Your circumlocutions are making me nauseous, Outlander. :wink:

The way I put it was inadequate. What I should have said is that those who disagree with the OP find that statement, or more specifically its role in @Philosophim's argument, to be problematic.

EDIT: It's what is implied by "the default goes to sex" that's the problem, namely that we can be satisfied with the definition of "man" and "woman" as relating solely to biology.

The reason I posted was to try and understand the impasse between OP and @Banno. — Outlander

:up:

Otherwise, I still have no idea what you meant by "behavior no person of any sex or society should tolerate."

For what it's worth, the OP's substantive claim is this:

Most of the world does not view man and woman by gender, but by sex, so the default goes to sex. — Philosophim

Most of those who disagree with the OP therefore disagree with this claim or with its significance.

to normalize behavior no person of any sex or society should tolerate, let alone normalize — Outlander

What behaviour are you referring to here?

I'm sure Banno is perfectly capable of referencing that if that was his intention. From my point in the context of the discussion, I did not feel that Wittenstein's term was what was implied. Its odd that out of that entire discussion you pulled one line that really wasn't key to the core argument. Was this another attempt to make me look ignorant to persuade people I'm not worth listening to? Didn't really work Jamal. — Philosophim

No, I'm not trying to score points, just helping out by correcting your faulty interpretation, since I know @Banno better than you. There is never a time when he says "language game" and does not mean it in the Wittgensteinian sense.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there is never a time when any seasoned philosophical thinker, in the Western tradition, uses the term "language game" and does not mean it in the Wittgensteinian sense.

I recall I clearly pointed out how you are NOT being friendly or honest in your critique. I have yet to see you even attempt to tackle that, look inward a bit, or even an apology or an attempt to start over. Nice try. — Philosophim

I don't think there is anything in this post—the post with which I today re-entered the discussion—which is unfriendly or dishonest. Can you point it out?

Is it because I said "the exchange between us got heated," rather than directly apologizing for calling your post stupid? I thought it was better not to bring it up, in my effort to start again. It seemed accurate at the time, because your post dismissed my critique without taking it seriously, and refused the chance to learn. I count this as classic stupidity. However, I did not say that you were stupid. Even geniuses have stupid moments sometimes.

Prejudice seemed like a good explanation for this behaviour, so maybe that's what I believed about your motivation. But as I said, I re-opened the exchange today because on the basis of other posts of yours which I've read in the interim, I've grown to believe that I was wrong about that. I was open about this; it's pretty bad form to again complain about the very thing I am attempting to reverse (my hasty and disgusted withdrawal from the discussion).

By starting it off saying my original post was prejudiced without explaining why? Good faith wouldn't have been trying to defend yourself two months after the fact and complimenting another poster I've been discussing with as "Having a strong argument" without any reason why. Please. — Philosophim

I specifically said that I no longer believe you were motivated by prejudice. May I humbly request that you read my posts more carefully?

Yes Jamal. You're wrong. You were wrong on your first logical fallacy post, wrong on the second double down post, and are wrong in trying to save face instead of moving on. I really have nothing else to say to you as you have done nothing to prove to me you have any intention of an honest debate. — Philosophim

Let's start again. I apologize for calling your post stupid. I should not have done it, because it was not conducive to reasoned discussion.

But you have not addressed my criticisms:

our OP seems reducible to this syllogism:

1. A man is an adult human male.
2. A trans man is not an adult human male.
3. Therefore a trans man is not a man.

(The same pattern for “woman”; and “male” understood biologically.)

In isolation, this does not technically beg the question, because the conclusion isn't present in the premises. But it does beg the question in the context of the debate, because the very meaning of "man" and "woman" is exactly what is disputed—and you stipulate one of the contested meanings as a premise.

And in your concluding paragraph you say this:

"So are transwomen women? Are transwomen men? No. The terms man and woman indicate a person's age and sex, not gender." — Philosophim

So your OP effectively does this:

1. Assume the contested definition.
2. Derive a conclusion that follows only under that definition.
3. Present the conclusion as if it supports the definition.

This is classic begging the question. — Jamal

And I also showed that I was not committing an ad hominem fallacy:

I wasn’t attacking your character. I was criticising your assumptions—specifically that you presuppose a contested definition and ignore the relevant existing counterarguments. That is a critique of reasoning, not of person.

