At this stage in life (maybe not at the time), I relate to my own education in philosophy as "learning to think", or "learning to reason", perhaps. You have to

At this stage in life (maybe not at the time), I relate to my own education in philosophy as "learning to think", or "learning to reason", perhaps. You have to follow a train of thought through and address even the minutest details for logical consistency, or another person (playing the devil's advocate, most likely) will find the inconsistencies and use them to poke a hole in the entire argument. This skill is not limited to debate. Debate is just one way to exercise it. The usefulness of being able to carry out long, cohesive trains of thought is so general and pervasive that it's hard to describe any one situation, on the lines of "a hammer is useful for getting nails into a board", that describes it rather than diminishes it.