But Clark, all those statements are true! I WANT to be a smart East Coast urban sophisticate, but what with oat chaff in my hair, and bullshit between my ears, it's too difficult to pull it off. I've never been accused of being suave. I've never started a trend. Nothing I said went viral. I'm a non-influencer incarnate and incognito. — Bitter Crank

A new logical fallacy - the midwestern self-deprecatory self-ad hominem.

Once a matter is deferred to other people and their credentials or lack of them, the argument is weaker than one made by not relying upon those references. — Valentinus

Agreed, but there are times when credentials are relevant.

Where did I say this? I said: — Christoffer

Yes. I was overstating the case for rhetorical effect.

We can go back and forth in deciding when a personal attack is an appropriate argument. It would just be easier if people were clearer and didn't use jargon like "ad hominem." Instead of saying "That's an ad hominem argument," say "My educational status is not relevant to the argument I am making." The idea of a logical fallacy makes it easy for people on both sides not to face the real problems with inappropriate arguments.

The same rationale is why they exist. If a person has a legitimate argument then they wouldn't need to use a logical fallacy to convey it. Instead of explaining why this particular slippery slope argument is BS it's easier to generalize. It's like the philosophical equivalent of protesting being labeled a liar when you are not telling the truth. — Cheshire

If you're saying people call things logical fallacies because their too lazy to be more specific about their objections, I agree with you.

That is a matter of debate. But you could, for example, start with words and expressions that fall under the general category of "invective" or "insult" and that are instantly recognizable as such by most people. — Apollodorus

As you say, it's pretty clear to me when someone is just being insulting. It is less clear when it might be appropriate to raise questions about someone's personal characteristics in an argument.

This is a well thought out, clear, and useful discussion. Thanks.

As a general principle, insults and ad hominems do not contribute to civilized dialogue and I think they should not be allowed on a forum. — Apollodorus

Which brings us back to my original concern - What should be considered an ad hominem argument and when, if ever, is it appropriate.

After all, common folks (David Hume called them "vulgar") don't feel the need to justify their beliefs, why should I? — Wheatley

Justification is needed when time comes to use knowledge as the basis for action. Actions have risks, consequences. I can't make a reasoned decision about the possible outcome of an action unless I understand the factual basis of my understanding, the uncertainties associated with it, and the justification for it.

If you said that bartricks was not worth listening to on account of him being an obnoxious dimwit, you would not committing an ad hominem fallacy - on the contrary, you would be very reasonable. You would be committing the fallacy if you said that batricks' argument was refuted on account of him being an obnoxious dimwit, but who ever does that? — SophistiCat

Um... Hmm...Well... No comment.

I look at this Wiki page at least a few times a year, and I can say it has been changed a lot over time. Have you read the section https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Criticism_as_a_fallacy and the references for it? — baker

Yes, I did read it. Here it is.

Walton has argued that ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue, as when it directly involves hypocrisy, or actions contradicting the subject's words.

The philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that ad hominem reasoning (discussing facts about the speaker or author relative to the value of his statements) is essential to understanding certain moral issues due to the connection between individual persons and morality (or moral claims), and contrasts this sort of reasoning with the apodictic reasoning (involving facts beyond dispute or clearly established) of philosophical naturalism.

I think this gets to the heart of the difficulties in the way we use the term - the ambiguity and uncertainty.

Sure, but whence this desire to build an empire, whence the motivation for it, whence the justification for the killing, raping, and pillaging? — baker

As far as I can tell, as soon as people started gathering in large groups, their leaders started wanting the groups and the area controlled to get larger. There have been hundreds of empires throughout history. I'm reading a neat book right now - "The Mongoliad" by Neal Stephenson and others. It's about the Mongol invasion of the west in the 1200s. This relatively small band of people took over everything from India to Poland. It lasted for two Khans and then dissolved when one of them died. It kept popping up in different locations in different incarnations for a couple of hundred years. There have been a bunch of empires - Roman, Hunic, Holy Roman, British, French, Spanish, Uyghur, many Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Moghul, Russian, and on an on. Let's not forget Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. I don't understand it, but it's just the way people are.