This is where the two points connect. Saying "you haven't addressed X" is not personal; it is a point about dialectical completeness. My claim is that your argument stipulates the very definition of "man" and "woman" that's being disputed, and therefore does not engage with those philosophical analyses which define those terms differently. — Jamal

Can you respond to this? Can you show in what way I was doing an ad hominem? You argue that this is the crucial ad hominem:

The debate has been going on for years, and you have made no attempt to research it or address the arguments that defend the notion that trans women are women etc — Jamal

But this is to accuse you of ignoring the relevant arguments in what is a debate which is not restricted to this thread or TPF, i.e., it is one that has been going on for years and has been addressed by philosophers. If you fail to address the debate, and instead assume precisely what is at issue, I think it's philosophically legitimate to point it out.

Please break down how my accusation is ad hominem.

But if you want, we can draw a line under all that, because there is too much baggage in it and the result will be more petty bickering and grandstanding. Instead, I can just ask you: do you agree that the OP assumes a definition which is the centrally contested definition in the debate over whether trans men are men etc? And how do you propose to support this definition? Since you did not support it in the OP, it's fair to ask you to face up to the relevant criticisms of your definition.

Crucially, I do not actually need to argue for my own understanding of "man" and "woman" to show that your reasoning is at fault, although it's fair that you ask me to make such an argument.

Meaning all you have in response to an honest and friendly critique is rhetoric, so it isn't worth pursuing in the philosophical spirit in which I intervened on both occasions (page 2 and today). Each time, you respond not with argument but effectively by sticking your fingers in your ears and attempting to disguise it with bluster. I admit it’s particularly galling this time around because I was very deliberately friendly, attempting to re-open the exchange in good faith.

It seems to me that you agree with me: that the OP does not in any way support your definition, since it stipulates it. Where is the argument for the definition of “man” and “woman” which the OP depends on? I have seen you appealing to common sense and repeatedly saying that it’s the most rational definition and so on, but that’s about it. Or am I wrong?

I should have known better.

Yeah, I've learned a lot from that thread too. I'm sure there are several books I've read because someone posted about them there. I've added several of your own choices to my reading list, though inevitably it has taken me a long time to get around to reading them.

Language games are attempts to use language to confuse concepts. — Philosophim

I'm just going to butt in here to point out that the term has a technical sense, to be found in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations:

2. A is building with building stones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass him the stones and to do so in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they make use of a language consisting of the words “block”, “pillar”, “slab”, “beam”. A calls them out; B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call. --- Conceive of this as a complete primitive language. — PI

7. We can also think of the whole process of using words in (2) as one of those games by means of which children learn their native language. I will call these games “language-games” and will sometimes speak of a primitive language as a language-game. And the processes of naming the stones and of repeating words after someone might also be called language-games. Think of certain uses that are made of words in games like ring-a-ring-a-roses. I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the activities into which it is woven, a “language-game”. — PI

EDIT: But note that these comments are not the last word on language games in PI. The point of quoting Wittgenstein is to show that the term has a philosophical meaning that is nothing to do with "confusing concepts".

Yes, and I want to keep it in a category which is not hidden from the main page.

@Philosophim

When I posted my contribution on page 2, the exchange between us got heated and I stepped back. But since you seem to me now to be motivated by some idea of philosophical clarity and rigour rather than by prejudice, I think it's worth my explaining more carefully what I meant, because it's directly relevant to how the discussion is unfolding now.

This was my earlier post:

Obviously if "man" is only about sex, trans men are not men. But this "if" is what is being debated, so you're just begging the question.

The debate has been going on for years, and you have made no attempt to research it or address the arguments that defend the notion that trans women are women etc., i.e., the arguments that try to show that the terms "man" and "woman" are more complex than your snappy definition allows.

See for example the idea that "man" and "woman" are cluster concepts:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/ — Jamal

There are two points here. I’ll start with the first: the accusation that your argument begs the question. Your OP seems reducible to this syllogism:

1. A man is an adult human male.
2. A trans man is not an adult human male.
3. Therefore a trans man is not a man.

(The same pattern for “woman”; and “male” understood biologically.)

In isolation, this does not technically beg the question, because the conclusion isn't present in the premises. But it does beg the question in the context of the debate, because the very meaning of "man" and "woman" is exactly what is disputed—and you stipulate one of the contested meanings as a premise.

