to do all types of crazy things. So, no, I definitely get that. And that's like a lower tier response to a debate. But you just explained that there's higher tiers. It's definitely effective. It's definitely effective. Yeah. Well, good stuff.

[Jay Dyer]

Go ahead.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

No, no, I was just saying good stuff. That was, that was perfect.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, I mean, I'm not, and I'm so used to not debating a lot of, like, political type of stuff. That, and I mean, I know the, you know, homosexuality is not really politics. It's partly political, but I don't think I've ever had a debate on that topic. I'm almost always debating, you know, Muslims or atheists, something like that. So this one was a much more politically focused debate. So a lot of the, the topics ended up being way more practical. Right? So, like, well, is it good for a nation to have infinity, you know, dudes coming in from another country? I don't think it is. Right. So we can argue whether that's good for the society. And of course he says, well, it is good for society. Well, okay, well then what's the good here? Right. Of course, most atheist materialists have no objective standard of the good. And so if you get a little bit of basic philosophy down, you can usually do pretty well in debates too, by just knowing, okay, well, you're saying this, this. What's the measure for those things. Things, right? So when you're saying good for the country to have infinity, you know, Muslims, infinity, you know, Swami's brother, welcome. We will have 1 billion people come to America, right? When you, if you're going to have a million H1B dudes coming in, how in that, in any scheme is that good for the country? And I said, well, is it good for Japan? Does Japan have to take a million migrants? And he eventually bit the bullets. Like, yeah, they did, they should, they ought to. So you got all this weird. Absolutely. Morals now. And I'm like, what's the basis for the good and for these morals? He says, what I, what I like, what I want? Like, dude, come on, are we, are we kids? Like, are you in elementary school? What you want? Come on, what's the objective reason for why that's good versus something else? Like limit integration?

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

No answer. Right. So again, most people are unfortunately in this really low tier NPC kind of frame, but every now and then you'll get people a little more sophisticated where you kind of have to go into, you know, some, some, some depth. But even with most of those people, I mean, I've debated a lot of academics and professors over the years and there's only been one or two that were actually able to kind of handle pre sub at a significant level. Most of the even, even academics are like, like I had that debate with that atheist guy, JF Gary Epi like 10 years ago. It was the first high profile debate. And you know, he, everybody thought he was going to just demolish me because he had a, I think he has a PhD in neuroscience or something. But a lot of those people in academia, and I know because I was in academia, they're very niche in their subject matter. So they'll know all about, you know, some part of the pineal gland or something like that. They don't even know what the laws of logic are. They don't know what a law of non contradiction is. Right?

[Commercial Narrator]

Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

So they'll have an overconfident about what they're debating outside of their realm of knowledge and expertise. And then that's very easy to trip these people up. And one thing I do in debates is I kind of tend to let people talk. And the more they talk, the more they're hanging themselves because I just take note of all these things they're saying and I've got a little, you know, memo pad in my mind back here. Well, five minutes ago you said this and then now you're saying this. Right. If you watch that Brian Shapiro debate, half of that debate was just him contradicting within like two minutes.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, him talking.

[Jay Dyer]

It's the same with a lot of these other debates too, is like, if you let people talk, let them hang themselves, the more they talk, then you're able to pull out these contradictions, just do an internal critique, and there you go.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah. And, you know, that's. That's one of the things that I've learned. Most of my most viewed debates is when I tend to let the people speak, let them hang themselves, and then I, you know, give a rebuttal and then refute the argument, catch them in a contradiction, and. But it's just so, like, when you know that they're speaking nonsense, you just want to just attack them. Attack, attack and destroy. But no, that is a debate tactic. And that. That takes patience. That is one of the things it does take, patience. I would actually say that I have more patience debating the women on my channel than debating men. It's like, come on, bro, you're a guy. Like, you should get these things. You should be doing better. Like, you're a man. What's going on here? Like, with women, I just tend to be more. Because, like, you're a chick.

[Jay Dyer]

All right?

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Obviously you live a different experience than I do. But so for me, you know, when I started thinking in more of a logical way and the understanding the laws of logic, the law of identity, the law of excluded middle, the law of non contradiction, and kind of wrapping my responses around that and also tying in observing my opponent's arguments based off of that.

[Spreaker Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now. I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere. People listen. Apple podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show [e-mail] because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

What I've also learned, which I heard you say many times, was every worldview consists of epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics. Can you tell me why that's important? To understand that, to be able to use that against your opponent to defeat them?