Many thanks for such a masterly reply to my question which guided me towards remembering what I first read back in the early 1970s when I started to read philosophy at the new British Open University and found that wonderful arrogant piece from Ayer’s Language Truth and Logic that, “metaphysical statements such as “God exists” are unverifiable and meaningless.” — Brian Leahy

I'm a little lost in this conversation, which is fine. For what it's worth, my memory of Collingwood is that he identified "There is a God" as an absolute presupposition for the practice of science. It was my understanding that he meant that as a statement that we live in a lawful universe. @tim wood - Do you remember this? Do you see it the same way I do?

That's true but you can have religious empires so the question is where to draw the line between the empire building and the religion as the source.
I think its a worthwhile distinction to make. — DingoJones

Agreed.

Looking at the list in Wikipedia, it seems to me that most wars are caused by empire building, even when the entities involved have strong religious connections, e.g. the Muslim expansion into India. I would be interested to hear differing opinions from someone who knows better than I.

It's so interesting to see you all focusing on this out of the entirety of my argument. It's like you don't get my point whatsoever. — Christoffer

I didn't think I had anything of interest to offer about your entire argument. It's not something I have strong feelings about. On the other hand, I am quick to pick up on specious arguments against religion, "the church starts all the wars" in particular.

I'd say that religious beliefs and similar irrational ideals were the core of most wars and conflicts. — Christoffer

We're talking about religion, not "similar irrational ideals." Here's a link to Wikipedia "List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_anthropogenic_disasters_by_death_toll

It would be wrong to classify most of the wars listed as religious wars, even though they might have had religious components. In general, even most wars where religion was heavily involved were primarily to build empires.

I was so puzzled by how many children believed in Santa Claus, when I knew that there was no evidence for such a person. I knew that my parents gave presents to me and the chimneys were blocked. Personally, I find the idea of Santa Claus as one of the most unhelpful ideas, although I do see this as a basis for thinking about the fictionious, especially in the ideas presented to children. — Jack Cummins

I like the idea of Santa Claus. I think it, along with other things, teaches kids that the world cares for them. That they belong here. Santa certainly isn't necessary for that, but it's an important lesson children need. They need to build a world for themselves that they can trust and believe.

Not many major wars and conflicts have been done without any religious themes. — Christoffer

This is not true at all except in the most trivial sense.

So, with that in mind, what's wrong with asking if some ontological entity obtains as a fact, in resolving how it obtains as one of factual or some intersubjective sort? — Shawn

People know how to talk about Santa Claus and Pegasus the same way we know how to talk about Joe Biden and shoe horns; love and chickens; and coelacanths and electrons. After a certain age and with a certain level of education, we know what other people mean when they use these words. There isn't any confusion.

Serious question - Given all that, does it matter whether the existence or reality of something is a fact?

But if life is considered to be the greatest gift, then why are so many of us ignoring the looming erasure? Could it be that we do not actually truly believe that life is good?

If we truly feared death, then we would all be focused on figuring out how to stop it from happening. — darthbarracuda

I'm 69. I'm not ignoring my death as it get's inevitably closer, but I'm very likely to die within the next 20 years. I'm leading a pretty good life. I love my family and most of them love me. My children are people I like and respect and they like and respect me. I'm retired so I can pretty much do as I want as long as I'm not excessive, which my wife and I are not by nature. I can swim at the YMCA every day if I want.

As Woody Allen said, "I'm not afraid of dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens." I don't want to live forever. 100,000,000,000 people have died since homo sapiens got started. That's 10,000 generations give or take. Grandparents, parents, children, grand children over and over 2,500 times. My great grandmother, who was still alive when I was a baby was a baby during the US Civil War. Dying is one of the most human things we can do.

I've always been interested in and good at science and math. When I was young - still in high school on into college, materialism and determinism seemed self-evident to me. After I dropped out of school, I didn't really think about it much for 20 or 30 years, even when I went back and got my engineering degree 15 years later.

When I started paying more attention to philosophy and the nature of reality, two things became clear to me. 1) the nature of reality is a metaphysical question - the various answers people have found are not true or false. They are useful or not useful in particular situations. 2) there are ways of seeing things that are more useful for me than a materialist perspective. The idea that there is an objective reality is one we can choose to follow or not without undermining the basis of science.