And in your concluding paragraph you say this:

So are transwomen women? Are transwomen men? No. The terms man and woman indicate a person's age and sex, not gender. — Philosophim

So your OP effectively does this:

1. Assume the contested definition.
2. Derive a conclusion that follows only under that definition.
3. Present the conclusion as if it supports the definition.

This is classic begging the question.

But you deny it:

I'm not begging the question at all. Clearly defining terms then thinking if claims using those terms lead to logical outcomes is a normal discussion. You are very free to define 'man' in another way, you'll just need to argue why it is and if that definition makes sense in normal language use. If you want to argue a specific counter to the point I've made, feel free. — Philosophim

But in the OP (and in many of your later posts) you avoid doing precisely this. You insist on one definition but don’t properly engage with the arguments that challenge it. And that brings me to the second point.

As @Michael and @Banno have been getting at, there are serious philosophical arguments—cluster-concept analyses, social-kind analyses, externalist semantic approaches, etc.—that claim "man" and "woman" do not have the fixed boundaries your definition tries to impose. Pointing this out is not an ad hominem, contrary to what you said here:

Now this is a proper logical fallacy called Ad Hominem. You're attacking assumptions and qualifications about my character instead of addressing the points. — Philosophim

I wasn’t attacking your character. I was criticising your assumptions—specifically that you presuppose a contested definition and ignore the relevant existing counterarguments. That is a critique of reasoning, not of person.

This is where the two points connect. Saying "you haven't addressed X" is not personal; it is a point about dialectical completeness. My claim is that your argument stipulates the very definition of "man" and "woman" that's being disputed, and therefore does not engage with those philosophical analyses which define those terms differently.

That your syllogism is valid is trivial. The entire debate is about one of the premises. Everyone already agrees that if "man" is necessarily biologically male, then trans men are not men. To repeat, the dispute is over the "if".

NOTE: I haven't closely followed the discussion so if you have developed your argument to support the definition, I'd like to see it. But Banno seems to be mounting a strong challenge.

I haven't read them all but I get the impression that all his lectures from the late 50s through to the late 60s set the stage to varying degrees, allowing him to rehearse the ideas that found full theoretical articulation in ND.

I think this is the full list of his lecture courses published in English (though it includes other stuff too):

https://www.politybooks.com/author-books?author_slug=theodor-w-adorno

Fascinating stuff, thanks. I'll have to read it.

Not sure when I'll get back to ND. Soon I hope.

Videos like that are part of the problem, in my opinion. Even aside from the surface-level analysis, notice the constant background music, a distinctive feature of the products of the attention-economy. The point of background music is (a) to smooth everything out into an easily digestible paste, like baby food, (b) to give you a dramatic or portentous or serious or peaceful atmosphere in place of analysis and argument. The result is featureless and frictionless, lacking any ability to make you think again.

I'm lucky in finding constant background music almost unbearable.

What I find striking is that Thrasymachus just kind of rage-quits, yet his position wasn’t truly defeated; he simply abandoned the conversation. It makes you wonder whether "might makes right" rests on firmer ground than it first appears in the book. And of course, for Plato, someone who takes such a point of view had to appear as driven more by anger than by reason. — Zebeden

That's right. But Thrasymachus's psychological withdrawal sets the scene for the rest of the book, which is meant to defeat cynical nihilism philosophically, in a different way from that attempted in Book I—since direct refutation according to Thrasymachus's terms is shown not to be conclusive or persuasive.

You're not the sole vanguard of intellectual spaces online, need I remind you. — Outlander

I'm working on it.

I can browse most popular websites easily and with full functionality: Facebook, Twitter (X). Amazon, Google, banking websites, etc. Discourse is literally the only site I can recall that gives me the "your browser is out of date" spiel (along with reduced functionality) I have ever seen on this PC I've had for 5 years now. — Outlander

Those websites you mention are traditional multi-page applications, whereas Discourse is an SPA. That's the difference. I recall you and @Michael and I were talking about SPAs vs MPAs a couple of years ago.

And now, your worst fears have come true and TPF is becoming an SPA.

