And when the mothership comes to save us, you're not invited! Mwhaha!

The fallacy of the artificial example. Some things just don't happen in the real world. Keep it real.

Is it ever based on competence? — Tom Storm

How could it possibly be, when we're embedded in some form of social hierarchy and competition or other? Even at an online discussion forum, if the mods and the Old Boys come in and tell you you're wrong, then you're wrong. If you still believe you're right, there will be no place for you at such a forum.

Some kind of competence is only significant when all the people involved are well-intended enough toward eachother, so that they suspend their usual commitment to hiearchy and competition. Ideally, a team that is working together on solving a problem is like that.

Further, for all practical intents and purposes, competence includes reading the social system correctly and responding accordingly.
For example, a student majoring in philosophy has to be careful not to disagree with their philosophy teacher, regardless of the good arguments the student believes to have. Because such disagreement could cost them a good grade or worse. (It's why a formal study of philosophy is a contradiction in terms.)

If someone were to say "Einstein was wrong about the speed of light," I think it would be reasonable for me to ask how the person is qualified to make that statement. — T Clark

I see no need to make it personal like that. If one is so inclined to have a conversation on the topic of Einstein being wrong about the speed of light, one can simply summon the claimant to elaborate, explain, and then take it from there.

If, however, one were to assume that a person's academic credentials or lack thereof is a reason to dismiss their claim at the onset, then one is venturing into the territory of the fallacious ad hominem.

As you well know, nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition. — T Clark

But MP taught us to.

So why cast an insult as a response to an argument being made if it's not an attempt to invalidate the argument that they made? — Harry Hindu

Sometimes (often), the insulting party expects that the insultee will infer the intended argument, based on the discussion thus far. People usually don't speak in concise syllogisms, but use other forms of discourse, often skipping some steps (under the assumption that the reader will be able to correctly infer them themselves). When a discussion begins to contain insults, this can be taken as a clue to infer what argument is actually being made prior to that, it tends to be possible to (re)construct it.

Of course you have the freedom to say what you want. But others have the freedom not to accomodate you.
Your freedom of speech doesn't obligate others to provide the material means for your speech (tv channel, radio station, publishing books and magazines, etc.). Those material means you need to fund yourself.

Why should they accomodate you? Can you explain?

Don't have enough time and money to do philosophy

What are you trying to get out of doing philosophy? What do you hope to achieve by it?

Why limit yourself with reason. Transcend reason. Be a force of nature
— Wittgenstein
I don't want to. — Wheatley

Then you will be trod upon.
Just because philosophizers don't use AK 47s doesn't mean they aren't engaging in battle.

I didn't mean to be cynical. But in general, human interactions are hierarchical and/or competitive. Setting oneself up as the authority on what should count as standards of rationality (and on what is real) is a matter of social hierarchy and competition.

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. — T Clark

Well, this is just a philosophy discussion forum, not the Holy Inquisition. So, no pressure.

But I really don't see why we should buy into the notion that going green will harm our economy or weaken our country.
This is straight out of conservative media. — Xtrix

Not for me, though. I'm extrapolating from my own example. For instance, in terms of clothing: I buy about 5 quality clothing items per year and I intend to be able to wear them for at least three years. And once the clothes are so worn that they can't be mended and worn for dirty work around the house and in the garden anymore, I make blankets for cats out of them or use them as cleaning rags. I do this not out of frugality, nor out of concern for ecology, but out of an old-fashioned sense for making good use of things. I extrapolate that if more people would do that, the textile industry as we know it (which is a major polluter, and employer) would collapse, because people would buy only a fraction of the clothing items they do now.

It's similar with other products. For example, I expect washing machines and refrigerators should last at least 10 years. And there was a time when they did, they lasted even 20 or 30 years. But this way, too few were sold to keep the industry profitable, so the manufacturers began to decrease the quality and build in weaknesses, so that now, we're lucky if a washing machine lasts 5 years. But they get to make more money!

So how do you propose to change this?

It's not like we're at a philosophy forum or anything, dude.

the worst of all is the overbearing belief that some people have in their own superiority. — Sir2u

Will the irony never end!


Anyway, I'd like to see the OP's reply -- ! -- that's why I posted in this thread to begin with.

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

(See the linked resources above.)

Non-fallacious ad hominems can often be found and made when it comes to issues of morality, religion, and spirituality.