We can't all be mods, the mods keep this forum running, and it's a good forum. It can't simply be anything goes with no guidelines, it would devolve into chaos in a couple of nanoseconds. — Wayfarer

I agree, but the moderators still have the responsibility to provide fair, reasonable, and consistent decisions.

The rule in this forum is in the hands of an oligarchy. There may be nothing inherently wrong with that. My point is that this little group of all-powerful ppl only hears dissent AFTER it has acted...never, before. — Todd Martin

Yes. Baden et. al. are all-powerful rulers over a tiny, tiny kingdom.

Why don't we put this episode of "Bannings" out of it's misery.

I suggest that any moderator who is inclined to ban someone first publish his thoughts here, and invite the forum to weigh in on his opinion before he take action. — Todd Martin

Even I, who has taken strong exception to some of the moderator's recent bannings, think that is a terrible idea. I'm sure others will point out that the forum is not a democracy.

I'm not sure the constitutes a feature, but here goes:

There have been a few what I consider unnecessary bannings recently, in particular of fairly new members. Some of those were for people whose posts I found interesting. I am not here to relitigate those decisions, but I think the forum needs new voices. I think it is worth some effort to keep people here.

I think there should be an intermediate step before someone is banned, suspension. If someone runs afoul of the moderators, they can be suspended for two weeks or a month. That will give everyone a chance to cool off before things blow up and people get offended. In cases of particularly egregious behavior, the moderators can decide to go directly to banning. I know this has been suggested before. I've heard the arguments against it but never found them very convincing.

I’m in love with my own opinion, and I don’t want to be. I want a divorce. I want her to leave me alone. — James Riley

Thanks for the opportunity to pull out one of my favorite quotes:

To believe our own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, -- that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost,--and our first thought, is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment.

When Emerson says "genius" he doesn't mean Einstein genius, he means our essence, self, who we are.

I couldn't see any feminist approach to Iris's comments and she didn't really make any arguments. She just kept saying that transgender people offended her sense of being a woman, — Jack Cummins

Her comments made sense to me. I can understand why a woman would be upset by the way the definition of the word "woman" being changed without a thought for the implications for women in general.

and she just kept writing repetitive posts, and not taking on board anyone else's point of view at all. — Jack Cummins

As @Bitter Crank noted, if repetitive posts were a good reason for banning, the tumbleweeds would be blowing through the empty streets of the Philosophy Forum. I also didn't see anyone else "taking on board" her point of view.

She'd been here for less than a day for goodness sakes.

He's just trying to provoke a response. The idea that Iris was banned because she's a feminist is one of the stupidest things I've heard claimed on this thread. — Baden

I don't think she was banned for being a feminist. I think she was banned for forcefully expressing a reasonable feminist position that wasn't in line with the forum's orthodoxy.

On the other hand, the claim that @Iris0 was banned for low quality posts is ridiculous.

Thank goodness. She was extremely determined in expressing her views. — Jack Cummins

I just went and looked through @Iris0's posts, such as they are. Generally they seemed on target and reasonable. It was certainly clear that she felt strongly about the transgender issue. She expressed herself harshly, but she made good points. I didn't see anything that stepped over the line.

I think this is just one more sign that strong feminists are not welcome here on the forum.

Being distances itself from itself in ways that create myriad, unique, fleeting perspectives from which to experience itself, and each person is one of these perspectives. — charles ferraro

I hope this doesn't seem off-topic to you. It's what came to mind when I read the above. This is from a post Wayfarer made last week.

This idea is not dissimilar to one in many of Alan Watt's books. For example The Book: on the Taboo against Knowing who you Are, which 'delves into the cause and cure of the illusion that the self is a separate ego. Modernizes and restates the ancient Hindu philosophy of Vedanta and brings out the full force of realizing that the self is in fact the root and ground of the universe.' Watts does bring an element of the 'divine play', the game that Brahman plays by manifesting as the multiplicity, each part of which then 'forgets' its relation to the whole. — Wayfarer

Unfortunate overlap with the convo here but he insisted I was a liar and wouldn't cooperate until I admitted it. Probably, he really believed that and there wasn't much point in trying to convince him otherwise. — Baden

You should be ashamed of yourself.