I am (now) on the most up to date version of Firefox: 115.30.0esr. That's the acronym of "Extended Support Release" I had posted prior, yes. The result is the same. Which again is no concern of mine. I don't think the presence or absence of the occasional emoticon or having to right-click on an image to view it's full link is anything worth giving a second thought about. If it were a more widespread issue, that might actually result in more than one or two disengagements or disinclination to participate, then yes. But if the statistics you read are accurate, no such concerns are present.

It's fairly interesting how, despite every single other site I browse being basically normal with full features (banking, eCommerce, social media, etc.) this one platform decides to be like "ok let's turn his experience into something from the 1990s" for seemingly no reason at all. But again, perhaps motives I've yet to understand are justified. — Outlander

Do you have JavaScript turned off? Discourse is basically a JavaScript application.

In any case I think you might have more trouble than you think, I'm sorry to tell you. It won't just be a matter of visual style, emojis and so on.

I have a feeling that the last time I used Windows it was Windows 7, and that feels like a whole lifetime ago: before I joined PF, before I got married, before I went housesitting around France, and before I had grey patches in my beard.

So, your image troubled me, because I do want to be inclusive. But there's a limit: according to StatsCounter, Windows 7 is 2.5% of the worldwide market share: 2.36% in the US, 1.9% in Europe, 0.28% in Asia, 2.56% in Africa, less than 1% down under. In my opinion that's not enough to demand we abandon Discourse.

Unfortunately this means you'll have trouble using the new forum unless you just use your phone, or—and you should sit down before you read this suggestion—update your operating system.

Actually you can apparently use Firefox ESR on Windows 7, but that's just what ChatGPT told me.

https://gs.statcounter.com/windows-version-market-share/desktop/worldwide

I found the relevant passage. It's a good one; I hadn't read it before.

As rococo horticulture arose from the feeling 'nature is ugly, savage, boring - come! let us beautify it! ' (embellir la nature) - so there again and again arises from the feeling ' science is ugly, dry, cheerless, difficult, laborious - come! let us beautify it!' something that calls itself philosophy. It wants, as all art and poetry want - above all to entertain: but, in accordance with its inherited pride, it wants to do this in a more sublime and exalted fashion and before a select audience. To create for these a horticulture whose principal charm is, as with the ' more common' kind, a deception of the eyes (with temples, di stant prospects, grottos, mazes, waterfalls, to speak in metaphors), to present science in extract and with all kinds of strange and unexpected illuminations and to involve it in so m uch indefiniteness, irrationality and reverie that one can wander in it ' as in wild nature' and yet without effort or boredom - that is no small ambition: he who has this ambition even dreams of thereby making superfluous religion, which with earlier mankind constituted the highest species of the art of entertainment. — Daybreak

I see this as a genealogical critique, an account of how philosophy came to be such a disappointment: the desire to entertain the elite.

But I don't think Nietzsche actually says or implies that the purpose of philosophy is entertainment. From what I have read (three to four of his books), he believes that philosophy at its best, i.e., genuine philosophy, is Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, the gay science: a joyous, playful, life-affirming creative activity.

Where he implies that philosophy is mere amusement, he is criticizing philosophers for their vanity, shallowness, habitual thinking, and so on.

And he is much closer to Plato than you might think—in some ways. He does, I think, believe that philosophy is a search for truth. It's just that their conceptions of the truth look very different.

EDIT: Incidentally, Adorno inherits this attitude of Nietzsche's in his negative dialectics, where philosophy is simultaneously (a) a playful and creative endeavour, and (b) a serious search for truth.

And what do you think of what they said?

One of the things I really like about PlushForums is that when I click on a discussion it takes me to the last comment I viewed, and not just the first/last page.

Does Discourse do that? — Michael

Yes.

Yeah, just had a look. Works quite nicely on the phone. That timeline thing sticks to the right of the posts on a pc, rather than floating.

Ah. Windows 7 is old so you can't run up-to-date browsers. ChatGPT told me "Use Firefox ESR. It’s the last modern browser that still supports Windows 7."

So I'm responsible for mental illness now? :wink:

Is there simply no pagination at all? — Outlander

I think that's right, yes.