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah. This is a you, you Went right where I was going to go. Which is a lot of people are super lazy too. Like they don't actually take the time to study another person perspective if they're going to do a debate. Most of the formal debates that we've done over the, over the last several years, like I always go through multiple debates that the opponent has done so that I know his game plan. I mean everybody should know this from sports, right? You study the other team's playbook, you want to know their moves, you want to know what their hand signs mean to, you know.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Do a quick question on that. How like what's your preparation for debates? Like do you normally spend like a few days debating your opponent's worldview, getting an understanding of their position and stuff like that? What's your normal question preparation for?

[Jay Dyer]

So the Muslim debates were way more intensive than that because I didn't really know much about Islam eight years ago. So pretty much every Muslim opponent that I've debated, they're, they're within Islam and Dawa, they're pretty high tier. Sheikh as Rashid Shabir Ali, Daniel Kikachu, Jake Muslim Lantern. I mean those are all kind of dudes that the Muslims respect and look up to and have some degree of some pedigree. So for all of those debates I went pretty intensive. In fact it was more than just a few days with most of those I think I read multiple books because most of those topics were pretty precise. So I really wanted to hone in on like in the case of Jake Muslim Metaphysician. I remember I had to buy like a eighty dollar obscure British publication of IBN Tamiya and like I went through like hundreds of pages of Vivid. It was so boring dude. It was like. But now that debate was a lot of preparation but like if it's an atheist, most of them don't have, don't have books. But like when I did the Matt Dillahunty debate I remember reading or I remember watching two or three Matt Delaney debates. So that was like two or three days prep. So usually a couple days prep and watching some of their other debates but on a couple occasions with Muslims or like really high tier studied Roman Catholics, I've done significant reading for those.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, but that's the, the Matt Dillahunty debate. That's one of the first ones that I seen because that was about six years ago I believe. Six or five years ago. Yeah. And I seen you, you defeated him with tag with that another question. Right? Because I've been utilizing tag and I've been Trying to perfect my craft with tag. Right. Where did this argument derive from? And can you explain the proper way, how it should be formulated?

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah. Oh, and by the way, I did want to address the other. You asked about the three elements of a worldview and why that's really crucial and associated with tag. Because if you know those three things, most people don't know that everybody has a worldview, meaning you have some basic set of beliefs or commitments that you don't typically question or think about. And those commitments and those, those pre preconditions or presuppositions, they kind of underlie and undergird all the other beliefs that you have. So you know, you believe that tomorrow the sun's going to come up, you believe that it's wrong to murder people. You have all these beliefs and they rest on some assumption about ethics, what's right and wrong, as you said, epistemology, how do we know what we know, what can we know, etc, and metaphysics, which is what is real, what exists, what doesn't exist, et cetera. So everybody has a worldview, which is those three domains of philosophy. Even if they don't know philosophy, they have beliefs about that. So if you can study those three topics and even you don't have to go deep into it or get a PhD, but you can study the basics of those of those domains, again, you're going to be way ahead of everybody else because most people don't know that. And whenever they're saying something like, well, it's wrong to do this or that, it's wrong to go out and kill people, it's wrong to steal this and that. Okay, well, but why is it wrong and how do you know that that's wrong? Right, well, God doesn't exist. Okay, well how do you know that and on what basis? And what's the reason that you think that most people don't think that deep. And so when you start asking them those questions, they kind of. Because, because, because that's what I think, you know, I mean, most people have that sort of default, like bad line of reasoning. And you've got them right there. Because if you've got a thought out worldview, if you got, if you're grounded in your perspective, you're ready for those kinds of questions. Most people are not ready for those kinds of questions. So that's why presuppositions are really just honing in on and analyzing the things that undergird people's beliefs and assertions. So that's what you're going for that's what you're looking at. And if you can take out that foundation, the whole system crumbles. Right. Remember all this other stuff that they've got up here on their upper layer of beliefs that they've got kind of in the front frontispiece?

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yep.

