Philosophy Now Forum

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:01 pm More time is wasted on Latin phrases that are not understood by the people who use them than is thinkable to serious people.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:01 pm Usually the abuse of the phrase ad hominem involves conflating a "personal attack" with a "logical" error, that of genetic falacy. Very commonly it involves immunizing oneself against critisim. The person makes a gross error, or says something flatly false, in order to rhetorically defend themselves, rather than correcting the error, they claim they have been personally attacked.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:01 pm This problem is vast, and especially contaminats the political sphere with BS.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:01 pm IT OUGHT TO BE STAMPED OUT IN GRADE SCHOOL.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:44 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sun Apr 05, 2020 10:23 pm

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Sun Apr 05, 2020 7:10 pm


There's a supposed "genetic falacey" in saying "nothing good can come from Nazereth" and the like..... They need to be understood, at least by someone. The people who have mastered some subject are more likely to understand the reasons or statements.

But this attitude is an example of a genetic fallacy. It says that Ptolemy should be trusted that the earth lies at the heart of the universe because he has studied astronomy his whole life.
It is as bad a genetic fallacy as the thought that nothing an Irish man says can be trusted since the Irish are ignorant and stupid.

An ad hominem, whilst it might refer to a genetic fallacy it is not in itself one. It does not refer to the general but the particular "man".

Gallielo was a dear friend of the Pope. The trouble he got into was chiefly for breaking the old cardinal rule that counts putting too much weight on outlier or unreasenably rare cases.

No on ever comes across a vacuum. It's a crazy case. Though inteligable. In a vacuum, unlike everywhere in human life, feathers fall at the same rate as large blocks granite.

What we are living in is the power of prejudice concerning the rate cases and the reasonble or normal cases. The rate cases are being fetishized. Either way free judgment concerning how to treat the significance of either way of assigning weight or importance to the rule is being coierced by the historical roots.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 10:07 pm

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:54 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Apr 05, 2020 10:18 pm"Oh? But your completely unsupported opinion is proof of merit?"

It's evidence.

Heh.
No, it's not. Anyone can have an unsupported opinion. But there are good opinions, and bad opinions; and the only way we ever know the difference between those is by the quality of the argument and evidence supplied with them.

...If taken as sincere or truly said from the testimony of the one writing. Evidence that a certain human scale weighs the subject matter so.

"A certain human scale"? What "human scale"? How does this magical "scale" manage to "weigh" opinions that have no support?

Do you mean you think that if a person has a particular opinion, the mere fact that they are human gives some sort of special dignity to that opinion?

It doesn't. There are obviously such things as "bad opinions." For example, I assume you think racists have a "bad opinion," don't you? Or do you think "a certain human scale" makes it necessary that we accept overtly racist opinions?

"It's a "construction" it's a fabrication, an arrangement you're making up or composing yourself, with no objective value"

So are values a special form of facts? Is the distinction itself factual? Wasn't it devised? By humans. And aren't humans facts in their actions?

I'm just calling it what you called it. You said facts are "constructed." If so, they're nothing but fabrications, according to your own claim. So your claim itself is merely a fabrication, an arrangement you're composing yourself...something "constructed," as you put it.

I didn't have to say so. You said so.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 7:00 pm It is evidence.

There is simply no other way evidence can come forward.

You keep heaping scorn on "fabrications" as if the struggle to create valuable views were something trivial. It's not.

nothing wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 10:17 pm

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:01 pm More time is wasted on Latin phrases that are not understood by the people who use them than is thinkable to serious people.

Ad hominem has a very simple meaning: "at the person". If in a dialogue, if/when an argument is advanced,
focusing on / addressing the person making the argument rather than the substance of the argument
is "ad hominem". This is not complicated, only one who relies on ad hominem would attempt to make it so.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:01 pm Usually the abuse of the phrase ad hominem involves conflating a "personal attack" with a "logical" error, that of genetic falacy. Very commonly it involves immunizing oneself against critisim. The person makes a gross error, or says something flatly false, in order to rhetorically defend themselves, rather than correcting the error, they claim they have been personally attacked.

It is never logical to personally attack someone in lieu of addressing their argument: it is used as a device
to illicitly undermine attention to the substance of an argument by shifting focus from the argument
to the one making it "You're a bigot! Racist! Islamophobe! Supremacist! Xenophobe!" etc.