Beyond that, this thread where we all say snotty things behind the backs of those who can no longer defend themselves sets a very poor example from the top. — Foghorn

This is something that has always bothered me. If it's important that the person be kicked out in order to maintain the quality of the forum, so be it. Gloating once it's done is stomach-turning. It's especially distressing when it comes from moderators.

If atheism is defined as a disbelief in the existence of gods, — Pinprick

It can also be defined as a lack of belief in the existence of gods. Many atheists are like that. They haven't seen any convincing evidence and haven't had any relevant personal experience. Many don't have any particular need or desire to take it any farther than that. Why put energy into something that doesn't seem relevant to your life?

The people you are talking about have a positive belief that there is no God or gods. With that belief, you have the usual problem with proving a negative. From what I've seen, most of such atheists argue from an anti-religion position. Arguments against god are used as part of an argument to de-legitimize specific religions or religion in general.

If climate change brings the hammer down on civilization, we might eventually return to Bronze Age culture, which was stagnant. But the average person would know of no alternative, so wouldn't attribute any suffering to it. — frank

Even without some sort of civilization-wide catastrophe, the Earth's population is predicted to stop growing in the next 50 to 100 years. That's when we'll find out whether a society and economy without growth can work. You and I won't be here to see. It will be interesting, but I worry for my children and their children.

That’s right. So what’s all this fuss about homosexuals demanding equal rights? People just aren’t ready for it. Oh, wait… — Joshs

How does this apply to what I wrote?

I can sort of understand that objection, but I don't think that that's Harry's objection. His objection seems to be that his definition of "woman" is the correct one, and so people who use the word differently are incorrect and delusional. — Michael

I think you and I agree at least on what the issues are and what the right questions are. Part of the reason these discussions rarely go anywhere is that people are arguing completely different issues, as you note.

Whether the initial evaluation for hormones is done by the hormone prescriber or by a mental health professional, criteria for starting hormones are the same: the presence of persistent GD, the ability to give informed consent, and relative mental health stability.

If I were certain that all these criteria were being applied effectively in the great majority of cases, a lot of my concerns would be addressed.

Of course, this came along a while ago , with works like Butler’s Gender Trouble more than 30 years ago. — Joshs

Women got the right to vote in the US 101 years ago. And that was not the beginning.

I do not only feel deeply offended by I do not understand what is there in this sort of --- strange discussions — Iris0

Seems like you are saying what I said, just more forcefully. As I said, I can understand your point. I think it's a good argument. I think I would be angry too.

no - they are at the very depth of who we are it is more than just an identity it is the entire being we are — Iris0

I agree, but I'm 69 years old. I don't know what comes next and my opinion will matter less and less the older I get. I won't be the one who has to deal with whatever changes are to come.

There is an obvious difference between a biological female and a transsexual, but you wish to call them both women because those differences are irrelevant to you day to day (but not if you were a gynecologist or surfing a dating app for example). — Hanover

Maybe this is the heart of the matter - are the differences between a biological female and a transsexual irrelevant. As you point out, there are certainly situations where they are not. Are we ready to say that, except in a limited area related to biological function and medical practice, men and women should be treated exactly the same? I'm not sure how I'd answer that.

You're welcome to live in the past if you want, but it seems strange to fight against the evolution of language. Why are you so opposed to us using the term "woman" to refer to people other than those with XX chromosomes and born with a womb, a vagina, ovaries, etc.? — Michael

I agree with most of what you've written, but I can understand the resistance to redefining the word "woman." I think many people, including many women, feel that changing the definition of "woman" is disrespectful and risky. It's taken decades, centuries to start changing the political and social status of women. Then this comes along and muddies the waters. An extreme example is the controversy about transgender women competing in women's athletics.

I especially worry that making sex redefinition too easy will hurt vulnerable people, e.g. children and the mentally ill. Medical intervention can have, will probably have, serious and irreversible effects. Adolescents and some adults are not mature and knowledgeable enough to make those kinds of decisions.