[Jay Dyer]

You're going straight to what's underneath that and ripping that out. And all this other stuff crumbles because anything else is going to be based on that thing that you've already taken out that. That foundation. So that's what presuppositions are all about, or pre commitments or what we're just calling tag. That just means in fancy philosophy terms, that's arguing for God's existence in a logical way that is not like some sort of empirical evidence. So basically, it's still an argument, it's still an evidence, but it's not evidence. Like we think of physical evidence in a crime scene or a court case. You're making a logical argument about an internal critique of another person's three elements of a worldview. And usually the easiest to critique is ethics because that's a lot more accessible to most people than theory of knowledge or metaphysics.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Right, yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

Like we mentioned Andrew earlier, Andrew's really good at picking out the ethical issue and then asking them for the kind of basis for the ethics. And that resonates with most people because, you know, even low tier, sort of, you know, just terrible debaters will immediately go to, you're a bad person. Right. So everybody just wants to jump on ethics and why they're better than everybody else. Because that's just kind of a human pride issue. Yeah, like the virtue signal shortcut to winning debate. Right. If you watch that Brian Shapiro debate, I don't mean to keep bringing this one up. It's just a funny one, like the most recent one, too. I'm saying, well, I'm bad and why everybody's bad and Trump's bad and all men are bad, bad, bad, bad. It's like, dude, you don't have a basis for even what bad is. It's just all like what you don't like. And he's like, yeah, so, yeah, okay, well, that's not a debate. Right. That's just you telling us your preferences. Okay. We don't care what your preferences are. In a debate, we will know what the argument is for, why we ought to accept your position. So, yeah, presuppositions and tag and all that, it's just fancy terminology for saying, I'm going to undercut all the stuff that you're yapping about and saying by ripping out from underneath you the fact that it's built on sand and you're saying a bunch of gibberish when you don't have a basis for what that rests on. Oh, really? All of this is wrong. This is all wrong. And almost, I would say probably 95% of people, when you ask them, why is something wrong? Because I feel like it's wrong. It's wrong.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

I feel like it's wrong.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

And this.

[Jay Dyer]

Well, I feel like it's right.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

You know, it's funny, I debated an emotivist the other day and he was just like, oh, yeah, you know, you know, morals is just an expression of the emotions. Boo. Ah, you know, stuff like that. But one of the arguments that I used on him was one of the. Actually one of Jim Bob arguments. I said that, have you ever done something that you know was good, but you felt bad about it, in which it took apart his argument? Because then he says, well, what do you mean by. No, like, do I know that it's good? You're making. Like, is that a conflation there? I was like, well, then I asked you, I was like, well, is when you feel something, do you know something? He said, well, yes, objectively, if I feel it, I know it. So right from there, I caught him in a trap. So I told him, well, it's a. And also not a. It's a contradiction. Like, so you know something is good, but you feel bad about it. Which if it's the case that emotivism is just all of an expression of emotions, then that detangles that, untangles that, that, that argument, because obviously you have an emotion. But then there's something else there that, you know, that is good. So, yeah, it's. It's, you know, many different ways we're, you know, we can kind of defeat someone's argument. But in regards to tag, because I've been getting into that a little bit, and from watching you, I've been having to Google words and research the type of people like Kant. I guess that's where the transcendental came from. He is one of, basically, ask me,

[Jay Dyer]

where does it come from?

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, yeah, like, yeah, where does it come. Is it Kant, the one that came up with the transcendentals? And also, is there a distinction between transcendentals and metaphysics, or is that basically the same?

[Jay Dyer]

There's overlap, but there's definitely distinctions here. So the type of argument that we're talking about, or a transcendental type of argument is much earlier. This actually goes back to, like Aristotle, I think it's Metaphysics, book four. And he doesn't call it a transcendental argument, but it's something kind of like this, where in Aristotle it's more. So it's called retortion, which is where the sophists, who are people who don't believe in any truth or any laws of logic or anything like that, or any rationality, they come to Aristotle and they say, well, how do you know that logic actually works? Why should we even follow logic? And Aristotle's retorts is, well, if you denied logic, you would still be using logic to deny it. So would you would be immediately caught in a contradiction. So to deny the law of non contradiction would require logical consistency resting on the law of non contradiction to say there is no law of non contradiction. So it's a foolish from the outset type of position. And even though you know, Aristotle doesn't call that a transit argument, it's. It's a similar type of form or structure.