I'm curious how that would work with a long discussion with say several hundred posts. Presumably you'd click a new topic and end up at the first post. There's surely some "jump to most recent post" or effective pagination link, yes? — Outlander

There's lots of in-discussion navigation conveniences, and you're taken to the last post you read, just like here. But why don't you go and have a look? Here's the meta.discourse.org topics ordered by number of replies descending:

https://meta.discourse.org/latest?ascending=false&order=posts

Now don't judge it too quickly. It'll take some getting used to for an old codger like you.

I think there's a confusion in many of the criticisms of Discourse. The software itself actually isn't resource-intensive for the client, i.e., in the browser when visiting, navigating within and using a Discourse forum (all else being equal); what is more challenging is hosting it properly, because it needs a lot of memory. If people have had the experience of slow Discourse forums this is often a server issue. That won't be an issue for a site hosted on discourse.org, so TPF will run well.

EDIT: But the first load can be slow, I grant you. It's always fast after that.

Discourse takes like 20+ seconds for me to load a page — unimportant

So when you went to that link I sent you, it took 20 seconds? I find that hard to believe. If so, I think your experience is unusual.

I don't care what people say about infinite scroll, won't change my mind. — unimportant

I see.

EDIT: Ok I did read the thread. I see a message claims that 'posts are loaded in and out while scrolling just the same as with pagination'.

Maybe true but I just prefer the old style even if performance is 1:1 the same, just because that is what I first learned and liked. — unimportant

Ok.

Let us move onto greener pastures, shall we? :smile: — Outlander

Let's hope that the admin at the new site doesn't somehow forget to approve his registration. :wink:

Read this discussion about infinite scroll:

https://meta.discourse.org/t/infinite-scrolling-is-a-total-pain/225532

A small minority of loudly opinionated people love to hate it but their reasoning rarely withstands scrutiny.

We'll be proven right to the world someday. Someday... :starstruck: — Outlander

Don't stop believing Outlander :strong:

Modern forums are great, and command line tools are great. Just yesterday I installed a dictionary and thesaurus on my computer which I can look up in the terminal. For example...

Actually though, it's not in fact a matter of "each to their own", since the old design is objectively bad, with overly long column widths for text being one of the worst aspects.

EDIT: I mean line lengths

Each to their own. I have always detested the old bulletin board design.

Can I ask why you have gone the subscription and premium forum software route rather than free and open source? — unimportant

Discourse is 100% free and open source. I'm just using it in the incarnation hosted by Discourse themselves. By paying them we keep a high quality open source project going. Plus I can move the site to my own server any time I want without even telling them (I just take a backup, available in admin).

So basically we're paying for top-class hosting and maintenance, and we get to take the software and data away with us any time we want.

I opted to do it this way for the reasons I explained. High performance and reliability without any server maintenance or performance enhancement responsibilities.

You could change technology, comply with the laws, without making a business and creating any of these client-service litigation risks. — boethius

You keep repeating the falsehood that operating as a company creates new risks. TPF is already a service, and I'm already a UK citizen. Creating the company will make no difference to risks or user rights. The only thing it will do is protect me personally (and make it a little bit more convenient to operate in some other ways).

I was serious when I said we've had enough of your posts in this discussion. You've had your say, I've taken your objections seriously, now stop.

Thanks, Leon, I appreciate the vote of confidence.

Questions and objections are very welcome—they help me publicly explain, for the benefit of other members who might be wondering the same things, what's been going on and the reasoning behind it.

But if @boethius was, as @Outlander said, "just trying to look out for the best interest of Jamal, and as a result, all of us," you have to wonder why he responded to every correction with an evasion such as "Well the main point is that..." Perhaps he got carried away. In the process he has damaged the thread and forced me to spend 7 or 8 hours researching and writing about the law, all to satisfy what appears to be idle fear-mongering from a single outlandishly prolific member. This is destructive, not constructive.

But I don't want to attack anyone; I just want to make it clear that this thread is not a platform for anyone to come along and flood it with runaway speculation. I want to keep space for genuine questions from everyone else.

So please, @boethius, no more. You've had your say, to put it mildly.

Pure fantasy.

What I've pointed out is that limited liability is not a guarantee, it's a privilege that can be challenged, so something Jamal must take into consideration. One classic way to find out you have no liability protections is if the plaintiff can demonstrate you created the business primarily to escape liability. — boethius

To escape an existing legal liability! Like I’m already facing a fine or a lawsuit and I form a company to escape the consequences. So you've misunderstood. It would not apply to TPF.