Some more resources:


In brief, if the characteristics of a person constitute a disconfirming instance of what that person claims, then an argumentum ad hominem is not a fallacious. If the person making a claim individually embodies a counterexample which disproves that person's own claim, then it is not a fallacy to point out this fact to that person. At the same time, many ad hominem arguments provide some evidence and in those cases cannot be considered completely irrelevant arguments.

https://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/person.html

(See list of examples)

* * *

The major difficulty with labeling a piece of reasoning an Ad Hominem Fallacy is deciding whether the personal attack is relevant or irrelevant. For example, attacks on a person for their immoral sexual conduct are irrelevant to the quality of their mathematical reasoning, but they are relevant to arguments promoting the person for a leadership position in a church or mosque.

https://iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#AdHominem

I am really sorry to say that this makes no sense. If people don't have characteristic that would exist regardless of the observer then there is nothing to talk about here. — Sir2u

One can always talk about one's own perceptions and formulate one's verbal expressions accordingly. It's a whole other world of interacting with people.

Also, "aggravating" is not the same kind of personal characteristic like "Caucasian".
— baker

Both are descriptive of people, one is physical the other is personality. Did you just figure that out or do you think I am not able to recognize the difference.

That's not the difference I'm talking about.
Whether someone is Caucasian or not is not up to you (except if you were in some racial identity comission or some such).
But whether someone "is" aggravating or not is 1. up to you, and 2. how you interact with that person.

The same person can "be" aggravating or not, possibly depending on how one treats them. Which just goes to show that it's not their personal characteristic, but an interactional one.

You're externalizing, you talk of other people as if you're the one who decides who they really are or what is true about them.
— baker
Exactly where did I say something like that?

In the way you formulate your statements.
As if "Tom is aggravating" would ontologically and epistemologically be the same type of statement as "A cube has 6 surfaces."

I am the one that decides what I think about them, or is that not obvious to you?

Except that you don't formulate it as your thought, as your opinion, but as if it were an objective fact about the other person.

You use you-messages, not I-messages. Most people are like that. But it still makes for very low quality interactions.
— baker
Again I do not understand what you are trying to say. Maybe you could give an example of what I have said that makes you think something like this.

Have you read the link?

You said things like "this makes no sense", "people that ask pointless questions". You didn't say "I don't understand this" (until now, after all my trying to change the mode of the conversation).

Given people do precisely this, it must be true. I think for all the lofty talk about meaning requiring some transcendent foundation, I believe people obtain meaning from being in the world, interacting and doing things. Possessions, nature, music, food, friends, family, home, whatever you are into is where your meaning comes from. I believe this is true for theists and atheists alike. — Tom Storm

Of course, but this thread is about the proverbial foxholes. Ie. those times and places when health and wealth are gone, when friends, family, home are gone.

But then decides that they are both arseholes — Sir2u

So what? If they don't think they are arseholes, they are wrong, in denial?

We're talking past eachother ...

I'm saying that other people don't have characteristics that would exist or have relevance regardless of the observer.
Also, "aggravating" is not the same kind of personal characteristic like "Caucasian".

You're externalizing, you talk of other people as if you're the one who decides who they really are or what is true about them. You use you-messages, not I-messages. Most people are like that. But it still makes for very low quality interactions.

It seems to me that by nature, people wouldn't just take from others and they would show a measure of consideration for others. It takes some kind of ideology that makes them override those natural impulses. You can observe the genesis of such an ideology with Nazism: It seems that merely saying "We Germans have more right to existence than other nations" wasn't enough to move people into action, so they invented a whole ideology of Aryan supremacy that made it seem justified to invade other countries and take their resources.

Here’s what Wikipedia says. — T Clark

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?

I have trouble with so-called “logical fallacies.” A lot of them don’t make sense to me. I think they disallow what seem to me to be perfectly reasonable arguments. They are also often, usually? misused by people who don’t understand them. They whip them out like yellow cards as if they are the referee. As if it makes them seem like they know what they are talking about. — T Clark

Some old textbooks (not in English) on the topic of "introduction to critical thinking and informal logic" had a nice introduction where the context of informal fallacies was explained -- when is it appropriate to call something a fallacy and when not. Unfortunately, while there are many resources for informal fallacies on the internet, I don't know of any that would have such an introduction like those old textbooks. I'll keep looking though, because it would often come handy.