[Spreaker Advertiser]

This episode is brought to you by Spreaker, the platform responsible for a rapidly spreading condition known as podcast brain. Symptoms include buying microphones you don't need, explaining RSS feeds to confused relatives, and saying things like, sorry, I can't talk right now, I'm editing audio. If this sounds familiar, you're probably already a podcaster. The good news is Spreaker makes the whole process simple. You record your show, upload it once, and Spreaker distributes it everywhere. People listen. Apple podcasts, Spotify, and about a dozen apps your cousin swears are the next big thing. Even better, Spreaker helps you monetize your show with ads, meaning your podcast might someday pay for, well, more microphones. Start your show [e-mail] spreaker because if you're going to talk to yourself for an hour, you might as well publish it.

[Jay Dyer]

And as philosophy advances in the west and gets a little more sophisticated and technical, you get people like Immanuel Kant, who, who work extensively in sort of drawing out a schema or a structure of what he calls transcendental or preconditions. And really what he does is just kind of take what Aristotle called the categories of being or categories of relation. Things like quantity, quality, location, number, etc. These kinds of things that you can't identify necessarily as physical matter. And there's a lot of these right numbers, logic, they're not identical to stuff, they're not identical to molecules. If you watch the Stefan Molyneux debate that I did some years back. The first half of the debate is about that. And Stefan seemed to think that the number seven is literally just identical to seven things. Seven coconuts. And first half of the debate is basically showing how kind of silly that is to think that a number or a law or something. Law like is identical to something physical. Right?

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

Not the same, obviously. So that's a good kind of starting point for understanding the types of things that we're talking about that are in Kant repositioned and reimagined to be mental structures. Whereas Aristotle saw these as sort of external, real metaphysical objects and relations and structures of the world. Kant says, well, I don't know if we can really know that. And so he basically makes these all structures within the mind. So I want to be very clear that transcendental argumentation is advanced by Kant, but Kant does not make a transcendental argument for God. In fact, Kant would probably think that's not sensible, that you can't use that type of logical argumentation for God's existence. Because Kant ends up being kind of a feedist. He kind of thinks that you can't really even know what's going on outside of your own mind or in other people's minds.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

But he's really good at coming up with advancements in transcendental arguments, not the trans argument for God. So, for example, he makes a really good argument that, well, if you're going to have knowledge at all, whatever you think knowledge is, it seems like you got to have a knower, right? And there's some difference between the knower or the subject or the eye, that's me. And the instances or the pieces or the propositions of knowledge that I gain. And who is the one or the I or the subject gaining the knowledge? Okay. And if there is an I or a subject, which I think he called it the. He called this. He uses fancy term of just. He says the transcendental unity of apperception. He just means a subject having all of these perceptions and all these experiences. Can I find under a microscope, Jay Dyer or Cooley? Can I find that subject that I. That. That. That you. No, I mean, you could say, well, I have a body and I've got eyes and, you know, a heart, whatever. Okay? But none of those things are equated to the transcendental subject having the knowledge. And what is the storehouse of all of this knowledge? The mind, the soul, whatever.

[Spreaker Advertiser]

Right.

[Jay Dyer]

So Kant's basically saying that to have knowledge at all presupposes a subject, a person, an eye. And you can't find that under a microscope or find that in a test tube or in the molecules. Right. So this is a, an example where Kant was really good, I think, in giving a type of transcendental argument, not for God, but in this case for something like God, the soul or the self or the subject.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

And you could just say that it's very, it's a very similar move that we're doing with, you know, if I'm arguing with an atheist and he says something like, all that exists is physical matter. And he's like, and you're, as a Christian, you're illogical. And I'm like, oh really? So would you say that the laws of logic, because you just appealed to logic and reasoning, are the laws of logic matter? Where under a microscope do you see the law of non contradiction? Right. Where do you find this in a test tube? You don't. Okay, where's the number 7? Where are quadratic equations in the physical world? They don't exist, okay. In the physical world. So there are immaterial, abstract things. And in that Brian Shapiro debate, for example, he starts going on and on about free will. Free will, free will. And I'm like, dude, do you understand that most modern philosophers who are atheists and agnostic, they don't even think free will is a thing. Free will is just as much a fairy tale as God to a lot of these. Yeah. And I just turned that on on Brian and I said, why would you even believe in free will if you think God's tooth fairy, let's say, for the sake of argument, that kind of stuff, Anything immaterials, tooth fairy. Well, free will is a metaphysical claim. Where is that in a test tube? Why would you believe in free will? Yeah, it's just a commitment that you have with no basis. And so if you can be arbitrary in a debate, guess what? I can be arbitrary in a debate. So most of the time in debates are going to be catching people and just being arbitrary. But if you get into these more specific subjects, like what we're talking about with philosophy and transcendental arguments, those are types of things that Kant uses, or Kant uses these preconditions and these categories to try to show that all of our beliefs and our assertions rest on these more fundamental things that are not physical, material, empirical objects.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah.

