Oh yeah, totally, I'm not saying thinking on paper is something that can't be achieved without studying philosophy, just that it's something all philosophy students are trained to do. Certainly, a willing and rigorous individual will get there anyway :) You also probably find the same skill in other domains specialized in written rational thinking, like History or law.

A note about debating skills, though: from the second year (at least in my university), we were asked to try to explain why someone is right, rather than why they're wrong. I found this shocking at first, especially because teachers were making us study the authors they loved and then ask us to explain why they were right. It sounded like brainwashing, at first. But later I realized it was actually the best skill I learned there.

When you're discussing an author, a developer's work, almost any kind of work, really, you're basically taking 10 minutes of your attention to refute work that took maybe years, or even a life. Most likely, the objections you'll have will be superficial and author/creator will have figured them for a long time. Starting first by trying to understand the goal and the reasoning of author/creator allows to really take advantage of their creation. You may then refute it if you still have problems with it :) (but you'll almost always have a cool idea or two to take away, so it's not lost time)