Re: OT fallacies

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Sat, 03 Jun 2006 02:34:56 GMT
Message-ID: <kz6gg.16776$A26.387732@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>

paul c wrote:
> mAsterdam wrote:
>

>> Marshall wrote:
>>
>>> Keith H Duggar wrote:
>>>
>>>> What BB wrote may be called an /insult/ but it is  not ad hominem 
>>>> since it is not even an argument. 
>>
>> Some selective snipping gives:
>>
>>  >>> What BB wrote ... is not even an argument.
>> True. No logic, no fallacy, just ad hominem.
>>
>> Nah. Not my style. I do not like it. I won't proceed that way.
>>
>>
>>>> Ad hominem refers to a fallacious
>>>> form of /argumentation/. BB's argumentation followed that
>>>> insult. The insult was not his argument. Do you understand?
>>>> You are not alone in this increasingly common misconception
>>>> that insult = ad hominem.
>>>
>>> Exactly.
>>>
>>> Some examples:
>>>
>>> "What you wrote is wrong, therefore you suck." Not ad-hominem.
>>>
>>> "You suck, therefore what you wrote is wrong." Ad-hominem.
>>>
>>> "You suck." Not ad-hominem.
>>>
>>>
>>> That is all.
>>
>> All three utterances are not by themselves
>> examples of the "ad-hominem" logical fallacy.
>> All of them are ad hominem (=personal) attacks,
>> though.
>>
>> Stuff like "[X], you are an idiot." and "With all
>> due respect, what on earth makes you think anything
>> you write is the least bit interesting?" does not
>> qualify as the "ad-hominem" logical fallacy when
>> not used as premisse.
>>
>> True, but that does not make it right.
>> ...

>
> No, at least not for a generation that will soon die off, but I'm happy
> to see that at least one trifler, ie. time waster (not you) has
> departed, at least for the time being. Maybe that's coincidence but the
> content since has been more stimulating for me, much less tiresome. MH
> and BB and a few others on the dbt side of the fence have brought up a
> couple of intriguing angles/notions to do with relational api's that I
> thought were long-lost.
>
> Once worked with a very capable guy (in his own area, not mine) who
> regularly went behind my back to the boss. Various polite tactics
> couldn't stop him. Finally couldn't help myself, blew my top and cursed
> him up and down in front of plenty of people. For some months after, he
> kept his mind on his own affairs. I eventually realized that the only
> way to prevent his pointless trouble-making was to chew him out in
> public as profanely as my imagination allowed every six months. That
> suited him too, as long as I remembered to blow my top twice a year, he
> avoided the skullduggery and was friendly and polite to me, plus
> reasonable when our components needed to cooperate. I'm not claiming to
> understand how personalities work, just noting one I observed.
>
> No idea what makes some people tick, maybe that's why I like machines,
> but I come here looking for food for thought, not friends, and will put
> up with any personality that can put certain ideas I'm interested in
> better than I can, in fact the best teachers/bosses I've had all called
> me an idiot at some time or other. I could care less if they liked me,
> even less if the poorer ones called me names. Also no idea whether I'm
> on BB's plonk list but here's an idea for somebody who isn't.

No, not at all. You have shown no evidence of intellectual dishonesty or self-aggrandizing ignorance.

You don't seem to waste my time, and you don't sell snake oil that I am aware of. Received on Fri Jun 02 2006 - 21:34:56 CDT