But in general, unless someone writes out their argument in the form of a concise syllogism, the conversation should be counted as a discussion, a work in progress, a mutual effort, and while it is still just that, it would be overreaching to already call out fallacies.

Accept the way things are. Know what difference one can make. Be content with what one does and/or has done. — creativesoul

This sounds awfully abstract.

I also don't understand this idea of being "frugal." — Xtrix

To protect the environment, people would need to radically decrease consumption in general and establish ways to produce less harmful and longer lasting products.

It has to do with legislation and trillions of dollars of investments. — Xtrix

How? By inventing new ways of producing electrical energy, inventing wrapping materials that aren't as harmful as plastics, and such?

The way I see it, the problem is in the ordinary greed and gluttony of the everyman, the end consumer. Legislation has no power over those.

The game is played using one's free play of imagination and understanding, one's reason and logic in harmony with one's irrationality and intuition. In this foxhole of sometimes crisis and chaos, rather than timorously looking outwards for imagined support and consolation, to look courageously inwards in order to find the strength in the reality of one's own existence.

IE, meaning comes from playing the game using the human spirit of imagination and understanding. — RussellA

But the religious can actually say the same thing!

Of course it has something to do with them both. One has a low tolerance for a specific characteristic of the other. For example, I have a low tolerance for people that ask pointless questions, therefore those that have a tendency to do that irritate me. — Sir2u

So you neither feel nor take any responsibility for how you feel about (and react to) others.

It must be terrible to have one's state of mind so affected/directed by others.

Looking at the list in Wikipedia, it seems to me that most wars are caused by empire building — T Clark

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

It does seem that it is religion that gives people those: "You are God's chosen people, therefore, you can take from others, even with lethal force, but others may not take from you."

But it's not happening quickly enough — Xtrix

Exactly.

Lastly, talking about risking the economy "collapsing" is ridiculous. We have an asteroid heading to Earth, and we're worried about whether the cost of blowing it up will sink the economy? It's completely insane.

Your precious economy doesn't mean shit if we're all dead.

People generally seem to believe there is an important difference between intentionally doing something that can result in outcome X, as opposed to going on as usual and letting outcome X happen on its own.

Intentionally becoming frugal is a deliberate attack on the economy that will likely result in its collapse, and relatively quickly at that. This is something people will feel responsible for.
Whereas doing "business as usual", even though it will probably also result in economical collapse, is not such an attack. This is something people will not feel responsible for.

People could probably adapt and become more frugal, and theoretically, this might even be possible to do gradually enough to prevent the economy from collapsing. But by then, it'll probably be too late for the planet.

Who decides what is justified and what is not? — Wheatley

Those who are superior to you in a particular context. E.g. your teacher in school, or your boss at work.

What standard do we have to judge whether a believe is justified?

The standard of the person who has more power in the institutional hierarchy than you.

But the question remains, what do you when the "enemy" gives you no other option? — Apollodorus

By that time, it's too late anyway. That's why it's so important to live in such a way that you either don't make enemies at all, or you become so big and powerful that nobody dares to mess with you.

I for one, tend to believe that humans should try and evolve and leave well behind them the stage of violence as a "solution" to problems. — Apollodorus

This is not a realistic possibility, because natural resources are scarce, and as such, need to be fought for, in one way or another.

On topic, I'd never really considered the fact that the whole notion of 'no atheists in foxholes' is a comment less about atheists than it is about religion - the fact that religion is what one turns to when one is in a desperate, base situation of immanent death. — StreetlightX

But is this really a fact?
Do you know of any study that shows that in the face of grave danger or hardship, (previously non-religious) people tend to turn to religion, and, more importantly, find solace in it?

I suppose that in the face of grave danger or hardship, many people probably do consider religion, but I doubt many find solace in it, or only for a relatively short time.

(For example, a Hare Krishna insider told me that by their informal estimate, 80% of newly joined people leave within their first five years in the religion.)

As far as life being an absurdity without religion, I find the opposite to the case - that religion appeals to the fascist in all of us, who wants to be told what to do by way of some prior cosmic ordering. It is a trembling before freedom, rooted in fear, expressed in the arrogation of tribal campfire stories to cosmic proportion. — StreetlightX

I don't see religion that way at all. I grew in a monoreligious monoculture. From what I've seen, religious people don't care about the religious teachings at all; it's all just for show and keeping up appearances, apparently for the purpose of playing power games and maintaining social order. These people live artfully crafted double lives: with an official, public face, and a private one that is quite unaffected by the public one. Those who end up troubled and traumatized are the ones who weren't able to build and maintain this dichotomy.