If a person makes a gross error or says something that is allegedly false, argumentation that is not ad hominem should focus
on undermining the what-and-why of the argument itself, instead of the who (ie. you! you! you!).

Ad hominem can not exist without a "You..." thus all address that begins with, is implicitly ad hominem.

If you want to see bonafide claims of being personally attacked, see Islam: if/when stating facts about Islam, such as
all mosques constructed until ~730CE have qiblas (directions of prayer) facing PETRA in South Jordan, rather than MECCA
in Saudi Arabia, and/or the Qur'an is evolved from Christian strophic hymns, and/or Muhammad was a pedophile genocidal warlord,
Muhammadans claim to be being personally attacked. This is the very tactic you speak of: involves immunizing oneself against criticisms.
The problem is: nobody is attacking Muslims personally, rather Muslims "illogically" identify with/as a BELIEF such that
if/when the BELIEF is shown to have "logical" errors, they begin ad hominem / whining and squealing.

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/04/turk ... -the-quran

Like that. Say hello to Nazism: getting arrested for "insulting" a book (that is completely man-made)
such to suffer man-made laws (Sharia) that protect such books from being acknowledged as what they are: man-made.
Hence their need to ad hominem: they can not touch the substance of the argumentation, they have to
label, slander, harass, abuse, accuse, silence, suppress etc. and this is a fixed characteristic of Islam/Nazism.

Pointing fingers at others has been their 1400-year strategy: it's the Jews! Jews! Jews!

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/03/yeme ... and-medina

Meanwhile:

https://www.jihadwatch.org/2020/03/paki ... nt-2221250

Politically exploiting a pandemic such to align it with the Muhammadan "cause of Allah" such to kill all "unbelievers" is... sick.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:01 pm This problem is vast, and especially contaminats the political sphere with BS.

Yes, the problem of ad hominem is vast: just as vast as Nazism, as the latter relies on the former.

Speaking of Nazism...

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Thu Apr 02, 2020 11:01 pm IT OUGHT TO BE STAMPED OUT IN GRADE SCHOOL.

...res ipsa loquitur.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 10:21 am

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:44 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Sun Apr 05, 2020 10:23 pm
But this attitude is an example of a genetic fallacy. It says that Ptolemy should be trusted that the earth lies at the heart of the universe because he has studied astronomy his whole life.
It is as bad a genetic fallacy as the thought that nothing an Irish man says can be trusted since the Irish are ignorant and stupid.

An ad hominem, whilst it might refer to a genetic fallacy it is not in itself one. It does not refer to the general but the particular "man".

Gallielo was a dear friend of the Pope. The trouble he got into was chiefly for breaking the old cardinal rule that counts putting too much weight on outlier or unreasenably rare cases.

No on ever comes across a vacuum. It's a crazy case. Though inteligable. In a vacuum, unlike everywhere in human life, feathers fall at the same rate as large blocks granite.

What we are living in is the power of prejudice concerning the rate cases and the reasonble or normal cases. The rate cases are being fetishized. Either way free judgment concerning how to treat the significance of either way of assigning weight or importance to the rule is being coierced by the historical roots.

If he knew the Pope this was the difference between being burned and being placed on house arrest.
Galileo was right. He had not put too much emphasis on anything. By his time the case was pretty solidly made by observation. I think the four moons of Jupiter was the final straw for the Catholic's perfect spheres hypothesis.

WTF is a "rate case"?

What has any of this to do with the thread?

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:39 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 10:21 am

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Mon Apr 06, 2020 8:44 pm

Gallielo was a dear friend of the Pope. The trouble he got into was chiefly for breaking the old cardinal rule that counts putting too much weight on outlier or unreasenably rare cases.

No on ever comes across a vacuum. It's a crazy case. Though inteligable. In a vacuum, unlike everywhere in human life, feathers fall at the same rate as large blocks granite.

What we are living in is the power of prejudice concerning the rate cases and the reasonble or normal cases. The rate cases are being fetishized. Either way free judgment concerning how to treat the significance of either way of assigning weight or importance to the rule is being coierced by the historical roots.

If he knew the Pope this was the difference between being burned and being placed on house arrest.
Galileo was right. He had not put too much emphasis on anything. By his time the case was pretty solidly made by observation. I think the four moons of Jupiter was the final straw for the Catholic's perfect spheres hypothesis.

WTF is a "rate case"?

What has any of this to do with the thread?

Gallielo was not right. There is no real vacuum.