[Jay Dyer]

And I heard you think about, think about something else too easy, like not just morals or rights, but time. I mean, Kant makes good arguments that, I mean, you can't Find what is time? Time is not. I mean, you could say, what's a measurement of change in the physical world? Whatever. It's a movement of light, whatever you think it is like. But time itself is not anywhere in

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

the physical world exactly like the past. The past as well. I heard you make many arguments about the past, so. And that was a unique one of, you know, how you. How you verbalize it. Also heard with the number seven. I actually heard you say you made the argument basically, well, if I erase the number 7 on it on a chalkboard, is it still. Does the number 7 not exist anymore? And that just, you know, demonstrates how seven is just not, you know, a calculation of things. It's more than just that.

[Jay Dyer]

Where I got that argument. The first day of college philosophy class, intro to Philosophy 101. First day, the professor goes up on the chalkboard, and he was this kind of nerdy white. He had a nerdy white guy with a voice like this, and he had a big old pot belly, and he would rest his hand on his pot belly, and he would have the chalk like this. Here you go. So this is number seven. And if I erase number seven, is there still a number seven? That was the first day of philosophy class.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Hey, man, listen, it's a great point because he really. Yeah, it helps you understand it as well, too.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah. He's illustrating Plato's point about the fact that in philosophy, it's called the problem of the one in the many. Like, you can't just say there's particulars. If you only think there's particular objects, you're immediately caught in a difficult issue philosophically with sets or classes of things. And if you deny the set or the class of things, there's a whole host of problems that you have with universal claims and things like this. And what, for example, most atheists or materialists or empiricists don't realize is that when you're an empiricist or when you have that perspective, you're. You're already boxing yourself in. I already know all the problems in that position that you. Most of you atheists don't even know. So I can already just list out all this host of issues that will immediately catch you in a box that you put yourself in.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

Yeah, I had. It's funny, because the first time I heard the Transcendental argument, it was actually from you. And I'm like, oh, this is a boss argument. I got to learn this because, you know, if you watch my content, you know, I'm debating people, I'm having fun doing it. I'm being entertaining. And I'm like, wait. He just said, please justify how you can make sentences like that's boss talk. Don't speak to me now. When people come up and debate me, listen, don't speak to me unless you can justify how you can speak to me. Because I don't. Your sentences mean nothing. Justify your entire worldview. So I think that the transcendental argument for God was really one of the ones that was like, this is, you can't defeat this. People tried to defeat it, they tried to critique it, but I really haven't heard it be refuted at all.

[Jay Dyer]

Yeah, most of the critiques end up being things that aren't really addressing the trans argument for God. Like there's a famous paper that a philosophy guy named Barry Stroud wrote many years ago and usually more astute philosophy minded people, they say, oh well, Barry Stroud refuted this kind of stuff. Well really, Barry Stroud's just talking about Kant and he's talking about how there's limitations in the Kantian perspective of transcendental arguments. Well, guess what, I agree with that. I'm not a Kant and I'm orthodox Christian. So yeah, you know, we don't have to be bound to any single philosopher system as Christians, as orthodox, because I can take what's logically good and valid, whether it was Aristotle or Plato or Kant, and I don't have to accept Aristotelian, Platonic or Kantian systems. Right. So I have a freedom. And most philosophers this way or this in the world today are the same way. Like nobody really just follows one dude in philosophy. People take good or bad arguments based on the arguments themselves, not whether or not, you know, we follow some person entirely. But yeah, I think it's an indefeatable argument because it's really impossible to deny preconditions of thought. You're in a much. And I've been in debates where atheists or some, some people try to deny these types of things and it's like they don't even realize that it's putting you in a way worse position than to admit there are preconditions. Right. So if you want to say, okay, there's no laws of logic, there's no transcendental categories.

[Cooley (Podcast Host)]

I debated this one guy the other day, he said, well, it's just, it's just self evident. It's just self evident. Like this is true, like it's just self evident. What's your take?