I suppose things are different for religious people who live as religious minorities, or in religiously diverse cultures.

EDIT: I seem to be largely defending religion atm. I have no explanation for that. — Kenosha Kid

We're at a philosophy forum, where critical thinking shall reign supreme!

Empirically proving what a particular war was (actually) about is virtually impossible. So as much as one might dislike religion, there are things one cannot say about it without thereby losing one's self-respect as a lover of wisdom.

When I got home a friend asked if I'm religious now. I replied sincerely: fuck off. — Christoffer

Not that I wished this upon you, but it would be more relevant for the OP topic to see your reaction and your attitude toward life if the accident would leave you permanently and severely disabled. If you could still be so cheerfully saying that life is meanigless.

Okay then. X is not given to us by a creator. We are not born with X. Does it follow that X is, at best, an illusion? — Kenosha Kid

Not if the creator has a thing for tormenting some of his children. Why on earth should the creator abide by the motto of the French revolution?!

I would add that philosophically, I find atheism barren, because the implications are that life is an absurdity - a thought Camus was very familiar with. — Wayfarer

My issue with atheism is that it's a fairweather friend. Atheism, and along with it, hedonism, nihilism, pessimism are all fine and well -- as long as health and wealth last. But they are not conducive to living a productive life, and they are especially not conducive to rebuilding one's life once health and wealth are lost.

What is important about religion is finding the source of what Christians call agapé, unconditional compassion, and what Buddhists call bodhicitta

Why do you think this is important?

Yes, they mean something by there words, but that does not mean that there must be some actual object that corresponds to the words. — Fooloso4

Not my problem. I only go where the syllogism takes me.

You've lost track of the argument:

No, you keep mixing discourses, mixing the argument prodived by religion with the one provided by you.

First, whether or not the second premise is true or false it is a syllogism, and thus demonstrates that God's justice cannot be concluded syllogistically.

God is defined as just to begin with. I'm not going to argue with definitions, for crying out loud.

Second, if the second premise is false then you are denying that there is injustice in the world. Now, you say:

Do I personally think there is injustice in the world? Of course I do.
— baker

So, the second premise is not false after all.

And what did I say after that? I sed:

Do monotheists think there is injustice in the world? They can't, unless they run into some inconsistency with their definition of "God", or it turns out they worship a demigod. — baker

It's one thing to make arguments about religion from the perspective of said religion,
and quite another from one's own personal perspective.

The latter is irrelevant to the validity of the religious argument. Its soundness is another matter (and mostly moot, as far as religious claims go.)

But the meaninglessness of the game may be the very meaning that you are searching for. A Dadaesque rejection of reason and logic for irrationality and intuition, a Continental rather than analytic approach.

As Duchamp wrote: "All this twaddle, the existence of God, atheism, determinism, liberation, societies, death, etc., are pieces of a chess game called language, and they are amusing only if one does not preoccupy oneself with 'winning or losing this game of chess.” — RussellA

And, of course, he was sipping latte in the shade of his villa while he penned those thoughts, eh.

If like the original poster you're making the claim that being well-adjusted to society isn't better for your healthy than being maladjusted, then it's up to you to elucidate this strange theory of yours by which getting on the bad side of society is somehow going to make you healthier. — Paul

It's not my "theory", duh. Jesus. This is a philosophy forum, we shouldn't have to put up with misrepresentation like that.

I'm defining health as a matter of... health. Living longer, having fewer diseases, being happier, not being in the dungeon getting flogged. — Paul

The point is that there are societies where the above is systemically impossible for some, or even many people, by no fault of their own. No matter how much they conform, they still end up living poor, short, miserable lives. This is what happens in a tyranny, a dictatorship, or a caste society for example.

The idea that if one conforms, one will be safe and well, is infantile, even in a democracy.
Conformity can help, but it is no guarantee.

Secondly, considering your above definition of health: Think what it means to be well-adapted to a society where eating lots of junkfood is the norm, for example. This hardly leads to "living longer, having fewer diseases, being happier". Although it might save one from being flogged in a dungeon ...

But I don't understand the closet hippies comment. — Manuel

Our ideas of normalcy were formed by idealists living in times of relative stability and abundance. As such, they are misplaced, anachronistic, counterproductive.