About Debby
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates
Debates are won by rhetoric and charisma, not by logic. The audience goes home remembering the speaker’s confidence, not the validity of their syllogisms. Points are forgotten. Fallacies go untagged. Truth is obscured by performance.
Debby is a permanent archive where every logical path is traced to its terminus, every fallacy tagged, every presupposition counted, and every argument scored. It is free, open source, and accessible to everyone.
We hold that objective, capital-T Truth exists — and that it can be discovered through rigorous logical analysis. Debby evaluates every worldview with the same unflinching rubric. The logic does the revealing. Not us.
Agrippa’s Trilemma
Every chain of justification must terminate. There are only three possible endings.
Foundational Assertion (Dogmatism)
The chain stops with an assertion accepted without further proof. This horn has two very different outcomes: an Axiom — a genuinely self-evident truth whose denial is self-contradictory (the strongest possible terminus) — or a Brute Fact — an unjustified assertion ('it just is') that lacks self-evidence. Both stop the chain, but only axioms provide real grounding.
Axiom: 'The law of non-contradiction is self-evident — denying it requires using it.' Brute Fact: 'Logic just exists.' — no self-evidence, no grounding, just a stop.
Circular Reasoning
The argument loops back to its own foundational claim. Every worldview's bedrock is self-referential at some level — the uncreated God is not created. Virtuous circularity is when the bedrock genuinely accounts for itself and its own preconditions. Vicious circularity is when a hidden premise smuggles in the conclusion mid-chain — a fallacy.
Virtuous: 'The Triune God's rational nature grounds logic — denying Him requires using what He grounds.' — Vicious: 'The Bible is true because God says so, and we know God says so because the Bible says so.'
Infinite Regress
Each justification requires a further justification, endlessly. No foundation is ever reached — the chain extends forever without terminus.
'Why is X true?' → 'Because of Y.' → 'Why Y?' → 'Because of Z.' → (ad infinitum)
How to Read a Debate Map
New to Debby? Here’s how to navigate the argument graphs.
Find the Premise
Every debate begins with a central claim — the gold Premise node at the top. This is the proposition being tested. Read it carefully — everything flows from here.
Follow the Chains
Each worldview builds an argument chain from the premise. Counter-Arguments (copper) challenge claims. Edges show the logical relationships between nodes — 'Refuted by,' 'Responds with,' 'Triggers.'
Watch for Fallacies
Burgundy Fallacy nodes mark logical errors identified in the argument chain. Hover or click any node to see its full definition and supporting points.
Find the Terminus
Every chain ends somewhere. A marble-white Axiom node means the argument reached genuine bedrock. A dark crimson Terminal Crash means it collapsed — brute fact assertion, vicious circularity, or infinite regress.
Read the Verdict
Click 'View Verdict' to see how each worldview performed: logical soundness, consistency, presupposition count, fallacy count, and Trilemma outcome. The scores are computed from the chain itself.
The Five Node Types
What Does “Resolved” Mean?
In everyday usage, “resolved” might suggest a mere conclusion — both sides shook hands and went home. On Debby, it means something far more specific.
A debate is Resolved when every argument chain from every participating worldview has been traced to its logical terminus. That terminus must be one of Agrippa’s Trilemma’s three possibilities:
- Foundational Assertion — the chain stops. Either a genuine axiom (self-evident, denial is self-contradictory) or a brute fact (“it just is” — unjustified, not self-evident).
- Circular Reasoning — the chain loops. Virtuous (the bedrock genuinely self-grounds) or vicious (a hidden premise smuggles in the conclusion).
- Infinite Regress — each justification requires a further one, endlessly.
A Resolved debate is notan opinion poll. It is a logical audit. The scores measure how each worldview’s reasoning performed against the same rubric. The logic does the revealing — not us.
How Scoring Works
Every worldview in a resolved debate receives a score on a 0–100 scale. That number is composed of weighted criteria — each individually measurable and visible in the verdict panel.
| Criterion | Weight | What It Measures |
|---|---|---|
| All inferences valid | 20 | Each step follows logically from the prior |
| No identified fallacies | 20 | Argument chain is free of formal & informal fallacies |
| Internal consistency | 20 | No claim contradicts another claim within the same chain |
| Presupposition count (lower = better) | 15 | Fewer unstated assumptions strengthen the chain |
| Trilemma outcome | 15 | Axiom = full marks; Virtuous circularity = high; Brute fact / Vicious circularity / Regress = partial or zero |
| Addresses opponent’s strongest points | 10 | Did the worldview engage with the strongest counter-arguments? |
Total: 100 points. Each criterion’s breakdown is visible inside the “How This Was Scored” section of every Verdict panel.