This is the reason physicists have posited the funky idea of "dark matter" and smashed up on many other stones. He did not come to the truth, but his work did produce or prepare the way to many great inventions.

The connection is the crazy or "outlier" case. Sometimes Aristotle is wrong, almost never.

Sometimes someone who knows nothing about a subject matter is right.

Almost never in any deep sense. Sticking with the bulk of the normal cases is sounder reasoning than that insisting on the mere possibility that what an umexperrnced fool thinks is right. Or, on the claim that the universal experience of humans, no one ever experienced a vacuum properly, is wrong because it could be wrong in principle.

These kind of claims about errors in reasoning are mostly abused by thoughtless people. They were the tools of thoughtful scholastics who knew how to use them to advantage. They are tools of another circumstance.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:27 pm Ad homoniem is traditional for "friendly" Socratic dialogic discourse. Friendly means those exchanges where the discusant is willing to put his soul on the line by granting premises. Once granted, by "the human being," Socrates goes on to build on what is granted or show contradictions/apparant contradictions or dominions of difficulty.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:27 pm There are three other main meanings/popular usages. To my knowledge.

The rest of what you write is vexed. Because you don't understand that all views stem from what the Greeks called the anthropos. Hominem is a Latin form of the Latin homo, human being, used to translate anthropos. Or, "man," on the sense that the word stands in for human beings as such. The adult male generally assumed to be the most mature or perfect representative of by the tradition.

Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:56 pm

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 9:39 pm

Sculptor wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 10:21 am

If he knew the Pope this was the difference between being burned and being placed on house arrest.
Galileo was right. He had not put too much emphasis on anything. By his time the case was pretty solidly made by observation. I think the four moons of Jupiter was the final straw for the Catholic's perfect spheres hypothesis.

WTF is a "rate case"?

What has any of this to do with the thread?

Gallielo was not right. There is no real vacuum.

Not remotely relevant.

This is the reason physicists have posited the funky idea of "dark matter" and smashed up on many other stones. He did not come to the truth, but his work did produce or prepare the way to many great inventions.

Not remotely relevant.

The connection is the crazy or "outlier" case. Sometimes Aristotle is wrong, almost never.

With all matters concerning astronomy, Aristotle was completely wrong.
He also got the most simple empirical facts wrong such as thinking the number of women's teeth was fewer than a man's

Sometimes someone who knows nothing about a subject matter is right.

Clearly not you in this case.

Almost never in any deep sense. Sticking with the bulk of the normal cases is sounder reasoning than that insisting on the mere possibility that what an umexperrnced fool thinks is right. Or, on the claim that the universal experience of humans, no one ever experienced a vacuum properly, is wrong because it could be wrong in principle.

I'm not sure why you think a vacuum is relevant to Galileo.

These kind of claims about errors in reasoning are mostly abused by thoughtless people. They were the tools of thoughtful scholastics who knew how to use them to advantage. They are tools of another circumstance.

Word salad.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 7:38 pm

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Tue Apr 07, 2020 7:00 pm It is evidence.

What is the "it" in your sentence above? An opinion is "evidence," you think?
Nope, it's not evidence. An "opinion" is useless by itself; it's the thing that NEEDS the evidence to make it worth anything.

There is simply no other way evidence can come forward.

You think a person can't find evidence by himself? What on earth are you thinking?

I'm really not sure what you think, actually. So far, your point of view about ad hominems has been dragged over the coals not just by me, but by several other commenters, without making a dent in your opinion; so apparently you have reverence for your own opinions, but none for evidence, so far as I can see. Beyond that, I can see you have some kind of odd reverence for opinions in general, whether the opinion has any evidence to support it or not.

And that's just nuts.

You keep heaping scorn on "fabrications" as if the struggle to create valuable views were something trivial. It's not.

It is. "Fabrications" is a synonym for "lies," if you check the dictionary. And it's of no relevance at all how hard people "struggle" to keep believing something that's merely a "fabrication." In fact, they'd be better giving up that struggle.

Just like you'd be better giving up trying to defend ad hominems. You've got no rational leg to stand on, there.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:58 pm
Opinions, like so-called knowledge, must come from some hominem or being.

TheVisionofEr wrote: ↑Wed Apr 08, 2020 6:58 pmThat someone has an opinion is evidence.

...the notion that the object is wholly independant of the subject...

This is obviously the case...

Opinions, like so-called knowledge, must come from some hominem or being.